The Place to Network: 'Mocktail' Networking

In a prior column, we discussed how to maximize the networking opportunities available at a cocktail party or other social gathering of professionals. Since then, a number of readers have reached out to ask for additional tips. This is a good sign ' those who haven't traditionally viewed these social gatherings as an important piece of the overall business development puzzle are beginning to approach them with more structure and discipline.

I contacted respected experts in the field to solicit additional practical tips and tricks ' and I was pleasantly surprised to learn of a formal program, The Legal Mocktail, with the sole purpose of improving lawyer networking skills. This writer and this publication are not in the business of endorsing specific commercial programs, but this training program is so well-aligned with the objectives of this column that we decided to provide a brief overview and then let the readers decide for themselves. If we learn of similar programs, we'll be happy to provide an update in a future column.

Introduction

The challenge presented by social gatherings, even those organized as part of a professional conference, is that it can feel unseemly to try to conduct business while others are trying to unwind after a busy day and enjoy the company of their colleagues and peers. But that's what it seems like on the outside. In reality, few professionals attend these events without any agenda whatsoever. Most hope to meet someone who can help them with a thorny business issue, or be a valuable career contact, or to learn from the experiences of others.

In this context, ensuring that you do your best to find like-minded people isn't an intrusion at all. And this is the basis of Legal Mocktail: It offers an organized approach to managing your time at a social gathering in order to find, qualify and meet the right people, and then to ensure that this interaction leads to follow on conversations and, ideally, a business relationship. That's not to say that you can't enjoy yourself at a cocktail reception, but enjoying oneself and making valuable business connections are not mutually exclusive goals. Imagine a workshop in which you take on another persona, freeing you to interact without fear of embarrassment or criticism, but learning all the while.

What Is the Legal Mocktail?

The Legal Mocktail program is exactly as the name implies ' a facilitated workshop designed to mimic the look and feel of a cocktail reception, requiring participants to seek out others with similar interests, to ask good open-ended questions to keep a conversation alive, and to figuratively balance all of this while balancing, literally, one's canap's and glass of wine. As with many balancing acts, those who fail to properly prepare may end up all wet! Courtney Iannelli, Senior Business Development Manager of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP, was seeking a rich learning experience, but one that also had some element of fun. “Networking tends to fall within the top three most-feared marketing tactics for attorneys and we didn't want to spend another hour lecturing to them about the nuances of working a room,” she reports. “The attorneys loved the practical examples that were provided during the debrief and in the materials.”

The workshop encourages participants to plan ahead by studying the attendee list and identifying names of those you'd like to meet, but also which attendees might benefit from an introduction to each other. As we've explained in this space previously, one of the most valuable but overlooked aspects of networking is to connect others. Doing so may not generate business right away, but being perceived as a valuable business resource by two parties can pay significant dividends over time. The Legal Mocktail workshop also encourages participants to practice a self-introduction, often called an “elevator script.” When asked, “What do you do?” many people have no ready reply, and so stumble a bit before merely naming their occupation and employer. A more effective introduction is tailored to the audience and provides actionable information, such as what specific business problems you can help solve: “I'm a lawyer with Smith & Jones, and I specialize in helping companies divest distressed assets,” or “I represent executives and corporations facing high-profile investigations by regulatory agencies and help manage the practical, legal and public relations aspects of the process” are far better than “I'm a partner at Brown & White in the Labor and Tax group.”

Practical Considerations

The workshop addresses other practical considerations that represent best practices learned over time. For example, wear your nametag on the right side of your lapel, which is more naturally in the line of sight. Don't clip your name tag or conference badge to your belt or hang it from such a long lanyard so that it's only visible to colleagues who are waist high. A woman should avoid pinning a nametag to a location on her chest that will, shall we say, invite undue scrutiny, or more likely, cause the nametag to be invisible to all but those who engage in undue scrutiny. Other tips: Act more like a host than a guest, even if you are only a guest. If you are the host, it shouldn't need to be said, but alas, experience proves it necessary: Arrive on time, mingle with everyone and don't be the first to depart. If you're like this writer and find it impossible to remember names, and worse, find it even more perplexing and time-consuming to associate a name with other common objects, there are several simple techniques that can prevent one from too many embarrassing pauses: “Nice to see you again, um ' [To self: Let me see, her first name is from a nursery rhyme having something to do with a sheep, and her last name is a common store brand] ' Miss Muffet Keebler.” “Well, it's nice to see you too, but my name is actually Mary Kraft.”

One of the most challenging aspects of managing one's time at a cocktail reception is to keep moving, rather than clinging to a friendly face, or worse, having someone who is terrified to circulate cling to you. The Legal Mocktail workshop emphasizes techniques to keep moving, to methodically work your way through your target list, gracefully exiting a conversation and helping others to gracefully exit an extended conversation.

Follow-up

If preparing for networking at a cocktail reception is challenging, and if deliberately working a room is challenging, then most participants will undoubtedly welcome the relative ease of follow-up, which consists of reaching out to people who have consented, even requested, that you contact them later. Sadly, experience has shown that many quality opportunities for doing business are lost due to a lack of follow-up. For some, returning to the office and dealing with pent-up calls and e-mails comes first, and after a day or two or a week or two, the urgency of the follow-up has diminished, and then complacency sets in and nothing is ever done. Others adhere to some unwritten mystical code that suggests waiting a suitable amount of time before following up, lest the prospective client or business partner find you to be too eager. Granted, it's probably going to seem a bit awkward if you issue invitations to connect on LinkedIn, Facebook and Legal OnRamp mere moments after meeting for the first time, but a phone call or e-mail follow-up within a day or two after returning from a conference should have taken place. This is also a good time to enter the new contact's information into the firm's CRM system or into Outlook for future reference. If you're lucky enough to have collected multiple business cards from a successful networking event, typing a lot of contact information can be a hassle, but there are technologies and applications to make this easier. Perhaps we can review these in this space at a future date. Suffice it to say that because so many others fail to follow up in a timely manner, your ability to follow up right away will help you stand apart and send a strong message about your diligence, attention to detail and client focus. Actions do speak louder than words.

Conclusion

And this is, after all, the underlying theme of networking. It's more about process and preparation than floating into a room full of potential prospects and ad libbing one's way into new relationships. Some make it look so easy that it seems as if they are naturals with little to no preparation. I'm sure such people exist but they are rare. More likely, those you observe to be comfortably at ease with networking have developed these skills through long practice. If you're unable to find such time, one suitable and condensed way to mimic the real-life experience of a cocktail reception, complete with role playing scenarios and experienced facilitators, may be to attend a Legal Mocktail workshop. For more information, visit www.LegalMocktail.com. You may also wish to spend some time with colleagues over cocktails to refine your techniques. You may discover some interesting information that leads to cross-selling opportunities, which savvy readers will recall as the topic of another recent column. As Alina Gorokhovsky, Chief Strategy Officer at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, discovered after providing the workshop to several practices, “The Legal Mocktail is a great ice-breaker, as well as a great training program. It allowed people who are shy to open up a bit, and it also gave people an opportunity to be silly, and to laugh ' forming bonds. Plus, they did manage to take the skills seriously.”

Good luck, and happy networking!

Timothy B. Corcoran, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is Vice President, Global Sales, at Hubbard One. He authors the Corcoran's Law Biz Blog and is a regular speaker and writer on business development and business management issues for law firms. He may be reached at 609-577-2234 or via e-mail at [email protected].

In a prior column, we discussed how to maximize the networking opportunities available at a cocktail party or other social gathering of professionals. Since then, a number of readers have reached out to ask for additional tips. This is a good sign ' those who haven't traditionally viewed these social gatherings as an important piece of the overall business development puzzle are beginning to approach them with more structure and discipline.

I contacted respected experts in the field to solicit additional practical tips and tricks ' and I was pleasantly surprised to learn of a formal program, The Legal Mocktail, with the sole purpose of improving lawyer networking skills. This writer and this publication are not in the business of endorsing specific commercial programs, but this training program is so well-aligned with the objectives of this column that we decided to provide a brief overview and then let the readers decide for themselves. If we learn of similar programs, we'll be happy to provide an update in a future column.

Introduction

The challenge presented by social gatherings, even those organized as part of a professional conference, is that it can feel unseemly to try to conduct business while others are trying to unwind after a busy day and enjoy the company of their colleagues and peers. But that's what it seems like on the outside. In reality, few professionals attend these events without any agenda whatsoever. Most hope to meet someone who can help them with a thorny business issue, or be a valuable career contact, or to learn from the experiences of others.

In this context, ensuring that you do your best to find like-minded people isn't an intrusion at all. And this is the basis of Legal Mocktail: It offers an organized approach to managing your time at a social gathering in order to find, qualify and meet the right people, and then to ensure that this interaction leads to follow on conversations and, ideally, a business relationship. That's not to say that you can't enjoy yourself at a cocktail reception, but enjoying oneself and making valuable business connections are not mutually exclusive goals. Imagine a workshop in which you take on another persona, freeing you to interact without fear of embarrassment or criticism, but learning all the while.

What Is the Legal Mocktail?

The Legal Mocktail program is exactly as the name implies ' a facilitated workshop designed to mimic the look and feel of a cocktail reception, requiring participants to seek out others with similar interests, to ask good open-ended questions to keep a conversation alive, and to figuratively balance all of this while balancing, literally, one's canap's and glass of wine. As with many balancing acts, those who fail to properly prepare may end up all wet! Courtney Iannelli, Senior Business Development Manager of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP, was seeking a rich learning experience, but one that also had some element of fun. “Networking tends to fall within the top three most-feared marketing tactics for attorneys and we didn't want to spend another hour lecturing to them about the nuances of working a room,” she reports. “The attorneys loved the practical examples that were provided during the debrief and in the materials.”

The workshop encourages participants to plan ahead by studying the attendee list and identifying names of those you'd like to meet, but also which attendees might benefit from an introduction to each other. As we've explained in this space previously, one of the most valuable but overlooked aspects of networking is to connect others. Doing so may not generate business right away, but being perceived as a valuable business resource by two parties can pay significant dividends over time. The Legal Mocktail workshop also encourages participants to practice a self-introduction, often called an “elevator script.” When asked, “What do you do?” many people have no ready reply, and so stumble a bit before merely naming their occupation and employer. A more effective introduction is tailored to the audience and provides actionable information, such as what specific business problems you can help solve: “I'm a lawyer with Smith & Jones, and I specialize in helping companies divest distressed assets,” or “I represent executives and corporations facing high-profile investigations by regulatory agencies and help manage the practical, legal and public relations aspects of the process” are far better than “I'm a partner at Brown & White in the Labor and Tax group.”

Practical Considerations

The workshop addresses other practical considerations that represent best practices learned over time. For example, wear your nametag on the right side of your lapel, which is more naturally in the line of sight. Don't clip your name tag or conference badge to your belt or hang it from such a long lanyard so that it's only visible to colleagues who are waist high. A woman should avoid pinning a nametag to a location on her chest that will, shall we say, invite undue scrutiny, or more likely, cause the nametag to be invisible to all but those who engage in undue scrutiny. Other tips: Act more like a host than a guest, even if you are only a guest. If you are the host, it shouldn't need to be said, but alas, experience proves it necessary: Arrive on time, mingle with everyone and don't be the first to depart. If you're like this writer and find it impossible to remember names, and worse, find it even more perplexing and time-consuming to associate a name with other common objects, there are several simple techniques that can prevent one from too many embarrassing pauses: “Nice to see you again, um ' [To self: Let me see, her first name is from a nursery rhyme having something to do with a sheep, and her last name is a common store brand] ' Miss Muffet Keebler.” “Well, it's nice to see you too, but my name is actually Mary Kraft.”

One of the most challenging aspects of managing one's time at a cocktail reception is to keep moving, rather than clinging to a friendly face, or worse, having someone who is terrified to circulate cling to you. The Legal Mocktail workshop emphasizes techniques to keep moving, to methodically work your way through your target list, gracefully exiting a conversation and helping others to gracefully exit an extended conversation.

Follow-up

If preparing for networking at a cocktail reception is challenging, and if deliberately working a room is challenging, then most participants will undoubtedly welcome the relative ease of follow-up, which consists of reaching out to people who have consented, even requested, that you contact them later. Sadly, experience has shown that many quality opportunities for doing business are lost due to a lack of follow-up. For some, returning to the office and dealing with pent-up calls and e-mails comes first, and after a day or two or a week or two, the urgency of the follow-up has diminished, and then complacency sets in and nothing is ever done. Others adhere to some unwritten mystical code that suggests waiting a suitable amount of time before following up, lest the prospective client or business partner find you to be too eager. Granted, it's probably going to seem a bit awkward if you issue invitations to connect on LinkedIn, Facebook and Legal OnRamp mere moments after meeting for the first time, but a phone call or e-mail follow-up within a day or two after returning from a conference should have taken place. This is also a good time to enter the new contact's information into the firm's CRM system or into Outlook for future reference. If you're lucky enough to have collected multiple business cards from a successful networking event, typing a lot of contact information can be a hassle, but there are technologies and applications to make this easier. Perhaps we can review these in this space at a future date. Suffice it to say that because so many others fail to follow up in a timely manner, your ability to follow up right away will help you stand apart and send a strong message about your diligence, attention to detail and client focus. Actions do speak louder than words.

Conclusion

And this is, after all, the underlying theme of networking. It's more about process and preparation than floating into a room full of potential prospects and ad libbing one's way into new relationships. Some make it look so easy that it seems as if they are naturals with little to no preparation. I'm sure such people exist but they are rare. More likely, those you observe to be comfortably at ease with networking have developed these skills through long practice. If you're unable to find such time, one suitable and condensed way to mimic the real-life experience of a cocktail reception, complete with role playing scenarios and experienced facilitators, may be to attend a Legal Mocktail workshop. For more information, visit www.LegalMocktail.com. You may also wish to spend some time with colleagues over cocktails to refine your techniques. You may discover some interesting information that leads to cross-selling opportunities, which savvy readers will recall as the topic of another recent column. As Alina Gorokhovsky, Chief Strategy Officer at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, discovered after providing the workshop to several practices, “The Legal Mocktail is a great ice-breaker, as well as a great training program. It allowed people who are shy to open up a bit, and it also gave people an opportunity to be silly, and to laugh ' forming bonds. Plus, they did manage to take the skills seriously.”

Good luck, and happy networking!

Timothy B. Corcoran, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is Vice President, Global Sales, at Hubbard One. He authors the Corcoran's Law Biz Blog and is a regular speaker and writer on business development and business management issues for law firms. He may be reached at 609-577-2234 or via e-mail at [email protected].