Many people believe that the harder you work, the more you will accomplish.
The problem is that most people are working very hard, but they find they are not accomplishing as much as they’d like.
Working hard
In business development activities, many legal professionals deliver proposals, presentations and then follow up with phone calls, more meetings, emails, voicemail, etc. Client opportunities may stall, but legal professionals might be reluctant to abandon something they’ve put so much time and effort into.
Some might find they come across a giant opportunity, so they invest the time, effort and resources preparing to pitch for that “big deal” that could make a monumental impact on their firm. However, no steps are taken to qualify the opportunity first.
Either way, people are working hard but when you look at the potential client opportunities, it is often suspect with the same opportunities repeating or a large deal with no concrete action items.
Smart working
Working smart is about using an efficient system or process to develop or progress the client opportunities you are working on.
In business development, working smart is about having a systematic framework that gives you the specific criteria or benchmarks to meet. This allows you to qualify or disqualify a potential client early on, and ensure that you focus your time and resources on opportunities that are worthy of attention.
Steps to Working Smarter
My two steps to working smarter:
- First step: take a close honest look at the motives that drive your approach to business development. Are your actions guided by a system with specific benchmarks that you must hit to keep the process moving forwards? Or are opportunities sometimes being chased for emotional reasons?
- Second step: Commit to taking actions that are guided by measurable criteria, and not by emotional reasons that lead you to chasing inappropriate opportunities or hanging on too long to other “deals” when they no longer meet your criteria.
Work smart, not hard.
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