"Turn the key on maybe tens or hundreds of thousands or more in business..." Praise for ORIGINATE!

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Our contributors this month lay out for you a variety of menus for business development success – best practices, steps you should follow, and so on. But these grand chefs don’t want you to try a bit of this and a bit of that; take their recommendations as your guide, for the greatest effect comes when all the elements in their meals fit together. [Click About this Issue for more details.]

He was not charismatic and he was known for weird marketing schemes. But this tax attorney became one of the highest compensated lawyers in the firm because he knew how to develop business by building a vital network of relationships. As Mark Beese recounts it, this is his story; and it can be yours too.

Want to avoid being fired by your client? With a lot of lawyers looking for your client’s business, Larry Bodine, Esq., advises how you can by keep your current clients and get more files from them, but only if you know how to avoid the perils. Here are the ten danger signals in a client relationship, and what you can do about them.

When done right, business development works much like a pleading in court: it’s a precise, results-oriented procedure. The key is understanding the four stages of the buying cycle and then, mainly by interviewing the prospect or contact, guiding you both toward specific commitments in each stage. Michael Cummings gives us a real life example of how this worked for one attorney, and how it can work for you.

The recent online survey by the Law Marketing Portal gives a wealth of insight into how much – and, more importantly, how wisely – lawyers are spending money on their marketing. What Barry Schneider found was a lot of questionable spending among firms large and small, but some valuable insight from big spenders on what to do differently.

Most networking is a complete waste of time. As Michael Cummings explains, what works is building relationships with the right people in the right way.  Follow his 13 point blueprint for networking, and you’ll be building a strong relationship network for yourself.

Andy Havens always gets asked what marketing lawyers can do to bring in business "right away". Mainly you need a mindset adjustment, since “fast” does not sit well with "good" or "cheap" and so brings along with it a whole lot of other problems you don’t need.

It’s easy to measure your marketing efforts by the quality of the event or brochure. But professionals are just kidding themselves, notes Darryl Cross, if they believe that a high quality activity is a goal to be rewarded. Aim for specific measurable business results from your efforts, and celebrate those...or you’re liable to find that a lot of time and money was diverted from you really want.

There's always good news and bad news in the market for litigation, with the potential for some firms to be big losers and others big winners. In this overview, Larry Bodine, Esq. shows you where you can gain some business if you know what to seek out, or where you might lose if you don't pay attention to trends.