It’s amazing what you can learn about “local attorneys near me” if you just ask. For 15 years, we have polled private practice lawyers formally and informally about what stands in the way of their engaging in and succeeding at business development.
For example, lots of business development workshops for lawyers-things I do always include asking the lawyers in advance of actually seeing them to undertake a 5-minute survey so that I can understand their BD experiences, how they feel about undertaking BD, and what opportunities and obstacles they are facing.
Results are pretty much always the same, but most saliently with respect to the question of why so many lawyers DON’T tend to focus on business development:.
A COMMON DENOMINATOR
Caught the one thing all of the above reasons aka excuses have in common?
They are all INTERNAL obstacles, which are the things that you, and not others or even circumstances beyond your control, may be placing in your way.
Fair enough, most of the internal obstacles are beautifully camouflaged as external obstacles, especially that most seductive of all alibis, “I don’t have time”. Career and executive coaches sometimes refer to those thought processes behind internal roadblocks as Gremlins or Head Trash. Each of us on the face of the planet-you and me alike-listens to an internal voice that speaks poorly of us and provides us with a long list of reasons why we should not, or cannot, do something, attempt something, or succeed at something.
If your Gremlin were hardwired from an evolutionary perspective, it’s filling your head with all that doom and gloom now just to keep you safe. After all, if it doesn’t turn out the way you want, you may get hurt, upset, exhausted, or embarrassed.
The problem is, while aiming to keep you SAFE, your Gremlin keeps you SMALL. You don’t even try, and you give up before you begin. Is it understandable that you feel this way? Of course, everyone understands feelings of fear, discomfort, and insecurity. But is it desirable? That’s a hard no.