In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Matt Dixon discuss:
- Client relationship dynamics in professional services
- Shifts in legal business development and rainmaking strategies
- The role of value creation in winning and retaining clients
- Evolving mindsets and habits of successful professionals
Key Takeaways:
- Top rainmakers (“activators”) don’t wait for paid work to provide value — they proactively deliver business, trust, and personal value before being hired.
- Client loyalty is rapidly eroding; only about 50% of clients today automatically return to incumbent providers, compared to over 75% five years ago.
- The most predictive variable of long-term client loyalty is whether clients think of you even when not actively engaged — a sign of strong personal value.
- Lawyers should send LinkedIn invites to all prospects and recent contacts to trigger platform algorithms that surface client activity for timely, value-added outreach.
“The best partners lead to their capabilities, not with their capabilities.” — Matt Dixon
Unlock the secrets of rainmaking success—join Steve Fretzin and four powerhouse legal experts for Be That Lawyer LIVE on August 27; reserve your spot now at fretzin.com/events.
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Episode References:
Atomic Habits by James Clear: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X
What Today’s Rainmakers Do Differently (published in Harvard Business Review): https://hbr.org/2023/11/what-todays-rainmakers-do-differently
About Matt Dixon: Matt Dixon is a Founding Partner of DCM Insights—a boutique consulting and training firm that uses research-backed methods to help organizations better attract, retain, and grow their client relationships. A noted business researcher and writer, Matt is a sought-after advisor to leadership teams around the world.
He is best known as the co-author of several of the most important business books of the past twenty years, including The Challenger Sale, which has sold more than a million copies worldwide and was a #1 Amazon and Wall Street Journal bestseller, and his other notable books include The JOLT Effect, The Challenger Customer and The Effortless Experience. His latest book, The Activator Advantage: What Today’s Rainmakers Do Differently, was released by Harvard Business Review Press in May of this year.
In addition to his books, Matt is a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review on topics ranging from business development effectiveness to client experience. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and currently resides in the Washington, DC area with his family.
Connect with Matt Dixon:
Website: https://www.dcminsights.com/
Book: The Activator Advantage: https://www.amazon.com/Activator-Advantage-Todays-Rainmakers-Differently/dp/B0D8V4SFGP
Other books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0058M2ORW
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewxdixon/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/dcm-insights/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: [email protected]
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fretzin [00:00]
Hey everybody, if you’re ready to be that lawyer and learn directly from four of the best rainmakers in the business, you’re going to want to join us on August 27 these top rainmakers will be setting up a virtual session packed with client winning techniques, mindset shifts that will help you to thrive be that lawyer live is only 39 bucks and includes my best selling ebooks all as a package for you. Seats are limited. Lock in yours now. Sign up today, frets and.com/events
Narrator [00:35]
you’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Fretzin, Hey
Steve Fretzin [00:57]
everybody, welcome back. This is Steve Fretzin, and you are on the be that lawyer podcast. Be that successful, be that organized. Be that lawyer. We are here for you twice a week to help you accomplish greatness in the practice of law. And I love the guests that I choose. I just enjoy meeting them. I enjoy interacting with them. I enjoy the time that we get to spend even after this is all done, because in many cases, there’s relationships and friendships that are created. And this one I picked, I just, I don’t know how I get so lucky, but today I got really lucky. And in bringing Matt on, how you doing, Matt, I’m
Matt Dixon [01:30]
doing well. You’re saying that now let’s see if you say the same thing at the end of the show.
Steve Fretzin [01:34]
Yes, yes. Normally I’d have some concerns about that. But today, I really don’t think that’s the issue. You guys are going to get to know Matt really well. And you know, if you may have one of his books hanging on your bookshelf, and we’re going to talk more about that, but let’s jump in with our quote of the show, and then we’re going to get to know Matt really well today, and all of his great advice. The quote is, this is a Matt Dixon special. It’s the best partners lead to their capabilities, not with their capabilities. So Matt, welcome to the show and tell us a little bit about that quote.
Matt Dixon [02:03]
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Steve, thanks for having me. Great to get to know you and look forward to future conversations as well. So yeah, that quote is actually something that came out of a book we wrote back in 2011 called the Challenger sale. And I know we’ll talk a little bit about this, but the latest book, the activator advantage challenger sale, was really for B to B sales professionals, for people who sell products. The activator advantage is for people who sell themselves, right, who sell advice for a living. So lawyers, of course, consultants, accountants, investment bankers, search professionals, etc. And this is one of the commonalities we found between the very best sales people and the very best partners, very best rainmakers in professional services is they don’t lead with what makes their product different, or what makes them, you know, their own capabilities different. They don’t lead with their credentials, they don’t lead with their experience, they don’t lead with their degrees, they don’t lead with their accolades, they don’t lead with their differentiators. They lead to those things. So what does that mean? Specifically? What it means is they start the conversation with an insight that’s relevant to the client. You know, new ways to mitigate risk, new ways to make money, new ways to grow market share, new ways to accomplish objectives the client cares about, leveraging that partner’s unique perspective on the market in a way that shapes the client’s understanding, that establishes preferences for you as the preferred professional for that client to hire to get after that specific objective? Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [03:26]
And I think it’s when lawyers say, and I beat this like a dead horse, but like, lawyers that say, Hey, we’re going on a pitch meeting, right? And what does that imply? Right? Like, right off the bat, it implies we’re going to go and we’re going to talk about how great we are, our firm, our capabilities, and all the things you just mentioned, and the quote that I often say, and I’m sure I stole this from someone somewhere, this, you know, prescription before diagnosis is malpractice, right? I’m sure you’ve heard that, you know, dozens of times as well. And you know the idea that we’re going to pitch, instead of working towards it, working towards the understanding, and so, yeah, and I know we are going to take such a deep dive in this. Everybody, you were in for such a treat today. Everybody, Matt Dixon is the founding partner of DCM insights. And again, I don’t know where it is, but I know it at some point I had the Challenger up on my bookshelf. I may have boxed it. Don’t take that as a slight, because
you may use that as a door stop. Steve,
Steve Fretzin [04:18]
fire, I needed to start a fire something. But no, it, but I remember it being one of the best books that came out. I know it was a big time bestseller at the time. So catch us up on your background, how you came to be, and how you ended up working in legal too, because I think transition is really interesting.
Matt Dixon [04:33]
Yeah, it was actually a funny story, and it’s a story we open the activator advantage with, but I’ll tell the breeding version of it for your audience. So back to the Challenger sale book about top performing B to B sales people, again, people who sell products, productize solutions, etc, very different from law and professional services. So we that book came out in 2011 and about a year after it came out, I was called by a one of the big strategy consulting firms to present that work at their partner retreat. So there’s about 500 partners in the ballroom. The meeting was New York City, and I came, and I never got to talk to the managing partner or the folks who signed the agreement, which I knew was the first sign that something was wrong. But the second sign that someone was wrong was when the managing partner stood up in front of all 500 partners, when I was 45 minutes into my 60 minute keynote and said, Can you stop talking like waving his hands and I’m thinking, holy smokes, this is never happening before. Thank God it’s never happened to me since. Steve. Don’t get any ideas here. But I was so unnerved by this. And everyone’s looking at this guy. He gestures for a hand mic to be brought over, and he says, you know, Dr Dixon, I don’t know if anybody told you this before you came. And I’m thinking, Oh, he said, you know, you’re talking a lot about sales people and sales effectiveness. And this is fascinating research, but what you got to understand is, none of us are sales people. There’s not a single sales person in this audience. We’re partners in this firm. We’re consulting professionals, but we’re not sales people. In fact, I would argue that our firm doesn’t actually sell anything. And the I was thinking, what time is my flight home? But I moved to an earlier flight. But what I said was, in that moment, which could have been funny or could have been a career limiting moment, fortunately, they found it funny. I said, we just stipulate to the fact that there’s a mysterious process by which the client’s money ends up in your firm’s bank account. Can we just call it sale? So everyone laughed. And he said, Okay, very fair enough. Go ahead and finish, but I did two things from that point forward. Thing number one was I turned down every invitation to speak to lawyers and partners and professional services firms because our stuff was interesting at a high level, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t about them, right? And their job is different, right? As I’ve come to appreciate. And the second thing is, I thought, hey, this would be a really fascinating area to study at some point with data and science, because there hasn’t been a lot of true research of top rainmakers, top lawyers, what the best business developers do differently, and so we finally got the chance to do it, many years later. Kick this study off in 2022 took us about two years to collect data from 3000 partners across about 40 different professional services firms and do all the analysis and publish those results in HBr at the end of 2023 in the book just came out in May of 2025 so pretty exciting to finally have something to say to partners.
Steve Fretzin [07:05]
Yeah, well, and it’s look at one point my company was called sales results, Inc. I mean, you can’t get less interest from lawyers on a name than that. I mean, that implies everything in the kitchen sink that you just said, yeah. So I you know, look, we are talking about some very sensitive people and some dandelions and some butterflies and things like that. But they’re not wrong in the sense that business development in growing a law practice has a lot of unique factors to it. So it does. But what about your research sort of demonstrated that, or kind of proved to you that, hey, while we’re all in sales, and by the way, that’s like the only argument I ever won with my sister, who’s a therapist, that we’re all in sales, whether we want to call it that, or call it business development or something. You know, we’re all out selling ourselves, you know, to make a client feel better, to help someone solve a problem. But what your research? How did that all play out? Yeah, I
Matt Dixon [07:52]
mean, I think there are some similarities and some differences, and we’ll get into the details of the research and the big aha findings, but at the highest level, I’d say. And this is not going to be news to anybody on who’s listening to your show, but it might be interesting to know just how different the rest of the B to B sales world is. So yes, we are all in the business of, you know, transacting, paying, work, right? We’re trying to sell products or solutions to customers, or we’re trying to sell matters, engagements, consulting, support, whatever it is to our clients. The biggest difference is that in B to B sales, it this is a linear process. So I get a lead, typically from marketing. I work that lead, I qualify it, I ideally close it, but then I hand it off to the rest of the company, the customer implementation team, the customer success team, the account managers in customer service, those people are responsible for maintaining, renewing and expanding the client relationship and dealing with any problems that come up in professional services. It’s a circular motion, isn’t it? So we, not only are we often generating our own leads from our own network, yes, the marketing team will pass us leads, but we’re often doing our own marketing. But then we sell that we demonstrate value. We sell that opportunity, we do the work because we are the product. And then we’re dealing with all the renewal, the expansion, and dealing with all the problems, right, chasing invoice like in this circle goes around and around again. So that is fundamentally different. Then I think the other big difference is, and this was pretty fascinating to me, academically, is the winning profile. And again, we’ll talk about what we mean by that these profiles of partners that we found, but the winning profile in B to B sales actually has some similarities with the winning profile in professional services, but there are also some pretty stark differences in those differences are really a function of the fact that if you are selling a product, you can sell in one way. If you are the product as lawyers are, and you’re selling yourself, it’s a different kind of go to market approach, or way to sell or to to develop business. So yeah, we’ll talk more about that as we get into it.
Steve Fretzin [09:50]
Yeah. So then what talk a little bit about the changes in the client buying behavior. And I covered this with Dan Lear, I don’t know, a week or two ago, a few weeks ago. So and how that behavior has driven new Rainmaker behaviors, because one affects the other.
Matt Dixon [10:05]
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think it’s more, while the story is kind of funny, and it was a personal aspiration of mine to study professional services and law. I actually the reality is, like, we could have done this study at any point, but I think right now was the right time to do it. And the reason is, as you said, the client buying environment is changing dramatically. I would argue it’s changed more in the last like five to 10 years than it has in the previous 100 years combined. So I think in professional services, and again, not telling anybody anything they don’t know, but the access upon which that whole industry has spun for a very, very long time has been the belief that if we do great work for our client, and if we build a great relationship with our client, that client should come back to us the next time they need support. And that is what creates this massive incumbency advantage in law and professional services that is fraying, if not breaking entirely. So our research shows, and this is where the HBR article starts out to where the book starts out, that five years ago. C level decision makers on the client side, more than three quarters of them would said, yeah, if the partner did a great job, if I’ve got a good relationship with them and their team, yes, I’ll go back to them again automatically. Today, that’s closer to 50% now that doesn’t mean the incumbent won’t win the work, but it does mean they’re not going to automatically get the work. Increasingly, now they’re going to be invited, but they’re going to have to compete for it, right? Go through RFP pitch for the business. Even though you’ve done unquestionably valuable work for that client in the past and you’ve got a great relationship with them, they’re still going to make you fight for it. And then five years from now, only about a third of C level decision makers said, Yeah, we will go back to the incumbent again. Now, what’s driving that? There’s a whole bunch of stuff, right? There’s the increased involvement of procurement, informal purchasing methodologies, legal operations, which I think many of us are familiar with, right? The GC got their own procurement department, and so that’s really formalizing the way that outside counsel spend is deployed by B to B buyers, alternate service providers, AI enabled tech providers, boutique and niche providers, who were once kind of, you know, taking on that transactional, low value work are now starting to compete for higher value, complex work that only the white shoe firms are competing for. So, you know, the game is on and the door is open, and we’ve had many partners tell us, Look, I’ve been doing this for 2030, years, and it’s never been more competitive than it is today.
Steve Fretzin [12:23]
And I’m talking about this with my clients all the time in the sense that, you know what we would you just describe, what I call the client loyalty myth, yeah. And if we do good work at a fair price, you know the business will stay with us. And that you just laid that out eloquently, the piece of it, and I want to get your take on this is, yes, we can do the work, and yes, we can do it in a way that they’re going to be very happy with the results, because we’re experts at what we do. It’s what else right? What else are you doing to provide value? What other things are you doing to help them in their business? And I call it like, more of a like, are you more of a counselor or more of a lawyer? Can you sort of expand on what you would consider drives long term loyalty based on either the research or your own experience. Yeah. So again, a
Matt Dixon [13:04]
little bit ahead of myself here, because this is one of those elements that remind me that I don’t repeat myself later. But this is one of those central elements of the activator approach. So this winning profile in law and professional services, one of the things that these activator partners do really well is that they really understand the sources of value for the client. And in the book, we talk about these activators have identified basically three levers, three sources of value and how they deliver work to clients. The first two are obvious. The third one less so. So the first one is business value. We’re helping the client do something they you know, they hired us to help them save money, make money, make money, mitigate risk, deal with a regulatory change, win a court case, whatever it is that’s kind of obvious. The second one we call trust value. So we’re doing that work, but we’re doing it in a trustworthy way. It’s transparent, it’s above board, it’s ethical, it’s compliant, it meets or exceeds the client’s expectations. And to your point, Steve, it’s done at a fair price, right? So those two things, trust value and business value. If that was, yeah,
Steve Fretzin [14:05]
I’m sorry, but before you move on to the third one, I just want to mention is that include communication, responsiveness as a part of that.
Matt Dixon [14:12]
Yeah, great point. Yeah, it does it. Does it? So we go into some depth about that, right? It’s the it’s the manner in which you help the client achieve those business outcomes, right? Awesome. So those two together, I would argue, are the core of being a trusted advisor. You know, you deliver the business value, deliver the trust value at a high level. But what activators are very clear on is that that’s not enough, and that increasingly, in today’s market, that’s table stakes in the number of activators. I tell me proactively, like, look, I consider myself a trusted advisor, one of the best in my space, but I’m surrounded by trusted advisors who work at my competitors and work at firms I’ve never even heard of before, and they’re really good too. So then we ask them, Well, what do you what’s the extra thing you do with the extra level of stickiness? And what most of them went to is a third source of value, I would call personal value. Now personal value, to be very clear, is not. Not knowing your clients kids names or remembering their wedding anniversary, that’s just being a nice person. And of course, lawyers should do that personal value is understanding your client as a person, in understanding what is important to them personally, what are they trying to accomplish in their career or in their job? Right? Are they dealing with a new boss, an initiative that’s gone sideways, an underperforming team. Is there some way you could help them on that? What are they passionate about outside of war, causes, interests, personal challenges and struggles? Is there a way that you maybe a colleague that you work with in your firm, or maybe just somebody from your network you could connect them to who could help them move the chains down the field on that stuff? Now, what’s so interesting about that is it’s outside of the scope of a paid matter, right? This is stuff that’s outside the scope of us sow a paid piece of work. It’s the other stuff. And what activators will say is like, Look, you can’t whiff on being a trusted advisor. You got to do that. But the thing that creates the stickiness and the longevity and the lasting relationship is when you layer personal value on top of those things that is a difference maker.
Steve Fretzin [16:09]
Hey, pi attorneys, if you’re serious about scaling your firm, there’s one event you can’t afford to miss, Pim con, 2025 happening October 5 through the eighth at the Phoenician resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. Pimcon isn’t your average legal conference. It’s an experience. Learn how to take your firm from good to go with some of the biggest trailblazers in the PI space, including yours truly, as we share our lead marketing and brand building strategies. Tickets on sale [email protected] that’s P, I m, c o n.org, or just hit the link in the show notes. Your climb to the top starts at pimcon 2025 let’s go from good to go. Hey, be that lawyer friends. If you’re looking for smarter ways to grow your law practice and want to stay ahead of the curve in legal tech, business and strategy, then it’s time to check out legal verse media, the go to hub for lawyers who want more. This international platform connects you with global thought leaders through articles, podcasts, webinars and interactive forums that are shaping the future of law. Explore everything with a free 14 day trial, including early access to tools peer discussions and a chance to build your brand as a thought leader. Don’t wait. Visit legalverse media.com, and register for membership today. Hey everybody, it’s Steve Fretzin as the you know, I’m the host of the be that lawyer podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling, chasing or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a real 30 minute strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to fretzen.com and grab a time that works for you. And let’s make this your breakout year. What are some additional things you would add into that sure to create that personal because, like you said, you can remember their kids names or birthdays. Those are great too. But there’s, you know, I’m all about giving, like I’m helping, I’m connecting my clients with 510, 15, strategic partners, clients, anything I can do and then also. But I love what you said about, like, getting to know them on a personal level, in that level of understanding, on a human level, not just on a lawyer matter level,
Matt Dixon [18:20]
yeah, which I think we would both agree is it can be difficult for lawyers right, to be that, to have that, because I think many lawyers kind of fall into the trap of, I don’t think my client wants that kind of relationship with me, but in fact, clients are very clear that is exactly the kind of relationship they want. And what was so interesting is the most impactful variable all the things we studied in the entire model was how partners responded to the following statement, my clients think of think of me even when we’re not engaged in paid work. So what does that mean? That means they reach out to you for your perspective. They reach out to pick your brain. They reach out for your opinion, right? Because they care, because they know you are. They think of you as somebody who’s thoughtful and helpful to them and for them. What’s so interesting is that so many lawyers have an aversion to sales, but for activators, what they’re doing is actually building value in building relationships. Before they ask for paid work, they’re not using paid work as a prerequisite to have a to deliver value and build a relationship. And for them, it doesn’t even feel like selling, right? Because I’ve delivered value to you. I’ve been helpful and thoughtful to you. Paid work is just the natural evolution of our relationship. So the thing you know, I think you hit one of the big ones, Steve, is connection. Leveraging your network is a really important business asset that can deliver value to your prospects and to others in your network. So that’s a great one. I think one of the other ones that I’ve heard, so I’ll just give you two examples. One’s a little bit more complicated. One’s super simple, so a little bit more complicated. We interviewed an activator at a big consulting firm who said that his client was really struggling with a team. This is his client. Was the head of market research for a big CPG company. It was really struggling with their team, who were technically. Awesome researchers, awesome with data and analytics, really bad at presenting findings to the executive committee, and had no executive presence. Now that’s what consultants do all day long. So this consultant was working on a project for this client, and said, Hey, I’d be happy to coach your folks, because clearly they’re not in this person was under a lot of stress, but the fact that he couldn’t put his team in front of the executive committee. Why don’t I have them pitch me their decks, and I’ll just give them feedback. And so we set up a learning series. It was like a lunch and learn over the next couple of months. There the team, they would take turns pitching say, here are my findings, here’s how I’m going to present it. And this partner would say, actually, here’s what I might do. And he said, I didn’t have to do any prep. I just sat back and listened and did the thing I do with my own associates, right? And it in this client came back and said, That was amazing. These people are so much better. Their decks are sharper, their talking points are tighter, their presence is much better. So that obviously takes some investment. They give you a small one, which is we talked to a search professional, one from one of the big five search firms, who said that she’s often working with clients who are being deployed globally, right? They’re moving from New York to London. York to London to Hong Kong to wherever. And said one of the things that when a client moves overseas, one of the things she always does is introduce that client to some of her colleagues on the ground. And it’s not to sell them work. It’s to have somebody to talk to about schools and things to do on the weekends and restaurants and what neighborhood to maybe look for an apartment in? Because, like, it’s hard moving your family to a new city and being a stranger, right? And not having people who are in the know, right? So, so just a small element of personal value that’s again, rooted in thoughtfulness and helpfulness.
Steve Fretzin [21:34]
Yeah, you know, look, it takes extra effort. Nobody’s going to argue that point. There’s a statistic from the 80s or 90s. You know, it’s six times more effort, time, money, energy, to get a new client than to keep an existing one and expand it. Yeah, is that number still around? Or is it like, you know, 20? I mean, how much more work effort, time is it to get new business? Then, if you’ve got a million dollar client, you’ve got to go replace that client, or $100,000 client.
Matt Dixon [21:58]
I mean, I’m working on that with my clients all the time. Is going on new stuff, keep what you have and expand it. That’s a better play, absolutely, I would say for sure. Now I don’t the math. Maybe it’s changed at the margins, but I think it’s generally like a well known axiom in business, that keeping a client is way more profitable and easier than going to find a new one. That being said, I think it’s interesting, because if you look at how activators spend their time, their BD time is actually pretty evenly weighted between net new client acquisition and growth of existing clients. Most partners overweight their time on existing clients. And this is interesting. We talked to activators about why they say, look, it is increasingly true today that, as we talked about before, despite the unquestioned value delivered to your clients, despite the great relationship you have, relationship you have with them, despite the fact that you know them really well and they know you really well, that client who’s been a client of yours for several years may pull up the 10 stakes and go with somebody else tomorrow. And so you got to keep your foot on the gas on the net new as well. You can’t take your eye off one of the profiles that we discovered, this confidant profile. It’s very old school kind of I call them an old school trust advisor, in the way that they really anchor their book of business on a small handful of key clients. And when one of those leaves, they are set back dramatically in terms of the health of their book of business. So this is a risk that activators try to try to balance out right.
Steve Fretzin [23:16]
And a lot of rainmakers who will boast that they’re a rainmaker, they’ve got one or two clients, and it’s millions of dollars with one or two clients, and they’re not going to get another one or two like that. They have that, and that’s where they’re settled. Then they lose one, everything is cut in half. And then they call me, and I’m like, Okay, this is going to be a road to build like because you’ve been living high and mighty for so long, then it’s it can be very frustrating for them. So I to your point like, Yes, keep the two you have. But look, businesses get bought and sold. Things happen.
Matt Dixon [23:49]
Leaders change. Leaders get fired. Yeah, fun. Just get cut.
Steve Fretzin [23:53]
Yeah, we got to keep on it. So then what from your research? And we got maybe time for one or two more points on this? But sure, well, from the research you did and from the work that you’ve done, what are one or two more tips that you would give to potential rainmakers to get to be rainmakers, bringing in the business and be that lawyer and all that fun stuff you talk about on the show? Sure.
Matt Dixon [24:14]
So in this is, I think, for folks, and maybe in the show notes, or as a follow up, I’d encourage people to go read the HBR article. It was called what today’s rainmakers do differently. Again, Harvard Business Review. It came out in the fall of 2023 or obviously, check out the book a lot more information there, called the activator advantage. And what we do is we lay out the five statistically based on a study of 3000 partners. The five profiles of partners. You’ve got experts. We talked about a couple of these already, experts, confidants, activators, debaters and realists. I won’t go into detail about all the other ones, but I will say the winning one by a country mile was the activator. And interestingly, it’s not the profile that most partners fall into. Now to your question, Steve, tactically, what can we do? So, what do activators do? Activators commit to business development. That means. They don’t do what that client you just mentioned does was just like, holy smokes, I lost a long time client now on back square on, Steve, what do I do? They’ve got a metronomic kind of rhythmic cadence to their business development. They’re never taking their eye off the ball. They’re never taking their foot off the gas. Business Development is a routine that they stick to. The second thing they do is they connect broadly and deeply. So just like you talked about a source of value is, how can I connect my clients or my prospects to people inside of my network who I think could add value to them? And activators are always doing that. Now. They’re doing that externally. They’re managing their professional network as one of their most important strategic business assets. But they’re also doing it internally. They really do believe sticky relationships with clients are, when you shift the locus of loyalty from me to we, how do we get that client to stop just buying from me and start buying from the we of the firm? And that is all about bringing colleagues and serving the client across multiple different parties and objectives. And then the last one is this delivery of value. They create value in that value source, as we talked about, poor is not just business and trust value, it’s a trust value. It’s increasingly personal value that creates that stickiness, and importantly, that value is delivered proactively. It’s not based on predicated on a signed in, you know, signed agreement is not predicated on the client saying, Yes, we’re going to hire you. It is done proactively in the spirit of being helpful and thoughtful, which establishes a posture of goodwill towards your client. It gives you an opportunity to get a leg up, even if it does go through RFP, I’ve I’m the one who brought this idea to you, because I was the only one thoughtful enough to do so and not charge you for the time, and ideally, I’ve shaped your understanding of the opportunity in a way that benefits me and my firm. Right? So those are the three high level things now, tactically, things we can do. Let me just give a couple of things. I mentioned the personal value, so we won’t hit that one again, but let me hit the other two. So committing to business development, one of the biggest mistakes I see lawyers make is a they hear that and they say, Wow, I’m not doing any BD right now. I’m going to put two hours on my calendar for Friday, and it’s gonna be my BD time, and I say that’s a little bit like going to the gym and saying, I haven’t worked out in like, 20 years, but I’m gonna go lift the heaviest weight in the gym. That’s a recipe for injury.
Steve Fretzin [27:11]
Dumbbells. I gotta grab those. Yeah, you’re
Matt Dixon [27:13]
never going back after that. So start small. We’re not the experts on habit formation. There’s lots of great books on that, atomic habits, The Power of Habit. There’s tons of great books on this, but all of the habit formation experts agree being small, precise and actionable is what leads to habits that stick, so not two hours start with 15 minutes. And even more importantly, here’s another tip, think about on Sunday night or early Monday morning before other people show up for work, when that calendar reminder pops up on Thursday for the 15 minutes of BD time or 30 minutes. What am I going to do when it pops up? Because if you don’t have a plan, when it pops up, you’re like a deer in the headlights, and you go right back to the client matter you’re working on, and you ignore it. The other thing I’ll give you on the connecting this is one that I think is especially relevant for lawyers, and I get a lot of head scratches on this one, is send every prospecting client who you’ve met with over the past three or six months a personal LinkedIn invitation, and everyone who’s on your calendar to meet with over the next three to six months, send them a LinkedIn invitation. The number one objective objection I get from that for lawyers is, don’t you think that’s presumptuous? Is that really the relationship are my clients even there? And I’m like, Look, they definitely want that relationship with you. And here’s why you do it and like, put that aside. Here’s why you really do it is that once you do that, you’ve trained the algorithm to start feeding you the stuff that that client posts, they like, they comment on, they repost, they share. You have basically bugged their office like you’re now in the flow of information. And that is a gold mine for opportunities to jump in, demonstrate value, create personal value, and find an opportunity to engage in a conversation about paid work. And by the way, if you don’t do that, and your competitor does do that, then don’t act surprised when they go with them instead of you, even though it’s work that you probably deliver better than they do, and it’s probably because that person spotted an opportunity to engage in the client didn’t even think to come to you because somebody beat you to the punch. We talked personal value. The last thing I’ll share with you is this idea of being proactive around insights. All lawyers should be asking themselves, what is the thing that I know that all of my clients need to know? You know, if you’re an IP litigator, if you’re a human capital, you’re in late Labor and Employment Law, wherever you are, there’s stuff that we know that’s like, boy, I just wish my clients were aware of this risk, aware of this regulatory change, aware of this opportunity, and if they just understood that, they’d be lined up around the box ready to hire me and my team. So be proactive. Bring that insight to them and lawyers. That idea of reaching out to people really rubs lawyers the wrong way, because they think, Well, I don’t want to be bothering my clients, because that feels like selling, yeah, but you know what clients tell Steve is their biggest objection to lawyers they work with is they don’t hear from them often enough. They only hear from them when they think they had they need help, and they reach out to the lawyer so and they say, look as a GC, as a CFO, as a whatever head of HR, you’re going to talk to more people in a week, just like me and companies just like me. Find industries just like ours that I’m going to talk to in a year. So bring those ideas to me, be a window into the market. I will always make time for the thing I don’t know, but need to know,
Steve Fretzin [30:09]
yeah, and it’s hard to do a lot. I mean, everything you’ve shared, I’m in 100% agreement with, alignment with and I think one of the challenges that we didn’t talk about, and we don’t have time for it, is, you know, there’s a fire hose in the mouth happening for these lawyers, and there’s so much pressure, billable hour pressure and email, four or five, 600 emails a day. Then how do they so we have to address a lot of the time management and habits and things that delegation and what’s important to us. And because to make then All right, so we make the time for it, but then they still need to know what to do and how to approach it. Actually, you’ve covered that really, really well today. Let’s wrap up with something I want to hear, and that’s what’s Matt’s big mistake.
Matt Dixon [30:48]
I told you at the beginning, Steve that my the challenge was gonna be picking one. So no, we’re not time for a top 20. I think you know, one of the things that I realized later in my career is that I probably should have gone into business for myself earlier on, I I kind of fell into this mindset of, and, you know, you know, this is an entrepreneur yourself, but this mindset of like, oh, you know, success and, you know, this kind of thing is a function of working for big companies and moving up the hierarchy. And I think that is true for a lot of people, but I think for me, it was never true, but I had kind of convinced myself that it was, and so it was only a few years ago where I actually made the leap and started a business where, you know, we focus on teaching lawyers and partners to be activators, right, and to make that good use of their business development time, as you said before, and it’s been incredibly rewarding in a way that I guess I’d never really appreciated before. And if I’d known it, I probably would I’d known it, I probably would have done it 20
Steve Fretzin [31:45]
years earlier. I mean, there is a benefit to like, there’s a real time, though there’s people, there’s a time where they get to an inflection point. And I think that lawyers who decide to go out on their own or go to a small firm and be more entrepreneurial, the only ones that regret making that decision are the ones who don’t look at being an activator, they don’t look at that lawyer, they don’t take the business side seriously enough and be a student of that game. So then they get into it, they realize how hard it is, and they get the hell out, and they go back, running back to the big firm, which, again, that’s fine, that’s a choice. And but I think the people that learn the stuff you and I talk about every day, they would never go back. And I’m one of those people, and you’re one of those people, we would never go back, because now we have it all. We have for the business, we have the enjoyment, we have the freedom, flexibility. No one’s telling us what to do, not for everybody, but it’s, I think a lot of people in the future are going to realize that it’s a better direction to go than sort of being at the will of other people’s decisions.
Matt Dixon [32:40]
Yeah, you’re right. It’s definitely not for everyone, and it is both the most stressful and the most I’ve worked in my life, but also I found the most rewarding to kind of be my own boss and learn lessons and see, you know, literally, the direct impact of decision you make, but also recognizing you make a misstep and you could be out of business pretty quickly.
Steve Fretzin [32:58]
So those are the Matt’s and Steve’s big mistakes, we hope to happen right? Try to make small mistakes, if possible,
Matt Dixon [33:04]
major episode for all the other mistakes.
Steve Fretzin [33:07]
Oh my lord. Hey everybody. We got to wrap up and thank our wonderful sponsors. Of course, legal verse media.com if you want to check out international legal content that’s going to help you be that lawyer. We’ve got the law her podcast with Sonia crushing it for women. And, of course, pimcom coming up in October, coming up soon, I’ll be out there on stage talking about podcasting, and we’ve got some amazing keynotes all day long. So you’re going to want to check out pimcon. I think it’s pimcon.org Matt, people want to check out your books. They want to hear more about you. They want to look at getting help for their firm. What are the digits?
Matt Dixon [33:39]
Yeah. So the book is available everywhere. Books, good books are sold, and it’s basically on the internet. The activator advantage is the title. If you want to learn more about our company, it’s DCM insights.com and on that page, we’ve got a whole section dedicated to the activated advantage. There’s actually a lot of bonus materials on there that are not in the book that we just tried. We tried, we lost the arm wrestling match with Harvard Business Review Press, and it didn’t make the cut. But lots of great content for folks who want to continue the learning journey about, you know, becoming activators, hiring activators, building an activator firm, all that
Steve Fretzin [34:14]
great stuff. Yeah, amazing, amazing stuff, everybody. Well, thank you so much. I’m happy that I reached out proactively to get to know, there you go. Activated. So I activated. I was proactive, and having you on the show sharing your resume. I mean, I have, I mean, look at this. I have these remarkable too, but, I mean, look at this. I have just a page of notes and videos and quotes and things that I’m going to use to help break this down into manageable pieces. But just so impressed by you, and I hope that you and I can continue talking, because I think there’s opportunities for us to collaborate, but really, really great stuff. Matt, thanks again. Thanks for the invite. Steve, yeah. And hey everybody. Thank you for hanging out with Matt and I for a little over 30 minutes today. Just really, really focused on the activator message and being that lawyer and things that are going to help you take your career to the next level. So thanks everybody. Take care. Be safe. Be well. We’ll talk again soon. You.
Narrator [35:03]
Steve, thanks for listening to be that loyal, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, fredson.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends for more information and important links about today’s episode. Check out today’s show notes.