Building Your Business Development Pipeline with David Ackert - Episode 48

In this episode of The Legal Genie Podcast, your host, Lara Quie, sits down with David Ackert, a seasoned business development mentor and entrepreneur, to dive deep into building a robust business development pipeline. 

David, founder of Pipeline Plus and a former TV actor, shares his unique journey from the entertainment world to helping professional service firms, particularly lawyers, master the art of networking and client relationships.

Listeners will learn how to identify their own business development archetype—whether they’re a "Rainmaker," "Expert," or "Service Maven"—and apply these insights to build stronger, more authentic client connections. David also reveals the importance of small, consistent actions that lead to meaningful growth, offering practical tips, like his "14 touchpoints" strategy, to stay top of mind with potential clients.

For those lawyers looking to expand their practice and refine their networking skills, this episode is packed with actionable advice on overcoming common business development hurdles. Plus, David introduces his Pipeline Plus app—a powerful tool to help lawyers track their top prospects and stay organized in their outreach efforts.

Tune in for an engaging conversation filled with insights that can transform the way you approach client relationships and business growth. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out, this episode will leave you inspired and equipped to take your business development to the next level!

Lara Q Associates
A boutique business and executive coaching consultancy

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Building your Business Development Pipeline with David Ackert - Episode 48

Lara Quie: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Legal Genie Podcast, where I bring you insightful conversations with the movers and shakers of the legal industry. If you have ever got any value from these episodes, please, would you do me a big favour and subscribe and leave a rating and review so that the show can reach even more listeners. Thank you and on with the show. 

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Legal Genie podcast with me, your host, Lara Quie. And I'm delighted to have David Ackert from Los Angeles in the United States. David has been an entrepreneur and business development mentor to professional services firms for nearly two decades. He's also the founder of Pipeline Plus. He has a degree from Carnegie Mellon University and a master’s in psychology from the University of Santa Monica.

Lara Quie: David was originally a TV actor appearing in series such as The West Wing, NYPD Blue, Six Feet Under, and many more that I'm sure you've heard of. But in the early days of his career, David struggled with networking and business development and decided to help others find effective strategies to deal with these often daunting tasks.

David and I first met in 2016 when I was at Duane Morris and we went to Las Vegas to the Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference. And I then appeared on his fantastic podcast, The Market Leader's Podcast, which you can find on all leading podcast platforms. So it's really great to see you again, David. I hope you have been well and welcome to the show. 

David Ackert: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to reconnect with you, Lara, and things have come full circle, haven't they? We met at LMA, and you were a guest on my podcast, and since then you've launched your own, and now I have the privilege of being your guest.

Lara Quie: Exactly. And I think it's very important for people to always remember that things often do come full circle like this, and that relationships take a long time, and that the technology that we have these days does enable people to remain very much in contact, even though the miles between us are very, very large.

David Ackert: That's right, that's right. 

Lara Quie: So it's great to start with a little bit of background about you, where you grew up and things about your family. 

David Ackert: Sure, so I grew up originally in the Midwest in the United States. My mother is Iranian and my dad's American, so I sort of split my childhood between the Middle East and the United States.

But we eventually settled back in the US and I grew up on the East Coast until I finally came out to Los Angeles for my first career, which as you alluded to, is in the film industry. 

Lara Quie: Well, it sounds a very exciting first career, acting in all of these very well-known shows. When you first went to university were you thinking about being an actor and then, taking your career from there?

And so how did you move into a very corporate kind of career from such a creative background? 

David Ackert: Well, I knew at a very young age that I wanted to be an actor. I always enjoyed performing and my parents are both musicians, so I came from an artist's family, and I got my BFA in acting. I started my education at Carnegie Mellon University.

You mentioned that I got my degree from there. I actually ended up getting my degree from Ithaca College, but I started at Carnie Mellon. And then I came out to Los Angeles and began my career as an actor for the first year or two I was just sort of working my way into the industry. And this is where I started to have my first experience with networking.

Los Angeles, like many industries, is a who you know town. This is a who you know industry. And I came to town knowing no one. So I had to really start from scratch, establishing connections, establishing relationships. And I found that I didn't much enjoy the process. There was a lot of falseness in getting to know people.

This whole notion of networking really didn't appeal to the kinds of authentic human connections that I was much more interested in. So what ended up happening was, while I did enjoy some moderate success as a television actor, I appeared on over 50 episodes of television, some of the shows you mentioned in the introduction.

I ultimately found the entertainment industry to be one where I was much more interested in the short list of relationships that were meaningful to me than the broad network that so many other people who were perhaps more successful than I was had developed for themselves. So I had a few years of success in the entertainment industry, but it is very much a feast or famine lifestyle. It looks very glamorous on the outside, but on a television show like CSI Miami, I would be the villain of the week.

So I was a guest star, right? And I was on that show for an episode and then at the end of the episode they kill my character off and I make about $12, 000 for a week of work, which is pretty good at the time until you consider that I then Wasn't employed for three months until the next episode came along, right?

So it wasn't a very comfortable way to live a life and once I met my wife and tried to create a little bit more of a stable lifestyle and build a family. I realized that it was time for me to make a transition. 

Lara Quie: And I understand your wife is actually a lawyer. So is that the key? 

David Ackert: That was the key. So I married my wife, who was a practicing lawyer at the time, and she, and, and I was at this professional crossroads, you know, I, knew that acting wasn't going to be a long term pursuit anymore. And so we started brainstorming and she observed that I was good at communication. I was good at presenting.

I had had a few day jobs that gave me some background in technology. And one of my day jobs had put me in a business development role. So she said, you know, if you put all these things together, you could really be very helpful to people in professional services, particularly lawyers, because she said, as a lawyer, I learn how to practice law.

I learned how to help clients. I never learned how to build a book of business. And in order to build a book of business, I need to know how to present. I need to know how to communicate better. I need to know how to create a short list of relationships who are ultimately going to be my referral sources, my clients and I need to understand business development and I should probably understand technology too, because the world is changing.

So, it was really her insight that propelled me in a new direction in my career. 

Lara Quie: What you say is absolutely true. I think that most lawyers complain that law school doesn't prepare them for the realities of the career itself. So they're obviously focused on learning the letter of the law and, you know, being a very good professional.

And I suppose it's a lot to do with time constraints. Most people go to law school. They have to focus on all of the case law and understanding how to be a great lawyer. But these days, being a lawyer is so much more than that. It is definitely the business development. It's people management, it's presentation skills, it's managing a practice, it's being commercial, running a business, all of these skills. 

And so people are very, , Ill-equipped to deal with that and certainly on the business development side as we've moved to more technology where people's billable hours are being tracked so closely, they have such huge targets to meet on a daily basis. It is a very stressful part of the profession, which I think a lot of young lawyers, when they're first entering the profession, they don't realize that this is going to be such a big part of their role.

And I think that many lawyers do have a sort of a certain personality because of the way that it is a very academic subject. It means that people tend to be quite bookish and academic, and that will mean that sometimes they're not so outgoing and wanting to meet people. So it is something people struggle with.

As a "non-lawyer", as we call people who are not lawyers, what have you observed about the lawyer personality and the biggest challenges when it comes to business development? 

David Ackert: Well, there are certain characteristics that certainly are more common among those who practice law. And, you know, I'm not the sort of resident expert on that.

If you have ever had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Larry Richard on the topic, his research, I find fascinating. And I think he's done a really nice job of really identifying what are those four or five traits that tend to be most common among lawyers. What I will say that I have seen when it comes to business development archetypes is that there are three archetypes among lawyers who are successful as business developers. 

And those are relationship builders. And this is the traditional "Rainmaker" persona that we're all used to, right? The social extrovert can work a room very charming, you know, has all of those kinds of social skills in great supply. So that's the relationship builder.

And that person builds a book of business. Because they're able to build a tremendous network and through just sort of the charisma and dynamic personality that they are gifted with, but they tend to be less common because again, in the profession, Rainmakers are less common, right? So you don't see that particular persona as, as often. 

The second archetype is "The Expert" and the Expert is someone who has developed such depth of expertise in a particular niche that they become the go to by reputation and they attract business because there are very few people who practice law in the way that they practice it, or in the industry that they practice it, or regionally. And so, that expert persona can build a book of business simply by virtue of the branding of their expertise. And the third kind of business developer is the "Service Maven". And this is someone who takes such good care of their clients that those clients become the sales force for their practice and the clients tell each other about this person and they spread the good word.

And of course, those clients are tremendously loyal and they tend to expand and require additional services always going to that Service Maven as the first port of call. So those three archetypes. I would say are what I find most common when we look at people who are successful at business development.

And I hope that your listeners will find that information to be somewhat comforting because I think most lawyers think, well, I've got to be that first archetype, or I can't build a book of business. And the fact of the matter is that any of those three can be successful, but you really need to understand which is your primary archetype and build your business development strategy around that archetype.

So, of course, the relationship builder would want to attend conferences and want to join networking groups and that sort of thing, but the expert would want to really focus on thought leadership because what they have to offer is unique and kind of sells itself. Whereas the service maven might want to focus on client site visits and client initiatives and cross selling initiatives because that's where they're leveraging their strengths.

Lara Quie: Spot on. I really totally agree with those three archetypes that you mentioned. And a lot of people, however, sort of drift between the three. And ideally if you can do you know, a bit of the three, that is great. And certainly these days there's so much opportunity to be a thought leader speaking at writing articles, putting out content on social media. You can do live streams, you can appear on panels, you can appear on podcasts, it's fantastic. And you're right that I think many lawyers do think they have to be out there, they have to be working the room, handing out their business card.

But the idea of the service maven, somebody who really produces excellent work and really, really cares for their clients so that those clients refer them over and over to their friends, that is also super, super powerful. And I always remind lawyers that when they do a piece of work, every single interaction with their client is an opportunity to enhance their service, to do business development.

So they shouldn't be thinking, oh my goodness, I have no time for business development. I wasn't able to go to that networking event. It's not just that. You are still doing it on a daily basis. And that is very important to remember because ultimately, the existing clients that you have are your lowest hanging fruit.

That repeat business is the greatest opportunity. So always thinking about, Oh, I have to get new clients, new clients. It's not really about your new clients. It's great to get new clients, but don't forget your existing clients. Would you agree with that? 

David Ackert: Oh, absolutely. And I think if one adopts a business development mindset, regardless of which of these three archetypes they happen to fall into, it can start to inform the actions that they take.

So, for instance, let's say you're a service maven and you've been taking really good care of your clients and you start to adopt a business development mindset in that context. Well, the next time you're having a conversation with your client and you're taking care of them and addressing whatever need or problem they have, before you end the meeting, before you get off the call or the Zoom or however it is you're communicating, you might want to say, " before I let you go, can I just have five more minutes of your time for a quick question off the clock?"

And it's very important to say it that way because what you're doing is you're setting a time contract with the person. It's only five minutes. So they're probably going to say yes. It's just a quick question. So not a big ask and it's off the clock. So they know they're not going to get charged. Not going to get billed for this question.

And when they say yes, then you have any number of questions that you can ask that can explore opportunities to expand this relationship. It might be something like, I'm interested in industry conferences that you might go to because I'd like to meet more clients like you. What conferences do you attend?

And perhaps we can go to the next one together. Or your question might be, "I'm curious to know because you and I continually work on labour and employment matters because I'm a labour employment lawyer, but do you have other legal issues that cross your desk that we haven't had an opportunity to talk about?"

So again, open ended exploratory question, and you might learn that, as it happens, they are planning some sort of M& A event in the upcoming six months. And now you have more information that helps you be a service maven to them through either an introduction to a partner or a referral source who you know.

But of course, if you didn't ask, you wouldn't have that information. Right? And this sort of technique where you're just tacking on a quick question on the end of the work that you're doing with them is manageable from a time management perspective. It's part of the flow of a conversation you were having anyway, and it's just one more way to be a service maven.

Again, this is the mindset shift that is required for lawyers to be able to take on this approach. Otherwise, if they think of it as a binary, either I'm helping my client or I'm off to do something else, you just wrap up the conversation and you won't explore these other avenues that help expand your practice and help them in the other ways that you might be able to assist.

Lara Quie: Yes, I love that. And I think openly signalling to them. Look, this bit's off the clock, love to explore how we can do more together. And thinking of the value add that you can add as well in terms of maybe there are other areas of your business where we could help or perhaps there's other people in my firm that I could introduce you to, or perhaps are there clients that you need that I could introduce you to from my network?

How can I add value in other ways, not just the work that I'm doing for you right now? So tapping into your network, I think a lot of people think it's all about the work, but often it's the value that you can add as a trusted advisor in terms of people you can introduce, or especially when it comes to corporate lawyers, how can they bring more deals to the table?

How can they be a business matchmaker? Those kinds of things, and have you seen other examples of the way that lawyers could bring value to their clients? 

David Ackert: Well, I want to circle back to something you just said. It's very important that the way that you approach this is through the lens of what are the client's needs, not what are your needs as the lawyer.

So, I would never offer to introduce the client to a partner unless they have indicated a need that that partner can help with, right? Again, you might have the interest of, "Oh, if I can introduce you to five partners, maybe we can cross sell this account." That's all your agenda. That's not the client's agenda.

The service maven is going to be oriented around being of service to the client. You can't be of service to the client unless you understand the client's needs. So it starts with that. That's why these open ended questions of what are other problems that you might be having, legal problems that you might be having, that we can talk about, right?

So that we can solve that problem. It always starts with the client's problem. So I know you know that, Lara, and, and I'm sure many of your listeners know that, but it is a nuance that sometimes I find is counterintuitive for lawyers who have heard, you know, somewhere along the lines, some consultant says, Oh, you should cross sell.

And maybe the way you cross sell is by introducing them to other partners, or by, you know, telling them that you're giving a seminar on this other topic that they can attend, you know, that's all pitching and pitching is unwelcome unless it is aligned with a need. You have to find the need first. 

Lara Quie: I absolutely agree, and I think it's so important that it is all about the listening. So it is about those open ended questions, but really listening for those key words, finding, you know, digging deeper. You said that this might be an issue that's coming up. Tell me more about that. Would this be helpful? How else can we help? What other service providers might be interesting to you in my network.

 I think it's very important just to be, as you say, helpful, listening, responsive. And I agree that pitching is absolutely off. It can be done in a really, really bad way. Lawyers in their firms are always told, Make sure you're cross selling. We want more work.

 It makes the client sticky. If you've got different lawyers working on the same account, blah, blah, blah. But it is a skill. It is definitely something about that relationship. You have to get to a certain level of relationship before you're comfortable to suggest other people. 

 It's all about building those relationships and working with people that you like, you know, you want to be someone that people know, like, and trust. So show that you're a likable person and be yourself though, right? We mentioned authenticity earlier because you said that the entertainment world was actually difficult to navigate because of the lack of authenticity.

But I think lawyers generally are highly sceptical people. So they love authenticity. They don't like things that are fake. They don't like small talk that's too superficial. They want to get deep. They want facts. They want, strong relationships. So tell me a bit about the kind of things that you find lawyers ask you when it comes to training and development. What are the most frequently asked questions? 

David Ackert: Well, the most frequently asked question is probably, "what do I do?" You know, I think that always needs to be customized to the lawyer and their goals. Oftentimes, lawyers don't know where to start. They've done the things that were obvious to them.

They've, you know, met with the referral sources that they had available. They've told their clients, let me know how I can help. They've, they've kind of taken care of the lowest hanging fruit in terms of the sort of best practices for business development at the 101 level.

So then where we have to go is a bit of an exploration on where they want to take their practice. What are some of those goals that they would like to see fulfilled? And that's an exercise that really requires a little bit of creativity, a little bit of imagination. I'd like to grow my book by this much.

I'd like to penetrate this kind of client base. I'd like to become more of the go to in this particular space. And once they've put some words to it, we really challenge them to turn those into SMART goals. So make them specific, make them measurable, make them achievable, make them realistic, make them time bound.

Ironically, lawyers, while they are very detail oriented when practicing law, they tend to be very vague when it comes to setting goals. Often, we hear goals like, I want to grow my practice. Right? Well grow it by how much? And by when? And by what percentage? By what dollar number? And there's an inherent resistance to getting that specific because then of course, well, what if I'm not successful?

Then I've put my word out and talked about something that I'm not able to achieve. And I certainly don't want to be embarrassed. I don't want to fail. And so there's this inherent tension there that we have to help the lawyers get through. But once they are specific with their goal and they set that SMART goal for themselves, then we can get to work on figuring out, great, what are the strategies that will enable you to achieve those goals?

And here's the most important piece. Who are the people you need to talk to in order to accomplish those goals? Every goal comes down to a list of people with whom you are going to need to have conversations. And until you're clear, what the goal is, you're not going to know who to talk to. And you're not going to know what to say to them, but you can break it down into these very achievable components.

Talk to Bill about this. Talk to Sarah about that. Once you're clear what the outcome, the objective needs to be. So I go back to the conversation earlier we were having about the archetypes. If you know that your archetype is the expert advisor, that second one, and you know that ultimately what you want to do is increase the calibre of your clientele so that you're working with larger organizations and that you have too many of these onesie twosie clients, you want bigger institutions, then you set a SMART goal to say, great, by this time next year, I want to have doubled my book of business in terms of its value.

And I want to have larger clients so that that book of business consists of larger accounts, not just as many accounts as I have now, but they're all small. So leverage. Yes. And I want this done within 12 months. Great. Well, then what we'll need to do is take this expertise that you have and start to find an audience among buyers at a higher calibre.

So what are the platforms you'll need to use for that? What other collaborations can you engage with? Are there other thought leaders. Are there other experts who you can co-author something with that would be of interest to someone who's buying at that higher level? And now we have a sense of the who's because they include collaborators.

They include any clients that you already have at that level who might be able to make introductions for you. And we also have a sense of the what or another what do you, what conversations are going to have. With those collaborators, it might be co authorship on something. It might be co presentation.

It might be a webinar. It might be a podcast, but you're going to take this expertise that you have, and you're going to start to elevate that platform and elevate the quality in terms of what's going to resonate with the audience that ultimately you want to buy your services. So all of this starts to fit together into an achievable plan.

But of course, it requires asking those questions up front, and it begins with that vision of where you want to be in a year and the SMART goals around it.

Lara Quie: I think that sometimes it's hard for lawyers to think about this for themselves and that's why it's really very useful to tap into your business development team if you have one at your firm, or to engage a consultant who can talk you through these things because I think often that's very much sort of a conversation somebody needs to ask you, right, you know, what are your goals? Okay. So you said it's this, what are the steps that you need to take? What are you prepared to commit to? What does this look like in terms of tiny, tiny, actionable things that you can do in your timeline and what's realistic? I think many lawyers, when they start out, they are very overambitious and very big picture, but it is about these tiny incremental gains over time, isn't it?

And I think that's why you produced your PipelinePlus app? So tell us more about what that is and how that works. 

David Ackert: Sure. We developed PipelinePlus about a decade ago. It's gone through a few iterations, but we continue to make upgrades on it. We continue to improve upon it. What it is today is an app that lawyers use primarily through a license that their firm sets up.

And they use it to enter the people in their short list. That are related to those goals. So they might say, okay, these are my top 5 clients. These are my top 5 referral sources. These are my top 5 prospects and the app will prompt them and ask them. Great. What are the things you want to accomplish with these people?

And what is the next action you need to take with them? And when is that due? So it just helps them break all of this down. Into, as you say, those, those tiny actionable components. The app also has an e- learning component to it. So, it will feed the lawyers with insights, education, tutorials.

Because again, as we said at the beginning of this conversation, lawyers haven't necessarily learned these things in law school. So if they don't happen to have a consultant or an internal business development professional that they can ask these questions of, the app will give them a lot of that information in the context of what they're pursuing.

So if they say, oh, I need to expand this client. The app will say, ah, well, here are two quick video tutorials you may want to watch about expanding a client relationship so that you have some idea of how to proceed. 

Lara Quie: So that sounds really, really helpful because I think what happens is, is people just get caught up in the work.

They're so busy doing the work that they forget about business development and really it is just having those prompts and having things that are going to remind you. Oh yes, send that email or oh yeah, I did promise to do X or ring so and so, but not having that reminder unless you've you're super diligent and can put it in your own calendar.

I think that is really helpful because it is about making time and then doing small actionable steps on a frequent basis that build over time. But you mentioned a lot of firms will have this as a subscription model that they provide, but is this something available for an individual?

Because sometimes their firm don't want to subscribe to such a thing. Can they subscribe just individually? 

David Ackert: Absolutely. If they go to www.pipelineplus.com, they can contact us and we can set them up with an individual license. 

Lara Quie: Because I think that's the sort of thing that people in Asia in particular, for example, their firm may not have heard of it, but they might want to invest in themselves and they might want to check it out. So does it have a trial or how does it work? 

David Ackert: Yes, when they go on www.pipelineplus.com and contact us, we can set up a two week complimentary trial for them so that they can try it out. 

Lara Quie: Well, that sounds perfect because I think with all things, lawyers are highly sceptical. They want to see it for themselves and understand how it works and think about whether this would be useful.

Let's just think about a few more tips that you could give because you're such an experienced business developer. What other ideas have you got for somebody? Imagine them, here they are, they're a partner in a firm. What steps could they take to build their book?

David Ackert: Well, I will say that one of the things that is very important is if they have found that they're at a crossroads, that they're at a plateau, that they're a little bit stuck, it's very important to get into conversation with someone who can help talk them through that. And again, it can be an internal business development professional.

It could be a consultant. It could be another lawyer who's good at business development and can help talk them through it. But one of the things that I find is a common barrier for lawyers is that scepticism that you alluded to before. Lawyers are so good, and of course, in order to be good lawyers, they have to develop this skill.

They're so good at seeing all the reasons why something won't work, and they do this for their client, right? Their client has some ambitious idea, and they say, hold on, hold on, this might not work because of this, and you might break this law, and you might get sued, so here are all the reasons why you should slow down.

But when they apply that thinking to themselves in business development. They talk themselves out of taking the actions that are ultimately required, and in business development, the actions require a lot of persistence. You know, you are going to have this conversation that we sort of role played earlier with your client as the service maven, where you're going to say, how else can I help?

And the client's going to say, I can't think of anything right now. Or you're going to say, I have a network full of other people that I could introduce you to. Would you like to meet anyone else in my network? Do you need to know an accountant or anyone like that? And they'll say, no, I'm fine. And then the lawyer will never ask that question again.

Because in their mind, this failed. I listened to Lara's podcast, there was that guy David on that one time, I heard that advice, and so I tried it with my client, and I didn't get anywhere. That was terrible advice, I'm never doing it again. You see it? And the lawyer's mind, they go to the extreme, the most negative extreme, yes?

When in fact, what you've done is you've planted a seed with that client. You've communicated to them that you are helpful and that you do want to be of assistance and that you are going to be a resource moving forward. You just didn't happen to kick a goal the first time you kicked the ball, but the fact of the matter is you're going to have to kick that ball a number of times before you, you get it into the goal. And again, this is back to this mindset of a business development mindset recognizes that it will require many attempts and you have to be patient.

You have to be persistent. And so if you find that you are getting stuck or discouraged, it's very important to talk to somebody who's going to help shift that perspective so that you stay in the game until you can finally win it. 

Lara Quie: Totally agree. That is so true. I think many lawyers have an all or nothing mindset and the fear of failure.

That one time that you got a negative, it is very hard to get over that. And it is hard to have the mindset to try again and to not take it personally. I think that's so important to say, look, it's not them rejecting you. It's you just have to be helpful at all times and just keep asking those questions, you know.

How can I help you? Oh, you don't need help this time. Okay. No worries. I'll ask you next time. And they'll go, yeah, great. I don't need someone right now, but definitely would be helpful. Once you ask that again, I'm sure they come forward with saying, I appreciate the fact that you asked, but yeah, right now I don't need it, but maybe next time. So I think that is so helpful as you say, and to really, yeah, point that out to people. Because, a lot of this advice, yeah, it, it may not work first time, but it is about thinking, okay, maybe not this time, let me try again, or let me try in a different way. Maybe I didn't phrase things well this time.

How could I phrase it differently next time? Well, maybe my timing was off. Maybe they didn't have time. Perhaps I need to read them a bit closer in terms of their openness for these discussions. So I think a lot is about communication skills. How can I ask the right questions at the right time?

So putting yourself in many different scenarios is good. They talk these days about having 13 or 14 touch points. What is your view on that in terms of the variety of touch points and that number these days? 

David Ackert: Sure. So I can give you some metrics here. We've had the PipelinePlus app in the marketplace for, as I said, about a decade.

Thousands of lawyers have used this app over this time frame, and so we have quite a bit of data that we've looked at and what we've seen is that lawyers who have between 10 and 30 targets, so these are people on that short list are much more successful than the lawyers that have fewer than 10.

Or have more than 30. It's actually the numbers 35, but, you know, 10 and 30 is easier to remember. So, the people who have only 3 or 4 contacts that they've prioritized, that's too few opportunities to grow a practice. And the people who try to manage more than, let's say, 30 relationships, find that they just get too busy.

I mean, that's a lot of people to set up lunch with, or to have a Zoom with, or to stay in touch with. So that's, that's the first number that I would encourage lawyers to think about is just list 10 to 30 of your most important relationships, your most important contacts, these are clients, prospects and referral sources, and just focus on those people.

You don't have to boil the ocean. You don't have to stay in touch with 500 plus LinkedIn connections. It's for business development. It is a short list that you are ultimately focused on. Now, the number 14 has come up a lot in terms of how many times you want to reach out. We've done a number of informal surveys with buyers of legal services, and some of them say, you know, we asked the question, how many interactions did you have with the lawyer between your first meeting with them and their first engagement of your services?

And some clients say, oh, 5 and some clients say 25, but the average number that keeps coming back is 14. And so that's where that number comes from. I don't think that it's a science. Some lawyers are going to find the number is larger. Smaller depends on the practice.

It depends on the quality of your relationships. It depends on how many relationships, but I've rarely seen it happen in fewer than 14 interactions. So I would say hold that number in your mind as something to shoot for. Because what we find is that lawyers usually give up after one. And this is the example that I just gave, right?

You have that one question to the client. It doesn't go anywhere. And so you never ask it again. So you want to think you're about 13 interactions shy of getting business from that person. If you've only followed up the one time with your business development action. I'm publishing a book in September called the short list on this very topic because I recognize that lawyers and other professional services people are struggling with this notion of, yes, but what do I do next? One of the things I have in the book is a list of 40 actions that lawyers can take. And so, if they try the one and it doesn't work, they can move on to the next one.

And they have a lot of different things that they can apply so that they find the one that's going to be successful. But the reason that I put 40 in there is because I know the lawyers are going to look at the list and say, well, I would never do this one. And I hate the other one. Yes. And that's fine.

You can, you can shoot a bunch of them down. You'll still be left with at least 14 and so that ultimately is the key. You want to stay in motion. You want to continue trying the things that you're willing to try that are within your comfort zone, but you have to stay in the game. It can't be one and done. 

Lara Quie: I think that's the most important message. That concept of keeping at it, doing things in lots of different ways so that you can see what works and what doesn't, and also doing things that are in line with your personality. A lot of people feel forced to do things that they don't want to do and that kind of shines through because then you're not happy and not having a good time.

Having a great variety of different ways to engage with clients is so important. And as you say, this magic number of 14, well, it just gives you an idea that just meeting someone once for coffee is not going to bring a result, folks. You know, this is about constant interaction inviting them to an event, sending them a relevant article that you know will apply to their business.

It's saying, Hey, let's go for coffee. Oh, can I give you a call next week just to catch up? It's, it's the mix. It has to be a variety of different things. So that's very exciting about your book. So tell me more about how you came to write? Were you inspired suddenly, Oh my goodness, I really need to give a tool to people that I can hand out and tell me more about the book.

David Ackert: Well, I've been working on this for quite a few years but ultimately it came to pass simply because doing this for two decades now, I've amassed all this information and I wanted it to be in a place that's accessible to people. You know, the thing about us business development consultants is that some people can't afford a consultant.

Some people don't have access to a consultant, but the information is really critical in order for them to understand how to deploy a business development plan and how to ultimately get the results that they want. This idea of a short list, who do I put on my short list? And what do I do with these people once I've identified a short list?

And how do I get on somebody else's short list? I mean, these are all questions that people ask and don't immediately have answers to. So I wanted them to have access to something that is, you know, economically viable, that can be scaled and distributed around the world. And so that's why ultimately the idea of a book made a lot of sense.

Lara Quie: Well, that sounds really exciting. So how about one last action that you want lawyers to take this week so that at least they've really got something out of listening to this podcast? 

David Ackert: Sure. Well, why don't we stick with this theme of the shortlist? I would say if there's one action item to take, it's to sit down for a moment and write down the names of the people who have the highest likelihood of helping you grow your practice and you'll want to think about them in terms of people who have the ability to really influence a meaningful outcome. So they might be gatekeepers, but ideally, they're decision makers. They're the people who can actually make the buying decision or they're referral sources with access.

to those decision makers or they are clients with the ability to decide to expand work. And so you write down those names and make sure that you have at least 10 names. If you have fewer than 10 names, then again, the data shows you're probably looking at too small a list. So really challenge yourself.

Okay. Who are the top 10 to 30, right? And you want to stay in that zone. And then when we talk about 14 interactions with them, I really mean interactions. So don't just send them your e newsletter and count that as one. That's not an interaction. That's a one way communication. There has to be a response.

That's where you build a relationship with someone, where you give them some information. You have a conversation with them. They respond to it. And that dynamic builds trust. You said earlier, know, like, trust. Yes? So, that's building that likability, that's building that trust, are these interactions that build on each other over time.

So, it all starts with the list, and then it moves into what are those interactions, those 14 interactions that you can have with each of those people on your list. 

Lara Quie: That's fantastic advice. So I hope that anyone listening really starts to brainstorm that list, write it all down and start to take action.

Your advice today has been really invaluable, David. Where can people reach you if they want to connect? 

David Ackert: PipelinePlus. com. 

Lara Quie: Very easy. PipelinePlus. com. 

Super. Okay. Thank you so much for your time today, David. It was really great to talk to you. 

David Ackert: Absolute pleasure, Lara. Thank you for the opportunity.