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Initially this article examines the steps necessary to establish and build profitable business relationships, before going on to highlight the information missing and resultant disadvantages, when those relationships rely on virtual, rather than face-to-face communication. Finally, it then examines how best to ameliorate these shortcomings. 

1. 4 steps to gaining more instructions 

For the past 15 years I’ve helped lawyers improve their business development skills by giving them a simple process they can follow and use every day…

• Target 

• Connect 

• Meet

• Ask 

AND follow up after each step!

That’s it.  

The word count permitted by the publishers of this article means I am able, only to expand on the ‘Connect’ and ‘Meet’ elements of this ‘model’.  However, since they are THE steps during which a relationship is first established and then cultivated, it’s no issue. 

First an overview of each though.

TARGET – decide which sectors and which organisations you wish to target as potential users of your services.  Then find out who is the M.A.N. – the woman or man who has the Money Authority and Need.  For many of you this will be in-house counsel, for others, however, it will be introducers – surveyors, accountants VCs etc 

CONNECT - you connect with individuals NOT organisations. You don’t have relationships with the latter, you do with the former!

MEET – to stand a chance of your target buying from you; you are going to have to meet them (virtually or in-person)

ASK – at some point, you need to make it clear you would love to work with them. Some refer to this point as ‘closing’ or ‘sealing the deal’ but I prefer the ‘softer’ ‘ASK’…

‘It’s been great meeting you and learning more about the company.  We’d love to work with you.  How do we make that happen/what can we help you with?

It’s been my experience, having listened, talked, and trained many 10s of thousands of lawyers across the globe, alarmingly few bothers to do this: make it clear they really want the potential clients’ work.  This is a shame because it means all the effort they’ve made thus far, in establishing and building a relationship has been a waste of time! 

Ok, let’s now go into a bit more detail about ‘CONNECT’.

2. Connect 

At this point of the process, you are connecting with a potential client with a view to arranging to ‘MEET’ them. You are not selling over the phone nor via email or DM. ALL you want is a date in the diary during which you can learn more about them, their business, what they seek from a legal services provider and how they go about making that decision.

The KEY factor is to make an ‘Emotional Connection’ with the person. There are a great number of organisations, let alone law firms, endeavouring to arrange to meet them. Each day they are bombarded with people attempting to do the same, which is why your message, whether that be a phone call, email, or message via LinkedIn, should give them an insight into your character and personality.

There is a phrase in sales with which I am sure you are familiar: ‘People buy from people.’ Your prospect wants to know whether it’s worth spending 20/30 minutes with you so give them an insight. 

Make your message stand out and DO NOT attempt to sell anything other than a meeting.

Here is an example of an email I sent recently to a potential client…

Subject: Tony Wilson – ‘We do things differently here’*

Hello Paul

We’ve never met - although I have seen your pic on LinkedIn.

I am getting in touch because I would like to have a chat with you over Zoom, find out how you go about improving the skills of your fee earners and see whether what I do might help.

Ordinarily, I have given you a ring in the office and sent you some stuff in the post but with things being a bit up in the air, I reckoned an email might well do the trick.

Anyway, aside from letting you know I used to be a lawyer in Hammond Suddards’ Manchester office on John Dalton Street - I am a ‘Manc’ now living in Edinburgh - I have attached a short bio so you get an idea of what I do and with whom I do it.

I shall leave it with you and drop you a line in a couple of weeks if I’ve not heard a peep. 

Cheers

Nick 

*The ‘Target’ ‘Paul’ attained a degree from Manchester University and is based in the Manchester office. ‘Tony Wilson’ was a well-known Manchester music promoter (AKA ‘Mr Manchester’) to which the quote is attributed.  It was somewhat of a gamble the wording in the ‘subject’ line would grab his attention sufficient to make him read the entire message but worth it.  I had nothing to lose. 

Connecting is a great deal easier when done in person, at a networking event, conference, or awards dinner. A fledgling relationship can be started with a follow up call, leading to a meeting. 

3. The ‘MEET’

It goes with saying but shall say it anyway, a Zoom or MS Teams call is no substitute for a face-to-face meeting. Sure, it’s better than telephone and streets ahead of an email but one thing we learned through lock-down was how much we missed the personal connection. 

However, given it appears the future will be a blend of virtual and in-person, gaining an understanding of the former is surely of tremendous benefit.

4. A World of Screens 

Human beings evolved to communicate face-to-face, outside, whilst in motion, living in communities of up to 150 individuals. We are inherently social beings.

If you could condense, in to 1 calendar year, how long we have occupied the planet, we lived in caves until the 30th of November! Communicating within relatively small networks is what we are ‘wired’ to do. 

Our communication is delivered and received in 2 ways: explicit & implicit. The former is the words we utter, the latter is the rest. The rest being all the signals we are giving and receiving at a sub-conscious level. In fact, the bulk of our communication is sub-conscious; our brains humming away in the background interpreting all those minute changes in air pressure (proprioception), micro-gestures (the fleeting raising of an eyebrow, the barely identifiable smirk, which flashes across a face or the lightning-fast movement of the hand to the neck, the barely audible ‘Ugh’)

In a virtual world such vitally important nuances are lost to us.  

Wondered why, through lock-down; you have been so tired at the end of the day when all you’ve done is sit in front of your screen? It’s because your conscious brain has been doing all the work ordinarily performed by your sub-conscious!

What does this mean for building business relationships? Put simply, it makes it harder and means you must get all the basic stuff right. 

The triangle/pyramid-thing below, details the stages through which every business relationship will move.

Very quickly…

• I acknowledge your existence.  

• I then understand your role and what it is you do

• Once I know more. I accept you have skills/an offering I could use

• You earn my respect by doing a good job

• I now trust you 

• Over time we form a bond 

It is quicker and easier to move through these when done in person.

Trust is harder to establish in the virtual world and more fragile, in that it is easily broken – one only must look to social media to witness how quick people are to express relationship destroying comments, comments they would not dream of making in-person.  

5. The hierarchy of communication methods. 

1. In-person is best

2. The Zoom or MS Teams call is better still because, you can at least see the other person 

3. The telephone allows you to learn more of the other person’s emotional state, feeling(s) towards what you’re saying, gain an insight into their general mood and demeanour. Through their tone, pitch, and volume etc 

Plus, indulging in small talk and a bit of chit chat is easier.  This is a jolly good thing because what’s going on during such conversation is what’s referred to as ‘self-disclosure’ and it is via this we bond. It is quite literally the human equivalent of ‘mutual grooming’ witnessed in apes and monkeys. 

4. Email is great for sending documents, confirming appointments, meetings and arrangements but not so hot when it comes to establishing relationships. 

6. Zoom and Teams: Eyes and Ears 

Where were you looking on your last video call? At the screen? At the other person? Of course, you were. You looked at them on your screen. Except you weren’t. Not from their perspective. From their perspective you were looking slightly lower than where their face was and most definitely not in their eyes.

For the other person to feel as though you are really engaged; connecting on an emotional level you, you need to be looking directly into the camera, NOT at the screen!

This, however, presents its own problems because whilst you are looking into the camera, you’re unable to see their facial reaction to what you are saying and that’s a big disadvantage and is why you must ‘check in’ and find out how they feel about the information you’re sharing. 

Ordinarily, we can tell, with unerring accuracy how what we are saying is being received because our listener is emitting almost imperceptible signals we pick up on.

Get the balance right.  Lots of looking into the camera when you are talking, with the occasional fleeting look at the screen and almost 100% into the lens when listening. 

And remember to ’check in’.  ‘How do you feel about that?’  ‘What are your feelings about the proposal?’  ‘Was there anything mentioned that made you feel uncomfortable/nervous/excited/frustrated’?

Equally, don’t assume the other person knows how you feel! If they don’t ask; it’s up to you to let them know. 

Make sure your camera is pointed directly at you, rather than angled down or up.  Face a window or light source, don’t have it behind you and for goodness’ sake have some personal items, pictures, books, flowers in the background in order your ‘audience’ gets a sense of your personality.

I have lost count the number of people with whom I have spoken who have been set against an off-white wall or vast, expanse of ‘Elephant’s Breath’ with only the fraction of a radiator to puncture the monotony!

Think about it! We normally meet people face to face, where there is a cacophony of ‘visual noise’ going on: their clothes, accessories, shoes, bags. We are either in an office or coffee shop with other people wandering around, vehicles passing by; sights of every hue and colour surrounding us.  This provides context and background and things on which to comment.  

I recently had a call with someone who was sitting next to an amazing stone window about which I remarked. This led to a delightful chat about their home and where they lived.

Your room and home reflect your personality: let them shine! 

7. Establishing rapport in the virtual world

We are all familiar with the idea that people in rapport ‘mirror’ each other’s body language.  

Much of this is lost when communicating virtually.  One, because we are not in each other’s company, two, because our image of each other is much smaller – we are not to scale and three, most of the time we are seated, meaning 2 thirds or our body is not visible.

However, all is not lost because we also ‘mirror’ and can build rapport through language!

Visual - Auditory - Kinaesthetic

These 3 words refer to ‘sub-modalities’. These are groups of words people tend to favour over the other when describing what they mean. Permit me to furnish you with just a few examples:

Visual 

• ‘I see what you mean’

• ‘There’s light at the end of the tunnel’

• ‘We need to really focus on this’

When listening to someone using these kinds of phrases it tells you they ‘see’ things, they visualise them and that, if you want to establish a deeper connection with them, you should use similar ‘visual’ references too!

Auditory 

• ‘That just doesn’t ring true to me’

• ‘I love the sound of that’

• ‘That strikes a chord’ 

This tells you the person thinks in sounds.  They are more likely to say, ‘Tell me what you mean’, than ‘Show me what you mean’

Kinaesthetic 

• ‘They really need to get a grip’

• ‘We must get a handle on this’

• ‘My gut feeling tells me…’

Users of such phrases tend to ‘feel’ things rather than visualise or hear them.  In which case, use similar language and they’ll ‘feel’ more ‘connected’ to you!

8.  A thought from the past for the future 

There’s little doubt the past 12 months would have been much worse had we not had the technology to see each other whilst conversing.  However, I suspect we can all agree it’s nowhere near as good as in-person!  

Below is an extract from a short story: ‘The Machine Stops’ by E.M. Forster, which, I think sums it up perfectly. 

The woman touched a switch, and the music was silent. 

"I suppose I must see who it is", she thought, and set her chair in motion. The chair, like the music, was worked by machinery and it rolled her to the other side of the room where the bell still rang importunately.

"Who is it?" she called. Her voice was irritable, for she had been interrupted often since the music began. She knew several thousand people, in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously.

But when she listened into the receiver, her white face wrinkled into smiles, and she said:

"Very well. Let us talk, I will isolate myself. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes-for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno. Then I must deliver my lecture on “Music during the Australian Period”."

She touched the isolation knob, so that no one else could speak to her. Then she touched the lighting apparatus, and the little room was plunged into darkness.

"Be quick!" She called, her irritation returning. "Be quick, Kuno; here I am in the dark, wasting my time."

But it was fully fifteen seconds before the round plate that she held in her hands began to glow. A faint blue light shot across it, darkening to purple, and presently she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her.

"Kuno, how slow you are."

He smiled gravely.

"I really believe you enjoy dawdling."

"I have called you before, mother, but you were always busy or isolated. I have something particular to say."

"What is it, dearest boy? Be quick. Why could you not send it by pneumatic post?"

"Because I prefer saying such a thing. I want----"

"Well?

"I want you to come and see me."

Vashti watched his face in the blue plate.

"But I can see you!" she exclaimed. "What more do you want?"

"I want to see you not through the Machine," said Kuno. "I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine."

"Oh, hush!" said his mother, vaguely shocked. "You mustn’t say anything against the Machine."

"Why not?"

"One mustn’t."

"You talk as if a god had made the Machine," cried the other.

"I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but it is not everything. I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you. That is why I want you to come. Pay me a visit, so that we can meet face to face, and talk about the hopes that are in my mind."

Forster wrote the story in 1909