Episode 82 // The Business Development Super Weapon

Mike Jones (00:10.103)
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the market brand podcast. This is your host Mike Jones along with my co host. Sit. Thanks for being here again, Sam. And we’ve got our great friend and a guest today on the show, Doug Hastings from lawyer to lawyer business development. And we’re very excited to have him on. He actually hit us up right after our last episode about inbound HubSpot conference.

Sam (00:16.921)
Sam Pagel.

Mike Jones (00:35.393)
And he was just like, wow, that was awesome. All the stuff we talked about some of our takeaways, and he had some ideas and we’re like, you know what, why don’t you just come on the show and we’ll talk about those. So we’re very excited about having having Doug on here. He’s a longtime friend of ours, done some work together actually. And I’m really excited for everybody to get introduced to him. I’ll give him here a second just to introduce himself a little bit of his background and then we’ll get into name 10 things.

Doug Hastings (01:00.916)
Awesome. Yeah, well, the pressure is on a little bit because you guys, when I watch these videos, you really do, you’re really quick, you know, and I’m a little bit slower. So I’ll try to keep up with you today. Yeah, so I was a practicing attorney for many years and moved over to the administrative side of law firms doing more business development coaching and training within firms or as a consultant coming into firms, sometimes working one-on-one, a lot of times working one-on-one.

Mike Jones (01:08.153)
you’re fine, Doug.

Doug Hastings (01:30.51)
And part of that business development mix, part of that marketing mix is conferences, seminars, that type of thing. So when I saw what you were doing with the inbound, it made me think of the numerous conferences I’ve been at, either as a presenter or participant, and ways that I kind of prep for those, but also ways that I coach others to utilize that resource kind of to the best of their ability and for the best ROI.

this when you when you did this spot it made me think of hey there’s some synergies between what you just reported on and the realities of trying to do business development and marketing.

Mike Jones (02:10.147)
Yep. And clearly you’ve done it a lot of times. So we love having that conversation with people who really know what they’re doing. And, we know Sam and I know, you know what you’re doing and we’re excited for everyone else on the show to kind of get introduced to you and all the things you’re doing. yeah. but before we do any of that, we got to do our name 10 things, Sam, why don’t you kick us off? Let us know what we’re naming.

Doug Hastings (02:25.405)
good, I fooled you so far. Excellent.

Sam (02:26.958)
Yeah

Sam (02:35.791)
Imagine you’re at the legal marketing conference, right? The big legal marketing conference of the year. There’s hundreds of people there. I want us to name 10 keynote speeches at that legal marketing conference that we would absolutely attend 100%. Okay? Mike, you want to start us off?

Doug Hastings (02:56.76)
Awesome.

Mike Jones (02:57.837)
Yeah, I want to start us off with how you can use AI to never hire another lawyer. That’s the terrible, terrible topic line, the subject line. Yes.

Sam (03:06.351)
Hmm.

little reverse.

little reverse marketing there. you’re putting your how to put your firm out of business. That’s great. That’s what that’s great. I’m gonna say

Doug Hastings (03:14.647)
Yeah.

Doug Hastings (03:19.544)
Who’s the presenter on that one, Mike? I mean, is it?

Mike Jones (03:19.717)
It’s going to get everybody to show up. Ooh, I think it’s chat GPT. I think it’s literally an AI written and presented talk. Yeah. It’s a pitch for robots.

Doug Hastings (03:26.636)
Right.

Sam (03:29.839)
man, it involves Skynet probably. I’m going to go with 10 reasons why your inbound sales should go through a dog.

Doug Hastings (03:36.866)
Yeah, right.

Mike Jones (03:52.793)
It’s hot.

Sam (03:53.716)
Yes. Woof.

Doug Hastings (03:54.062)
I have to get dogs in there.

Sam (03:58.283)
Yeah, I would like to kick a dog, Mike. No, I’m just kidding.

Doug Hastings (04:00.386)
Right, OK, I would think I would go to Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, what I look for when hiring a criminal attorney.

Sam (04:08.861)
Ha!

that would be packed. That would be packed. That is awesome.

Mike Jones (04:12.183)
I absolutely want to see this one. Sign me up. I’m there.

a panel discussion. I’m on the hook now. man. I’m gonna go with three reasons why your firm’s marketing is in the toilet. I don’t know.

Sam (04:22.329)
You

Sam (04:27.599)
It’s hard.

Sam (04:38.541)
Mmm. Yeah. And it’s held in like the bathroom of the conference, like in the conference bathroom.

Mike Jones (04:45.549)
Yeah, yeah, like.

Sam (04:47.577)
Yeah, that’d be a popular one.

Doug Hastings (04:49.518)
Right, sign up early because there’s limited space.

Mike Jones (04:51.811)
Yeah, yeah.

Sam (04:51.833)
Cause then like, you know, at those big conferences, there’s always a line out the door. So you just be, you know, like, wow, my speech is so popular. There’s a line of people trying to get in.

Mike Jones (05:01.879)
You can flush that one, it’s okay.

Sam (05:03.373)
Yeah, let’s, we’ll wipe that one away. Let’s go with how to market your firm’s shaving cream line.

Doug Hastings (05:03.733)
my god.

Mike Jones (05:19.033)
Hmm.

Sam (05:19.789)
Yep, because most firms have that now. It’s one of their services.

Doug Hastings (05:23.336)
Law firm shaving cream line, okay. There’s gotta be a great pun in there that I’m not comfortable.

Mike Jones (05:28.877)
Yeah, I mean everybody’s about cross-selling, so that’s a good one. Yeah.

Doug Hastings (05:31.916)
Yeah, right, right, right, yeah. And then there’d be the boring one, like Ellen Dershowitz on recent changes in constitutional law, Ray Supreme Court decisions of the last 10 years.

Sam (05:31.971)
Yeah.

Sam (05:42.127)
Hmm.

Sam (05:46.105)
Wow, I’d go to that one.

Mike Jones (05:46.339)
I love it. I love it. Yeah, you got to have at least one like really academically rich, you know, rich talk. Yeah, I love it.

Have you ever been fired? That’s it. That’s it, that’s the whole thing.

Sam (06:04.695)
That’s it. love it. I would go to that. Absolutely. my, my, talk that I would go to, it would be, ditch the slacks, how to convince the partners of your firm to only wear swim trunks to the office.

Doug Hastings (06:07.95)
you were asking us.

Doug Hastings (06:23.97)
Okay, this is no fair. You guys have been practicing this.

Mike Jones (06:28.259)
Sam wrote these down like three weeks ago. He’s been practicing them.

Doug Hastings (06:30.67)
Yeah, see, this is no fair. I had totally different ones, right? Because I thought they going to be semi-serious. OK. Because I was the director of business development or chief marketing officer at law firms, I would have a session on never allow your attorneys to go to a conference again.

Sam (06:33.103)
You’re doing great, Doug.

Sam (06:47.463)
man.

Mike Jones (06:52.793)
Doug Hastings (06:55.168)
Yeah, it’s only four grand. I’ll be there for three days and nothing comes of it. I just, unless you have a plan, you’re not going to another conference.

Sam (07:03.971)
That’s a good lesson. Mike, finish this off. This is number 10.

Mike Jones (07:04.121)
Hmm, I like this. A monkey could do your job.

Sam (07:09.768)
Mmm.

Mike Jones (07:11.257)
It’s a really smart monkey, but he could do it or she I don’t know Hmm that’s for you to find out you got to go you got to attend I’m very snarky today as you can tell by my my topic titles Yeah, we’re done. We’re done. All right, Doug So yeah going back to kind of what we’re talking about before you obviously were listening to our episode on inbound

Sam (07:14.135)
Is that for the marketer or the lawyer themselves? man, now I gotta go.

Doug Hastings (07:17.792)
Ooh, gotta go to that session.

Doug Hastings (07:27.022)
Is that our 10? Are we done with this? I hope so.

Sam (07:29.647)
Thank

Mike Jones (07:39.661)
HubSpot’s big conference, 12,000 people. We had a lot of takeaways. Some of them were positive, like things we got from that conference and things we were able to do. Some things we weren’t. Weren’t as positive. We had some kind of things that we were challenged with. And that got you kind of thinking and we were having a conversation beforehand about just how you can best utilize a conference as a professional services firm. Is that even something that you should be thinking about doing?

attending or speaking or whatever your level of engagement is. So why don’t you kind of start us off as to some of those thoughts you were having around like, why should I even think about conferences in general from a marketing and business development standpoint?

Doug Hastings (08:21.292)
Yeah, that’s a great intro. And couching it in that professional services sort of way, I think changes the dynamic of why you should or shouldn’t go to a conference. I guess I would start off by saying that professional services, certainly legal services, it’s a relationships business. It really is a personal relationships business. And so I think that ability to have face-to-face time,

to have the intimacy and the immediacy of being at a conference or a seminar or whatever is a good part of a marketing mix for an attorney. We can talk later about, yeah, how to maximize that and how to do that properly. But I’m a fan of getting people in the same room at the same time, trying not to do it remote, trying to be face to face, because you really, when you step back and look at how your business works as a business,

it’s relationship driven.

Mike Jones (09:19.893)
Mm hmm. Yep. No, I think that’s absolutely key for anyone in professional services. I mean, certainly with law firms, you know, we work with a lot of accounting firms, and they’re all very similar in that regard of so much of the business is built on the expertise of the professional. And that trust really is only established through face to face contact, like the relationship has to be there at some level for there to be a really good client relationship and earn that trust from them. So

We’ve seen that in our firm, Sam. I think we’ve seen over and over how much like in-person conferences, events that we participate in, even to some degree like digital events too, but they’re a little bit different beast. How much that facilitates that trust and that relationship. Yeah.

Sam (10:06.532)
Yep.

Sam (10:10.691)
Yeah. And I think, some of the real power there, Mike is, not just like industry, like your own industry. like going to a legal conference, right? Where there’s a bunch of other lawyers or, you know, an accounting partnership conference or whatever that looks like, but actually, you know, again, we’re going to go back to like your brand, your marketing. If you know, as a firm, Hey, we’re really good at serving this industry. We’re really good at servicing the dental industry.

Okay, go find some dental associations that you can go like strategically be a part of. And we’ve seen this Mike, where you can target those and like, and not just come in slinging business cards, being that guy with the slick back hair of like, Hey, need some legal services? You know, I’m right here. Come on. But like truly integrating yourself into that association or that group. And not just being the person that shows up once a year.

trying to sell people on stuff, but actually wanting to serve that industry or serve that group of people, part of, and one of the best ways you can do that is by figuring out how to be one of those speakers, right? We just talked about keynote speeches, how to be one of those subject matter experts that’s getting in front of people. And when you do that really well,

That’s where you start to see those like in-person events really start to flourish. and especially when you’re, know, Hey, you’re serving, maybe you’re a lawyer, you’re a partner at a, an accounting firm and you start to serve that association or that industry, that group of people alongside of maybe marketers or alongside of, Hey, other dentists who are trying to run their own businesses. And now they’re seeing your expertise come in.

And that’s where some of those in-person things really come alive. Because Doug, Mike, like we’ve all been at the events. We all see the used car salesman type people walking around like, who am I going to sell on today? Right. And, and nobody really wants to interact with people like that. I remember one of the first industry events I ever went to, it was an accounting firm, like accounting marketing event.

Sam (12:32.757)
And I met some people, really nice people, and they’re like, what firm do you work with? And I was like, I’m actually, don’t work with an accounting firm. I’m a part of a marketing firm. like, stay away, stay back. Like, we don’t want you, don’t try to sell us. I was like, I’m not going to try to sell you. But it was just, that was a really eye-opening thing for me. was like, wow, these people, they are not here to be sold to. And it was a good lesson of like, just be there, meet people.

Doug Hastings (12:47.243)
I’m sorry.

Sam (13:01.497)
get some friendships, you know, that sort of thing, so.

Doug Hastings (13:04.238)
Yeah, there’s some great, I mean, you just hit the nail on the head, several nails with several hammers, I imagine. Like, yeah, if I’m working with somebody or I’m thinking of attending, but mostly what I’m doing like coaching or working with firms about getting out to events, the knee jerk reaction is usually, where am I going to be the most comfortable? Like if you’re a lawyer or an accountant, you’re going to go to the…

Sam (13:25.86)
Yeah.

Doug Hastings (13:27.83)
state bar conference or the dental association or the accounting conference where you know people, you know the content, you feel a little more comfortable. But I find that the best maybe way to engage with potential clients, if that’s what your goal is, is like Sam mentioned.

the Western Cattlemen’s Association, the New York Bankers Conference. Hey, I do banking law and that’s going to be filled with a bunch of bankers and I’m going to go speak to them on recent changes in the law on how you can account for losses or whatever it happens to be loss carry forwards, etc. So content that’s relative to that audience at a group of people that’s not filled with your same kind.

is really probably the best return on investment as far as being, like Sam mentioned, being a thought leader, providing valuable content, not selling to them, providing something that’s really helpful for them in a seminar or conference type setting. You know, come up and see me afterwards if you have any questions. And that good speaker usually gets swamped by audience members because, yeah, I do have questions about how that’s going to impact my business. That’s how you make those great relationships, not the slick back.

Sam (14:35.597)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam (14:41.123)
Yeah.

Doug Hastings (14:44.834)
Passing out cards, Lounge Lizard Larry.

Sam (14:49.241)
Doug, I’ve got a question for you because we see this a lot with professional services and Mike touched on like, the best subject matter experts are probably going to be the partners at your firm, right? The marketers, the business developers that work for these professional services firms, they’re not the ones interacting with clients. They’re not the ones doing the actual accounting or law work.

Doug Hastings (14:51.096)
Thanks.

Doug Hastings (15:14.67)
and

Sam (15:14.745)
How do you as a marketing director or as a business development director, how do you convince and then make sure the partners of that firm are utilizing these events or actually going to these events where they can be effective? How do you do that?

Doug Hastings (15:33.516)
Yeah. Great question. it’s an issue, I think, with a lot of businesses, but certainly in professional services and certainly with lawyers. Some of it is kind of the legacy commitment. I go to this one every year. And I’ve gone for the last 18 years. So it’s in my budget. And it’s $5,000. just approve it. We’ve had some kind of, let’s audit our conferences. Let’s audit where the firm is going and where it’s spending money. And C.

What are your plans going into it? What are you going to take away from it? And what’s your follow-up from that effort? So I think the best way, Sam, to answer your question, to convince partners that it’s valuable is kind of stepping back a little bit and helping kind of advise them or give them some context about, hey, events, conferences can be really well done on everything that we’re talking about, creating relationships, face-to-face ability to liaise with people.

A conference is a great idea. Now let’s plan it. Which ones are we going to do? Which ones are having the best audience for the content that we want to deliver? Let’s prep for it. What are we going to do at the event? And then the real key, I think, is follow up. Hey, out of all the people I met, there were three or four that really could turn into something. OK, what is the process then to not just kind of forget about that event two weeks later, but really

begin that process of building out those relationships. I think if you lay out the bigger picture about how it can be beneficial, you get some head shaking in the room and they want to do a better job and a more focused job of being at conferences and events.

Mike Jones (17:18.713)
Yeah, I wonder too, if some of that is just, you know, tracking the numbers, right? It’s like, if we can just get everybody just to, you know, put down on digital paper, right, or in your CRM, all the contacts you made, and then how many of those actually turned into clients within the last 12 months, you can kind of go, okay, so there’s this event we do every year, it’s been our budget every, you know, 18, for 18 years, we’ve done it every single year, but it doesn’t actually pan out into any kind of quiet work.

I think that makes the case a little bit easier for some of like, okay, why am I investing my time there when I could be investing it somewhere where I could actually win some new business? I was thinking to just, you know, touch on a couple points here, just tie things a little bit together. Doug, you mentioned like, you know, lot of professionals feel uncomfortable about going like to an association event that they don’t know anyone at.

Doug Hastings (17:58.99)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones (18:18.977)
And just even where do I focus? How do I ensure that the partners in the firm or whoever is going out and doing these events actually participates? You know, I don’t know with with attorneys if this is as big a deal. I know with accountants, it’s such a big deal to get them out of the office. It’s just hard. They’re very, you know, heads down doing the work and, you know, they’re very focused on that. But one thing that we’ve seen that helps is just

sending them with people from the firm, you know, it’s like, hey, I’ve got a wingman, I’ve got a wing woman, I’m not all by myself. If there’s a couple other people from the firm with me, especially if you’re not doing the speaking at the event, if you’re just attending, that can be really helpful. As long as there’s some training around like, hey, you can’t just cluster up in the corner and only talk to your peers from your own firm the whole time, but have like kind of a divide and conquer type approach.

Sam (19:10.233)
Yeah.

Mike Jones (19:16.011)
And then the other one is, is asking your clients, what events do you go to each year? What are the industry events that you do that you go to and then go with them, right? You know, and do it in a way where it’s, it’s clear, like, Hey, I’m here to support you, but also get more business. I’m not just here to exclusively give you my time. But we’ve seen some value in doing that. Some of our clients have as well.

Doug Hastings (19:41.741)
in.

Sam (19:43.161)
Yep.

Mike Jones (19:43.245)
of just like, there’s an entry point into an industry event that’s a little softer. You also have the opportunity to have that client introduce you to people they know. Or when someone asks you like, hey, you know, where are you from? You know, what firm are you with? You can then say like, well, I’m with, you know, I do work with so and so, right. And if they’ve got a name or some kind of recognition in the industry that that can be really helpful. We’ve seen that open a lot of doors for us.

especially early on in the accounting industry when we were first getting involved, we had one really good case study, a really good success with a client in that space. And anytime we mentioned ourselves, everyone’s like, I don’t know who you guys are. I don’t know who ReSound is. And then we’d mention our client and they’re like, yeah, we know her and we know that firm and that was great work that you guys did. Navi’s work’s very showy, so it helps.

you know, when you can, you have some kind of end basically, there’s already a relationship there that can be really helpful.

Sam (20:44.227)
Yep. think too, like going back to, if you go to an event like that, and figure out ahead of time, how can I like provide real value to the people that I’m going to meet at this thing apart from just telling them, I’m a lawyer. If you ever need any help, you know, I’m, I’m here. I’m always here for you. You know, that sort of thing, but like, how can I actually, you know, maybe it’s something that you, that you’re leaving behind with them or, you know, if it’s, Hey, our law firm, we’ve

We’ve, we’ve worked with, you know, 30 to 40 different manufacturing companies and we’ve got all this different data, you know, and we’re going to go into these manufacturing, events, maybe not to speak, but we’ve built this little like, you know, industry ebook or industry report that talks about the legal services, you know, that, most needed by manufacturing companies or

Doug Hastings (21:34.766)
Mm-hmm.

Sam (21:41.997)
the legal cost of owning a manufacturing business, right? Something that’s like specific to their industry that you can say like, yeah, we built this recently. Let me know if you want it, you know, send me an email. Like having something like that that’s specific to their industry that like instantly shows like, you’re not just a lawyer. Like you are the, you’re the manufacturing lawyer. Like, you know everything. So like in a year when they’re like, we got this really tough legal thing going on. I need to talk to that guy. Like he knows all about my industry. So

Just little things like that where it’s like, when you show up with something other than just a briefcase and like, hey, I’m a lawyer, you know, all your lawyer needs, right? But like having something specifically tailored. And again, it just all comes back to like, how would I want to be approached, right? Like Mike, if you and I were at some conference and we get approached by a lawyer or an accountant or, you know, IT guy who is like,

Doug Hastings (22:13.454)
Right here.

Sam (22:39.043)
you know, hey, I’m an IT guy. You know, if you ever need any IT service help, great. Like we’re going to forget who that is in two minutes. But if he’s like, Hey, I’ve worked with hundreds of marketing firms and like, there’s a lot of things that you should know about your IT that you probably never thought of. We’d be like, well, let’s set up a call. That’s really interesting. So little things like that. We’re like planning ahead and, maybe you as the marketing director or business development director, you might have to do some of that legwork for the partners of your firm.

Doug Hastings (22:58.434)
Yeah.

Sam (23:08.815)
You can almost think of them as like the celebrity, right? The subject matter expert. They’re the talent and you’re kind of the coordinator and you’re going to take what they know in their head and you’re going to help them, you know, spread that around whatever event you’re going to. Sometimes like the tactical things around that could be, I’m going to look for speaking engagements for this partner who I already know is like really good at public speaking, really good personality, engaging.

can, you know, joke around a little bit. We need to get that person in front of more people. So I’m going to look for some speaking engagements. I’m going to do all the coordination around it. He or she just has to show up. Here’s the deck. Do your thing, be yourself, right? Like make it easy for them to go and shine at these events. Like Mike said, it could be, I’m going to go along with this person to this event and kind of help them mingle, help them meet some people. Maybe I, as the marketing person or the

Doug Hastings (23:43.246)
Thank you.

Sam (24:07.577)
business development person. I already know two or three people there. So I’ve got a little bit of an in, just little things like that where you’re helping, like you’re viewing this as part of your marketing strategy, right? Like I need to get the partners of my firm to this thing. It’s going to help our marketing. So planning ahead, doing the legwork. What’s the biggest thing that the partner of my firm or the partners of my firm fear about this? Is it just like, I don’t know where to start.

I don’t know how to build a deck. Like take some of those things off their plate so that they can go do what they’re good at.

Doug Hastings (24:45.928)
Sam, there’s so much in there. You’re so good. Okay, just two quick things. Like at the very beginning you were talking about, is it possible to go along with a client or bring a client along? I think on that, one of the most popular, one of the most successful ways I’ve ever seen professionals engage at some type of conference or event is, I mean, backing up a little bit, lawyers, accountants, doctors, whatever.

Mike Jones (24:47.737)
Ha ha ha ha!

Doug Hastings (25:15.096)
We solve problems. clients only come to me when they have a problem. They don’t just come because they don’t have any issues. And those happen all the time. And if it’s a particular industry, in this situation, it was a partner and an ag company that resolved a big problem that was happening in their industry. So they took that case study or they took that situation to the Western Growers Association.

which is filled with billion dollar companies. mean, Ag is a big, business. And they did a session on, here’s the problem, here’s how we solved it. The client spoke, the attorney spoke, they made it kind of a fireside chat, sort of a, here’s how we solved that issue. And pretty much everybody in the audience is like, my gosh, we have that exact same problem, and that’s how they solved it? Who is this person? I want to talk to her.

I mean, it’s just highly successful to go along with a client, but see if they’ll co-present and see if they’ll co-present about something you just resolved with them that speaks to the rest of the industry. Well, one, that would be awesome. Second thing is planning before going, like you were talking about, Sam, just getting off the plane and say, okay, what do I do? Really, I try to advocate with attorneys.

Out of 100 % of your time with a conference, 30 % is planning, 30 % is at the conference, and 40 % is follow-up. So before this even happens, can I help them? Hey, here’s the conference. Here’s what’s going on in their industry. Here’s some of the things you know about that. Here’s some of the problems you’ve helped solve or some of the things you know are coming down the pike. That’s also another popular session usually. know, problems that are about to hit your inbox next year.

So get prepped, know, find out who the audience is, find something that speaks to them. I like your idea about having a white paper or something like that. We just, you know, encountered that situation and here’s what several solutions are. Can I send you a copy of it? So certainly getting prepped for that conference, not just stepping off the plane saying, okay, what do I do? And then that idea of co-presenting or going along with with a client, both of those great ideas.

Mike Jones (27:41.261)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think I’m just going to your point about, you know, a case study, right. And how easy that is to execute on as a, like a speaking engagement. If you’ve got a client willing to come on stage with you, I don’t know any industry event or association that wouldn’t at least entertain the idea of having one of the peers from the industry come on a stage with you, obviously, is the subject matter expert in that particular field of like problem, right?

And having them talk about how to solve it like I’ve seen over and over and over again that that’s what all these events want From a speaking standpoint they want people to talk about how they’ve solved a problem within their business in that industry and With it, you know if it’s with the help of a professional Outside that firm who they’ve hired and brought on like all the better, right? but

And it’s so easy. It’s like doesn’t even require like you don’t have to put a deck together. You don’t have to memorize anything. Like you just have a conversation about what the work was, right? What the problem was, how you solved it, the process in that some of the hurdles or things they had to jump through lessons learned. And then obviously the happy ending, you know, is success you’ve had, but it’s just so easy.

Doug Hastings (28:52.874)
You know.

Doug Hastings (29:01.848)
Yeah, and it’s a win-win for the client as well. The conference organizer wants it like Sam mentioned, but like Mike is mentioning as well, the client’s like, we solved this problem. You’re all having this problem as well, and here’s how we got through it. And yeah, they usually like to do that. They also usually like to do, you do 90 % of the work. Hey, client.

Mike Jones (29:24.553)
Yes!

Doug Hastings (29:26.22)
We’ll build the deck. We’ll be, you whatever needs to be done. You just, let’s liaise on it. Let’s come up with how we’re going to do this, but let us do the legwork on getting it all set up. OK. So yeah.

Mike Jones (29:29.814)
Yep.

Mike Jones (29:35.641)
Yep. Yep. Yeah. So what are the things Doug that people should be thinking about in terms of like after the event, right? After the conference, maybe you’ve spoken, you’ve made some new connections. How do we make sure that we’re utilizing? I think you said like 40%, right? If you’re putting 30 % in beforehand, 30 % during the event, and then 40 % investment after the event in terms of time, what are some of the things people should be thinking about?

Doug Hastings (29:53.581)
Yeah, your time.

Doug Hastings (30:05.326)
Yeah, certainly. And again, you might talk to many people at an event during the breaks, during the sessions, et cetera, but you’ll probably come away saying, you know, there are four five of them that really could make a difference here. And there are numerous scientific case studies that show that that stickiness, that relationship really gets built in the first 20 to 30 days.

So you can’t just put the card in a desk drawer and say, hey, someday I’m going to reach out to that person, because that was a great conversation we had. You need to build a little plan, like, hey, within 24 hours, I’m going say it was so great to meet you at the conference. Boy, wasn’t that session interesting on da-da-da-da-da. And then in your calendar, OK, within a week, hey, here’s that white paper, or hopefully sooner, here’s that white paper I mentioned, or here’s an article that talks about exactly what that session was about.

that we help you know co-write or present or whatever. Two weeks later there’s some other value-add piece of follow-up and you start to create some back-and-forth with that person that you never knew stepping off of that plane. But you can’t let it you know kind of I don’t know lose the enthusiasm or lose the momentum of coming away from this great feeling about those four or five people. I think it would really help

and I’ve worked with firms before, creating this little 20 day calendar. I’m going to do these four things coming away from that conference. And man, it just makes it easier for them to kind of like what Sam’s talking about, like, what do I do? Here’s what you do. And when you come back, I’m going to sit down with you and we’re going to, you know, count and put it on both of our calendars so that those potential relationships get nurtured and cultivated and start to grow. And it came out of a face-to-face interaction.

And if it’s just four people out of 100 out of this once a year conference, those are pretty good returns. And if one of those turns into a client, that’s a great return really.

Mike Jones (31:59.737)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones (32:09.549)
Yep. Yeah. And maybe even going in with a little bit of forethought on, how many how many clients do we hope to get out of this? How many connections do we need to make in order to have get to that number? You know, and you don’t want to be like inauthentic in that you’re just pressing palms in order to get, you know, you know, connections. But yeah, I think there’s at least some value in having like conversation ahead of time.

Like, what’s it going to cost? You know, what is it going to take from us to get the best ROI out of this? So we’re not. They do.

Doug Hastings (32:42.828)
Yeah. And relationships take time to build too. So it’s not so much how many clients are we going to get out of this. It’s more how many relationships can I begin or can I further by going to this conference and planning that in advance. Yeah. And then executing on it and then following up on it. it might take, I mean, I’ve had something happen in three days. I’ve had something happen in two years, you know, so you just don’t know.

Sam (32:46.147)
Yeah.

Sam (32:52.441)
Yeah.

Mike Jones (32:53.975)
Yep. Yep.

Sam (32:55.479)
It’s gotta be a… Yep.

Mike Jones (33:06.893)
Yep. Yep.

Doug Hastings (33:09.742)
Yeah, if you knew, gosh, would it be golden to just say, look at that one person I want to see her, because I know that’s what’s going to happen.

Mike Jones (33:11.775)
Hahaha!

Mike Jones (33:17.047)
Yep, we’ve seen that. can take a year, even two years for that relationship to fully develop and get to a point where it’s like, they really actually have the need now and we’re talking to them about a particular project. Sam, did you have something you wanted to add?

Sam (33:30.767)
Yep. No, I was just going to reiterate, reiterate Doug’s point of like, you know, you got to go into, especially if it’s like an industry event, it needs to be a multi probably a multi-year plan, right? Of like, if this is something new we’re doing now, you can’t expect to just go to one event and like, wow, we got all this business. It’s crazy. No, it’s gotta be, like you said, Doug takes time to build relationships. if people see you,

year after year at an industry event and you’re getting to know them. I think part of this too is like, you know, we couldn’t do this with HubSpot, but if you’ve got smaller industry events where you can kind of get to know the, maybe it’s the organization or the people that actually plan the event and help them, like start to serve them, try to to, know, Hey, what can I do? What can I help with? How can I be of service? You know, as you plan this next event or just.

Doug Hastings (34:19.214)
Mm-hmm.

Sam (34:29.07)
your industry, the group of people that kind of comes together for this thing. How can you kind of like become part of the service group that puts that event on? For a lawyer, maybe not, but that’s part of it too is like, can I really kind of get to know the core of this group of people?

instead of just like, yeah, I’m gonna show up and have some business cards. And that’s my plan. So.

Doug Hastings (35:02.786)
Yeah, that multi-year approach I work with, in fact, I have a session on building and curating referral networks. And one that, one prong of that is that idea that, okay, I want to get more involved with trade and industry groups, the Chamber of Commerce, know, Arizona Home Builders Association, whatever happens to be. Okay, you’re going to join and maybe, you you go to the quarterly lunch the first year.

second year you get on one of the committees to help put on a fundraiser or whatever and you elevate your way through that group to where you might be helping to plan the upcoming conference and you get to know the people that are members there and they say hey you should put on one of the sessions on… so you know you go from I’m interested in this trader industry group

not so much the professional group like the State Bar in my world, know, yeah, that’s a bunch of roomful of attorneys and you do get a lot of referrals from other attorneys. So I’m not downplaying that, but it’s a trader industry group recognizing and you might make this pitch in your budget presentation to an executive committee or your other partners. This is gonna be a $20,000 investment, know, $4,000 a year for five years. But here’s how I’m gonna do it during that.

course of so it’s not just a one-off it’s something that has some planning behind it and you get some buy-in you know financially but also because you’re committed to grow that into something that’s not just going to the quarterly lunch for 10 years in a row and that’s kind of all you do and you want okay it’s in my budget again next year well yeah let’s understand that it takes time but planning and commitment and elevating your involvement each step of the way

Adding value to them each step of the way is a great way to build those relationships and have those turn into something that’s good for you and good for the organization.

Mike Jones (36:56.921)
Yep.

Mike Jones (37:03.949)
Yep. And it goes back to your original kind of starting point, Doug, that you’re building relationships and relationships take time and they’re developed on, you know, one of the things that relationship is built on is trust, which requires consistency, right? You know, people, know, first time you do a industry event, first time you’re a part of an association, first time you do anything, the people you meet that first time are probably apprehensive about who you are and what you are bringing to the table.

until they see you multiple times. Obviously the interactions you have with them matter, how you go about doing that, your follow ups absolutely matter. But at the end of the day, it takes probably more than one time at those events to really start to solidify that you care, right? You care about them, you care about the industry, you really are invested in what they’re doing, you’re not just somebody popping in for one year trying to scoop up some business cards and then.

You they’re, gone. You never see them again.

Doug Hastings (38:06.414)
Well, with younger professionals, accountants, attorneys, whatever, it’s also great if it’s part of the firm’s or the company’s plan to say, let’s get them involved early. And the Chamber of Commerce has the young professionals group, and they have their monthly meetings. OK, associate, it’s OK for you to get involved. And over time, you get more and more involved. You add value to us as the firm that pays you, but you don’t.

Mike Jones (38:12.761)
you

Mike Jones (38:23.725)
Yeah.

Doug Hastings (38:34.19)
sorry I’m gonna go back up a little bit just to say most law firms okay you’re an associate for like seven years and then they say okay you’re a partner go make your own business what why didn’t you tell me on year one I would have been creating these relationships so yeah and accounting works through this as well okay you’ve been we’ve been feeding you work now that you’re a partner go make it we’ll find your own business boy yeah

Mike Jones (38:59.853)
Yep. Bring your own book of business. Well, wouldn’t it be helpful if you were already doing that? Or at least building the building the block so that you’re ready to do it. Yep.

Doug Hastings (39:08.854)
Yeah, right, younger accountants, younger attorneys getting involved, sharing with your mentor or with your firm, hey, here’s what I’m doing and here’s what I’m trying to do and will you support that? And gosh, they’d be foolish to say, no, we don’t support that. Don’t do that. Head down and do your hours.

Mike Jones (39:26.489)
And I’m going to go on all in here, but I’m a marketer. So I think I think the value for any professional and obviously the earlier you are in your profession and your career that you can start doing this, the more value you’re going to add not just to the firm, but to your clients and ultimately to your own book of business. that is having an expertise in a specific industry and saying, hey, I can apply my professional skills.

Doug Hastings (39:33.227)
I’m

Mike Jones (39:56.267)
in particular ways because I’ve worked with lots of clients in this particular space. And I know the nuances of that industry. I know how they talk. I know the lingo. know all the people. I’m highly connected. You know, if you’re on year six of that plan and you’ve already done some of that legwork to build that expertise, you know, when you make partner and you’re on the hook to bring in business, that’s going to be a lot easier and you’re going to be able to charge more.

you’re going to have just a much easier time in the actual sales process itself because you’re going to actually be perceived as a true expert, not just one of many others who know how to do the thing, right? Like exercise the professional skill that you’re trained in, but actually deliver it in the context of a specific industry. I just, we work with so many clients on this from kind of a brand level.

Doug Hastings (40:40.302)
Thank

Mike Jones (40:52.473)
of every single client of theirs wants them as a professional services firm to be experts at solving the problems they have in the specific nuances of their industry. And so if you don’t start thinking and talking and really knowing an industry, you’re just behind the eight ball in my opinion. And that’s just me, but others might disagree.

Doug Hastings (41:18.892)
I was at a big conference a couple years ago and they were having a, again, it’s legal, there was a general counsel panel. actual, the in-house attorneys at large firms were talking about the relationship they have with their law firms. And the in-house counsel from Cisco was saying, when I have a problem, there are law firms from here to China that can solve that problem. I already know that. There are 30 law firms that could solve this problem.

So expertise is kind of the issue. Certainly you need to know how to resolve this issue in front of us. But do I have a relationship with you? Do I like working with you? Have I worked with you before? Do you stay consistent and regular with communications with me? Do you add value to our relationship? All of those things are in a way, at least this person was presenting, in a way more important than the…

subject matter expertise because I think it’s just a given that you know how to solve this problem but all those other things really are more important in my buying decision.

Mike Jones (42:23.511)
Yep. Yep. I love it. Well, Doug, we are almost. Yeah.

Doug Hastings (42:27.342)
One more little thought about associates, sorry. they’ll, because I work, I do associate programs as well sometimes and they’ll, younger accountants, younger attorneys, I should mention that I’ve worked overseas with KPMG and with Ernst & Young. So I’m in, I kind of know that world because I was part of that world. They’re anxious and they’re nervous, rightfully so. Like, my gosh, I’m in year two and you’re telling me that I should start getting involved and start

you know, having a plan and getting ready for the time that I make partner or owner or whatever. You just got to start somewhere, you know, joining the young professionals league and going to lunch. There you go, you’ve started, you know, it’s, and it gets easier as you get more, you know, you get more used to it, you get more miles, you, okay, this is the third year I’ve been doing this. Even though I’m only a fourth year associate, I am getting more familiar with

Like don’t wait till you’re seven. And understand that all of us are nervous at the very beginning or anxious or not prepared or whatever. You just do it. You get better by doing it. Yeah, and you have to start and you have to take a deep breath and yeah.

Not trying to turn everybody, you know, I’m really an introvert, so I don’t want to go to some cocktail party and try and mingle. Okay, can you help them plan an event then? Can you create a LinkedIn group with, you know, where you’re communicating people without having to leave your office? What are the ways that build to your strengths and, you know, are in your wheelhouse? Let’s not try to turn you into a reception tiger if that’s not your thing.

But let’s also find ways to help you along early on because long term it really works for you and it works for the firm, for the company.

Mike Jones (44:18.147)
Yeah. Yeah. As we get close to the end here, Doug, I want to give you a chance to do a little lightning round. The good and the bad of conferences. So give us your your like two minute list.

Doug Hastings (44:30.958)
Yo, I don’t know about two minutes, might be shorter. Well, I think the bad is overwhelmed. You you go to something and it’s just, there’s like you’re this inbound, my gosh, 12,000 people. I’ve been to big conferences of 5,000. There are five different tracks. They’re in all different parts of the conference center and you’re just racing from one session to the other. And it’s, I think the bad, can be overwhelmed. I think that’s where planning helps. I only want to go to these three sessions.

Mike Jones (44:32.871)
Hahaha!

Doug Hastings (45:00.802)
and I’m gonna set up these four coffees or lunches. That’s my whole plan for this conference. Great. Another bad cost, you know, they just get more and more expensive flights, hotels, all of that stuff. can easily be five grand to go to a conference. Maybe more of the conference fee is five grand.

Some of the good face to face. The media see you know you’re right there. You can read somebody’s face. You can. It’s just different than doing it by zoom or WebEx. That’s a smallish list like gosh, I hope I don’t my heat held to the fire.

Mike Jones (45:39.609)
That’s okay. That’s great. I love it. Yup. Doug, I appreciate you coming on the show today. This was a really good conversation and I think there’ll be more in the future. But why don’t you just let everybody know where they can find out more about you, about your lawyer to lawyer business development training and coaching courses that you’ve got. Why don’t you tell everybody about that.

Doug Hastings (46:04.482)
Yeah, sure. So going from practice for almost 20 years, again, being with KPMG and Ernst & Young at one point, to transitioning over to helping attorneys, helping firms do business development and coaching. I have now taken that experience and instead of hopping on a plane and having to do that live all the time, although I still do that, launched a website, lawyerbizdev.com. Lawyerbizdev.com.

And there is a core group of coaching sessions that will really take kind of what we’re talking about and yet so much more to help attorneys, really kind of any professionals, although it’s geared towards lawyers, in building out their, building their practice, marketing them firm, marketing themselves. I would say that’s the best way to find out more about this and other topics.

There’s contact page there. If anyone wants to reach out to me directly, at DouglasHastings.com. That’s, you know, direct emails, fine. But yeah, look at that website. I think it’ll speak to those that are interested in this subject matter of this podcast.

Mike Jones (47:13.251)
Yeah, yeah, if you’re professional and you want to get better at business development, all the parts and tips and tricks in that process, I highly recommend checking out Doug’s website, Biz, sorry, lawyer biz dev.com. I just appreciate everybody hanging out with us again today on our latest episode of the market brand podcast. And we just looking forward to the next one as we jump into the new year. So we’ll see you all next time.

Doug Hastings (47:42.872)
Thank you. Yeah, awesome. Bye, Sam. Bye, Mike.

Sam (47:43.951)
See you Doug.