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Today’s show featured an interview with business development leader at the Offit Kurman law firm Jim Ries.
Find Jim on LinkedIn.
JIM’S TIP: “On LinkedIn, don’t just post about you, me, we. Post about your experiences with other people, other companies. Share knowledge. It can’t just be about awards that you’ve won or presentations that you’ve made. Make it about other people and make it about really relevant content that your network would want to see from you.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: Jim, the stories that we’ve been hearing on the Sales Story and a Tip Podcast have been tremendous. They’ve inspired many and I’m excited to hear yours. We got Jim Ries with Offit Kurman. Jim, give us a little bit of an introduction to you and tell us what you do, and then we’ll get into your story.
Jim Ries: Fred, thanks for having me on. I rescue business owners who are working with the wrong attorney. My name is Jim Ries. I am The Legal BD Guy and Director of Business Development at Offit Kurman. Offit Kurman is a full-service law firm with offices on the East Coast and an office in LA, and we service small to mid-market owner-managed businesses, entrepreneurs, and families of wealth.
Fred Diamond: People are going to want to ask if they’re watching this on YouTube. For people who are listening, Jim is wearing his hunter hat. Jim, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that and then we’ll get into the story.
Jim Ries: Fred, thanks for asking me about the hat. Back in end of March of 2020 when the pandemic had started, I don’t think any of us really knew how long this was going to last, but I was about to get on my first Zoom call and I grabbed this hat from a bin next to my desk. I thought to myself, “I don’t know what the Zoom call’s going to be like, but I’m going to have fun with it.” I put this hat on, this is what I look like without the hat, and I put the hat on and it has stuck with me. I have worn this hat on every single Zoom call and Zoom meeting since then. It’s the greatest example of accidental branding, because I go out and people are like, “Jim, I barely recognize you. Where’s the hat, Jim? What’s up with the hat?” People love to talk about it. It’s really a fabulous icebreaker.
Fred Diamond: As a matter of fact, when I first started doing the Sales Game Changers Podcast, I did them in-person. I would go to people’s offices with my kit, and we would always take a picture afterwards. I used to always wear this lime green tie. I would take a picture, put it up on LinkedIn, put it up on the salesgamechangerspodcast.com page, and people would ask me, even to this day, every once in a while, someone says, “Whatever happened to that green tie?” It’s in a time capsule in my garage.
Jim, tell us a great sales story.
Jim Ries: I’ve been Director of Business Development at Offit Kurman for about eight years. Early on in my BD career, I met a business owner at a happy hour and followed up and asked if I could come down to his place of business for a visit. I did, went down, had a really nice visit. He took me on a wonderful tour of his facility. Then we sat down in the conference room and we began a conversation. I asked a lot of questions about the business and what I had seen on the tour, to which he responded, gave me lots of information. Then I said to him, “With all of this going on, you have a fabulous business here, you must have a wonderful attorney.” He said to me, and I’ll never forget this, “My attorney couldn’t pick me out of a lineup.”
That’s when I realized that yes, most business owners have an attorney, but what I’ve learned is, quite often they are either underserved by their attorney, overcharged by their attorney, or ignored by their attorney, which makes lots of opportunities for me and Offit Kurman.
Second story. I have a great client, local client, texted me very late one night and said, “I need help. It’s an emergency.” I called him up right away, and he began to tell me that one of his employees has a daughter who was kidnapped at the US-Mexico border. The bad guy said, “You need to pay us $30,000, or else.” He asked me, “Could we help?”
Well, Offit Kurman does not have a law firm in Mexico or anywhere near the US-Mexico border, but we are members of a global affiliation of law firms and accounting firms called GGI. I contacted one of our GGI partners who has offices on the US-Mexico border, made the connection, and the result was a positive one. The employee got his daughter back safely within a few days, and it cost him nothing.
That’s the extent of what we can do, even though it wasn’t our law firm that did it, just being a connector and able to connect our client to the right people who could help his employee, that really meant the world to him. We do go above and beyond, and with the vast network that I have, there’s really very little that I can’t help people with.
Fred Diamond: I hope the daughter is doing okay. That’s got to be such a traumatic experience. We’re doing today’s interview in July of 2024, and unfortunately, hostages is something that’s constantly in the news. Evidently, in a lot of those cases, a law firm can’t help. I’m glad that your firm was able to find a good connection to come to a positive resolution. I have some follow up questions, but first of all, as I like to do on this podcast, Jim, give us a tip that you learned from those stories.
Jim Ries: I would say the main tip would be that we’ve heard this many times that people buy from people they know, like, and trust. The trust is really the key part of that, because you and I know people that we know and we like, but probably wouldn’t do business with them. The trust part, you got to get down, and that takes time. After you build the trust, then, at least in my business, in the legal business, you got to be in the right place at the right time, otherwise known as top of mind, when the prospect needs your services. Know, like, and trust, and then the need part. Being in the right place at the right time and being top of mind, that’s when you’ll get the business.
Fred Diamond: The first story that you told where the person that you met said that his lawyer couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. When you’re providing services, a lot of times people will say, “Well, I never hear from you until it’s the annual review,” until it’s a year to renew the subscription, or whatever the retainer might be. Give us some of your ideas on what do you do to stay connected so that you’re not going to come into that type of an experience where the customer says to you, “Gee, I only hear from you once a year.”
Jim Ries: I call it the trifecta or the hat trick. My way of staying connected falls into three different categories. I’m consistent with all three. One is attending in-person networking events. One is attending remote networking events, remote meetings, Zoom meetings, et cetera. Then thirdly is my activity on LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is a fabulous opportunity to stay connected with people, to stay engaged with people. I think it’s really underutilized by many folks in a business development position. It’s in-person networking, remote networking, and LinkedIn, true LinkedIn engagement.
Fred Diamond: To wrap up the show, give us your suggestions on two things that people should be doing on LinkedIn that they might not be.
Jim Ries: Consistent engagement. Once a day, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, if you can spare it, once a day, going through your LinkedIn thread and commenting on people’s posts. Being engaged, posting yourself, I tell people, start with one or two days a week. Post an article, post something that is relevant to your network and engage with people who comment on your posts. You’ve got to be consistent and you’ve got to be engaging.
You got to be giving. It’s not just your stuff that you post, but maybe you want to repost something that someone posted that is relevant to your network. Notice I’ve said that several times. You’ve got to be relevant to your network. You’ve got to be yourself. You got to be true to yourself and authentic, because if you’re not, people can scope that out from far, far away if you’re not being your authentic self.
Fred Diamond: One thing I tell people to do is, I follow a lot of my prospects, and a lot of times these people don’t post all that frequently, or they might post a company press release, or an event that’s coming up, and there’s no engagement typically for those types of posts. I always make a comment, “This looks great. I’m excited to hear what the speakers are going to say,” or just something. If you’re the only person who’s commenting, and I’m going to guess, Jim, I’m very active on LinkedIn and have made a lot of clients and have supported a lot of my clients, and I see you there very frequently, which led to this invitation, most likely your customer doesn’t get a lot of engagement.
Be that one person who gives a comment. A like is great but give some kind of great comment. Don’t say great share, don’t say nice to see, say something like, this conference looks like it’s going to help a lot of people in information security. Or, wow, I’m impressed by what you’re doing with Department of Defense. Something that’s relevant to show that you gave them 15 seconds of thought, but you’re also supporting them by getting some further engagement as well.
Jim Ries: I just want to repeat something you just said, which is really important. Don’t just post about you, me, we. Post about your experiences with other people, other companies. Share knowledge. It can’t just be about awards that you’ve won or presentations that you’ve made. Make it about other people and make it about really relevant content that your network would want to see from you.
Fred Diamond: Once again, I want to thank Jim Ries for being on today’s Sales Story and a Tip Podcast. My name is Fred Diamond, and this is the Sales Story and a Tip Podcast.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo