Best Practices in Building Your Personal Network for Attorneys

The days of listing your services in a phone book and hoping for the best are long gone.

Marketing—and its lynchpin network building—must become the personal responsibility of each attorney, not a "firm" activity. Success is predicated on building relationships, turning clients into your salesforce, forging alliances, making contacts, (i.e., doing business development each day) and systematically employing the proven methods of the top producers.

But competition is everywhere . . . and in today's world of firms consolidating . . . continuing over supply of attorneys and other professionals elbowing in on your turf . . . marketing your services is more essential than ever.

This course offers you a practical and proven step-by-step approach to effectively building your personal network. The top rainmakers see themselves as experts in the relationship business and that their network is their most precious career asset. You can make it yours too.

Written in an easy-to-read style, this book provides a wealth of tips, tools, techniques and the how-to guidance you need to be more successful through building your network, starting NOW!

Network-Building Mistakes Cost Big Money!

Adopt the only proven, step-by-step, custom-designed system for attorneys, designed by the top rainmakers in the profession.

Allan S. Boress has been a Business Development Consultant to the professions since 1980.

Nobody we can find has trained more professionals in the arts of systematic selling, personal marketing, client retention, staff retention and motivation, and 21st Century leadership — over 200,000 and worked with over 500 professional firms. He is acknowledged as the "Dean of Sales Consulting to the Professions."

An internationally-known speaker, trainer, and practice development expert, Mr. Boress was twicenamed One of the Top 100 People in the Accounting Profession by Accounting Today Magazine. He is the author of eight published books, including The I Hate Selling Book: The only learning system ever custom-designed from scratch to teach professional service providers how to interview, qualify, present and close more sales opportunities. He is also the author of Building Entrepreneurial People, the only book that describes how to change the culture in a professional firm from business development reactivity to proactivity (also available at Amazon.com). The American Institute of CPAs published his Mastering the Art of Marketing Professional Services: A Step-by-step Best Practices Guide.

Allan’s training is the only one of its kind based upon the Best Practices of The Top Business Producers across the professions. Over 1,000 multi-million dollar rainmakers have been interviewed, studied and analyzed for this book, and for all of his writings and training programs. Mr. Boress is available for firm retreats, keynote speaking engagements, and on-site presentations. He is an award winning speaker and instructor. He is acknowledged as creator of the "Professional’s Selling System."

Michael G. Cummings is the managing principal of SAGE. He has been a marketing strategy and business development consultant for over 20 years.

Early in his career, Michael was an instrumental member of the team that established the headquarters strategy and marketing function at Andersen Worldwide (Arthur Andersen & Accenture). In this role, he defined information technology needs for key industries and functional areas; worked with senior partners to devise marketing plans and implement integrated marketing campaigns and developed strategy and marketing processes such as account management and market planning. He also helped to develop the initial large account management planning process and relationship management training programs.

Over the years, Michael has collaborated with Allan Boress to build the sales, marketing and relationship management skills of professionals. Based on their collective experience in working with the top business generators in the consulting, systems integration and accounting professions — they have translated proven best practices into practical, reality based skill building systems and training programs. And he co-authored a new book with Allan in 2002—Mastering the Art of Marketing Professional Services: A Step-by-step Best Practices Guide (AICPA).

Prior to establishing SAGE, Michael was partner at Mercer Management Consulting—a leading business design consulting firm. At Mercer, he was responsible for new business development, managing client relationships and delivering business design engagements in the communications, information and industrial industries. In this role, he was a leader of Mercer’s top North American account over the past 6 years: IBM. Using his account planning, relationship management and selling skills developed over the years, Michael helped Mercer to create over 300 senior executive relationships and sustained base of business. He also led account teams aimed at expanding relationships with Motorola, Siemens and NCR.