This session will explore the journey to building a $3M book of business, focusing on the importance of authenticity, vulnerability, and forming deep, meaningful relationships. Participants will learn how to strategically position themselves to be chosen for work, while also incorporating business development activities they genuinely enjoy, alongside people they like. The session will also reveal one simple, daily habit—taking just 10 minutes—that has proven to generate more business than any other strategy.
TRANSCRIPT
Greg Alexander: Hey, everybody. This is Greg Alexander. You’re listening to the pro. Serve podcast, brought to you by Collective 54. This podcast is dedicated to helping founders of boutique professional services firms grow, scale, and sell their firm someday. So if you find yourself in the business of marketing, selling, and delivering expertise for a living, then this show is for you. Today we’re going to talk about rainmaking, and we’re going to talk to a member of Collective 54, who is exceptional at this and is very passionate about it. I’m going to go down this journey about what does it mean to make it rain, how to make it rain, things to do to make it rain, how to create other rainmakers, etc. So with that, Todd, it’s great to see you. For those that might not know you, would you please start with an introduction.
Todd Stanton: Yeah, thanks for having me, Greg. Pleasure to be here. My name is Todd Stanton. I started Stanton Wall, LLC in 2011, after being an associate in the big law machine for about 9 years after law school. We built our firm now to about 13 attorneys, 20 lives for which we’re responsible altogether. We built ourselves a pretty handsome little business law firm in Atlanta.
Greg Alexander: Okay, very good. Alright. I’m gonna start with the thing that I find most interesting which you had told me that you do one thing for 10 minutes each day that this habit, maybe more than any other, has made you an effective rainmaker. So I’m on the edge of my seat. Tell me what that 10-minute habit is.
Todd Stanton: I send at least one text, make at least one phone call, or send at least one email every day to somebody who crosses my mind, and all I tell them is, I thought about you today. I hope you’re well. Now that one habit puts me at top of mind. I don’t ask them for anything. I don’t leave a question mark at the end of any of those things. I don’t obligate them in any way. But over the past, I’ve been doing that once a day, typically on the weekends as well, at least once a day, every day for the past 15 years. And that is what makes my phone ring. I’m convinced of it.
Greg Alexander: Very interesting. What I find interesting about that is, it’s so easy.
Todd Stanton: And cheap.
Greg Alexander: And cheap. And it’s not a solicitation, anyway. Just saying I thought about you today, you know, checking in with you, that kind of thing. It’s really fascinating. Alright, couple of other questions for you. It’s my belief. In fact, I would say it’s probably the industry’s belief, not my belief that services are bought. They’re not sold and they’re bought on three things: relationships which we just talked about how you put those and we’ll double click on that, Reputation, Referrals. And this is what makes rainmaking for a services firm very different than selling for a product firm. Because when you’re selling for a product firm, the customers really buying the features and the functions of the product itself. They might not even care who the salesperson is. In fact, they probably care more about who’s in customer service than they do in sales. So it’s far less relationship-based than it is in services. So let’s unpack this a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your personal journey, which I understand. You’ve reached three million dollars in personal billings through your arrangement, capability. Let’s start first with relationships. You gave us one hack on how you build relationships. But how do you build and nurture these relationships over time?
Todd Stanton: So I need to give credit where credit is due and my business development mentor at my previous my last big law stop was a guy named Steve Sunshine and, Steve. If you’re listening to this I’ll send you a copy of it.
Todd Stanton: Obviously we’ve come a long way. So Steve went out, and he talked to a thousand lawyers, 1,200 lawyers, and he tried to decipher what makes rainmakers out of, and what makes non-rainmakers, and the number one thing he found out of rainmakers is they do not do things that make them uncomfortable.
Todd Stanton: They go hang out with the people that they like, and they do the things that they enjoy.
Todd Stanton: and that allows them to be their authentic selves. And that level of attractiveness leads to the business.
Todd Stanton: So that’s how I have started building that business. I have several passionate hobbies that I love, and I go do those things, and I share the passions with the other people with whom I’m doing it.
Todd Stanton: I don’t try to appeal to people who like the opera just because people who have money like the opera. I don’t go hang out at the Marina, because that’s where rich people park their yachts.
Todd Stanton: I go play golf because I love playing golf, and people watch me having fun playing golf.
Todd Stanton: I coach youth sports, and people will give me their kids for however long, and I get to be my authentic self doing that. And the more they watch me do those things and me, what and how I interact with
Todd Stanton: everybody around me. And then they see when they’re talking about work. I’m the same way. And that level of trust, that level of enrollment
Todd Stanton: becomes the relationship that becomes the basis for where we scan for the gap, and we see that need. That’s where we have professional services are bought, not sold. I’m sitting there waiting to see the need. For when one of my relationships needs that or when they come to me, and they say I need a referral for this. Can you help.
Todd Stanton: That’s where I say, yes, so it is simply laying all of this groundwork. It is a slow, slow process, but once you start planting those seeds. They develop over time.
Greg Alexander: So I agree with you a thousand. But for the benefit of entertainment value, I’m gonna take the opposing view here and play devil’s advocate. Many in the world would say that relationships no longer count. It is what is it? What can you do for me today? I’m gonna buy on price, you know. Everything’s a transaction. Everything’s instant gratification, social media. Fomo blah! Blah!
Todd Stanton: One of them.
Greg Alexander: A lot. Right? So what do you say to those people who don’t think relationships matter anymore?
Todd Stanton: I’m not gonna suggest that there’s not other ways to sell professional services. People will go and buy Deloitte because of the Deloitte name on the building. People will buy a brand name. They will buy specialization and they will buy on price right? But there is always somebody who is going to undercut that there is always going to be somebody who’s better at it than you in that regard. The relationship business development, that sunshine preached and that I’ve adopted is the stickiest of those bunch. And when I send a bill I know it’s gonna surprise you and everybody else. Sometimes I get in billing disputes. Sometimes people think I charge too much for the work we do. If I have a relationship with them, I can explain. There’s a level of trust. There’s a level of give and take there that I can. I can give them some back, or they can under. I can help explain the value that was provided. If they’ve just bought off a price we’re done. That’s the last part of the engagement. So I would say that it’s the most enduring way to do it. And then I would also point out that it’s the most fun. If I get to combine all the things that I really want to do, walk my dog with clients who have dogs. If I get to do the things I’m enjoying doing, I’m going to do a lot more of it. Then if I’m out there trying to hustle and cut my prices. I don’t like cutting my prices. I’m not going to do a lot of that if I don’t have to. So it magnifies time. In this way, too, it makes my days much more enjoyable, and I get a lot more done.
Greg Alexander: You know I would add to this. I have the benefit of being in business now for 32 years. And I look back at those 32 years, and I circle the moments of accomplishment. And almost every one of them at the heart of it was some relationship. You know, I knew somebody that knew somebody that led to something. When I was a younger man. I didn’t think like that. I was probably too transactional, and I didn’t have an appreciation for it. So I wish somebody would have taught me this lesson back then. So if anyone has, that’s younger, let’s say under the age of 30, remember, relationships matter. And they carry with you. And, to use Todd’s words, they’re sticky. Alright. Let’s go to referrals, because referrals is the number one lead source by a mile when it comes to selling professional service, regardless of what that service is. And the reason for that, it’s because when somebody is hiring a service provider the number one criteria for picking vendor A and vendor B is trust. And when like, if I referred somebody to Todd, Todd’s probably going to take that call because I’m extending trust. I’m transferring trust. And he’s saying, if Greg likes this guy and trust this guy, then maybe I should give him a shot. That’s how it happens in services very different than when you’re selling products. So how do you generate referrals in a systematic, repeatable way, as opposed to just opportunistically getting lucky from time to time.
Todd Stanton: Oh, I wish I did it better. I mean, part of it is in my world. You can’t really ask for it right, because nobody buys proactive legal services. If there’s a deal out there, maybe that’s the case. But certainly I’m a litigator by training. Nobody’s saying, boy, how can I get ahead of my next litigation event? That’s not really how it works. So I think that the way that I work on referrals is making sure that when they send me somebody they see somebody happy on the other side of that black box. They see somebody who is not upset. They see somebody who’s got a problem. They call me. They send them to me, and the next time they talk to them they’re in a better frame of mind because of what we did. So I don’t know that I’m not giving you the satisfactory answer of being able to systematize the Referrals.
Todd Stanton: But I do know that they’re important, and I do know that I can’t talk about why, what I did to help them? It’s attorney-client privilege, but they sure as hell can. And so, you know, by providing the best client service I can to the clients that we have. And I would also say that hauling along a good friend of yours to a foursome is a good way to build that referral network as well.
Greg Alexander: Exactly, you know. And I would say that that’s where I was gonna go with this. And I understand, Todd, in your instance, it’s a little different as a litigator.
Todd Stanton: Love it.
Greg Alexander: But many of our members and listeners to this show are in services that are bought under different guidelines in different contexts.
Todd Stanton: Well, let me give you another good hack on this, though, because it does go back to golf, and I understand not everybody’s a golfer. That is just my current addiction. Right? I’m a little over the top with it. But if I’ve got a target and somebody who I want to get to know either as a referral source or as a client, I invite them to play.
Todd Stanton: And I ask them to invite somebody, so they’re comfortable, and they get to bring somebody to a nice club, and then I bring somebody who is already a raving fan of mine. And when we pair off, I put my raving fan with my target, and then I ride in the cart with the person who I don’t know, right? So I’ve built my network by two and allowed somebody else to do the selling for me, somebody else to do the horn blowing for me. So maybe that’s as close as I can come to systematizing.
Greg Alexander: Yeah, well, let me build on that. So the concept here is to be a joiner. So when you join a country club and you play golf like Todd does, or whether you join a business community like Collective 54. When you become a member of the community, you have the opportunity to extend your personal network, extend your reach. And the more people you meet, and the more people you impress with the quality of your work, the bigger the reputation gets and the easier referral gets. Proximity matters. That could be geographic proximity. That could be proximity in an industry segment. That could be proximity in a trade association. But proximity matters. There’s something about referral generation where density and proximity matter. You have to be top of mind. So my advice to systematize referrals for those that are listening is to join everything you can. Join a gym, join a church, join a country club, join a business membership. Just be a joiner, and good things will happen to you.
Todd Stanton: And join the things that you enjoy. Because if you’re not going there enthusiastically in order to participate and contribute, you’re just going to get lost. You’re just a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
Greg Alexander: Yeah, that’s a good add. I hadn’t thought about that, but I agree with you on that one.
Greg Alexander: Okay. Lastly, obviously, you’re an accomplished rainmaker, and you built your law firm based on that. But at some point in your journey, you can’t be the only rainmaker. There have to be other rainmakers in your firm. So how are you building other rainmakers?
Todd Stanton: You get them right out of the womb, and you start telling them to maintain those relationships with their law school classmates, maintain new relationships with their college, their undergraduate folks. They might not have work to throw you right now, but you’ve got to stay in touch with them. It costs you nothing to stay in touch with them via text or to drop a phone call every month, every quarter, or even once a year. Staying in touch with them is the number one thing to do, and continue to build that network very wide, and maintain it as long as you can. It becomes more difficult the bigger it gets, but it’s necessary. That would be the first thing I would do.
Todd Stanton: The second thing I would say is, do it intentionally. You have to keep an eye on where this is going to be in 15 years. I have lots of people who want to come in and work for a place like Stanton Law, and I’m not making this up. They say, “I’m 13 years out of law school. I’ve been a good service partner for a little bit, but I want to start enjoying more of the lifestyle that you offer,” and I say, “What are you bringing me?” And they say, “I don’t have it right,” and I say, “I can’t get it going. This takes a long time to do.” So we get them very, very early on this.
Todd Stanton: That’s the first thing, and then I incorporate them into the relationships I have. As I am delegating the work down to them or out to them, I am folding the relationship back in. I am encouraging them to take my clients to lunch. I am encouraging them to call, to say hello. I’m encouraging them to take over where I left off. We had the expansion revenue block last quarter, and that fit very well with what we are doing, explaining to my budding rainmakers where this relationship came from, how they can pick it up and run with it is great. Who was the member who held the expansion revenue piece before the podcast, before the expansion revenue? He told a story in which one of his clients was making fun of one of his service deliverers, and he said, “I knew we had him right,” because my service delivery had gotten to where he was teasing the boss and the boss was teasing him. That was music to my ears. I love that. We incorporate them into the relationships we already have, and show them how easy it is. That’s how we foster and build good rainmakers.
Greg Alexander: Fantastic. You know, professional services are built off the apprentice model. So if you’re a senior person listening to this, and you’re really good at rainmaking, and you need to grow your firm and scale it so other people can make it rain, you have to put them on your hip and show them the way. You have to be their mentor, and they have to be your protégé, and you’ve got to, through osmosis, show them how to do it. If you can, you can really scale your firm. If you don’t, you become the founder bottleneck. You’re the only person who brings in work.
Greg Alexander: All right. We’re at our time window here, Todd. I really appreciate you sharing your philosophy and personal story and ideas around how to be a good rainmaker. Thanks for contributing today.
Todd Stanton: Of course, I appreciate the opportunity. Look forward to the next couple of days talking more about it.
Greg Alexander: Okay. All right. So a couple of calls to action for the listeners. If you’re a member and you want to learn more about rainmaking, attend Todd’s session, which you’ll get an invite for shortly, and you’ll be able to ask your questions directly to Todd, and he’ll go into more depth about what he does and his other daily habits. If you’re not a member and you want to become one, go to collective54.com and fill out an application, and somebody will get in contact with you. If you’re not ready for either of those, but you want to read or listen to more stuff, go to amazon.com and buy my book called “The Boutique: How to Start, Scale, and Sell a Professional Services Firm.” All kinds of good stuff in there for you. Until next time, I wish you the best of luck as you try to grow, scale, and someday sell your firm.
Note: This transcript was generated by Zoom.