Taking U Out of Your Cross Selling Alphabet

There is probably no objective that law firms put more emphasis on achieving – or that they fail more frequently at than cross selling. This may be because many law firms or lawyers don’t really understand what cross selling is all about.

Sure, some attorneys will do the work to figure out who could help them. They will identify other attorneys in their firm or professionals outside the firm whose Clients could be excellent potential sources of business for them. A few will even pick up the big, scary telephone and call these people. The real go-getters may even set up a meeting to talk about what they do and how the other person may be able to help them do more of it. And then they sit back and wonder why almost nothing ever comes of all this time and effort.

OK, here is the secret to why cross selling fails so often: like everything else in business development, it’s not about YOU. It’s not about how you can get the other person to help you. Cross selling is about figuring out how you can help the other person. This may sound counterintuitive, I know, but it’s still true. So start by removing you from your cross selling conversations...