Practical Networking
The Challenge
A large international law firm was looking to increase the effectiveness of their primary contact with clients – networking events.
It was clear to our client that associates and senior associates were not making the best use of their time at networking events, nor were they leveraging their own social and internal networks to uncover business opportunities for the firm.
The Solution
We put together a programme that helped lawyers to really think about their networking strategy and understand how important it was for their success and that of their firm. A firm-wide programme of short, two-hour sessions for groups of up to 30 lawyers was set up. These sessions mirrored “real” events to create a scenario where the lawyers could practice and embed skills in a realistic setting. We worked on the simple skills that would help to develop confident people who had a powerful initial impact, were good listeners and knew how to develop conversations of interest to anyone they spoke to.
We also broadened the scope of the programme to include social networks and online networking and helped the lawyers to see networking as “business as usual” and something they should always be doing.
