Shannon Lombardo | The Gap Between Wanting to Do Business Development and Actually Doing It

Elise Holtzman: Hi everyone, it's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of The Lawyer’s Edge Podcast. Welcome back for another episode. Having a business development plan is one thing. Following through on it, especially when the week gets busy, is another. Today's guest has spent years building and running the internal systems firms use to help lawyers follow through, not just plan to. She's watched what actually gets lawyers to take action, what internal teams can and can't do to help and what separates a program that works from one that just feels productive. We're going to get into all of that today.

Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. Each member of the Lawyer's Edge coaching team is a trained, certified and experienced professional coach and either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional. Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.

I am delighted to welcome my guest today, Shannon Lombardo. Shannon is the Director of Business Development at Saul Ewing LLP, a national law firm with more than 400 attorneys. She leads strategic growth initiatives focused on attorney business development coaching, client relationship development and revenue generation. With extensive experience in legal marketing and business development, Shannon partners with attorneys and law firms to build stronger relationships, identify growth opportunities and achieve their business objectives. Shannon, welcome to The Lawyer’s Edge.

Shannon Lombardo: Thanks so much for having me.

Elise Holtzman: I am delighted to have you here, because you are definitely somebody that spends her time helping lawyers and their practice groups execute on business development initiatives. Why is it that you think lawyers so often fail to follow through on business plans and initiatives, even when they really mean to, they really intend to? What obstacles tend to get in their way?

Shannon Lombardo: Number one is time. It's always time. Attorneys, particularly at our firm, they're, you know, clients always come first, client service. So that takes priority and everything else tends to fall to the wayside, including business development. So I think really getting into the practice of prioritizing time to practice business development, is a big one. Also for some folks, even those that are good at business development, starting could feel overwhelming and they just, they genuinely don't know where to start and what those initial steps look like. So I would say that as well, just not knowing where to start and being overwhelmed by the idea.

Elise Holtzman: Yes, I see that all the time. We know that law firms aren't in the business of teaching business development. Some of them have programs to do so and we're going to talk a little bit about the ones you have at your firm. Law schools certainly didn't teach it. And I always say lawyers didn't go into the law so they could become salespeople. Right. And so I think that that is a big part of it as well. You mentioned this idea of feeling overwhelmed. And I also think that if lawyers have a choice between doing something where they feel like they know what they're doing and they feel confident about it, versus this speculative thing, called business development, where they don't necessarily know what they're doing. I think they're always going to revert to the work on their desk, because why on earth would you want to feel uncomfortable and miserable and confused and a little bit like you don't know what you're doing, if you could grind out really good legal work and, by the way, get rewarded for that with a billable hour? And we know that law firms reward billable hours often to the detriment of business development, because it's not getting billed to the client.

Shannon Lombardo: I also feel like and this is slowly changing, but I feel like business development also, the idea of it comes with this stigma. It feels icky for a lot of people. It feels very salesy. So you're right, just the general idea of putting yourself in a place of being uncomfortable and really flexing a muscle that isn't natural to you. It's definitely a barrier to business development.

Elise Holtzman: There's also the long-term nature of it, right? If I bill an hour, or if I work for an hour, I get a billable hour. If I work for an hour, I can create a document, or part of a document, or have a phone call. I can move the needle forward somehow and I can see a result. And many lawyers and you and I talked about this, that I work with personality tools in the law, and lawyers show up in very predictable ways, not all of them, obviously, but many of them. I can get a concrete result and I can get it pretty quickly. Business development is one of those things that takes time to bear fruit. And I think that can be frustrating for lawyers as well.

Shannon Lombardo: For sure. And I think oftentimes law firms make the mistake of they build these internal training programs and the intention is there, right? But they bring in those conversations, those trainings, these attorneys that are at a level where they've been practicing business development for decades upon decades and they have this like natural gift, a connection, which we all don't have. So they're bringing in kind of these like white whale examples, right, of these attorneys that there's a mix of luck and really big practice and they've seen huge results. And I think that's often really overwhelming and has the opposite effect. It introduces so many stressors. So I think that's a mistake a lot of law firms make in bringing in these textbook examples too early in the training process.

Elise Holtzman: Right. You've got a mid-level associate or senior associate. You're trying to get them excited about the idea of contributing to the growth of the firm. And then you bring in somebody who's been doing this for 35 years, has millions of dollars in business and makes it look easy. I think you're right. It's a detriment, because that young lawyer looks at that person and says, obviously, I can't do that. And so I'm going to go back to my desk and I'm just going to keep grinding out really good work. And, you know, that's not me. Or they bring in a couple of people who have done it in a certain way where maybe they're the bright, shiny object or the loudest person in the room. They're super gregarious. And you've got a more introverted attorney. And by the way, more attorneys are introverted than aren't who says, oh, my gosh, like I hate these big events and I'm not going to go get on stages with 250 people in the room. And so, yeah, they wind up driving them away when what their original intent was to do was to motivate them. So that's a really, really good point. As a fairly sizable firm, you have internal support for lawyers. You have all kinds of programs you can do. You can do coaching, group coaching, one-on-one coaching. There are all the different sorts of things that you can do. But you have limited resources, like any firm. How do you assess a lawyer's readiness for business development, coaching, or other support? And then how do you decide what level of investment makes sense? Because it would be really nice for, listen, I'm the first person to say, wouldn't it be nice if every lawyer could have individual coaching on business development? Because I think it can be so powerful, but we know that's not a possibility. So how do you know whether a lawyer's ready? And then how do you decide how much investment you're making in them?

Shannon Lombardo: It's a great question. I mean, I think it has to come from the lawyer. The lawyer has to want it. They need to be driving the desire to be more intentional and strategic, when it comes to business development. Unfortunately, I've seen it, I know peers at other law firms have seen it as well, you may have also. Sometimes firm leadership, if they're having some challenges with an attorney and those challenges often are performance related, or professional development related, the easiest route is to go to business development and tell business development, hey, fix this. Fix this attorney. And that doesn't work. It very rarely works, right? It's not, business development isn't the root of that attorney's challenges. So we have to start somewhere else and then get to business development. So I really think it's important for business development to work and for you to have a real collaborative relationship between attorney and business development. That desire to do business development really has to be driven by the attorney. So I think if an attorney is coming to me, coming to my team, going to firm leadership and saying, I have a desire, I have an interest, I want to really focus on business development. And by the way, I'm dedicated to making the time to focus and grow in this area, those are the attorneys that you want to work with. That shows me that that attorney is ready and willing to put in the work to make this really fruitful for them. So I think that's the primary kind of assessor.

Elise Holtzman: So if I'm hearing you correctly, it's not, they don't have to know how to do it. They don't have to have the whole plan figured out, but if it's not coming from them, if they're not excited about it, if they're not willing to make the investment of time and energy, it's probably not going to be a good fit.

Shannon Lombardo: That's right. And I actually, I love working with the attorneys that don't know how to do it, or don't know where to start. That's the fun part, right? That's the part where I could get creative, our attorneys could get creative and we come together and we could build a plan that's really reflective of that attorney, their strengths, their personality. So I really love getting in there at the start and kind of just working, working through that and talking through the fundamentals and really baking up a plan. I think that's fun and such a cool opportunity.

Elise Holtzman: You're reminding me of an example I know from many, many years ago, where a law firm hired a business development coach, not me, somebody that I know in the industry to do a program with their younger partners. And these younger partners were essentially told voluntold, I guess we could say, that, hey, you're going to be in this business development program and here's what you're going to be doing and here's what you're expected to do. And it kind of backfired spectacularly, because people were not excited about it and they were early enough in their role as partners that some of them were just figuring out what it meant to be a partner. It's a whole new job description. And so to your point, certainly making sure they understand the resources are available, but also making sure that they are coming in with a desire is really important, because this failure cost the firm a lot of money and put a bad taste in the mouth of the partners who felt pushed into doing something that most of them didn't feel ready to do.

Shannon Lombardo: It's so true. I just launched a program yesterday at Saul Ewing and it's more client service focused, less so, you know, pure business development. But I started it with kind of dispelling misconceptions of being invited into the program, one of which was… This is not a punishment. First of all, it was an opt-in program, but this is not a punishment. It is not a reflection of you being in trouble or not doing something correctly. This is really an investment in you. It's our firm showing appreciation and support and investment in your professional development. But I do, it's a great point and it's something that I like to just like front and center discuss, because that's so many attorneys reactions.

Elise Holtzman: It's funny that you say that, because the coaching profession over the years had that sort of problem, which was that people would say, well, why does the firm want me to have coaching? Obviously they think there's something wrong with me. I'm getting punished or they're trying to fix me. And what most people recognize at this stage, coaching has been around for about 25, 30 years now in its present form, is that it's really the firm making an investment in you. And when it comes to business development programming, whatever that may look like, that's really what the business development professionals and leaders of the law firm are looking to do. I know that Saul Ewing's program is called the BD Blueprint and that you combine formal instruction, so here's what business development looks like, individual office hours with the internal BD team, so people are getting individual attention and then an ongoing alumni peer group. Why did you decide to structure the program that way?

Shannon Lombardo: So a few years ago, we looked at our current training curriculum and really turned it on its head, because we felt like we were doing a lot of these one-off programs, but they weren't super effective and there wasn't kind of a through line between the programs. So we reimagined what our training looked like and we created this overarching attorney training continuum that started at, you know, the senior associate level and then grew with them as, as their experience grew and their titles changed and things like that. So this program or BD Blueprint program was a part of that continuum and it was focused on newly minted partners and laterals that joined us within a certain timeframe that kind of were peers of a newly minted partner. We went that route because, one, we think it's so incredibly important at that point in your career, to feel supported and valued within the firm. But we also appreciated that we needed… that audience needed to kind of revisit the foundational pieces of business development. And they also needed a program where they heard the fundamentals and there was an opportunity to really connect those fundamentals and apply them to their particular business plan, or practice, or professional goals, which are really where those office hours come in. We also think such a valuable piece of these training programs is the curated kind of cohort, a little internal network that we create for these attorneys. I think in this post-COVID world, there's less and less opportunities to really find a circle within a law firm, across practice, across office, that you could really be candid with, that you could seek second opinions, you could talk through challenges, you could be vulnerable with. So, all of those elements kind of working together have made this program super effective. And then the alumni piece is so important, because we don't want any of our programs to feel like a one and done, right? You went through the program, checking the box onto your day to day. We want to continue that momentum post program. We want to enable you the ability to continue those relationships, those internal relationships with your cohort so that business development is still staying, or remaining a fundamental part of your day.

Elise Holtzman: Shannon, you unknowingly stumbled into one of my soapbox issues, when it comes to business development for lawyers, which is that many law firms are doing these one-off programs. It's like, well, in 2024, we did a business development program and we just don't understand why, you know, we had a half a day program and we just don't understand why everybody isn't suddenly bringing in all this business. I actually had a law firm say to me, well, we don't really need business development programming, we've done that before. And I said, oh, that's fantastic, when was the last time you worked on business development programming? And the managing partner said to me, well, we had someone come in and talk about it eight years ago. So, you know, you can't make this stuff up, right? So what you're talking about is what I think is the best combination, which is a combination of content, right, which is your training program. Coaching, which is your office hours and community, right, which you've talked about both, in the program and then with an alumni peer group. When you combine all of those things and there's kind of a rinse and repeat, it's not just a, oh, I heard this once. I mean, nobody learns that way. You don't learn anything that way. And you help people implement, right, you give them the content. So now they say, okay, I get the principles of business development. I sort of understand what this looks like, but what does this look like for me? How am I doing this differently than the person down the hall? As you mentioned before, right? Just parading people out and saying, hey, this worked for Jim or Susie is not going to move the needle. But if you have individual attention, they can figure out how it works right with them. And then being able to talk to other people about it. What's working for you? What's working for me? What's not working? What am I frustrated about? So it sounds like it's a really robust program. When you did the individual programs, a session, a seminar, let's say, what did you find happened after that?

Shannon Lombardo: Unfortunately, not much. I mean, you have those outliers. Kind of going back to what we discussed earlier, we had those attorneys that really, they were excited about business development and they were at a place in their career, where they felt like they could dedicate time to business development. So that one-off program kind of served as like catalyst for them individually. So you always have… hopefully, you always have those one or two attorneys that are just ready and that program helps push them in that direction. But for the most part, you know, they're there to do the program and to tell firm leadership that I participated. I was there. And then it's kind of nothing.

Elise Holtzman: I think it's human nature to go to a program and think, wow, this was fun, this was interesting and then to go back to your desk and kind of do the same thing you've always done, because you're busy. And again, we talked about this, people are, lawyers are driven by the billable hour, understandably so. I think it was SHRM, the Society for Human Resources Management, that years ago did some research on this and found that people forget something like 96% of what they learned in a seminar within 24 or 48 hours, which as somebody who designs and delivers programs, is a little bit depressing. But that's why I agree with you that having the follow-up coaching, or additional seminars, or workshops, or group coaching sessions, or whatever it may be is so important, because we know we know that's human nature. And then when you add the billable hour into it, it's even harder.

Shannon Lombardo: Right.

Elise Holtzman: When you look across things like individual coaching, group coaching, office hours, peer groups, even maybe accountability partners having two lawyers pair up to keep each other accountable, do you have opinions about which of those things actually move the needle, or does it just depend on the lawyer?

Shannon Lombardo: I think it largely depends on the lawyer, but I do like training programs, like BD Blueprint that incorporate a little bit of everything, because I do think every person obviously is unique. Everyone has different personalities and different approaches are more effective with different people. And often, there's more than one approach that works for people. And I also appreciate that there is a magic to pushing someone just a little bit beyond their comfort zone, right? Not anything dramatic, but pushing them in a certain direction and seeing if it works. I think is helpful. So I think if you kind of approach business development in one way, it could certainly be effective. But if you introduce different formats, it might get you farther quicker.

Elise Holtzman: I recently had a partner at a law firm tell me that she wasn't going to ever be able to do any speaking engagements, because the idea filled her with tremendous anxiety. And this is somebody who is a partner at a law firm, she's very well respected, she does fantastic work. I take that philosophy as well, so I started trying to dig into it a little bit. I think you can't just take it as face value, because you might understandably say, oh, you know, she doesn't want to do this, so I'm never gonna discuss it with her again. Whereas I think that if you can explore a little bit, you might find something she's comfortable with. So I started asking some questions and one of the questions was, what if you were on a panel, right? So it's a 45 minute panel, there's a moderator and there are three panelists and you only have to share a couple of thoughts. Is that something that you might be open to? And she grudgingly agreed that that's something she might be open to. So, you know, to your point, we're able to get lawyers sometimes to step that toe outside of their comfort zone. And as you say, not, you know, do the equivalent of having them jump off a bridge with a bungee cord attached to their ankle, right? We're not trying to scare anybody or, you know, dissuade anybody from doing business development, but sometimes we can't necessarily believe the stories that they're telling themselves.

Shannon Lombardo: Yeah. Business development, it's really, it's so much about psychology when you think about it. Like the fundamentals of business development, it's not rocket science. Like it's very obvious, just general like relationship building, right? It's nothing out of the norm. It's all about attorneys, people, I don't even want to say attorneys, people, not being necessarily confident, which is, which is so crazy, because you see these attorneys, there's so many attorneys at my firm that I look at them and engage with them. And I'm like, you are so incredibly impressive. You're so successful. You're so well spoken. You're a great writer. And then you talk to them and you're like, wow, I mean, they don't see this. They don't see this in them. And they're so self-conscious. And that kind of translates to an uncomfortability with business development, or relationship management, or really just putting themselves out there. It really is, it's like peeling it back and seeing what the root of that issue is. And very rarely is it a fundamental business development issue, it's altogether something else.

Elise Holtzman: I think that's such an important message for law firm leaders to hear, because they sometimes get so frustrated. Like, why isn't so-and-so bringing in business? Why aren't they just doing it? And the managing partner I mentioned who said we did the business development training eight years ago said something along those lines. Like, it's not rocket scientists. They just need to call their top contacts and get out there and get business. But to your point, it's not that simple. We're people. These are human beings. And they didn't go to law school, because they wanted to become salespeople. If they wanted to become salespeople, they would have gone and sold something. They went to law school instead. And in many ways, they're intellectuals and they're deep thinkers. And this stuff doesn't necessarily feel natural to all of them. You're at a firm with an internal business development team, obviously, what can and should the internal business development team own, when it comes to lawyers following through on their intentions? And then what has to be the lawyer's own responsibility?

Shannon Lombardo: A lot of it is on the attorney. I think we in the business development role, as a coach, I believe your role is to listen and to provide feedback and talk things through and really focus the attorney and with, in collaboration with the attorney, create that roadmap. I think, you know, the actual doing part of it, the action part of it, that has to be on the attorney. There's only so much you could do beyond, I often, my team will meet with an attorney post-meeting, we'll recap, we'll outline, you know, the two or three agreed upon actions that the attorney has committed to, perhaps we’ll remind the attorney, like in advance of a future coaching session, by the way, you committed to doing these things. But beyond that, the attorney has to want it. They have to want to do it. I'm not, nor is my team, I'm not encouraging them to chase an attorney, to push an attorney. Again, that's on them to push it forward.

Elise Holtzman: As you were talking, an attorney that I've worked with popped into mind. One of the things she does is she surfaces when a matter has closed, a case has wrapped up, it's settled and she gets panicky that there's no business coming in. And she and I have talked over the years about staying consistent. She's one of the folks that has trouble doing that. What do you think about the consistency issue and how do you help lawyers stay consistent? So even if they are interested in it, even if they're taking some action, how do you get them to keep at it?

Shannon Lombardo: In our role in-house at a law firm doing business development, I think the best way that we could help with the consistency piece is holding our attorneys accountable. So I've heard time and time again that some of the greatest value we could provide our attorneys is they always say like, Shannon, if we're meeting monthly, I know that I have to come to the next meeting and provide you with an update, right? And that sounds fundamental. It doesn't feel strategic for us in business development necessarily, but we're serving in such a great role, because, as we said before, attorneys are so busy. They have so much going on that if they know that they're not going to see you for three, four months, then they're going to push that thing down the line for three or four months. But if they know they're going to see me every month and they have to look me in the eye, either in person, or on Zoom and report back, they're going to do it, they're going to have that push. So I think in terms of us and our role, the best thing that we could do to encourage consistency is just keeping our attorneys accountable. I also think, to your point of that attorney and we've all had those attorneys, right, that go dark when they're busy and then when that matter ends, they're the first person, you know, giving you a call. And I think instilling in our business development training or coaching the fact that if we keep business development consistent and top of mind, you won't have those walls, right? Let's not get to the point where you aren't busy to start thinking about business development. Let's incorporate it into our day-to-day so that those lulls either don't exist, or they're fewer and far between.

Elise Holtzman: And that they don't have to be taking huge action. They could be taking small incremental action over time and that still keeps you top of mind with clients and prospects. It helps you maintain those relationships, gives you the opportunity to grow your visibility here and there. It's not like you have to be writing an article a week. Right. If you did a few things a year that were very strategic and very targeted, that's really powerful stuff. So it doesn't have to be… it doesn't have to be a huge action all the time, but dropping the ball for a year and then expecting to jump back into it and have something happen right away, is not realistic.

Shannon Lombardo: Right. Absolutely.

Elise Holtzman: Shannon, as we wrap up our time together today, I'm going to ask you a question that I ask all of my guests at the end of the show. There's a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge, where experts sometimes forget that what is so obvious and natural to them, is not at all obvious to others. When it comes to helping lawyers follow through on business development, or a lawyer helping herself follow through on business development, what's a principle or piece of advice that may seem obvious to you but is really important for other people to hear?

Shannon Lombardo: My biggest piece of advice and sometimes it's something that I have to remind myself of time and time again, is if you're coaching an attorney and they're not following through, they're not engaging with you, they're not being consistent, they're canceling meetings, or coming late, that's not necessarily a reflection of your ability as a business development manager, or director, or your capability to to help an attorney, they have to want it. That's usually, their disengagement is usually a reflection of them. Coaching is a very personal experience. And I think when you're coaching someone and it's not going in the direction that you had hoped, you take that on yourself that you're doing something wrong, or that you could do better. And I think sometimes you just have to appreciate that that attorney isn't ready. They're not invested and that's not because of you, that's because of them.

Elise Holtzman: I also think that for any individual attorney, this is a good thing to think about. If you find that you're canceling, you're not showing up, you're giving it short shrift, you're putting it on the back burner, whatever metaphor you want to use, what's going on? Because it's probably not so much about, oh, I just need to do business development. And it's, you know, when people say, I don't have time, even that to me, yes, you're really busy, but everybody has the same 24 seven you do. So what are you prioritizing and why? So taking that advice that you have for coaches, internal coaches and business development professionals and then turning that to the attorney and saying, do an examination of yourself, what's really going on? And if you can admit to your coach, you know what, I'm nervous about this. I'm uncomfortable about this. I feel like I don't know how to do it. I'm afraid my hours are low this year and if I spend any time on business development, I'm not going to get my bonus. So I think that people being honest about what's really going on, to your point, it's not about the business development. Like you said that earlier, it's usually about something else. What is that and figuring that out. But to your point about the business development professionals, it's amazing to me, because you and I met through the Legal Marketing Association and we've both been involved with it for many, many years. The level of expertise among marketing and business development professionals is absolutely remarkable. And I'm going to take this moment to give a plug to the folks who do the kind of work that you do, because oftentimes lawyers do get so busy that they don't explore what the firm has for them. They don't explore what these folks have, in terms of expertise, experience, their own fire in the belly to help you succeed. So, you know, it's good advice all around. It's not just about business development. It's about the person and what's going on in the person's life. And that's something that we don't pay too much attention to. And, you know, if you read article, you know, quick articles online and blog posts, it all seems so simple, but it's not, because we're people.

Shannon Lombardo: Absolutely.

Elise Holtzman: So Shannon, this has been such a great conversation near and dear to my heart, of course. So thank you so much for being here with me today. I appreciate it.

Shannon Lombardo: Of course. Of course. Thank you for having me.

I'm going to thank our listeners for tuning in as well. If you've enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen.

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