Jane Allen on Solving Problems – Time To Get Great At Business Development

Mo asks Jane Allen: Tell me of the moment where you realized you wanted to focus on business development.

• Jane originally went to law school because she had read Death of a Salesman in college, and she didn’t want to end up like Willy Loman. It turned out that to be a successful lawyer, you had to be a really good Willy Loman.
• Jane loved working with clients to solve their problems, and when you do that, they want you to solve more problems. Her natural approach of getting to know her clients in order to solve their problems made her realize that she loves the relationship building aspect of the business.
• There are a lot of women leaving the profession of being a lawyer. Prior to launching Counsel on Call Jane started looking for women who were exiting the industry to help her solve client problems in a different way.
• The business became a hybrid solution for meeting a need in the marketplace as well as the lawyers that serviced clients.
• Jane had three children in three years while also working as a lawyer full time. She was never the person that went to networking events, but she did have the advantage of working with very well-respected partners.
• Jane started her business by dialing for dollars out of the Nashville Bar Association book. She committed to making ten phone calls each day, started tracking her metrics, and landing meetings.
• Many said no, but most people said yes and the momentum started to snowball.
• When it comes to extremely technical professions, many people struggle with asking for help. Jane’s approach was the reverse, and focused specifically on asking for help in creating a company that would change her prospect’s business for the better.
• As an entrepreneur trying to solve a problem, Jane needed the voices of people in the industry to understand that a problem really existed and what the possible solution would be.
• To start off, Jane began with one lawyer and one law firm, and after the first few years the company had three offices helping lawyers practice in a way they couldn’t before. By the time Jane sold the company, there were 1,200 lawyers on the team.
• Jane recalls the story of how she helped one lawyer in particular in a relatively minor way, and how her advice allowed his career to flourish, simply by being willing to help.

Mentioned in this Episode:

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jane.allen@ec.co