Update Your Networking Style

L.M. Sixel of the Houston Chronicle wrote a very interesting article over the weekend about the importance of attorneys' chief marketing tool: networking. How to do it in a shrinking economy with increasing demands for time? It takes more than shaking hands and collecting business cards, it takes developing relationships over time.

Sixel details some tips learned form Ari Kaplan, who wrote the book; The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development.

• Make a list of people you want to meet and then find a way to interview them.
• Interview that person and share that recording via Internet tools such as video email, podcasting, posting to your blog or your website.
• Add contacts to your Google alert so you will get an email each time that person is quoted, promoted or won a case. Then you can send them an email further strengthening the relationship.