Navigating The Business Lunch As A Woman Lawyer

Cecilia Poullain shares expert insights on how women lawyers can effectively navigate business lunches, build confidence, and position themselves for long-term success in law firms.

You can download the free guide on How to Make Partner in a Law Firm on  www.ceciliapoullain.com/free-guide

Key Topics:

• Effective business lunch strategies
• Confidence and competence in client interactions
• Building credibility and thought leadership
• Reciprocity and relationship deepening

Transcript

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My name is Cecilia Poulain. Welcome to the Pathway to Partnership Podcast, where we talk about what it really takes to succeed as a woman lawyer in a law firm. When I was working at the Dixit Sasset Management, there was a lawyer who invited us to lunch and he said to us, We're sharks. Feed us. I found that completely ridiculous and it turned me right off wanting to work for him. Welcome to the Pathway to Partnership Podcast. My name is Cecilia Poulain. I'm a recovering finance lawyer, I coach, and someone who thinks far too much about what it takes for women to succeed in law firms. That's what this podcast is all about. It's not just about making partner, but it's doing it in a way that plays to your strengths, keeps you energized, and sets you up for a career that goes the distance 10, 20, 30 years and beyond. We talk about confidence, we talk about client development, we talk about the conversations you've been putting off, and we talk about how to position yourself so that the right people, whether they're partners, clients, or colleagues, see you in the way you want to be seen. Okay, let's dive in. When I was working at Jones Day in Paris, I was so proud of myself for having organized a lunch with previous colleagues. But then my boss said to me, What are we going to talk about? And my initial reaction was, well, we should just listen to what they have to say and respond. But he insisted. And he was absolutely right. We needed to work out what we wanted out of the lunch and how to sell the firm. At business lunches, listening simply isn't enough. You also need to sell. And this is what he has to say about confidence and competence. So this is this is a quote from the book. Confidence has two sides. Although confidence is an internal belief, it also has an external side, which concerns how assertive you seem in the eyes of others. This external side of confidence is the most consequential because it is often mistaken for real confidence. Although both women and men reported feeling confidence, men were much more likely to be rated by other people as appearing confident. Women's self-reports of confidence had no correlation with how others saw their confidence. So there's the distinction between how confident we feel and how confident people think we feel. And the research shows that people are much more likely to think that men feel confident. So there's that, but we also tend to mix up confidence and competence. That hugely charismatic person who walks into the room and everyone thinks, wow, yeah, that's the lawyer for me, they may be or they may not be the best lawyer. Because charisma and confidence has no correlation to competence. So my little digression is really clients beware. Now let's get back to business lunches. When I was working at Natix's Asset Management, there was a lawyer who invited us to lunch and he said, We're sharks. Feed us. And I found that completely ridiculous, and it turned me right off wanting to work with him. So that's an example of what not to do at a business lunch. But if that's what you don't do, what do you do? Well, firstly, the whole relationship doesn't hang on a single lunch. A business lunch should be seen as part of the marketing funnel. There's a before and there's an after. The before is all about knowing how you define and meet your ideal clients. What I call define and draw in my define, draw, deepen model. Meaning who are you looking to meet and how do you draw those ideal clients into your world? Where do you meet them? Where do they hang out? The business lunch corresponds to the last part of my model, which is deepen. It's all about deepening the relationship. Business lunches are just one way of deepening relationships, and you need to be thinking about other opportunities to get the client to know like and trust you, and other ways of staying top of mind so that when they need a lawyer, they immediately think of you. In other words, what's going to happen after the lunch? Will they be on the list for firm events? Will you ask permission to put them on your mailing list for your newsletter? Will you regularly send them interesting articles? There always needs to be a next step. I heard a story recently about a conversation at a firm retreat. Apparently there were a whole bunch of partners sitting around just chatting. And these partners were all women, and there was one man. And then the conversation veered on to topics that were slightly more personal, but it wasn't anything particularly intimate, so they started talking about holidays and children. But even that was too much for the man. He couldn't handle it, so he actually got up and left. Once my father went to play golf with a friend. The friend had just got divorced, and when Dad got home, my mum asked him how his friend was getting on after the divorce. And I remember clearly my father's response, because he said, Well, I don't know really. They simply hadn't talked about it. And for most women I know, this would be unthinkable. The entire conversation would have been about the divorce. But many men simply don't go there. Now this has huge advantages for women because they support each other and are supported emotionally in ways that men often aren't. But the flip side is that they can be less at ease in talking business, which is where many men spend most of their conversational time. And that's what women lawyers are telling me. They tell me that when they meet clients, the conversation quickly veers into small talk, which is a great way to build rapport, but it's not helping them build their credibility as a lawyer. What is talking business? What I hear men talking about is world politics, local politics, current affairs, what's in the news, the stock market, the price of property, all that good stuff. They're actually things that don't interest me very much, which is why I was delighted to leave the world of business and become a coach. My version of talking business is all about asking the right questions so that you understand your client's world and then sharing your relevant expertise. I believe that's more effective than talking about current affairs. Now I'd like to share with you four different angles you can take on a business lunch, and these angles fit more with women's conversational styles. One angle is to think of it as a sales conversation, and you're probably going to go, oh, I don't want to have a sales conversation. That's sleazy, I don't like sales conversations. But that depends what you think a sales conversation is. If a sales conversation is all about listening deeply, asking a lot of questions in order to understand the client's problems, then sharing your relevant experiences, showing that you can solve those problems, or maybe that you can't, then suddenly a sales conversation isn't sleazy at all. I talk a lot more about sales conversations in the episode which is called Sales Conversations Without Fear of Women Lawyers. And you may want to go back and listen to that episode if you'd like to go a little bit deeper. Another angle is to focus on what you want out of the lunch. It's not all about the client. A business lunch is a fantastic opportunity for you to understand the market better, to understand their organization better, to understand your ideal client better. Here are some examples. You might want to know about the big issues facing them in their professional life or facing their organization. You might want to know about how their team, department, or organization is structured, whether there have been any changes, who the decision makers are. You might be looking out for opportunities to cross-sell. So if you're working in finance, for example, you might want to know who the head of HR is and offer to make an introduction to your partner specialized in employment law. You might ask them what their experience with lawyers has been. What do they look for in their lawyers? What's gone wrong or right in the past? You might want to get more information about what's happening on the market generally. In-house lawyers often have access to information about the market and market practices that are actually much harder for external lawyers to access. So the Bism lunch is an opportunity to ask a ton of questions about the market. Potential clients will be thrilled to talk about what's happening for them, and I find that many women are more comfortable asking questions than doing all the talking. That said, you also need to think about the information that you can share with the client and be prepared to share recent work that you've done that showcases your skills. A third way to think of a business lunch is to focus on your position as a thought leader, and perhaps this is the most powerful way of all. When you're writing an article, preparing a speech for a conference, researching a topic, first of all that gives you a reason to reach out. It becomes really easy to say, hey, I'd love to hear your thoughts on X. Could I take you to lunch? You then know exactly what you're going to talk about at the lunch, and it becomes an exchange. You learn from them, which makes your content more relevant, and then they experience you as a specialist who takes their perspective seriously. And after a handful of these conversations, the great thing is you actually are the specialist. And it also gives you a reason to reach out afterwards to let them know how the conference went, to send them an article or whatever it might be. And finally, human beings are built for reciprocity. During lunch, you just want to keep an eye out for any way you can help that person, whether it's professionally, or perhaps even more importantly, personally. So for example, if you're able to put their daughter in contact with someone for a traineeship, or if you if you can suggest a hotel for the next holiday, they won't forget that. Now I want to be clear about this. You want to do that firstly because it's the right thing to do, because they will feel that you're treating them as a real person, which is exactly what you're doing, and because it's just the right thing to help other people. But the second benefit is that because we're all built for reciprocity, if you're able to help them, they're far more likely to help you, whether it's sending business your way or connecting you with others. Okay, let's recap. Four ways to approach your next business lunch. Firstly, treat it as a sales conversation, which means asking a ton of questions and importantly sharing your relevant expertise. Secondly, focusing on what information you would like out of the lunch. Thirdly, use it in order to build your thought leadership and your position as an expert. And finally, looking out for any ways you can be of service because it's the right human thing to do, and because we're all built for reciprocity. So that's it for this episode. Before your next business lunch, could I suggest that you take a few minutes to think about what you would like to get out of the lunch, whether it's information about the client or the organization or the market generally, what relevant experience you have that you might be able to share with the client at the right moment? How the client might be able to help you with particular issues you're thinking about or grappling with. Thank you so much for joining me on the Pathway to Partnership Podcast. I really appreciate it. I hope that this episode has given you more confidence as you walk into your next business lunch. If you found this podcast useful, please subscribe. Please share it with a colleague. Please leave a review so that together we can help more women make it to partnership and thrive when they get there. And if you'd like to stay in touch, head over to www.ceciliapoulin.com. You'll find a free guide which is called How to Make Partner, which lists the six biggest mistakes I see women lawyers making when they're going for partnership. And until next time, remember, you don't have to do this alone. And you get to define success as a woman lawyer on your own terms. Thanks so much for listening.