John Reed Talks About Building Meaningful Business Relationships on the Unpacked Blog

Mailbutler Stories features interviews with influencers and entrepreneurs in various industries. Our John Reed recently spoke with Unpacked Blog contributor Tiffany Schwarz. Here are excerpts:

Tiffany: You have a diverse background composed of knowledge on law, marketing, and sales. Why did you decide to focus on such different topics? And what do they have in common? 

John: I’d like to say my entire career was carefully planned, but that would be stretching the truth. After college, I worked for an international advertising agency and later decided to attend law school. That was the first big change. Then, after practicing law for a few years, I went into the legal staffing and recruiting industry – the second big change. I then pivoted by joining the leader in legal information and publishing, first as a sales representative, then as a manager, and later a consultant to large law firms, helping them with their research and information needs. But the biggest change happened when I launched Rain BDM. We just celebrated our tenth anniversary – I can’t believe how fast it’s been!

Tiffany: Your main goal is to help your clients distinguish themselves from the competition in the legal marketplace. What is your secret to achieving it? 

John: The secret is relationships. In law firms and other businesses, clients want to work with people they like and trust. Marketing consists of tactics and activities to initiate connections, to help attorneys and clients have that first conversation. Business development is the series of conversations that follows. We help lawyers become proficient in relationship building.

It’s kind of funny. Lawyers generally dislike the idea of sales and selling. But when you recharacterize it as business development and building relationships, they warm up to it. What distinguishes us from our competition is that we don’t have a templated, cookie-cutter approach to training and coaching. Every person is different with a unique personality and law practice, and we tailor each engagement to the individual. By building trust with them, we show them how to build trust with others.

Tiffany: Now after years of experience, would you change something about how you set up your own business?

John: If I could change one thing about the evolution of Rain BDM, I would have embraced corporate social responsibility sooner – for both our company and our clients. Legal services, in particular, are often seen as commodity services. While relationship building is essential for successful business development, being a good corporate citizen and helping communities in which we live and work are powerful components to a strategic marketing plan.

In 2019, we created “Show Cause,” Rain BDM’s own social engagement program. We give each team member the opportunity to select a charity or non-profit whose mission is close to their heart and then donate money (and volunteering time, if possible). Show Cause not only helps worthy organizations to help others, but it has been one more way to bring our remote team together.

You can read the full interview on the Unpacked, Mailbutler’s Productivity & Email Blog.

(Disclaimer: Rain BDM is a user of the Mailbutler email productivity tool).