The Daily Habits of Successful Rainmakers: Chapter 21 (Audio + Text)

Chapter 21: The Daily Habits of Successful Rainmakers

The One Hour Each Day That Will Build Your Career

 

We’ve covered a lot of ground since beginning this quest together. The five

rainmaker skills include a broad range of interconnected fields including human

psychology, consumer behavior, marketing strategy, and behavioral economics,

each illustrated through stories from those who have walked this path before us.

We have weaved into our journey a bit of history and philosophy to bring color to

our landscape.

 

Each of the skills we’ve covered thus far is important to our success in becoming rainmakers:

 

• Skill One: Create Your Personal Brand Identity
• Skill Two: Demonstrate Your Professional Expertise
• Skill Three: Build Your Professional Ecosystem
• Skill Four: Develop Trust-Based Relationships

 

The fifth and final skill, practice everyday success habits, may be the most important.

Without applying these skills in our daily lives, it’s just theory – nice to know,

for sure, but having little impact on our careers. The first four skills are about what

to do; the final skill is about actually doing it. This is what sets the rainmakers apart

from the rest of the pack.

 

This reminds me of a quote I read early in my career, in a 1989 issue of

Harvard Business Review:

 

Ideas alone are not good enough. Ideas are not deeds. Ideas are rarely converted

into action unless proselytized with zeal, carried with passion, sustained by

conviction, and fortified by faith. They need authentic champions. Above all,

ideas need people who are doers, not just talkers.

 

Practicing the rainmaker skills is hard because they are not the most urgent

priorities of our day. Daily life sets in and we get busy doing our work. Urgent tasks

squeeze out the important.

 

The other complicating factor is that most of us want to practice our craft, not

market ourselves. We’ve studied and worked hard for years to become successful

accountants, architects, financial planners, and organization designers. Our natural

default is to focus on the work at hand.

 

Most of us enjoy our work; it challenges us and we get to solve important

world problems. And we get paid pretty well in doing so. But the hard reality is that

in order to make partner or succeed in our own firms, we have to learn how to win

client business. If we don’t, our careers will stall out mid-career – we’ll get pushed

to the curb or into a dusty back-office cubicle.

 

Most of us were never taught how to win client business. We received no

formal training from our universities in how to become a rainmaker. Nor did we

receive much effective mentoring, because successful partners have a hard time in

explaining to others what they do and why they do it. And when rainmakers do

offer us advice, what worked for them may not be the best approach for us.

 

To help us learn how to win client business, we’ve had to overcome several

preexisting mindsets. We had to unlearn preconceived thoughts on what a rainmaker

is in order to become one.

 

Mindset Shift One: Seeing ourselves as problem-solvers instead of

salespeople

Mindset Shift Two: Viewing our professional accomplishments as credibility

markers rather than bragging

Mindset Shift Three: Thinking of our professional network as authentic

relationships rather than names in a database

Mindset Shift Four: Using our professional ecosystem to make new

friends is highly appropriate when it’s based upon a genuine desire to

help others

 

Armed with these new skills and mindsets, we now arrive at the hardest part:

putting these together into practice.