Client coverage is a learned skill, not an innate talent, that requires strategic thinking, genuine empathy, and a commitment to putting the client's interests first.
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covering
clients is a learned skill it is not an
innate skill and I remember when I was
in your shoes I was worried when I
started at Goldman Sachs that when I
looked at the people who are really good
at covering clients and really good at
bringing in client's the so-called rain
makers I was worried that maybe they're
just born that way maybe they were just
natural born salesman and sales women
I found was that wasn't the case I have
found over the years and early on
actually that these are skills that you
can learn if you're willing to learn
them and what you should do is you
should find somebody at the firm in
which you work whether it's a consulting
firm a law firm and investment bank
accounting firm whatever it is find
somebody who's really good at bringing
in business at covering clients and
learn as much as you can from that
person be an open book put your ego
aside and learn as much as you can I was
fortunate and that I found something
like that at Goldman Sachs and for the
first two years I did everything I could
to observe this person to be with him I
worked on every transaction I could with
him I carried his bags around it made
Xeroxes fun I did whatever I could to
help them and I said I just really want
to learn from you and I would watch him
sometimes in meetings and he would do
things that I thought were wrong or I
didn't make sense to me but I put my ego
aside I said there's got to be a reason
why he's doing this and as
time went on I realized there was in
every case and I started using the same the
the
same strategies with prospective clients
and clients and they worked and so to
this day a good portion of what I do
with clients a good portion of the
skills a good portion of the strategies
that I use with clients came from this
this man and the rest is you know things
that I added on
my own over the years so find somebody
was really good flattered the person say
that to the look you're really good I
want to learn from you is it okay if I
just sit in on meetings with you is that
okay if I work with you on some transact
I'll do anything I'll make coffee for
you or get lunch or or Xerox or whatever
it takes and then be an open book put
your ego aside approach it from the
perspective of a clean slate and learn
because you can learn these skills they
are not innate they are learned skills
so first piece of advice the second
piece of advice I would give to you is
the most common mistake that client
coverage people make when they cover
clients is that they
don't become strategic advisors to their
clients so what
I mean by that they don't take the
opportunity while they're working with
the client they do not take the
opportunity to start
to advise the client on matters outside
of the matter that they've been hired to
work on so let me give you an example
it's best to illustrate this piece of
advice by giving an example from from my
world so if you were a merger banker so
a merger banker is someone who's been
hired by a company to help them go
through a merger let's say to buy
another company so let's say you're a
merger banker you've been hired by
company a to buy Company B your clients
company a you're gonna spend a ton of
time with a CEO over six months to a
year period working on that deal you
were gonna spend all nighters of the CEO
you're gonna be sequestered to
conference rooms you're gonna get to
know that CEO extremely well and you're
gonna build hopefully a very good
relationship with them most bankers do
that and they do a good job on that
merger transaction and then the
transaction comes to a close they have a
nice dinner they raise a glass closing
dinner they'll toast the CEO deal closes
and then they go away
and then five years later there's
another merger mandate company a is
gonna buy Company C and the banker calls
up to see you and says hey remember me
we spent all that time together I did
such a good job I see us or like no get
in line we're gonna have a bake-off
there's five firms coming in you can be
one of the five you know we may hire you
we may not the relationship is gone
because what the banker did was they
didn't take the opportunity while they
were intimate with a client to become a
strategic adviser to comply what I would
do is I would start to engage that
merger client on other matters I would
say to the client while we're working on
the merger transaction say you know I
know a large portion of your revenues
come from Japan you know two billion
dollars of your revenues come from Japan
the Japanese government has said that
they are going to devalue their currency
so that money that's coming into you in
the form of yen is probably going to
decrease in value have you ever thought
about maybe hedging your exposure
against the N because if it goes down by
10 percent you lose two billion two
hundred million dollars on that two
billion dollars of revenue that's
interesting point Jim why don't I put
together the currency hedging team and
we'll have a discussion with you about
what other clients have done it found
helpful about hedging currency exposure
overseas I might engage the client on Dancing
Dancing
mandate have you noticed that your
competitors are raising financing in the
debt markets right now because interest
rates are slow so low and it's very
cheap rather than using equity financing
why don't we have you ever thought about
using debt financing kind of put
together the debt financing team we
could have a discussion about that and
then I'm not just a merger banker I'm a
merger banker I'm a currency hedging
expert I'm a capital markets banker and
over the course of the six months that
I'm intimate with a CEO my job is to
become in everything banker to them
right starts advising them on as much as
possible and over the course of the
relationship if I do a good job I'm not
even just a financial advice on
everything advice if they hurt their
knee they're calling me up and saying hey
hey
good doctors you might recommend to fix
my knee that's ideal well you know my
daughter's applying a cop where do you
think she should go you know that's
that's becoming a strategic adviser to
your client lawyers make this mistake
bankers make this mistake accountants
consultants make this take time in and
time out I cannot tell how often I see
it so if you're a lawyer working on an
antitrust matter do a great job on that
antitrust matter but use the opportunity
while you're with the client to start to
engage them on other things what their
competitors are doing have you thought
about me
structuring this transaction different
leads who minimize tax impact can we
bring in our tax folks to talk to you
about that use
that opportunity to build relations
very helpful for three reasons one you
give the client better advice the more
you know about the client you become a
better adviser so the more stuff you're
doing for the client the more you know
the better advice you can give them
because it's all intertwined if you're
working on a merger mandate it's going
to affect the ability to raise financing
or hedge their currency or whatever it
might be so you're gonna be able to give
them better holistic advice the more you
know secondly you box out the
competition so in my case when that's
when the CEO get the RAM of thinking
about whether they should hedge their
currency they're not having a bake-off
and I'll bring it in ten currency
hedging firms to help them know they're
like no Jim's doing that for me because
he's doing everything for me including
helping me find a doctor to fix my knee
right so you box out the competition no
one can get in and then thirdly is you
smooth out the cyclicality of these
different practice areas that you might
find yourself in if you're a merger
banker or merger lawyer you
know it's very exciting to be a merger
banker right now or an M&A lawyer
because interest rates are very low
money is cheap there's a lot of activity
going on guess what it doesn't stay that
way right you feast or you starve and
people are feasting right now in that
area they're starving in other areas if
you're in everything there everything
Bank or everything Lord you acquired you
smooth out cyclicality
of those those individual business
segments so when mergers are dead and
interest rates are high you're working
on maybe
some bankruptcy work maybe you're
working on more hedging work maybe
you're working on financing work because
financing becomes much more nuanced when
you have high interest rates etc so
secondly become a strategic adviser to
your clients don't make the mistake that
most people make which is work really
hard on the mandate they have do a great
job when the mandate is over you leave
the relationship and then it decays over
time and you don't have a relationship
after a little while don't make that
mistake third
piece of advice is to listen and ask
open-ended questions the most important
quality and covering clients effectively
is empathy the ability to put yourself
in someone else's shoes so how do you
achieve empathy how do you become
empathetic you ask a lot of questions
and ask open-ended questions so
questions that don't lend themselves to
yes/no answers so you don't say you know
is it sunny outside now you say how do
you like the weather outside and
you'll get the client to talk more the
more the client talks the more you learn
believe it or not the better they feel I
give a talk on interviewing here every
once in a while and Kevin asked me to do
it and the best interview you can have
with a sorry with a prospective employer
is an interview where they're talking
like 95% of the time and
you walk out of the room and they're
like gee you know Sarah's
an awesome candidate I don't know
anything about her but she's awesome and
it's what they spent the whole time
talking about what they care most about themselves
themselves
right because you got them to talk about
themselves the whole time so ask lots of questions
questions
make them open-ended questions and
listen very very well third piece of
advice fourth piece of advice is be
creative true
story is I I covered two CEOs they were
independent of each other from different
countries didn't know each other at
different industries and they both had
the same nickname for their lawyer the
nickname for their lawyer was doctor no
and oh and the reason they called their
lawyer doctor no as they felt like every
time they went to their lawyer their
lawyer told him why they couldn't do
something that they were trying to do
and by the way that's often the right
advice like you don't want to get your
clients in trouble you don't want to
tell them they should do things that
they shouldn't that's fine say no give
them honest advice that's good advice
but don't stop there come up with an
alternative come up with a creative way
where they could accomplish what they
were trying to accomplish or if it's not
possible or something else even if you
don't think they might want to at least
it looks like you're trying so don't be
a doctor no that's the fourth piece of
piece of advice is put the client first
now a lot of people say that a lot of
people talk about that what does it
really mean it
really means two things in my opinion
the first thing is be prepared to give
the client advice that is not in your
interest there's no better way to
establish credibility with a client than
to give them advice that is not in your
interest so in my world if we're
advising an example I used if you're
advising company a to buy by company B
we really only get paid if the
transaction goes through right people
who take my Corbitt strategy class know
that oftentimes it's not the right
decision for company a to buy company B
in fact more often than not it's not the
right decision so if you go to company
eight your client and you say you know
what you
shouldn't do this deal as a lawyer
you're gonna get paid more the longer
the deal goes on right all the way
through consummation you get paid by the
hour you shouldn't do this deal it's a
mess if you're overpaying they're hidden
whatever it is you will establish an
enormous amount of credibility longer
term because the client knows that's not
your interest - given that advice you're
gonna get paid less you're gonna stop
getting paid that day if they listen to
you advocate hard for positions
regardless of what is in your interest
in fact it's even better to put yourself
longer-term better for the relationship
to put yourself in a position where
you're advocating for position that is
against your interest so put the client
first that's the first aspect of putting
the client first the second aspect is
one that's probably less popular for all
of you to hear but you need to work
really hard and to convince the client
that you're there for them all the time
now a lot of people talk about work-life
a fan of work-life balance right I
didn't have a lot of it when I started
at my firm until I made partner and even
for a period of time after that but it's
not a bad thing to have work-life
balance it's a good thing but it's also
a very competitive world and if
you're not there for the client on the
thing that he's hired or she's hired you
to do which is very important to them
somebody else is gonna be there for them
and there's plenty of people willing to
pick up the phone at 2:00 or 3:00 in the
morning if you're not so you have to
work hard I think it work life balance
more longer-term than shorter term so I
don't achieve work-life balance on a
given day maybe not in a given week
although I'm senior enough that I try
and have work-life balance on a weekly
basis but at
your stage of your career when you're
just starting out think about it in
terms of maybe monthly work-life balance
or yearly or until you make partner
whatever it is you can you can think
about it in different ways with
different different periods of time
but you've got a you've got to convey to
the client that they are the most
important thing in the world to you
which means you want to respond as
quickly as possible what I tell people
when I started at Goldman Sachs through
the first ten years I was at the firm is
I would say to clients look you can
leave me a voicemail any time unless I'm
dead or asleep I check it every 10
seconds and that
resonated with people and by the way
some people would try to test me on that
and I always did so you and I don't
sleep very long either so you know
they're getting a lot of responses back
from me so you got to do that that's not
a popular meet correct thing to say but
it is important to have a work/life
balance have maybe a longer-term
perspective on that but you got to be
there for the client when they need you
because you're hot being hard to work
it's something really important to them number
number
six this may sound obvious the most
obvious piece of advice I've given but
be upbeat I cannot tell how important it
is to be upbeat so if your life is a
mess don't tell the client that right
don't let the client know that if you're
just if you're having a bad day or a bad
week or a bad year don't let the client
know that don't share that stuff with a
client you may be tempted to particular
if you get close to a client that or not
to better upbeat because it's contagious
people want to be around happy upbeat
people right so be upbeat be happy you
know if things aren't going well pick
yourself up go in they're going on a
happy face for the period of time you're
interacting with your client very
important to be upbeat it's contagious being
being
down is also contagious you don't want
to you don't want to be down when you're
meeting with clients last piece of
advice is for all of you this is a
unique piece of advice is take classes
in the law and business section here at
UVA you have a unique opportunity you have
have
present company excepted outstanding
faculty who teach classes that are
business oriented and the reason why you
want to take these classes is there are
there is twofold there are two reasons
the first reason is that you understand
business you understand your peers in
business why they make the decisions
they make how they were educated what
motivates them how their companies work
it'll make you a better lawyer or
consulting or banker or whatever it is
that you're going to be the second
reason which I tell my students often
which is a goal in my class a goal that
I put out front is it will demystify the
jargon and the language of the business
world the world that I operate in like
the world that you operate in if you're
in law school is mystified in language
right if you speak in terms that many
people don't understand story decisis
res judicata so if you're not a war you
can go to law school you're like oh my
gosh you know what this stuff mean
reality is it's not complicated right
it's just jargon the same is true in the
business world we speak in terms of
capital asset pricing model discounted
cash flow analysis comparable merger
analysis where do you want to call it
this concepts behind those terms are
easy but if you're not familiar with
them and you start covering a client or
you're in a boardroom and they start
whip around these terms they're speaking
a foreign language and you're out of the
conversation yeah you're gonna feel
pretty intimidated I can't how many
times I've seen lawyers shut down
because they don't understand the
language it's like they're speaking a
foreign language that they can't
understand if you take classes in the
law business section here it will help
demystify decloak some of the some of
those if not most of those expressions
most of that jargon gets
used in the classroom and you become
fluent in it at least conversant in it
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