spotlight: Sheenika Gandhi

stage supports #businessdevelopment from behind the scenes to guide #lawyers to help their clients shine.

today's stage spotlight is on Sheenika Gandhi (Chief Marketing Officer at Greenberg Glusker LLP). Sheenika is a seasoned and strategic legal marketing and business development leader and an active volunteer with the Legal Marketing Association, the leading association for #legalmarketing.

And if that is not enough, Sheenika is also a licensed California attorney with deep expertise in attorney coaching, pitches & proposals, events and sponsorships, digital marketing strategy, and public relations (whew!).

we are pleased to spotlight Sheenika!

"summertime, and the livin' is easy..."

"summertime, and the livin' is easy..." or so the song goes.

summer is a tempting season to let business development blocking and tackling fade to the bottom of your list.

stage loves summer as the perfect time for out-of-the-box entertainment. ideas, or as Jennifer Ramsey would say starter dough:

-walk and talk -- public trail, beach, lake, whatever
-rooftop mocktails / cocktails
-attend an outdoor concert
-send a summer-themed gift. stage loves mouth for gifting
-visit a farmers market and shop local
-use the classic tactic "oh...my family will be in the Outer Banks the same week, let's try to meet for a quick coffee if that does not intrude unduly on your family time" -- obviously harder to pull off if the person is going someplace off the beaten path

Passle and Litera recently hosted a beautiful exemplar of volunteering outdoors and bringing like-minded people together -- a fundraiser with the Annapolis Dragon Boat Club benefiting breast cancer. the Club provides outreach and support to people in the community both during and post breast cancer treatment. a wonderful day on the water.

spotlight: Jessica Markowitz

stage supports #businessdevelopment from behind the scenes to coach #lawyers and help their clients shine.

today's stage spotlight is on Jessica Markowitz (President + COO at Paragon Legal (website link here), a women-founded and women-led legal services business). Paragon is focused on empowering forward-thinking companies with flexible and interim in-house legal solutions. Jessica is excited by data, a good challenge, and creating change through growth.

we are shouting from the rooftops in excitement to share Jessica's spotlight.

Change the script with us.

We are changing the script on marketing and business development. For stage to be able to say “we are changing the script” means we have actually to do things differently.

Different means that we post about feelings. We post about losing. We post about winning. We post about being business owners. We post about being a working parent. We post about being a women-owned business. We post about our experiences.

We write about these topics to show lawyers, BD + marketing teams that they are not alone; everyone wants connection.

We post about winning and losing to show our lawyers that we know the sales cycle, how to handle the wins, the losses and everything in between.

We describe our experiences to demonstrate that we practice what we teach. We get it, because we are living it everyday.

We talk about these topics because we are human. And the clients that are drawn to this approach? Those are the clients we want to work with and those are the clients that want to work with us.

spotlight: Lisa Olney

stage supports business development and #legalmarketing teams from behind the scenes to coach #lawyers and help their clients shine.

today's stage spotlight is on Lisa Olney (Chief Brand Officer at Validity Finance, LLC). Lisa is a legal marketing veteran with a quick mind and a keen eye for detail and the client experience. Lisa is responsible for creating brand unity and driving effective brand communication to support business growth. (She also beautifully articulated our ethos and brand in 2 seconds flat... we should have recorded it).
we are lucky that Lisa allowed us to spotlight her today.

spotlight: Rebecca Edwards

today's stage spotlight is on Rebecca Edwards Hnatowski (Senior Marketing + Business Development Manager at Williams Mullen). Over her 15 years of experience, Rebecca covered multiple practice groups, connecting dots, bringing people together, and helping lawyers build strong and lasting relationships.

we are delighted to share Rebecca's spotlight today.

spotlight: Sheri Mayerowitz

stage supports business development and #marketing teams from behind the scenes to help #lawyers and their clients shine.

today's stage spotlight is on Sheri Mayerowitz (Director of Alumni Relations + Client Engagement at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP). Sheri has overseen successful alumni programs for almost her entire career, but more importantly, Sheri is focused on creating positive and thoughtful alumni experiences across the entire client journey.

we are fortunate to be able to share Sheri's spotlight today.

differentiated by empathy

stage is about #pursuit, #growth, and #connection.

Pursuit co-designed with your client to achieve their goals.
Growth of your relationships [and revenue].
Connection with a myriad of permutations, including connecting clients to one another.

stage was conceived to be "differentiated by empathy" marketing and business development shop, changing the script on how to approach #legalmarketing and business development. While our emphasis is on humanity, we retain the sharpened tools and skills gained during our Big Law tenure.

As a women-owned shop, we help set the stage (get it?) for growing client relationships and growing revenue while concurrently being human -- gloriously and individually human. 💜

coaching + curiosity

stage's core coaching skills include a module on curiosity + active listening for #lawyers and #legalmarketing teams. Understanding a client's communication and listening style is imperative for the client to feel understood and, more importantly, heard. But what if you think you are showing enthusiasm and excitement, but in reality, you are interrupting?

Enter the work of linguist Deborah Tannen. She discusses listening approaches in her book, "Conversational Style."

This topic also resurfaced after a TikTok video discussed the conversational differences between regions (New Yorkers versus everywhere else). Inc. Magazine published a piece on this topic, stating, "Your professional conversations will go better if you understand different people view interruptions differently."

Even at stage, we are regrounding ourselves in our conversation approaches. We have three different principals in three different cities, and we are applying our learnings and realizations internally and passing along those learnings to others.

"Interrupters" can fall into the conversational style category of "cooperative overlapping" the intent of "cooperative overlap" isn't to silence or disrespect your conversation partner. It signals enthusiasm and interest in what the person is saying, which works amazingly when you're talking to someone who shares this conversational style. But when an overlapper meets a person more accustomed to viewing any interruption as rude? Misunderstandings and even conflict can occur. Not a great look for understanding the client.

So, if you are a cooperative overlapper, how can you better communicate with others?

Be present and observe. If you notice that your conversation partner isn't responding well to your chiming in (e.g., they stop talking or seem uncomfortable), try expressing your engagement in non-verbal cues instead, like nodding. If you do overlap (aka interrupt), acknowledge it, then encourage the other person to continue talking.

What is your conversational style?