20A – Growing Your Social Capital

Michael Chasin is the CEO of Lexicata.  Lexicata is a client intake software that streamlines the intake process.  Michael is an MBA / J.D. who  has never practiced law, but rather used his legal education to support his entrepreneurial activities in the legal field.  He developed the concept for Lexicata after seeing a need in the legal community for a streamlined client intake process.

Michael is a domain expert.  He created concepts for two platforms that support small law firms and successfully implemented them. 

I had Michael’s contact information from when I purchased Lexicata for our law practice a few years ago.  I sent him an e-mail requesting help for a school assignment and he agreed.  We spoke on the phone briefly and Michael gave me feedback on my idea.  I made sure to tell him the strength that his product has, telling him that I wish he would expand from just intake to case management, because his product’s features are superior to those of similar products.

People who are successful usually do not hesitate to share their knowledge and experience with others.  Given that Michael has created and implemented the best product in his category that is currently on the market, he is a great contact to have.  In his career, he has developed a strong understanding of the technology behind practice management software and was able to quickly point out to me the technical and industry-specific challenges I am likely to encounter in implementing my idea. 

Matthew Orlinsky is an account manager for PracticePanther, a Law Practice Management Software.  Matthew has a bachelor’s degree in Marketing from UCF.  As an account manager at PracticePanther, Matt sells the subscriptions to Practice Panther to law firms of various sizes.  He is a market expert due to his education and experience selling to the type of lawyers that would be my target audience.

As with Michael, I had Matt’s contact information from when I purchased PracticePanther for our law firm a few months ago.  Matt was happy to talk over the phone and to share his expertise.  He has a real passion for marketing and has been a successful salesperson.  I this the return expectation for his assistance with this assignment is to give positive feedback on PracticePanther to attorneys looking to purchase or switch practice management software.

Matt would be one of the few salespeople I would interview prior to implementing my idea.  I think knowing and interviewing him, and others like him, men and women that deal with selling a practice management product to lawyers, would be a must to gain a better understanding of what motivates my potential customers.

Erica Liebowitz is an Instructional Designer at Amazon Web Services.  Amazon Web Services  is one of the infrastructure providers for Lexicata.  AWS is in the supplier category for my idea.  I connected with Erica on LinkedIn and she was an easy contact to make.  Since training is her specialty, and since my team at work is tasked with training store employees, we had a good conversation about training teams.  

Erica was knowledgeable on the technical requirements to implement my idea on a large scale and securely.  I was able to share my experience and advise with her on training.

Connecting with Erica, and people like her, makes introductions to persons within AWS and other similar suppliers more likely.

Reflection:

This type of networking is different from the networking I have to do for work.  At work I network with upper management within our corporation.  This type of networking opens doors for career opportunities for me outside of my current organization, as officers and senior executives move on to other companies.

The networking I did for this assignment was certainly different.  I do not usually have to reach out to people outside of my organization to ask for a favor.  I felt a little uncomfortable reaching out to people for help with my school assignment, but each of the people I connected with was happy to give their time and advice.  Next time I have to reach out to someone for networking reasons, this experience will serve as a reminder of people’s willingness and ability to help.