We have an attorney in our firm who is fairly new to marketing. She has been practicing law for several years, but she hasn’t done much of the getting-to-know-you-lunch kind of thing.

She decided that she wanted to jump into the marketing game and increase her income.

On January 2, we met and came up with a plan. She took off at full throttle. She called prospective referral sources cold. She had no connection to them, but she got past the receptionists, assistants, and voicemails and got people on the phone. Sure, she ran into some obstacles, but we strategized our way around them.

Within days, she was meeting people at Starbucks for coffee and having lunch with individuals and small groups. She called more prospects each day, and she asked her lunch dates for more ideas on other people to call. She has been hardcore about her effort for about eight weeks now.

How’s it working?

She’s had some referrals as a direct result of her meetings. She has had a retainer or two as well. She’s reaping the rewards of her efforts.

On top of the direct results she seeing, she’s also been remarkably effective at converting her consultations into clients. Many of her consultations over the past eight weeks have not been a direct result of her marketing. These are people who were attracted to our firm in other ways. She is converting her consults into clients at a rate that is well above her usual.

I’ve seen this burst in conversion rate success before. Somehow, getting out and meeting people—building your network—has a halo effect. I can’t determine whether it’s caused by the energy she’s getting from succeeding at networking or whether, somehow, the networking has some spillover impact on her reputation. It’s a mystery to me, but I have repeatedly noticed that attorneys out marketing see higher conversion rates so long as they keep up their networking activity.

Now that she’s winning at this game, what’s she going to do?

Over and over, I’ve watched attorneys in her situation suddenly slack off. They start winning, and they immediately stop doing what caused them to win. Why? Beats me. It’s baffling.

She needs to keep going. She needs to keep doing what she’s doing. You can bet we’ve had that conversation. She says she’s going to keep it up.

But I’ll tell you there are some powerful forces that seem to slow attorneys in her situation down. She’s going to feel the pressure of managing her higher caseload, increased calls from referral sources asking questions, and increased consultations. It will be easy for her to put her referral source meetings on hold while she gets control of everything else. The referral source meetings can easily be moved down the priority list so she can keep up with the other work.

Shifting the priority of the referral source meetings will be a mistake for her. They’re the source of her success. Backing off on the thing that’s making you successful doesn’t generate more success. The key to continuing success is to continue to do the thing that’s making you successful. That seems logical right up until you start getting successful, but then it gets murky.

Don’t let that happen to you—don’t let it get murky. If what you’re doing is working, then keep doing it—don’t stop.

So today, I’m talking to you. But I’m also talking to her. She needs to keep it up, and you need to follow her lead. Don’t stop.