Calling on friends and acquaintances is also a great starting point for lawyers looking for business. Who better to call on than people who already know and trust you? The key to leveraging friends to develop business is having the right business development philosophy and a plan.

Here's a three-step plan to leveraging your friends for business.

Step one: Tell friends how you help clients. Would your friends recognize an opportunity for you if they ran across it? Say that you're a real estate lawyer. If a friend met someone needing a real estate lawyer, would he know to refer the person to you?

Step two: Take a friend or acquaintance to lunch. Notice I didn't say, "Call a friend and ask them for their business."

Step three: Provide value-added follow-up. Great follow-up is more than clipping the prospect's name from the newspaper. Better to contact your friend with ideas and articles that will help him or her with business needs. So if your friend's business has environmental challenges, send articles related to a new law with a letter giving a brief legal analysis.

Leveraging your friends to get business isn't hard. Just position yourself as a resource. Then follow up in a way that truly helps their business.

Joey Asher is president of Speechworks, a selling and communication skills coaching company in Atlanta. He is the author of "Selling and Communication Skills for Lawyers" and "Even a Geek Can Speak."