95: Breaking the Mold with Abdi Shayesteh

LeftFoot - Fresh Conversations on the Business of Law

Strategies and Tactics for Today

The CEO and Founder of AltaClaro, Abdi Shayesteh is a corporate, bank regulatory, and finance attorney. He worked for a global law firm – a boutique firm – a powerful central bank – and a groundbreaking fintech company before starting the company he now leads. Abdi Shayesteh Bio

A proponent of experiential learning, Abdi implements what he’s learning from his network of advisors and mentors, going back to those advisors, with updates on outcomes after executing their advice and counsel. This process and the willingness to take risks and try new things has been key to his success.

In turn when asked for advice Abdi looks to be part of the process sharing his approach and methodologies for executing on specific advice. His advice specific to implementing strategies for growth? Get in front of the right audience being strategic and surgical about it. Before you engage establish a strategy. Which industries and companies are the right companies to use your services, and what are the types of companies and industries relevant to your practice. Spend time on your strategy then deploy tactics surgically to get in front of your audience both virtually and physically.

Be authentic, if you’re not a good networker in large groups and at large functions – don’t do it. Find what works for you think quality over quantity then ensure you’re connecting with people for the right reasons, that you’re sharing knowledge that’s of value to them, creating an authentic relationship. Authenticity includes knowledge of your expertise, your likability and creating an opportunity to evaluate chemistry specifically your ability to get along and communicate effectively.

Staying in front of clients especially global clients is challenging. It’s important to build a community and be savvy enough to use electronic communication and personalized learning for marketing and client development. Abdi and his firm AltaClaro supports the use of short bites sized videos to communicate ideas, expertise, and likability leveraging digital content to get in front of others – to get your message out and be prescriptive to a specific audience that will value it. Today the international legal community is using technology for communication, there’s a real opportunity for US lawyers to do the same.

In developing your strategy and deploying tactical activities to execute on that strategy, experiment with different technologies to get in front of the right audience. Experiment and learn break out of the mold.