Logan Tracey is the Head of Business Development and Marketing for the Real Estate practice at Herrick Feinstein, one of New York City’s largest full-service commercial real estate law and land use & zoning practices. She also leads the BD efforts for the Israel and Nordic practices, with a focus on inbound transactions to the United States.
Before beginning her career in legal marketing, Logan was a singer and an actress in New York working in theater, television, commercials and indie film. Her studio album, For Sale, can be found on iTunes, Spotify and where ever you stream your music.
I’m so glad I met her many years ago through the Legal Marketing Association and thankful for social media to help us keep in touch.
Connect with her on LinkedIn and learn more about her in this profile.
What do you love most about what you do?
I really love working with attorneys on business development and empowering them to build their business. Watching a senior associate or junior partner convert prospects to clients in the early days of building their practice is exciting! Coaching attorneys to do the BD activities that scare them a little is what I love – especially working with women. The women with whom I work are brilliant, savvy and empathic business partners, but sometimes need a little reminder that they are bad asses and can 100% do the thing that is a little bit out of their comfort zone. My favorite question to ask a women when we are working on a project and their gumption is waning is, “Would you feel that way if you were a man?” The answer is always “No.”
I love that I am trusted leader and a go-to when it comes to problem-solving. It’s taken effort and time to build trust with my partners and the teams I work with, but I am happy to be the “first phone call” for a number of colleagues. Whether it is a partner looking for assistance with business development strategy, working on pricing for an RFP or just providing a budget code so we can (properly) code our marketing expenses, I’m proud to fill that role for my firm. Even when I don’t have all the answers, I’ll always work to make sure my colleagues have what they need to move their projects forward. My goal is to always be adding value in any way I can.
Do you have a mentor?
I’m very lucky to have worked with some incredible people in my in my professional journey both in and out of legal marketing, and I have learned so many lessons from them along the way.
When I began my career in legal marketing, I worked on a diverse national team at Alston & Bird. One of my mentors at Alston was Dina Longo. Dina always answered all my questions when it came to BD strategy development and the day-to-day of running a practice. What was most helpful for me was sitting in on attorney coachings and participating in larger practice group initiatives as a coordinator. I still call Dina for advice and gut-check now and then!
Additionally, I work very closely with the chair of Herrick’s Real Estate department, Belinda Schwartz, who is my biggest champion and sponsor at Herrick. She has been instrumental in my career path in the past few years and knowing I have that senior-level support is invaluable and empowers me to take risks and bring ideas to the table in a multitude of situations.
How do you achieve work/life balance?
This is a great question because this is something I am actively working on right now. I find the WFH ethos very challenging, and the belief that we are all available all the time to be driving the burnout. I’ve been focusing on creating boundaries (primarily for myself!) and while I monitor email after hours and on the weekends, I am forcing myself not to respond until work hours unless urgent. It’s tough for me to have open items on my list when I know I can quickly handle and move onto the next thing, but I am practicing holding requests for office hours, unless it’s an emergency – and what is a true business development emergency, really?
Additionally, while I need to train myself not to respond, it’s important to manage expectations and condition my attorneys to understand that unless something is truly urgent, I will respond during office hours.
Secondly, I love a “Delay Delivery” email option. I tend to get a lot of my focused work done before 9:30am, so I use this email trick to be respectful of my team’s work-life balance as well.
What do you think is the key for success in a role like yours?
While project management skills, attention to detail and writing skills are all vitally important, I think understanding communication styles is the golden ticket. Whether it’s an innate understanding of people or enneagrams and personality tests, knowing that every person takes in information differently and needs a slightly different communication style will enable you to be more effective. Knowing how to deliver information so that you are heard and understood is key to developing relationships and trust with your teams.
Learning how and when to say no is also important. We are in the service industry and it can be a challenge, but I cannot say yes to all things or be all things to all people. I’m still learning and practicing this, but saying no to certain ideas, budget requests or unplanned activities frees up time to say yes to more of the opportunities that are on target and will have more ROI.
A sense of humor and good desk snacks don’t hurt either.