Professionals learning to develop business often struggle with finding a reason for calling clients and other important network contacts, when there is no urgent matter to discuss. You can have frequent conversations with a network contact, as long as the net value of the sum of those conversations is sufficiently high to meet her hurdle rate. If it doesn't, she won't return your calls or will find other means to use her time more productively. The hurdle rate varies from contact to contact and tends to be higher with the more desirable contacts, such as senior executives.

Note that most contacts will not mind the occasional low-value conversation, as long as the net value of the sum of all exchanges with you is high. This logic presses us to find ways to provide the needed value. With some contacts the personal relationship is strong enough that interest in each other provides sufficient value. For the rest, we must constantly be looking for information and ideas that our contacts would find valuable. That can be a challenge.

Joe Flom of the law firm, Skadden, is one of the world's greatest rainmakers of the past half century. I find it revealing that he used to hit upon a conversation topic that he would use with his business contacts for a while, and then come up with another. His colleagues used to refer to these topics as his flavor of the month. Over the years I have seen other rainmakers do the same, though they seldom have a name for it.

Not having had the opportunity to observe Flom over time I can't describe the characteristics of his flavors of the month. From broader experience, I think a flavor must:

• Be a valuable insight or piece of information tied at least peripherally to your business
• Be topical enough that it is easy to bring into conversation
• Lead easily to a question that gets the other person talking

Recognizing a promising flavor is a knack worth developing. They come to you more frequently than you might imagine, if you are looking for them. To build the habit, from time to time ask yourself the following questions:

• Is there a contrarian story to a current trend?
• Do you have an example of an interesting solution to a common problem?
• Do you know how a leader in a field does something that others struggle with?
• Is there an impending change in technology, regulation, competitive environment of other area your contacts need to be advised of?

I was reminded of this subject recently when I found myself discussing flavors of the month with several contacts over two weeks. The subject of flavors of the month had become my flavor of the month.