Tough Love Alert. Strap in: here it comes.
She needs a lawyer. She calls your firm. She schedules an appointment. She arrives on time.
You greet her. You walk her to the meeting room. You interact with her.
She leaves without hiring you. You follow up with her. She still needs help. She doesn’t hire you.
What’s the problem? What do you tell yourself when you wonder “Why?”
Pick one:
- “She couldn’t afford us.”
- “She doesn’t really need to resolve this now.”
- “She didn’t have a legal problem we could solve.”
- Whatever other story you like to tell yourself. Just fill in the freaking ________, okay?
What’s the Real Reason Prospects Don’t Retain?
I’ve had lawyers tell me that it’s the office space, it’s the receptionist, it’s the high fees, it’s the reputation of the firm, and it’s the type of people you attract. It’s not. Those stories mostly miss the mark.
But sometimes they are right. Sometimes those stories you tell yourself are true. That’s what makes this hard. It’s normal for some people to walk away. That’s to be expected. But it’s only to be expected occasionally. These meetings don’t happen by accident. These are people with a legal challenge, or they wouldn’t have come in the first place.
The problem is that you use those external factors to explain away ALL of the people who don’t hire you when they are, in fact, only in play a small percentage of the time. By “small percentage,” I mean “small percentage.” They are not the reason most people don’t hire you.
What I see, standing over here with no emotional investment in the outcome and no connection to either party, is this:
- She has a legal problem;
- You’re a legal problem solver;
- She found you, called you, and came to see you;
- She met you; and
- She decided not to hire you to solve the problem she came to solve.
It’s not her. It’s you. Yep, it’s you, it’s you, it’s you. Stop looking elsewhere for an answer. It’s you. Tell yourself THIS painful story instead of whatever you picked from the list above. Tell yourself that’s it’s YOU.
You can’t find the solution until you identify the problem. And the problem is right there in your pants. Yep, it’s you.
Sure, sometimes it’s complicated. I hear you. I feel your pain. I understand your need to see the problem as external to you.
But if it’s happening over and over, then there’s one thing each of those situations have in common: that’s you.
Don’t blame them. Don’t explain it away. Don’t come up with some good story to tell yourself unless it’s more important to you to feel better than to start getting hired.
What’s the Solution?
How do you fix the problem now that you know the cause? You’ll find lots of ideas in the links that follow. But all of the solutions require you to identify the problem. Once you decide who’s to blame, then you can go about the work of fixing it.
Now, get to work.
I’d suggest that the consultation needs to be more about “being” and less about doing. Go back and review this article on the difference you can make while you’re in with your clients. You can have a powerful impact. Your role in the initial consultation is simple. Listen.
When they stop talking, go ahead and ask them this question and they’ll talk some more.
Use these 12 rules to revamp your initial consultation process. Don’t make these five big initial consult mistakes.
If you find yourself talking too much, then you’re probably saying more than needs to be said. Here’s how much to explain in the initial consultation. Here’s how to sell in three easy steps.
And, finally, don’t talk yourself right out of getting hired.
[ While I have you here, I wanted to remind you that you can get the latest articles delivered to your inbox a week before they go up on the web. Just one email per week. Sign up here. ]
No matter what you do, you’re going to find that some lawyers just can’t close the deal. Why? See above: that’s why. So what do you do? You add someone else to do the consultations. Then you measure their effectiveness and make sure you have the right person in the room.
