Remove the Pain for Financial Gain - Part 2 - The Process
In Part 1 of this series we discussed the role of the attorney as someone who helps relieve a client’s pain. Now that we are all familiar with the rationale behind this “pain relief” philosophy, it is time to discuss how to apply this concept when working with a client. We are going to specifically discuss how we can use our role as pain relief specialists to “sell” our services.
Side note: I know that most attorneys believe that “sell” or “selling” or “sales” are dirty words. I know that many attorneys view sales as being beneath them. You need to get over that. Get this through your thick head….nothing happens until somebody sells something. There are good ways to sell and bad ways to sell. In this series we’re going to discuss how to sell without looking like a schmuck. It is a consultative sales approach and it works. Try it once and I know you’ll be hooked.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s talk about the fool proof process for consultative sales.
There are four steps that successful attorneys use to develop business.
The process can be summed by the acronym IDAP. Those letters stand for:
- Interview
Diagnose
Agitate
Prescribe
In the interview stage of the process you work with the prospect to understand his situation. The key is to listen, and I mean truly listen to make sure that you know what the client is going through. You want to make sure that you have a good sense for how it may affect him personally.
During the diagnosis phase of the process you want to have the client admit what is causing his pain. This is critical. You telling him what you think the problem is will not work. The client must self-diagnose. He’s got to admit it.
Agitation is the part of the process that sounds the most threatening but really is in the client’s best interest. It should be considered “contingency planning”. In this phase of the consultative sales process you need to have your client think about the worst case scenario. By taking him through this exercise you will have forced him to address an issue that was truly a threat to his business.
Finally in the prescription phase of the process you help the client see you as the antidote to the festering problem. Again, it is important that he makes the decision. By selecting you he has chosen to heal himself.
You may have noticed that the client is doing a lot of work here. That doesn’t seem like the typical sales process…does it?
In Part 3 of Remove the Pain for Financial Gain we will discuss how to conduct the initial client interview.
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