Is a Bad Client Your Problem? You Bet
A client walks into your office and he expects you to do a song and dance and convince him that he should hire you.
He wants the free consultation and he wants to ask you a few questions about his brother-in-laws’ (unrelated) legal situation.
But as soon as you start to discuss his matter with him, he launches into a know-it-all diatribe about why the approach you are suggesting will never work. Never mind that he is an engineer and not a lawyer. Forget the fact that he got himself into this mess with his genius level decision-making ability.
Now this lunatic is sitting across from you, wasting your time, and robbing the office of the air you should be breathing. And all you can think about is how much you WOULD PAY to make this guy go away.
But then, when he gets out his checkbook, you eagerly take his money (after he negotiates a 15% fee reduction).
Then you call me up and complain that all of your clients suck and that the economy is in the crapper.
I’ve got news for you:
It is your problem.
Nobody else’s.
You are creating this mess for yourself by doing what you have always done. (Remember: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing day-after-day and expecting different results).
If you are unhappy with the clients in your practice and you are ready to do something about it, you can start with these three simple rules for client selection:
1). Always make sure the client has a good understanding of the value you provide. One of the best ways to do this is to have him pay a fee to meet with you. People value what they pay for. If you give away your services, even at the point of the initial consultation, you are conditioning your clients NOT to value you.
2). Dictate (don’t negotiate) the terms of the relationship. You are the expert in the law. If the client does not see that at the beginning of your relationship, he will never see it. You should not have to convince him that you are an expert. That should have been done before he even walked into your office.
3). If you get a bad feeling, walk away. There is nothing worse than working with a client you cannot stand. No matter how much he pays, a jerk is always a jerk. Have some integrity. Turn away clients who you do not feel comfortable representing.
Now you may not like this guidance and my language may be a bit harsh for you…but reading this and implementing it now is far better than the alternative.
Just say “NO” to bad clients.
If you accept them it’s going to be your problem.
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EmailInside The Mind of The Client
What are your clients thinking before they make a decision to hire a lawyer?
If you knew the answer to that question you would be able to influence the decision of everyone who inquired about your services.
Right?
Well, today is your lucky day. I am going to give you a glimpse into the mind of your client. I am going to help you understand his thought process right before he engages a lawyer.
Before you immediately shut down (I know, your practice is different) I want you to remember that this information is not just based upon my work with a few hundred lawyers and their clients. It is also based upon a decade of study of public opinion and decision science.
People are people. People make important decisions in predictable ways. This information is critical to your success as a lawyer.
There are three conditions that must exist (within the client’s mind) for him to pick up the phone and engage you:
The client must know you.
The client must have the desire and motivation to handle his situation now.
The client must trust you to act on his behalf or advise him.
If these three conditions do not exist, you will not get hired. And this is true for every practice area and true in every attorney/client relationship around the world.
Let’s look at each of these conditions and how they apply to you.
The client must know you.
In the mind of the client, perception is reality. If you write articles on a topic, people will find you when they are doing research. If you speak to groups of people on a topic, people who are interested in that subject will be in the audience. If you appear in the media, some people will see you. If you establish relationships with influential people in the community, they will introduce you to potential clients.
You must be visible.
This means you must do some marketing. If the client doesn’t know you, he cannot hire you.
You can market to one person at a time (networking, face-to-face sales, develop a referral network) or to many people at once (advertising).
There is no other way to become known in the community.
The client must have the desire and motivation to handle this situation now.
Most people have no sense of urgency. It is human nature to ignore a problem or wait until the last minute to handle an issue.
Don’t believe me? Talk to a criminal lawyer who handles DUI cases or talk to a tax lawyer who handles IRS issues.
People procrastinate.
Your job is to convince them that ignoring their issue will make it worse. Regardless of what the issue is.
People move fast to relieve or avoid pain. Help them feel the pain of procrastination and they will act.
The client must trust you to act on his behalf or advise him.
When it comes to important decisions, people want to work with an expert. People look for evidence to justify the hiring of an expert.
This evidence can be: information on a website, an anecdote told by a happy client, a story in a newspaper, the list goes on and on.
The key is to establish your credibility in the mind of the client.
Notice that there is no discussion of money in these three conditions. You may be wondering why.
People only use money as a determining factor when they have nothing else on which to base their decision.
If a prospective client has a problem you can solve, and he has the desire and motivation to solve it and he believes you are the best lawyer for the job, he will hire you regardless of your fee.
Lawyers who believe the above statement will always make more money than lawyers who don’t.
Guess which ones are my clients…
Be The Person They Can’t Hire
After waiting on hold for 20 minutes I was finally on the phone with the pediatric gastroenterologist. Three visits to our regular pediatrician, two weeks of sleepless nights and several shirts soaked with regurgitated baby formula had me to the point where I was determined to get some answers.
I called in a couple of favors to get this particular doctor on the telephone. Everyone said he was “the best”. My goal was to get my three month old daughter an appointment with him. At this point she had gone from throwing up occasionally (which all babies do) to throwing up every day.
Finally I was on the phone with Doctor Big, the rock star of baby vomit, and I was going to beg him, bribe him or somehow convince him to see my kid.
My phone call with Doctor Big lasted only 3 minutes. I talked for 2 minutes 45 seconds – explaining what was happening, laying out the facts, including dates and times of these disgusting little incidents and specifics about what our baby had eaten. Doctor Big talked for 10 seconds. He said:
“Look, if you’re really concerned, take her to the emergency room. Unfortunately, my schedule is booked for six weeks”.
I replied:
“Please call my mobile phone if you have a cancellation. We have done our research. We know you are the best and I only want the best for my kid.”
At that point he sighed and said: “Good Night Mr. Lorenzo”.
I called his answering service and left my mobile phone number anyway.
This story is not about my little girl (who is doing better after a change in formula and several more visits to various other doctors). And it’s not about the state of healthcare in the United States.
It is about positioning.
How did Doctor Big get to be THE GUY for kids with stomach issues? He went to a middle-of-the-pack medical school. He graduated in the middle of his class. He works in a good (not great) hospital.
Yet he has a reputation as a great doctor and an appointment book to match.
Want to know his secret?
He is unavailable.
You read that correctly.
You see, I found out from a friend who plays golf with Doctor Big, that when he first started out he instructed his office to funnel all his patients into office visits two days per week. When the patients came in, the waiting room was packed. People were standing in the hallway. And during the other three days, Doctor Big volunteered in a clinic in a bad part of town. As his practice grew, Doctor Big expanded his office hours until all five days were packed each and every week. I was told this took a couple of years.
But the result was that people couldn’t hire him, couldn’t get him on the phone, and couldn’t even find him roaming around the hospital. So they figured the guy HAD to be good.
Think about the implications of this for your law practice. How easy is it to find you and ask you a question (for free)? How easy is it to get an appointment to see you?
Can I get in to see you today? Right now?
How good can you be if you have time available right this instant? You appear desperate if you have time to let me take command of your schedule. And your fee probably reflects that desperation.
Think about how accessible you are. Facebook, Twitter, email, PDAs, smart phones, text messaging – people have all kinds of access to you because you have given it to them.
Play hard-to-get, if you have the guts. You’ll find that you attract better clients, you can charge higher fees, and people will respect you because of the perception that you are unavailable.
Five Qualities of Successful Lawyers
During this day and age of limited time and resources I am constantly being asked to boil success down to a handful of qualities. Everybody wants the five “secrets” to success.
While I am hard pressed to limit the qualities of successful lawyers to just five things, I can give you five qualities that are common among all successful people.
Incidentally, these five qualities were not developed by me. They were developed by a guy named Napoleon Hill as a result of a 20 year study he conducted on successful business people.
Good old Napoleon came up with 16 laws of success as a result of this study. All of Hill’s laws can be applied to attorneys but there are five in particular that separate the winning attorneys from the moderately successful attorneys.
Here are the five qualities from Napoleon Hill’s work that I believe to be most responsible for a lawyer’s success:
Quality 1: Successful Lawyers have a Burning Desire to Serve Their Clients:
This means you must really want to make a difference to your clients and you believe in your ability to do so. That passion and desire is easily spotted in successful people. It is a quality that attracts others – clients and referring attorneys – to you like a magnet.
If you are currently practicing law and you do not have a passion for it, consider a career change.
Quality 2: Successful Lawyers Make Use of Specialized Knowledge:
Every attorney has specialized knowledge of the law (compared to a non-attorney). But successful attorneys also have the specialized knowledge of how to build and run a law firm. They have specialized knowledge on how to build systems to set their practice up for success. They have specialized knowledge in business strategy and they know how to deploy their resources toward an area of need in the market. They know how to attract clients to their law firm and persuade those clients to retain them.
Specialized knowledge goes well beyond the law. It extends to the knowledge necessary to build and grow a thriving law firm.
Quality 3: Successful Lawyers are Decisive:
This is a quality that stands out in a good lawyer. They assimilate information and then they make a decision. You have to make correct decisions and you have to do it in a way that projects confidence in yourself and in the people around you.
Let’s face it; if you have the will, you can recover from almost any mistake you make in life.
However you may never be able to recapture an opportunity that presents itself if you don’t make a decision. Great opportunities – golden opportunities – only come along so often – and you need to be decisive to take advantage of them. Napoleon Hill found that decisiveness was a key quality in successful people and I could not agree more.
Quality 4: Successful Attorneys Set Goals:
Successful people are goal oriented. This means they have actually taken the time to think about where they want to be in five years, ten years and twenty years.
If you want to achieve significant success you need to first define what success is. That means setting goals.
If you have never done any goal setting exercises, try this:
- Pick out five things you would like to accomplish between now and the end of the year.
- Write these five things down on a sheet of paper.
- Fold the paper up and put it in your pocket.
- Review this sheet of paper every time you eat a meal.?
You will be amazed at the results.
When you write your goals down your subconscious mind automatically goes to work to try to help you achieve them. You will find yourself drawn to activities that will bring you closer to your goals.
Once you become comfortable with this process, conduct a similar exercise, setting goals for the next five years.
Quality 5: Successful Attorneys Tap into the Collective Intelligence of Others
This is critically important. You need to have a group of people you can trust to give you honest feedback on your ideas and performance. You must have a group of like-minded people who know and understand what you are going through and can help you achieve your goals.
This last one really resonates with me because when I started my own practice I was a one person operation. After having worked my entire career in big firms, I suddenly found myself without a sounding board for ideas. This lead to a stifling of my creativity.
As my business has grown I have actively sought out successful people to bounce my ideas off of. This process has been phenomenally value in many ways. Every lawyer needs a handful of people in whom he can confide.
When a lawyer comes to me and says he needs help with his law firm, I review these five characteristics with him. Almost always, the struggling lawyer has not developed any of these qualities in himself. That’s when I ask him a critical question:
“Are you willing to adopt these five qualities and use them in your law practice?”
You see, part of Napoleon Hill’s study revealed that successful people are not born with these qualities. They developed them over time. Success is learned behavior.
So I ask you now:
Are you willing to adopt these five qualities and incorporate them into your law practice?
Ethics and Law Firm Marketing: Who Else is a Flawed Human Being?
Too many people pretend to be perfect in the eyes of others. Not only is that unrealistic it is also unethical.
In any profession, your ethics matter. You must be completely transparent.
Take a look at people who run for political office. As I write this (May 2011) Newt Gingrich has announced that he will be running for President of the United States. Before the announcement was made, people were already jumping all over him for his two failed marriages, the tales of adultery and womanizing from his past and the financial difficulties he and his companies have experienced.
Do these things make him unfit to be President of the United States? Maybe. We like our Presidents to cover up their flaws until their behavior gets the best of them while in office.
As the provider of professional services, as a lawyer, you will have an intimate relationship with your client. He must trust you implicitly. That’s why you have to be transparent when it comes to your flaws and your character.
Will this cost you some business? Maybe. But nobody will ever be able to call you inauthentic or a fraud. And you will be able to look yourself in the mirror and know that you have been honest with your clients.
A few weeks ago I saw an interview with Jerry Jones (the owner of the Dallas Cowboys) who currently has a personal net worth of about $1.1 Billion. He told the story of how, when he first purchased the team, he went up to the counter of a car rental agency and presented his maxed-out credit card which the clerk promptly cut up right in front of him.
Would you hesitate to invest in the Dallas Cowboys now because Jerry didn’t pay his credit card bills years ago? Should a person’s past financial or personal history keep you from working with them? How do you feel about Jerry knowing that he discusses his financial issues openly rather than covering them up?
I’ve been there. Many of us have. And with the tough economic times of the past three years, many of us made bad investments in Real Estate that resulted in business decisions to sell the property for less than it was worth. Doctors, Lawyers, Bankers – all have made bad financial decisions. Does that make them unqualified to be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker?
Is it fair to judge these people based upon their past decisions? I think it depends upon how you come upon that information. Is it disclosed by the person involved or was it concealed?
My life is the perfect example.
My rich background includes: A failed marriage, financial problems, being fired by clients and companies, having public (and often messy) disagreements with past partners and dealing with people in my life who were convicted of a crime.
What does this say about me? Does it say I picked the wrong people to marry, be friendly with, invest with, and work with/for? Maybe. Have I learned from those mistakes? Absolutely. Will I make them again? Hopefully not. In my mind, those mistakes say that I am human. And as a human being, I handle adversity.
Do I brag to others that I have had these experiences? Absolutely not. But I do not run and hide from them either.
Keep that in mind as you work through the crisis-du-jour in your own life.
People make bad decisions – with their finances, with their relationships, with their choices of employment. Everyone stumbles.
My message to you is this: If you are struggling with one (or several) of these issues now, realize that you are not alone and this is not the end of the world. You will get beyond this difficult time in your life and you will be stronger for having gone through it
You cannot control how people will judge you. But you can learn from your past and move on. Be upfront and disclose this information. Then go about your business.
Ultimately you will be judged by the grace with which you handle these issues. Be transparent and do not judge others too harshly. Treat them as you would like to be treated and do not worry about the things you cannot control.
Listen To The People Who Vote With Their Wallets
The title of this article has been one of the rules I have lived by since my business career began.
This rule, simply stated, means to ignore the opinion of EVERYONE other than people who pay for your service.
Why?
Three reasons:
Most people are not qualified to evaluate you.
We only truly value things we invest in. That investment can be financial and/or emotional. Unless someone has invested in you or your services, they cannot give you an opinion of the value you provide.
Many of us receive opinions from detached observers. And while these people may be able to point out some areas for growth and development, they cannot speak about your services from the perspective of an actual interactive experience.
Do yourself a favor, if you want advice about the service you provide and the value the client receives, ask a client.
Everyone else is part of the problem.
If I had a dollar for every time I saw a lawyer receive bad business advice from another lawyer, I would have a pile of money the size of Mount Everest. Lawyers are the worst people to ask about strategy or marketing. The majority of lawyers believe you can ignore these business disciplines and live happily ever after. A select few lawyers believe marketing and business success can be found exclusively on line or in social media.
Remember this: Most lawyers in private practice struggle with their finances or they struggle with work/life balance or they struggle with both.
Ignore advice from other lawyers, even those you believe to be successful. If you want to know how to improve the quality of your service or your marketing message, ask your clients.
Your success benefits you.
Most people do not want to see you succeed.
I know. This is not the feel-good-happy-town account of the world you will get from many self help folks. But it is human nature. Several studies by leading institutions of higher learning have proven that seeing other people in pain actually helps most humans cope with the trials and tribulations of their own life. Sad but true. For additional proof, look at news reports and television ratings of reality TV.
If someone else has a subconscious interest in your lack of success, why would you want to take advice from them?
Your clients want you to succeed on their matters. They will give you valuable feedback. Listen to them.
At this point, you’re probably wondering why I am telling you to ignore business advice from everyone except your clients. After all, I give business advice to lawyers. Shouldn’t you listen to me?
This is precisely the thing that makes me different from everyone else who does what I do – especially other lawyers-turned-marketing-gurus.
I have developed systems, processes and practices based upon the opinions of lawyers just like you. I didn’t concoct these ideas in my basement after reading a marketing manual designed for carpet cleaners.
When I work with an attorney one-on-one, I interview current clients and past clients. I then develop the business strategy based upon the real world research. Having done this over one hundred times in the past three years, I have developed a good understanding for the perspective of the client.
But don’t take my word for it.
Call a few of your own clients. Ask them some pointed questions about their perception of the experience and value you provided them.
You may be surprised at what you find out.
Remember, the only votes that count come from people who vote with their wallet.
How Did This Happen?
If you spend any time watching the cable news television channels, you will recognize the success strategy they employ. The political leanings of the station are unimportant because they all follow the same formula.
The station hires talking heads with impressive credentials and then encourages them to advance extremist theories. They tout their solutions as a panacea for the issues of the day leaving little room for doubt or disagreement. When their candidate makes a decision and it goes bad, the talking heads all shout the phrase: “How did this happen?”
It would be comical (and highly entertaining) if only the people actually running the government were not following the same script.
Before you start nodding your head in agreement, take a quick glance around your own law firm or circle of professional colleagues.
There are lots of lawyers out there looking for the ONE solution to help solve their client attraction problems. They reach for Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Directory Listing/Matching Services, Pay for Placement SuperDuperElite Lawyer Awards and every shiny new object they can find, hoping against hope that this ONE thing will get them twenty new clients this month.
Eventually, when they realize they spent $20,000 on an electronic billboard that nobody reads, they blame the billboard sales guy.
You should not blame these hucksters for your lack of new clients. It’s not about them. It’s about YOU.
In reality, you need one specific thing in order to grow your law firm…
Personal responsibility.
You read that correctly. You need to take personal responsibility for the success of your firm. This means you must deeply believe that you and only you are responsible for your success.
Not your clients.
Not your website developer.
Not the economy.
The only person responsible for your success is the guy in the mirror.
It is only after you have embraced this fact that you can begin to make forward progress.
Once you have accepted your role as the architect of your future you will change your approach toward law firm strategy and business development.
Instead of looking for something to drive 100 clients to your doorstep, look for ways to improve your own approach toward client attraction.
After accepting personal responsibility for your firm’s success you can then focus on the seven basics of law firm strategy. They are:
Match your message to your target audience: Stop talking about yourself. Talk about the issues that keep your clients awake at night.
Become a thought leader: You cannot be everything to everyone. Pick one area and master it. Make sure everyone knows you own that area of law.
Create systems: An activity you must execute personally and repetitively is doomed. Develop systems for your law practice and monitor their effectiveness.
Focus on relationships: Do not sell. People want to know you, like you, and trust you before they work with you. Help them do that.
Take decisive action: If you can’t figure out which action to take, do something. Don’t wait. Get into motion.
Practice continuous improvement: This should be true of your legal education as well as of your education in marketing and business strategy. You should strive to do things better, faster and more efficiently.
Accept feedback and support from a circle of trusted advisors: Some people call this a Mastermind group. Others call it a board of advisors. You need to have a group of people you can rely on to give you unvarnished feedback about your performance.
You control your destiny. You alone are responsible for the success of your law firm. Accept this and begin to work on each of the seven fundamental behaviors listed above. Once you do, you will find that client attraction is natural and consistent.
Law Firm Marketing Requires External Orientation
What is the one quality you will find in just about every law firm’s website and most of their marketing material?
It is all about the lawyer.
This is the exact opposite of a correct approach to law firm marketing.
The best way to turn off people who are thinking about doing business with you is to talk about yourself.
Law firm marketing is about building relationships. You can’t do that by bragging.
Let me give you a healthy dose of reality:
- Nobody cares how big your law firm is.
- Nobody cares how successful you think you are.
- Nobody cares how many bogus magazines have named you Super-Duper-Lawyer-Of-The-Month.
- Nobody cares about your “combined years of experience” or about the “complex matters” you work on.
That’s not the reason people come to your website. That’s not the reason someone winds up in your office or on your telephone.
People come to you because they need help with THEIR PROBLEM.
It’s about the client. Always.
People want to know you care about them. And not in some superficial wink-and-a-nod kind of way. They want to know that you understand and feel their pain. They want to know that you are interested in helping them get out of the mess they got themselves into. They want you to help them make sense of the legal system. They want you to help them plot a course through the maze that their life (or their business) has become.
When you sit down to write the copy for your website or when you sit at your computer to write your monthly newsletter, write it from the perspective of the client. Speak to the things your client is feeling. Speak to his needs. Help him learn how much you truly understand his situation.
Here is a little piece of advice I give every one of my “big ego” clients when we first start working together:
You don’t get rich by telling people how great you are. You get rich by helping people realize how great they can become.
A Quality that Cannot Be Copied
It is easy to imitate someone else.
Once you become successful your competitors will try to imitate you in order to achieve similar success.
My clients regularly find out that someone has copied their website design, or the article they wrote for the trade journal or attempted to secure a position similar to theirs in a local civic organization.
There is one quality that most of these losers will never be able to imitate.
I call that quality an “action orientation”.
Real winners, people who enjoy consistent revenue growth, year after year, regardless of the economic conditions, have a bias for action.
They do not sit around and wait for things to happen. They make things happen. They take the initiative. They move forward aggressively.
People who copy cannot do this. They need to wait for you to move and then they need to dissect your movement.
If you want more clients you must act. If want to be successful you must act on your own. Take some risks.
This is the one thing that separates the winners from the losers.
Be aggressive. Take action.
Legal Marketing: Keep Your Pride Out of It
One of the benefits of getting older is learning from experience. I guess they call it the wisdom that comes from old age. Even though I am far from old, I have always embraced the knowledge I have acquired as a result of making mistakes.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the temporary pain of making an embarrassing mistake is exactly what I needed in order to sear the learning into my mind.
It’s like getting a vaccination. You inject a dose of the disease into the bloodstream so that you can prevent a full blown outbreak. A little stupidity, if caught early on, can help prevent a lot of stupidity later in life.
Unfortunately there is one type of mistake that is painful even in the smallest dose.
About fifteen years ago I started a new job with significant responsibility. The job was packed with pressure and it required technical knowledge as well as people skills. Having managed people before, I was more concerned about acquiring the technical knowledge necessary to become proficient.
The people who worked for me were excellent at the technical aspects of the business. And they were willing to teach me what I needed to learn. But I refused. I wanted to learn these skills for myself. I was afraid that if the employees taught me, their boss, about the technical aspects of the job, they would not respect me.
Boy was I wrong.
I struggled to learn the technical aspects of the role from manuals and videos. I made numerous mistakes in front of the employees as I tried to bluff my way though each day. I damaged my reputation within the ranks of my people until finally, after a long painful period of time, I asked for help.
I could have shortened the learning curve. But something got in my way. That something is the one thing that holds many people back.
What was this powerful force that prevented me from acting in my own best interest?
Pride.
My pride manifested itself in the fear of embarrassment associated with asking for help.
My own foolish pride kept me from growing as a leader and as a businessperson.
Now that I am older and have seen pride hold me back a few times in my career I know to ignore that feeling and ask for help when I need it.
That’s the message I have for you today. Ask for help and shorten the learning curve when you do not know what you are doing.
Think about it:
You didn’t wake up one day, decide to start practicing law, read some books and saunter down to the courthouse.
You went to law school. You learned the rules of procedure. You acquired the skills necessary to be a professional.
Yet when it comes to client attraction you try to figure it out on your own.
All of a sudden, when it comes to the lifeblood of your law practice —attracting great clients—you have decided to “wing it”.
Why?
Pride.
Most lawyers are afraid to ask for help with business strategy or marketing. They feel they will look foolish if they reach out to an expert and learn from his experience.
Only 2% of the attorney population makes seven figures per year. Know why?
Because they do not know how to run their law firm like a business.
Job number 1 in every business is to attract and retain clients.
Don’t make the same mistake I made.
Swallow your pride and reach out to me today to learn how your investment of a little time and money can provide a huge return during the rest of your career.
Attracting clients doesn’t have to be difficult. Call me and find out why 888.692.5531.
