Remove the Pain for Financial Gain - Part 4 - Diagnosis
This article is part of an article series on How to Get Clients as a Lawyer.
The Series Is titled: Remove the Pain for Financial Gain
Here are links to all the articles in the series:
Remove the Pain for Financial Gain: Part 1: Introduction
Remove the Pain for Financial Gain: Part 2: The Process
Remove the Pain for Financial Gain: Part 3: The Interview
Remove the Pain for Financial Gain: Part 4: The Diagnosis
Remove the Pain for Financial Gain: Part 5: The Agitation
Remove the Pain for Financial Gain: Part 6: The Prescription
Remove the Pain for Financial Gain: Wrap-up
Part 4: The Interview
As we have discussed the sales process for attorneys is summed up by the acronym IDAP which stands for:
- Interview
Diagnose
Agitate
Prescribe
We are now going to discuss the diagnosis phase of the IDAP process.
If you were to go to a physician with several symptoms of an illness, the physician would first interview you to make certain he understood everything that was going on inside your body. He would also probe into the outside factors that may be contributing to the situation. He may even order some type of tests to help him delve into the possible unseen causes of the illness.
In our world we follow similar steps during the interview phase of the IDAP process. In your interview you should have built up a bond with the client. You should have also reviewed all of the “symptoms” with the potential client and conducted any of your own “tests” to help narrow down the problem as much as possible. Your goal in the interview phase is not just to gather information, but to build up a relationship of trust with the client.
These steps are important – not only for you – but to convince the client that there is actually an advantage to solving this problem urgently. Many clients believe that they can “ignore” a problem into going away
In either case, your job is to help the client understand and diagnose for himself just how serious the issue is and how he must get to work on it immediately.
Here’s how we go about doing that:
First summarize what the client has told you in the interview. Summarizing the client’s description of the pain is an important part of active listening. It also helps if the client hears their words coming from someone else.
If the client provided a lot of detail, then you should also provide the detail in your recap.
Next ask the client to attach a dollar amount to the issue. In many cases the client will be reluctant or simply unable to assign a financial figure with the problem. Regardless of how the client feels about this, it is critically important 1). That it happens and 2). That the client is the person who affixes a financial value to the problem/issue he is facing.
If a dollar amount is not associated with this pain, there is a good chance it will not be appropriately addressed. An issue that costs a company a specific amount of money is more likely to be solved than an issue that we “think” is costing us money.
If you assign a value to the problem the client is not likely to buy in to the number you come up with. If THEY pick the number, you can be sure that there will be significant ownership for the problem.
Third, ask the client what he believes the worst possible outcome from the situation would be – both for him and for his company. This is another important step in the process. The client needs to be aware of exactly how bad things can get. This should help create urgency in the mind of your client.
Keep in mind that you are looking to help find a contingency plan for your client. You are not looking to rub this situation in their face. And in this case, just like when you ask the client to put a dollar amount on the pain, you want the client to give you the worst case scenario. If you say it, it means one thing but if the client says it, it means EVERYTHING
Finally repeat the summary back to the client again, adding the financial points and with a worst case scenario. Then in a matter-of-fact way, ask the client what he believes needs to be done in order to solve the problem. By now the client will have told his story to you at least a couple of times. He will have provided a significant amount of detail and you will have forced him to face the worst possible scenario for his firm. All that is left is for the client to tell you what needs to be done to take this pain away – and then ask you to do exactly that.
When this part of the IDAP process is performed correctly, the client will recognize the problem they face and report it to you – this is why we say they diagnose their own issue. The reason this is so important is because we want the client to OWN the problem. We want him/her to understand that it is his responsibility to solve it.
In our next article we will highlight the process of creating urgency in the mind of your client. We will answer the question: “How do you get the client to want to solve this problem now?”
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