Why did your client choose you instead of another lawyer? There are plenty of good ones out there. Have you ever asked yourself? How about them?
What is the most important thing an attorney can do to help improve their client acquisition rate? Get more leads? Hold more initial consults? Invest more in SEO and you web site? Actually all these are important but most attorneys forget the reason their clients come to them. To understand this reason you have to ask yourself why they choose to have you help them in the first time place. The reason is the same regardless if you represent small or large businesses or individuals. It’s not how well you communicate, how awesome your ads are, how great your website looks or ultimately even the results you’ve achieved for others (although this is definitely part of the equation).
To figure out why someone chooses you over another you need to start by asking yourself the same question: why do you choose to buy from one person versus another. Even though you’re a highly educated professional, the purchase process for your services aren’t very dissimilar than those of your mechanic, hair stylist, barber, accountant, dentist or doctor. How do you find these people and how do you decide to stay with them or not? Of course we ask others for their recommendations and as attorney you already know how important your referral network is to you but that’s not it however its cultivation is a topic I’ll save for another article. Have you ever eagerly bought anything from someone you didn’t like? In fact don’t you actually avoid it?
People don’t buy legal services because they want to they buy because they need to. It’s like buying a new furnace for your house. You don’t just say one day, “oh I think I want a shiny new furnace” (well, most of us don’t). No, wait so it out of necessity and then we seek out someone we trust to do the job right and to give us a good product for a good price but in this equation is “trust”. Do you trust people you don’t like? Most of the time not. So the question comes down to how do we get people to “like” us that we don’t know so they can “trust” you to give them quality legal services. Depending on who you are “selling” to that process is different and in some case more difficult than in others. It also is different depending on if you are selling for a new client to retain you, to get an existing client to use you again or to get an existing client to refer you.
Whether you own a firm or are charged with serving clients you should endeavor to find out why you’re liked and trusted and invest more time, energy and money portraying this to your existing and potential clients. Never forget that people buy on emotional justifications before anything else. Whether it be “I like and trust this person” or “I like the service and price” both start with “I LIKE”.
It’s time you started asking. So get busy. Pick three clients and GO ASK!
