I remember my first big sales presentation like it was yesterday, because it went so horribly bad.

I had landed a lunch with the biggest orthopedic group in the state and they were blessing me with 45 minutes to come in and WOW them with my line of products. Bright eyed and a bit nervously sweaty, I stood at the front of the room as the doctors filed in. 

When my pitch started, you would have thought an auctioneer was presenting. With a lot of products that I was proud of, I rifled through them all: features, benefits, advantages over the competition. At the end of my 45 minutes, one product remained undiscussed as they left the room to tend to patients. 

I didn’t get the account.

Nearly a year later, I brought on the same group through a separate contract agreement that they were a part of. As I was stocking their treatment rooms, one of the doctors stopped in the doorway. “I remember you. You were the guy that brought us lunch and talked 100 miles an hour.”

Mortified at the impression, I calmly replied “Yes, I’ve switched to decaf since then.”

He went on to say that the docs loved our products, but the one that they wanted to hear about the most, I never talked about (technically I ran out of time).

The lesson? I never asked any questions.

I pitched them completely wrong. They would have signed with me that day, he said, had I asked them what was most important, and then focused on that product first.

In coaching people in the professional services industries (accounting, legal, etc.) I find that this is also a common problem. Mainly because of two factors: 1) There has long been a taboo around the word “sales” that is wildly misguided. 2.) No one has properly trained people within professional services to sell appropriately (often due to reason #1.) 

Everyone is a salesperson of some sort.

We are all in the business of convincing, rapport building, providing value, and agreement. If you’re breathing, you’re selling something. It is an undeniable fact that we engage in sales pitches every single day based on our abilities, our character, how we negotiate something that we need, etc. 

Now that we’ve established that the concept of sales is applicable to everyone, including attorneys, let’s attack both myths about sales, shall we?

Sales: Hype over Hypocrisy

I get it, the word “sales” makes you cringe. You immediately think of a dodgy car salesman or someone trying to push you into a decision. The truth is, we sell ourselves every single day. 

Consider the five sales skills identified in this Hubspot article. You can’t deny that you do one or all of these things on a daily basis:

1. Building rapport – Unless you’re a true sociopath, you engage people daily and do this.
2. Active listening – One of the most critical skills one can have. If you’re not listening, you aren’t caring.
3. Asking the right questions – To get to the true need or uncover the foundation of engaging someone, you have to ask questions. 
4. Objection handling – I think this one goes without explanation needed.
5. Goal setting – You probably have a time and/or revenue requirement at your firm. If you’re working to hit those milestones, you’re a salesperson.

Now, if you’re screaming “No!” as if you’re Luke Skywalker learning that you’re Darth Vader’s son, then you too are denying the undeniable.

The immediate opportunity for you is that once you embrace the above five as part of delivering your top client service and being optimally effective at your firm, you’re already ahead of the game. This is an inevitable acknowledgement that the industry is slowly starting to accept. The quicker you do it, the faster you will become better than your competition and more valuable to your clients and prospects.

Sales and Client Service

So, now that you’ve come to grips with the fact that you are, in fact, in sales, it’s time to admit the shortcomings and work on fixing them. It’s been proven that attorneys, on the whole, are falling short when it comes to sales. 

In a study conducted by the American Bar Association, the statistics were bad, but showed immense promise for improvement (fault me for being an eternal optimist.)

According to that study:

• 42% of lawyers took three or more days to respond to a client inquiry
• 11% stayed on the phone for less than 10 seconds, presumably because they were sick of waiting

Not good, considering these individuals are reaching out with a legal need. It’s not your job to determine whether it is a critical or “big” need, because every phone call that’s made to a firm seeking help should be viewed as critical.

Having just reached out to a couple of attorneys for a need, who were recommended for their client service and attentiveness, I felt the same pains.

This is where it gets face palm worthy

• Over 85% of firms didn’t ask for a client’s e-mail address for correspondence
• Over 40% of clients reported the attorneys showing no empathy at all to their need
• Around 45% didn’t ask for a phone number for the potential client
• Nearly ¾ of the interactions had no follow up action determined by the attorney or firm

Before any justifications of why these activities are so poor, put yourself in the client’s shoes. You have an important need, you reach out to an expert to help you so that you don’t suffer any sort of damage to your family or company, and that person doesn’t get back to you for three days, doesn’t act like they care when they do, doesn’t ask for your phone number to call you back, and then doesn’t set any next steps to find you a solution. 

Yes, vetting your potential clients while paying attention to your current clients is critical, but you will run out of people reaching out to you with these types of statistics.

Time to Sell

As the pace and intensity of competition picks up in the industry, embracing the salesperson in you will put you in an advantageous position.

If it’s a mindset you’re willing to adapt to, but aren’t sure where to start, there are plenty of resources to get you in some comfortable habits. 

Engaging a coach will immediately help you understand that you already have the fundamental skills to be a great salesperson, you just need to have a better focus on how to transfer those skills. I understand that you may not think there’s time or need for a coach because your practice is under control, but remember, even at the height of his playing days, Michael Jordan always had a coach. 

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[Rich Bracken, Director of Coaching for Society 54, advises attorneys and professional services firms on revenue generation initiatives by leveraging data analytics, client service strategies, and differentiated branding. He is also the Chair of the Legal Marketing Association of Kansas City, a frequent conference speaker, and a regular contributor on Fox 4 News in Kansas City. Connect with Rich on LinkedIn and Society54.com.]