Community Table: CRMs, Hiring Done Right, and Value vs. Discounts

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

The Unbillable Hour community table where real lawyers from all around the country with real issues they’re dealing with right now meet together virtually to present their questions to Christopher T. Anderson lawyer and law firm management consultant. New questions every episode and none of it scripted. The real conversations happen here. Our first question comes from an attorney who is seeking to implement the first CRM for his small firm.

Guest #1:

Do you know of any programs, software, tools that can help work on the lead generation? The problem is this, I will meet with someone and then not hear from them for months, maybe weeks, sometimes never, but don’t want to lose contact with them to try and get their business. I want them to continue to think of me when the time is ready for them to pull the trigger so to speak, they’ll come to me.

Christopher T. Anderson:

If you would follow up a little bit about your firm, how big is it? How many lawyers? Do you have any support staff just to give us so that we can talk about the things that it would be best suited for you?

Guest #1:

Yes, I have another lawyer and one paralegal.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Okay, perfect. And no other staff?

Guest #1:

No other staff.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Okay. Well yeah, you definitely need some automation then. And you’re right. I mean this is definitely something like particularly firms your size. Everybody, everybody out there is all selling you marketing, get new leads, get lots of leads, we’ll send you leads and then you’re doing your networking and you’re doing all this other stuff and you’re getting the leads and everybody’s focused on more leads. And for firms your size, the real problem is follow up when your size follow up is a real challenge. So the answer fortunately is yeah, there’s great tools. And so let me turn it over to Robert Leitner to talk to you a little bit about some of the stuff he’s recommended and then I’ll follow on with anything else I can add.

Robert Leitner:

That is a good question. If you and I met on Monday and I did not sign with you on Monday, what would I expect in terms of communication from the firm in terms of how you communicate and the frequency of those communications currently?

Guest #1:

That would be essentially nil. Nothing unless there was a note that I made for something that you had to do. For example, if I needed an appraisal for you to do or you to follow up with maybe your husband or your wife to make sure that you were okay with filing, I would calendar it for a week to follow up with you by phone to make sure that the appraisal was done or that you had talked to your spouse or whatnot. But other than that, nothing is done.

Robert Leitner:

Okay. Easy

Christopher T. Anderson:

To make better.

Robert Leitner:

Yeah, I was going to say that is very true. So the number one target here is not necessarily what software will help, it’s the fact that we have to have a program to engage with leads that have contacted us that kind of dropped off the map. So we have to have follow-up campaigns. This can be a drip campaign via email, it could be text, it could be voicemail. There’s tons of software out there. Basically you’re looking at a CRM system, customer relationship management, they’re all very similar. We could talk a little bit about that after, but you didn’t put the leads into the system hopefully in some automated fashion. And then you can choose how to follow up and contact your leads, what methods you’re going to use. Is it email, is it text? Is it voice? And those contacts will be recorded in the system.

Now second question is what are we doing to interrupt the potential new client’s shopping? Right? So I may declare bankruptcy. My buddy gave me two or three attorneys to call and I spoke with you and I didn’t sign on the dotted line for whatever reason, I’m still shopping and you have not stopped that process. So number one, you need to contact me frequently and you need to provide value. So it’s not just the frequency of the follow-up and the method of the follow-up. It’s what you’re saying. Are you adding value? Why would I use your firm over the other two recommendations I received? Are you providing education to me? Are you providing value? Are you offering support? Are you providing resources, information? All of these things would keep you on top of my mind. So when I was ready to make the decision, you would be right there.

Now with respect to the CRM system, again, there are so many out there and they’re really good ones and some of them integrate with other pieces of software, some of them not so well. They’re all basically automated. And you can program it and you’ll have a sequence of events. So if I met with you on Monday, perhaps Tuesday I receive an email saying Thank you for meeting with me as we discussed, here are the major points, something like that. Maybe on Wednesday I get a text, maybe on Friday I get an article about you. Maybe you’re a luminary in the bankruptcy field. It doesn’t matter. But I would put pen to paper first and decide what is of value to your potential new clients and make a list of how we’re going to engage them when we’re going to engage them with the ultimate goal of obviously signing people as soon as possible.

Christopher T. Anderson:

So I think that’s a great place to start. And then when you are as limited in personnel as you are, then you do need to, the software is just a tool. If you don’t have a plan, the software is useless. But then once you do have one, then it’s time to engage some software, some automation. Rob talked to you about CRM, I’ll name a few, but the size that you are contextually is a good one, easy to use. A constant contact is another that is easy to use. As you grow, you can start thinking about Keep or HubSpot or Zoho, CRM or others that are more complex can do more things. But what you’re looking for, people get confused as to what A CRM is and what its purpose is and how to distinguish. A Clio grow is another one. Lawmatics, I mean, I’ll just keep thinking of them.

Those Lawmatics and Clio grow are also good for small. So where you are, but what does A CRM do? A CRM is a repository for things that are of value to your clients. Like Rob was just saying. So if you’ve got these articles, you’ve got things that would be useful to them and they can be very short and you could repurpose. I’m sure you’ve gotten, you’ve got a trove of stuff already that you can just repurpose or maybe you’ll write some new emails. But the idea is to create a sequence of content to which that you’re going to send to clients in different stages of their interaction with you. So for instance, you get a cold call, someone you don’t know, they go into sequence one and maybe sequence one has a call to action. Everything should. And this call to action sequence one is give me this five pieces of information about you.

When they give you these five pieces of information about you, that puts them into sequence two and alerts you that they’ve done this and that puts ’em into sequence two where the call to action might be book an appointment or sign a contract, whatever. When they book an appointment, they go into sequence three, which gets them ready for the appointment. Very important steps to that. Let them know what to expect, let them know what to bring, let them know how to prepare. Let them know what your office looks like, let them know where to park, all the things about that. And then once they’ve had an appointment, they go into sequence four, which is sign on the line that is dotted if that’s not part of your process at the appointment or if you don’t get one signed. And then once they sign, then they go into the fifth sequence, which is welcome to the firm.

And you want to be sure not to skip that one because you want to keep that brand promise going. So CRMs move clients through this engagement process. And like Rob said, they also, what you want to be doing in them is stopping the buying process. So as early as possible, you want to get them to tell their story and give you some information because they get very tired of giving that information to multiple law firms. And so once you drain that energy from them, it’s going to make it harder for them to expend that energy again. So the beauty of A CRM, particularly when you are resource limited, is that it automates all the stuff that 15 years ago you would’ve had people on the phone, you would’ve had to have people on the phones following up or you doing these things. And this way it can all happen.

It can be feel very personal. You can add videos and speak directly to their problems. And you could have different sequences, like if someone has mentioned the words chapter seven versus chapter 13, maybe, I don’t know, you didn’t mention if you do creditors, but those kinds of things. And you could have different sequences depending on how they came in. You could have different sequences if they came in through Facebook versus Google AdWords versus a radio ad. I mean, you can go nuts with this stuff, but don’t be overwhelmed. The real key is to start small, do what Rob said, put together your idea of what you would want to give them. And even if your sequence is too emails, it’s better than what you’re doing now. And then you build on it, build on it, build on it, build on it. And what’s great is for every potential client, you now have a history of every way you’ve touched them and a record of the fact that they gave you permission to do so so that you’re not soliciting. And that could be key. That was pretty long-winded for us. But let me just ask, did that answer the question you’re asking? Do you have anything to follow

Guest #1:

Up? It did answer the question, so thank you very much. Cool. I did not think about the sequencing of emails and texts and things of that nature along with welcome to the firm once they hire us. So very, very useful information.

Christopher T. Anderson:

And actually I’m really glad you said the word text. Now I’m going to layer on one more thing, and again, not just for you, but for listeners, don’t be overwhelmed that you have to do all this all at once. Again, if you get two to three emails into a sequence, you’re ready to go. You are a hundred percent better than you are today, right? So yay. And then you keep layering on and building it and building it and building it until it becomes amazing. But you said text, which made me think, I’ve been talking kind of like it’s all email. And you’re absolutely right. Good CRMs will also engage clients through SMS through text, that’s text messaging through email and can provide tasks. So we use this a lot. Part of the sequence will be a task. Send client this thing in the mail, whether it’s a welcome package or just something to invoke the rule of the law of reciprocity, where you just send them a little gift. If they’ve inquired about bankruptcy, maybe you send them a little pamphlet or a little book, or if you have a book that you’ve done that you send, thanks for contacting us. Here’s this thing. My recommendation is always send two. Here’s one for you. And you can hand this one to the next person. And of course it has ways to contact you. You can use your CRM to go multimedia and hit them in every possible way. You could also have tasks to call them because we still do that sometimes.

Robert Leitner:

I can actually add on a few tidbits when we’re talking about follow up and follow up to leads, please remember, you should contact the freshest leads first, right? Statistically speaking, the longer the time period goes where I met with you in weeks and weeks and months and months are going by, the less I’m likely to sign. So contact the freshest leads first. That’s number one. Number two, per Christopher’s comment, definitely include text in the mix. It’s 2024. And all of us, especially professionals, receive a couple hundred emails a day, a ton of phone calls, most of them are scam and ridiculous. Same thing on email. I get a ton of email per day. I rarely look at it. So the point is, how does an attorney get through all of that noise? I look at every single text I receive because I get the preview on my phone.

So I either consciously or subconsciously, unconsciously see every single text that comes in. So I’d recommend that you include text in the mix when you’re trying to contact leads and PNCs. Next, I would recommend you have the mindset of your are already working with your PNC. And what I mean by that is no bullshit. All your communication should be real. They should be directed to me. They should be customized if possible. I don’t want to hear a bullshit voicemail. I want hear something about my case. I want you to ask questions. I want you to remind me of things. I want you to give me a heads up about things. I want you to be specific that provides real value. So even though I haven’t paid you yet and I haven’t signed a fee agreement, in my mind, it’s almost like I have an attorney, you’re feeding me information.

I’m thinking about things. Maybe I come back with a reply, another question, get in the groove. And that’s the mindset. We’re already working together. The fee agreement is going to happen, okay? It’s just part of the process and we don’t have to focus on it. And finally, with respect to follow up and trying to bring in leads and convert them, I suggest you put yourself in the shoes of your potential new client. What’s of value to them? What are their issues? What are their pain points? Okay? It’s not about you. It’s not about your law firm and how great you are and the way you went to law school. No one gives a crap, nothing personal. Well, what they care about is what you’re going to do for me, what you can offer me, how you can educate me, what value you’re giving to me, giving me heads up, letting me throw some q and a back and forth with you. So in all your communications and your messages, I encourage everyone to put yourself in the shoes of your potential new client, which isn’t always easy, and maybe you haven’t done it in a while, but that would be my recommendation.

Guest #1:

Thank you. More beneficial than me benefiting you guys. But that’s what this round table’s for.

Christopher T. Anderson:

That’s absolutely

Guest #1:

Right, is to feed off of each other.

Announcer:

Our next question is from an attorney who wants to avoid another hiring mistake,

Christopher T. Anderson:

Yours was about hiring associates. You’ve just had a misre misfire one week, two weeks. How long did it take? Two

Guest #2:

Months. Two

Christopher T. Anderson:

Months. Two months. Two months, okay.

Guest #2:

Yeah, it was just bizarre. Two months. And I was looking for mid level. It’s hard to find in my market unfortunately with Canadian immigration experience. And so I decided to go with a baby lawyer, which is probably my mistake right there. Just finishing our first year at another firm and really wanted to work with me and I thought it was a good fit and everything. And so we brought her on and all enthusiastic, ready to learn, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I think quickly I started seeing that she’s oversold herself. So she had said that she had worked with a firm where she had done some refugee work, asylum work, and so that would be something we might want to develop and bring in to our services. And then realizing that she hardly did anything. So I was starting to see more and more that she was not as competent as she had indicated or didn’t have the experience that she had indicated from the interview process.

Then it was seeing the quality of work. Somebody in Canada, you already spent a year working at a firm and she was at a reputable mid-size firm. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the work for her, so they didn’t keep her after the year. So that means she’d already had a year of actual trying to be a lawyer, working under lawyers, things like just basic spell check and reviewing and just like it was shocking that somebody had gone to law school and didn’t have that level of just basic cleaning up your documents. So I was giving feedback, direct, indirect, marking up her stuff, sending it back. Personally, we all think as a firm that she might’ve just had some kind of panic attack. She did. She did some research and I found out it wasn’t accurate in the specific area where she said she has this experience.

My paralegal did the research and was like, no. So I said, let’s just have a conference call. The three of us, we did a conference call yesterday morning and we went through it and she’s like, oh yeah, my mistake. I own it. And I said, no worries. I just need to be able to rely on your research. Or if you don’t know, making sure you let me know. I’m not sure. Let’s triple check this. I can’t rely on it. And then I think at some point in there, something happened to her and she just freaked out and she left the office and then she quit. She left her degrees, she left her phone, she left all this. She just literally just seemed like she freaked out and just ran out like this. And then I was trying to talk to her to see if, and she just said, I think right now this is best for me.

And I said, no problem, but you have to come back and get your degrees and get your stuff. And so that all happened. I think she was embarrassed by that. But for me it’s like, what did we do wrong? What did I do wrong? I know already I should not have accepted the lower level because I definitely do not have the time to train a baby lawyer and maybe my expectations are too high of somebody. But basically things like spell checking. I don’t think that’s a high expectation, but now I’m back to the drawing board and we’re going to be recruiting again. I do need a lawyer on the team to be able to be competent, do most of what I do. And so that’s where I’m at right now.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Okay. I think the first one’s an important one. I mean, you’ve already said it, so I don’t want to pile on, but it’s important for everybody else to acknowledge that you hired for the thing that you didn’t need, which led to all kinds of frustration on your end. And I think we all do it. We need to be cautioned against hiring for potential. We all want to just take ’em under our wing and we see all this potential and it puts, it’s unfair to the prospect and it’s unfair to your business, particularly if in your circumstance where you said, I know I didn’t have the time for that. If you’re going to hire someone to take under your wing, then you got to have time to take ’em under your wing. Or you have to have someone else in the business that has raised their hand and said, yeah, I really want to mentor somebody.

Guest #2:

And I did have that person, and I also did absolutely give time. So I’m not concerned. I spent a lot of time and our senior paralegal, who’s a superstar also spent a lot of time.

Christopher T. Anderson:

But your expectations, you were hiring again for the potential. So your expectations were certain things. For instance, come on, she worked as an associate for one year and maybe she did work with refugees. I don’t know. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. But at a reputable firm. Well, quite honestly, if she worked for a reputable firm, that probably means she had plenty of oversight, plenty of supervision, and she was touching some stuff and starting to learn. But one year just, it’s highly unlikely. And unless she really wowed you, if you really think that someone’s like this sort of precocious fast learner, just really knows their stuff, quiz ’em, put ’em through their paces, have ’em write a brief on it, whatever. But other than that, baby lawyers are baby lawyers and we hire one to two a year, and that’s fine. That’s what our business says we do.

And then for the rest, we hire experienced lawyers because we don’t never, the twain shall mix and we give baby lawyers three years to actually become reasonably productive. And why do we do it at all? Well, one, to give back a little bit, somebody’s got to do it. And two, because nobody will be trained quite the way they are in our way. And so it is an investment in the business, but it’s a small percentage. So the lesson for you here is you got to be clear on what it is you’re looking for and then go out and get it. And I will maintain till the day I die. That recruiting is just marketing. It’s all, it has all the same problems and all the same benefits and all the same needs for creativity of thought for all the same five commandments, all of it.

It’s all marketing. If you’re going to recruit, you got to tell people what you want them to do. If you’re going to recruit, you got to have hypothesis for how much you’re going to spend and what the results are going to be, how many prospects are you’re going to get all the way down the road. And it starts with a very clear message. Here’s who you are. A good recruiting should never talk about. People always want to go like, oh, this firm, we believe in this and that. And we’re, we’re a great place to work. And I don’t know, we have foosball tables, we’re collegial, we’re smart, whatever. Talk about your prospect only. Just like marketing, good marketing doesn’t talk about your firm. Everybody. Bad marketing and bad marketing companies want you to put your AVO badge and your Martindale Hubble. And it’s okay to put those things. I’m not saying like, oh God, take ’em off. No, but your clients don’t actually care. Your clients don’t actually even know what those things are.

Most that they might know is Google reviews. They might know what that is these days, but that’s about it. And everything else, clients know about what they’re looking for in a law firm is what we’ve taught them. We are responsible for teaching our own prospects what they should be looking for in a law firm. And if we do it right, we teach them that they should be looking for us, but we do it in a soft giving way. That’s why we post blog articles. That’s why we post interviews. That’s because we are educating the market that what they’re looking for is us. So the same thing is true about, and we don’t talk about us in those, we’re talking about them. And the same is true in recruiting. We don’t talk about us, we talk about them. So a good recruiting ad I think starts with you are a mid-career attorney who has a unrelenting passion for immigration and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You’ve spent at least a couple years doing this and you’ve spent a couple years doing that, and you are looking for, and this is now we’re like third paragraph. You’re looking for a place to be where your colleagues share your passions. And then you talk about the rest of the team. Again, not talking about the firm at the very end. You can talk a little bit about the firm. I think if you approach recruiting as marketing and with the message being very candidate focused, you’ll have a lot better results, particularly because it will force you to describe in great detail who it is you’re looking for. And just like marketing, if you get that to great detail for yourself, if you put a clear message out in the universe as to what you’re looking for, the universe will respond in kind. But when you talk about your firm, when you start talking about how great it is to work there, guess who you’re going to get. Right? People who want to work at a place that’s great to work in,

Guest #2:

I need a hustler. I need somebody who is a grinder, who wants to produce great work, take care of clients.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Yeah, you’ll never work harder. Why not lead with that? You’ll never work harder than you work here,

Guest #2:

Okay?

Christopher T. Anderson:

You’ll never have, you will have such an amazing opportunity to really affect people’s lives by working very hard to get the results that they so desperately need and that so few people are willing to do. Because if that’s what you’re looking for, why are we sugarcoating it? Yeah, some people want that. Some people want the challenge. Some people want to be able to be tried by fire and to rise through it.

Guest #2:

Of course, there’s also that incentive and all of that. We build into that.

Christopher T. Anderson:

And you can want to be compensated well for your hard work. That’s okay to put in there, but not we compensate. Well, you want to be compensated well for your work. You’re not looking, you don’t want to work with a bunch of people who just expect a paycheck. No matter what happens. You want to, why not just put it out there in that way? So that’s the call to action. And then our hypothesis is that you’ll get more candidates this way, and then we’ll test against that hypothesis.

Guest #2:

That’s very helpful. Thank you. You’re welcome.

Announcer:

Our last question is from an attorney who is looking for alternatives to giving customers discounts.

Christopher T. Anderson:

I have a new attorney who is used to giving a discount to military families for retaining him for services instead of discounting the hourly rate. We would rather add value. Would you? Where’d you get that idea? What kind of value though? First of all, I’m going to lead with that for the listeners. So everybody understands discounts are great. Everybody thinks everybody loves discounts. It’s not true. Don’t get me wrong. People love to get a good deal and love to talk about getting a good deal. They really do. But discounts is not their favorite way. And if you get into that game, you become the discount lawyer and you get the clients who shop at the discount places. And you will have problems with these clients because they will keep asking for discounts. If you want to treat people special, treat them special with more, not less.

So discounts are less. When I say discounts are less, I really mean it because for instance, your marketing budget for your firm is based on revenues should be anyway. A certain percentage of your revenue should go to marketing. If you discount, you’re also discounting what you can spend on marketing because it’s coming from those revenues that you just discounted. If you discount, you are reducing the amount of stuff, work, product, whatever, that you can give to the client because you still need to make a profit. And so you have to reduce something. The discount, it doesn’t appear out of magic. It comes from your pocket and it comes from work product and it comes from marketing. So don’t do it because at the end of the day, people don’t actually appreciate it. You know what? People love a lot more than discounts. They love more.

They love being special. They love feeling like they matter to you. And nothing discounts. Don’t say you matter to me. You just don’t. If the manager comes by, you’re eating, you’re eating dinner, and manager comes by and says, Hey, I’m going to give you 10% off on that cocktail, like whoopy dippy, right? But if the manager comes by and says, the young lady’s dessert is on the house, that’s super cool. People like to get more. That is before you’ve ordered the dessert, right? And if you’ve ordered it that it’s a discount. But if you haven’t ordered it yet, you may not be ordering it and the managers gives you one that’s more LANAP or more. And it doesn’t have to be big. One of the most successful campaigns I ever did regarding more was for referrals. And one of the things we like to do is to make sure that we really respect referrals.

And how do you respect referrals? You respect referrals by making the referer look good. And one of the best campaigns I ever did to make the referral look good, the client that was referred got a gold folder instead of a white folder that said, VIP Client cost us absolutely $0 because the gold folders in the white folders cost exactly the same amount. But they got one that said, VIP client priority handling. And that got back to the referrer that, Hey man, thanks so much. I got priority handling here and it cost nothing. But there was the perception of getting more, but I don’t want to say something. It’s a game right now. You should really do give more. So what could you give more? I’m going to be thinking on my feet here. So Rob, I hope you can help me. I would be sorry

Robert Leitner:

To interrupt. I have an example. Whenever you’re ready.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Wonderful. Because yeah. So I’m going to go to you just a second just to let you give it before mine. But my point was being just think of the affinity. Okay? If this is for military families, what would a military family feel is a bonus for them? What would speak well to them? And again, it doesn’t have to be huge. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t have to be grand. It just needs to show respect. That’s what it’s about. And to make them feel special. So Rob, what would make people feel special?

Robert Leitner:

Well, one example would be for a family law firm who is serving military families, possibly an estate, a simple estate plan is included part of the package for military families. It’s definitely valued for military families. It’s definitely valued in general. That’s one example. That’s just off the top of my head.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Yeah, I think that could be good. A simple will. Yeah, something to that end. I mean, I think that goes, that’s kind of on the grand side, but I think that’s the kind of thinking that we’re having here. When you don’t do estate planning, then you can’t do that one unless, ha ha, since you don’t do estate planning, you sure as hell should have a referral relationship with an estate planning firm. Because if you have a referral that does not do family law, because if you send an estate planning firm that does not do family law referrals, they should be sending you family law referrals. And it should be a very mutually beneficial. So imagine if you said, Hey, estate planning firm with whom I have a referral relationship, I have a new lawyer who likes to give discounts to military families. I know that estate planning would be something really huge for them.

How about if I can refer them to you as your thank you for the referrals, you would give them a free 30 minute initial meeting where your normal initial meetings cost money. Can I offer that to them? As for doing business with us now, talk about something that not only now, does this not cost you anything? It actually gives you a benefit, right? Because you’re now, this guy’s going to be attracting military families and you’re going to be sending them to a estate planning firm for a free consult with whom you have a relationship, which is going to keep you topes of mind with them more than ever to send you business back. So that’s a win-win win. And I think that’s a huge one. And there are others. You simply, you could have a package that the way that you deliver the documents that is special for your military family clients.

You could have an extra meeting where you talk about the effect on where you go ahead and learn, or he learns. Since he’s does this, he learns and knows about military retirement and will give them a free video, a free ebook, a free document, a free 20 minutes talking about, or look at their retirement plan because it’s different and special that he won’t charge by the hour for, that’s not a discount, that’s an extra. And I just encourage you to think along these lines, what would this affinity group find valuable that doesn’t cost you very much? That’s the method of thinking. That’s the mindset to approach this question, how do I give more? What would be valuable to them? Because in any negotiation, very often you can find things that are valuable to the other side that don’t cost you anything. That’s where you go with this. So great question. Thanks for that. And Rob, fantastic suggestion.

Announcer:

Thank you for listening. This has been the Unbillable Hour Community table on the Legal Talk Network.

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