Follow Up, Or Fall Behind: Converting The Lead

Episode Notes

Transcript

[Music]

Managing your law practice can be challenging, marketing, time management, attracting clients and all the things besides the cases that you need to do that aren’t billable.  Welcome to this edition of The Un-Billable Hour, the Law Practice Advisory Podcast.  This is where you’ll get the information you need from expert guests and host, Christopher Anderson, here on Legal Talk Network.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Welcome to The Un-Billable Hour.  I am your host, Christopher Anderson.  And today’s episode is about – well, I’m going to call it about client acquisition.  Because it is – I know everybody gets so excited, it is about marketing.  Yes.  But really what we’re talking about more today is on the what happens next.  So many vendors are out there.  And we’ve talked about this before on the show, selling you marketing, right?  What do you want?  More leads.  What do you want?  More leads.  As we’ve discussed, they don’t ask you how many more.  They don’t ask you why.  They don’t ask you what that was supposed to do for your business.  It’s just, you know, because that’s what they sell, there’s more leads.  And it’s so important to emphasize the point that law firms who do a good or even a great job with marketing – I’ve worked with them all the time, often dropped the ball in their immediate next steps, which wastes so much of their efforts and money that they spent in market.

All right, to remind you in the main triangle of what it is that a law firm business must do.  We must all acquire new clients, acquisition, we must produce the results that we promised, production.  And we have to achieve the business and professional results that the owner wants.  Because that’s why we’re running these businesses, right?  And, of course, in the center of that triangle, driving it off, for better or worse is you my audience, members, welcome.  Because in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about what to do with the precious leads that you develop, so that your business can help more people.  And to do that and to help me do that today, I am so excited to announce my guest Philip Fairley, he’s the president of The Rainmaker Institute.  And today’s episode of The Un-billable Hour is follow-up or fall behind.  And I’m once again really excited to welcome Philip Fairley, president with The Rainmakers Institute to the show.

Philip is a well-known expert when it comes to helping law firm owners grow their business.  Philip really has this sort of holistic perspective that I really respect in helping law firm owners grow their business.  He’s a top authority in the legal industry, in marketing and intake and sales and running the firm, very data driven, which again, really floats my boat.  He’s previous founder and CEO of two very successful legal tech companies.  So, he knows the business side.  And he’s got the first and only real data analytics platform that’s 100% built, purpose built for law firms, which he has dubbed Renalytix.

Philip is the owner and president of The Rainmaker Institute.  And he focuses exclusively in his entrepreneurship today on the business of law firms.  He knows, firsthand, what it’s like to face the challenges of highly competitive industries.  He knows how to make payroll.  Juggle responsibilities.  Definitely generate new leads, and most importantly, follow up with them in running and growing a company.  So, with that introduction, Philip, welcome to the show.

Philip Fairley:  Well, thank you, Chris.  I’m really excited to be on The Un-billable Hour.  I know we’ve been looking forward – I’ve been looking forward to it for a couple of months since we’ve reconnected and I’m so excited and I really liked the way that you hyper-focused on this particular topic or this subset of marketing.  And I got to tell you, this really grew out of Rainmaker organically, because we’ve been around – we started in 1999.  And we started marketing services, we started coaching services, to kind of change your mindset, become a business owner, not so much an attorney.  But when we would generate all of these leads, really good quality leads and a good volume of it, people, they will come back to us and attorneys and be like, “Well, all these leads suck.  I need more leads.  I need more leads.  I need more leads.  Please more leads.  More leads.”

And then we would dig and pull back the covers a little bit and say, “Well, okay, so all these leads are bad.  What did you do with these leads?” “Well, we talked to him one time and we gave them an email.  And so, they know where we are.  And so, it’s so frustrating.  In fact, at a lot of our live events, we do our Rainmaker Retreat Boot Camps, we have got a big billboard, a poster or whatever you’d like to call it.  And it’s so appropriate I think for this, it says, “It’s not about more leads.  The answer is more clients.”

(00:05:00)

And so many law firms think, “Well, my marketing, I’m putting all of this investment, all of this effort.  I’m working with a vendor.  I’ve got a marketing manager.” We’re doing all of these things to generate qualified leads that we need every single day.  But at the end of the day, they’re like, “Well, my marketing is over when they call my firm.  My marketing stopped.  Now on to my next lead generation.” “Well, no, I think your marketing is only half done when somebody contacts your firm.

Christopher T. Anderson:  In a lot of my businesses, one of my – I don’t want to talk about me too much.  But one of our KPIs for my team is people who don’t buy from us, give us amazing reviews.  And because that shows us that we’ve been doing the marketing, all the way from beginning to end.  I do want to talk about though, even though we said we’re kind of lifting our noses at more leads, I want to talk about more leads in a second.  But before we get to that, in the intro, I’m notorious for giving these short kinds of incomplete intros.  I mentioned that you’ve been kind of a serial entrepreneur.  So, would you mind – and then that you’ve been in the legal industry for such a long time.  Just tell me a little bit about what are the other businesses you’ve done?  What have you done in the legal industry?  Just to give everybody a sense of your background.

Philip Fairley:  Yeah, it gives me a really good perspective.  That’s a great question.  I started at the ripe old age of 23 by putting a stake in the ground, Chris, by saying, “I can do this better than anyone else.” Because I had the high level of maturity and experience at that age.  And so, by the time I was 25, I had started my first tech firm.  And this was a general consulting firm, and I steered towards law firms, because there was a huge need.

I remember the first law firm I worked with, we were installing a server in their closet, running needles, practice management software.  Because that was revolutionary at the time.  And so, from there, it just went and kept evolving because doing such great work, I just get more referrals.  And in fact, my first company, Sky Technology, that – I think there’s probably about 65% of my clients ended up being law firms.  Then my second company on that while I was running that, there was a big need for residential services, just like in – what I would call in the trenches work.  You think of Geek Squad.  So, I had a company called HomeTech, where I had all these engineers running out, setting up wireless networks.  And a lot of them were for the owners of the law firms that were clients, also the business side of it.

So, sold off both of those companies, started a voice over IP phone system, which, once again, was dipping into the legal field, because just the need of always being able to answer the phone or if the phone wasn’t answered, being able to forward that over to a calling service or what have you.  So, I went through those arenas, and then we developed some software.  So, it was always in the legal realm.  And then about five years ago, I went full in at Rainmaker.  There’s an interesting story with that.  The founder of the company, Stephen Fairley, which was my brother, was a real titan in this industry.  He was the first person to really ever get up and teach people about legal marketing for law firms.  And this was back in the mid-90s, when he started doing that.  And so, he just really educated the entire industry that, “You can’t sell, but you better market,” and there’s a right way and a wrong way.  There’s good opportunities and there’s a lot of people that will take advantage of the budgets that law firms put towards marketing.

So, that was the journey that he was creating Rainmaker Institute during that time.  And it was great, because both of us were developing our legal companies.  We’re both working.  Not so much on the technology side.  But I was working on the technology side while he was building up the coaching, consulting and education side.  And so, we were always hand in hand.  And then unfortunately, a few years ago, one of the reasons why I took over Rainmaker is because I think a lot of you on here have either had a phone call, gotten a phone call, know somebody who’s gotten those type of phone calls, and whether it’s from a partner, a spouse, and mine was from a sibling.  And then that’s the worst type of phone calls when you get a really ugly diagnosis of cancer.  So, it really shook our family because really close to my brother.  We shared bedrooms, bunk beds together.  We lived in three different states like 2,000 miles apart during our adult years.  So, just best friends.

And so, having that really shake the foundation of our family, I decided to sell off my two companies that were still successful in Chicago, and within eight weeks, I had sold everything and moved down here to Arizona to take care of my brother and take over Rainmaker.  I tell that story and sometimes I’ll tell a longer version and sometimes a shorter one, depending upon my level of emotion with it, because if you know Rainmaker, you know Stephen Fairley, and there’s 5 out of 10 law firms he touched.

(00:10:02)

But I tell that not to say that I’m a good brother, because I think a lot of you on here that have a close sibling would do it.  But I tell you that because I learned so many lessons.  My first businesses, my clients were personal.  I wear them on my sleeve when I would lose one or gain one.  It was like a high or a low.  You know what I mean, Chris.  And then going through all of that, selling, starting other companies, and then selling and taking over Rainmaker, I learned that in order to scale your business, you still have to have those close relationships.  But you can’t take things personal.  You have to take things based upon data.  So, it really changed my approach to everything, business that we do, and that I do, but specifically at Rainmaker.  And so, that’s my journey of business ownership and entrepreneurship until I took over Rainmaker, and perfect timing.  When everything was great and then all of a sudden, this thing called COVID, which changed everything.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Yeah, I know.  It did.  But, yeah, I think you’ve taken Rainmaker in a different and new direction as well as really preserving a lot of the old stuff that just works, because it just works.  So, let’s take that experience, that journey now and talk a little bit about what are you seeing right now as the way that law firms are generating more leads today, that you think that your data, your clients are showing you is working?

Philip Fairley:  Like you had mentioned before with our business analytics tool we call Renalytix.  And so, we’re measuring thousands of law firms in their live data right now.  So, we’re looking at trends.  We see what’s moving the needle.  And there’s one thing that’s separating every firm from its competitors right now.  And I got to tell you, it’s a big blue ocean, and the opportunities there, it’s the most disruptive thing that I’ve seen in marketing, and it’s not new.  Since Google launched its Local Service Ads.  Local Service Ads changed the landscape of paid advertising and marketing online.  And I remember when we were first starting with LSAs, we were getting clients, for our law firm clients, we were generating them for $20 a client, $30 – not so much anymore.  But right now, video.  It’s not new.  But I have never seen on a seven-inch piece of plastic dropped the biggest grown men and women to their knees than their phone that they’re told to record video on.  The statistics are when you implement video in your marketing, it’s about a 68% increase in response in different things like email, it’s over a 250% increase in response.

Christopher T. Anderson:  So, I was just going to say like, when you say video, on what medium?  So, are we talking TikTok?  Are we talking Facebook reels?  Are we talking embedded in emails?  Where’s video working?

Philip Fairley:  Right?  Well, right now, I think there’s around seven or eight different platforms and venues that video should be used.  You mentioned some of them.  It all starts and stops with YouTube.  Well, I wouldn’t stop, but that’s really the start of the genesis of where your videos should be.  But these have to be different types of videos.  They’re not lawn order, like movies set quality.  We know there’s a lot of them out there.  And I have to tell you, they’re beautiful.  But they don’t get any response.  They get no response.

Christopher T. Anderson:  So, you’re saying the well-produced ones don’t work as well?

Philip Fairley:  They just don’t.  You know who they worked for?  The attorney.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Yeah, their ego.

Philip Fairley:  Just like a lot of you guys have probably been sold the Magazine Cover for law magazine of California or whatever.  It’s a pride thing.  And that’s okay.  But what people are consuming right now, they go to Netflix to consume that.  What people are consuming right now are two different types, what I would call short and long forms.  Long forms, usually over three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, like eight minutes max.  That’s great platform for YouTube.  Because actually, you start showing up where people are searching, as long as you SEO the title and the description.  And you make it an amateur video that’s been professionally edited, instead of just a fly by the seat.

Now, the short form, those usually under a minute, 90 seconds, 15, 30 seconds.  A lot of what we’re doing is taking those long forms and repurposing them for other platforms.  So, you shot once, and you distribute that information everywhere.  So, for platforms that you absolutely need to be on, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn.  Even if you’re a criminal defense attorney, you should be putting it on LinkedIn.

(00:15:00)

Why?  Because there’s pieces of software that you can schedule that will just send it to all these different platforms.  After you exhaust that, then you start looking – because that’s the lowest hanging fruit.  Until you’ve maximized those, don’t fall for I’m going to make a million dollars every month with TikTok ads until you’ve done that on Facebook and YouTube.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Well, it makes a lot of sense.  We’re going to come back and we’re talking about the mistakes that we make in wasting the leads that we’ve got.  We’ll be right back.

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Welcome back to The Un-billable Hour.  We’re talking with Philip Fairley.  Philip, again, is the President of The Rainmaker Institute.  Now, we’re going to turn and teach what Philip used to teach.  I mean, what Stephen used to teach and what Philip is teaching with Rainmakers, who’s kind of all about, which is, “All right, we’ve got these great leads coming in.  Let’s not mess it up.  Let’s not fall for the – what if I don’t have enough clients that the answer is always more leads?  It’s what you do with the leads.” Let’s just talk about what not to do first, Philip.  So, how our law firms not taking care of the gold?

Philip Fairley:  Not answering their phone live and answering every call and returning every message within 60 seconds.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Yeah.  The first time I ever met your brother.  He was doing one of the Rainmaker retreats.  And he was rattling off some statistics about what happens when people call law firms and I was just – I went up afterwards was like, “You’re full of it.  That’s not true.” And he showed me the data.  So, talk a little bit about what you mean when you say not answering phones, like what’s really happening?  Because I know what you do is you actually call these firms to find out.  So, what’s happening?

Philip Fairley:  Yeah, we do a lot of secret shoppers.  What’s happening is poor experience unlike any other industry that works with clients.  It’s really a sad state.  And I understand some of the reasons why because attorneys are busy.  And law firms don’t always answer the phone, one, appropriately, or in a timely manner.  We still get people that pick up their phone and say, “Hello, law firm.” I’m like, “Chris, who does that?” I’m like, “Hello, gas station.” “Bank,” I’m like, “This is your brand.” And the biggest reason – now, as you scale up, if you’ve got over 15 people, 20 people in your firm, you already have this.  Firms underneath that really struggle with this.  And that’s to have a dedicated person.

We coined back and I think it was 2000, or 2001, I’ve looked at the date, other people take credit for it now, but I’m fine with that, because I just want people to realize the value of this person that’s dedicated.  We call this person – you may call them intake and we do as well, because most law firms understand what that means.  We call them directors of first impression.  And their main job is – they probably have five responsibilities.  And there’s six or seven, but I don’t want to digress too deeply here.  But their first responsibility is to answer the phone live, all the time.  And you as a business owner, it’s your responsibility to make sure it happens.  Maybe not your fault if it doesn’t, but it’s your responsibility.  So, you have to make a plan.  You just can’t say, “Answer the phone,” because what if they’re on another call?  So, you have to have a system that will roll to somebody else like a calling service or a backup person.

But the directors of first impression, their first job is to answer the phone.  Their second responsibility is to answer the phone.  Their third responsibility is to answer the phone.  Their fourth responsibility is to answer the phone.  You know what their fifth responsibility is?  Everything else.  And I would maybe even put in a Four B in there.  It’s actually how we train our intake staff is to make more outbound calls and they get inbound calls.  We can talking about that in a second.  But, unless you have somebody that’s dedicated to this role, that’s their first, second, third, fourth, fifth priority, getting the mail, entering in data here, moving paper over there, whatever else they want to do.

(00:20:03)

And you may ask me, “Okay, that’s good.  But why should I do that?” One, they’ll pay for themselves within two to three months, because they’re thinking about this all the time.  The other thing to understand about your director of first impression, and most law firms are shocked, but then when they understand it, it makes a little bit more sense to them, these are the people – I don’t care how good your website is, I don’t care how many reviews you have, how many videos you have, how many referrals you’re getting, and who referred you.  These directors of first impression are literally in charge of your cash flow.  They’re going to determine whether somebody sets an appointment with you or goes and sets an appointment with your competitor, because you realize everybody’s got 2, 3, 4, 5 attorneys on their list of people to call.  And you also know if you get a referral.  They’re still most likely calling another law firm as well.

Christopher T. Anderson:  I think you actually hit the key.  You can’t do anything if you don’t answer the phone.  And you said something – I think you said within 60 seconds.  So, that’s key number one.  So, that’s why that’s priority 1, 2, 3 and 4.  So, all right, now, they’ve picked up the phone, what do you mean that they’re now in charge of your cash flow?  What can they do right?  What did they do wrong?

Philip Fairley:  So, what they can do wrong is to be an appointment center.  “Here’s your problem.  What time would you like to meet the attorney?” That’s wrong?

Christopher T. Anderson:  I’d say that’s how a lot of firms do it.

Philip Fairley:  I would say that’s how the vast majority do it.  They turn them into an appointment center, because they may have been a receptionist.  They may be an afterthought.  Well, this is our lowest paid person, let’s put them in front of the phones.  So, if they’re an order taker, you’re still going to get clients or leads that will set appointments.  You’ll get the lowest hanging fruit, but not everybody’s ready to buy.  Not everybody even knows if they have a legal case at this time.  They may be just trying to find out what’s going on and what their options are.  And guess what?  Every law firm typically sounds the same.

So, the structure of first impression, not only do they, you know, obviously greet them with the name of their Law Firm.  Please for God’s sake, do that, because you pay a lot for that brand.  Please don’t skip over that.  But then, not just being curious, but listening to them, empathizing, active listening, like what you’re doing right now, Chris.  You’re listening to me and you’re interjecting a positive affirmation or maybe a little follow-up injection question.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Huh, what did you say?  I’m just kidding.

Philip Fairley:  Once again, another dad joke, Chris.  That’s all I’ve got.  So, I could relate.

Christopher T. Anderson:  So, yeah, they’re interacting.  You’re probably not – like you probably actually want someone who’s not just like, “Oh, we don’t know what else to do.  Let’s put him on the phone.”  You want someone who, like, you know these people and like for the lawyers who are listening, like you’re out there, you’re having dinner, or you’re buying a mattress, or you’re, I don’t know, going to the bank and, you know what, you’ll run into these people and you’d be like, “Wow, they just lit up the room.”

Philip Fairley:  Yes.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Like, hire them for that.  Right?

Philip Fairley:  Right, yeah.  Yeah, like what are the simple little silly strategies we teach if you’re having a problem with intake, put a little mirror by their front of their desks so when they answer the phone they’re looking at themselves and you better be smiling because you can hear a smile.  Right?

Christopher T. Anderson:  Yup, yeah.  That’s absolutely true.

Philip Fairley:  So, empathizing with them, oh my gosh, you would be surprised, especially in like workers’ comp or PI, or some of those things that are much more physically maybe, you know, involved with a lead.  Like, “I can’t believe this is happening.  Man, this is a really tough spot,” right?  You don’t have to be silly about your empathy and everybody’s empathized.  What does that mean?  Active listening and where it makes sense during the conversation.  Be like, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe you’re going through this,” right?  But the biggest part of it is, is what we call UCAs or unique competitive advantages, because when somebody calls your firm they only have one question on their mind, Chris.

Christopher T. Anderson:  “How much?”

Philip Fairley:  Well, no, not even.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Okay.

Philip Fairley:  That’s what they may ask you, right?  You know this, you get those phone calls.  “Why should I hire you?”

Christopher T. Anderson:  Yeah.

Philip Fairley:  Right?  So, unique competitive advantage, you know, answer law firm or ABC Law Firm, “Yeah, what time would you like?  Are you free next Thursday?  Yeah, at 2:00 PM? Yup, done.  Okay, see you then.  Bye.”  Right?  That’s how a typical intake call will happen, but if you’re actively listening, you’re showing realistic empathy, all right, not over-the-top car salesman empathy, but then interjecting your UCAs or unique competitive advantages, like what makes your firm different?  Like, if you’re in California, you can be a certified mediation specialist.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Sure.

Philip Fairley:  Other states are like you’ll go to jail by the bar if you say you’re a specialist, right?  Or these are some, if you’re personal injury, this is how much money I’ve ever recovered?

(00:25:01)

That’s why you see those big billboards with billions of dollars on them, right?  What’s some awards that you’ve won.  It’s not – my unique competitive advantage is not we have good customer service and we have good communication.  Everybody says that, right?  But what can you drill down in your firm that you could be a party of one or two of in your area?  Like I work directly, if I’m in employment law, we’ve got an employment attorney in Memphis, I am special counsel to the mayor of Memphis on all employee-related matters.  That’s what we taught their intake people to tell.  And when I say unique competitive advantage, I mean using it proactively.  You have to insert it.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Yeah, bring it out there.

Philip Fairley:  Yeah, because just find a place to insert it because now if you’re going through, you’re empathizing with them, you’re asking some smart questions and not getting all the details, and by the way, doing this all within 10 minutes or less, does your intake question take longer than that, because you’re missing calls if you take longer?  But then you’re telling them, you’re answering their question, “Why should I hire you,” that your competitors aren’t doing?  You’re telling them why I’m different because every law firm, you know, that’s why you’re a divorce attorney and you get calls for bankruptcy.  Your websites look the same.  You’re on the steps of the courtroom with the scales of justice in the upper right hand corner, and they just think you’re scary and want to take their money.  So, when you empathize, active listen, and you insert things that your competitors can’t say, now you’ve set yourself apart, then you can ask for the appointment.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Well, you know, Philip, we could do clearly an entire show on just the intake call.

Philip Fairley:  I think we should.

Christopher T. Anderson:  One of the things I’m going to tease everybody with right now before we go to break is, people probably have a lot of questions about what you’ve just said, and listeners of my program know, and I hope you know that we do a college show called the Community Table.  Would you be willing to answer those questions on the June edition of the Community Table?

Philip Fairley:  Only if they will pepper me with questions, I would be more than willing, because one of the things, we call ourselves Rainmaker Institute not Rainmaker Marketing, not Rainmaker Conversion, we educate.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Right.

Philip Fairley:  And we understand if we educate, you get clients, clients that don’t have the funds, they have time.  We teach them how to do it.  I would love to.  I’d love to answer all the questions.  I can talk this all day long because it’s the difference between a good firm and a great firm, that’s your intake.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Fantastic.  So, yeah, that’s the third Thursday at 3:00 Eastern.  And so, for the June show, which is June 15th I believe, Philip Fairley said he’s going to be on it, yay.

Okay, we need to go to break.  When we come back, we are going to leave intake because I want to talk to you about at least two additional things, one of which is, okay, between that initial contact and intake, what do you do or what do you see law firms not doing to make sure that they get to that sales call, and the other thing is I just want to talk, because we talked a little bit about Renalytix, I want to talk a little bit more about being data-driven, but first, we’ve got some data-driven sponsors who would like you to listen to their message.  So, here we go.

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And hello again.  I am speaking with Philip Fairley.  He’s the president of The Rainmaker Institute and we’ve been talking about intake.  We’ve been talking about intake a lot, but what we’re really talking about, it’s not about intake.  It’s about treating your leads, your prospective clients, the ones who are going to buy and the ones who aren’t, with great respect so that they have the greatest chance of learning why they should work with your business.  But I wanted to take another step out of just intake, Philip, and talk about – because one of the things that’s frustrating for a lot of law firms is, okay, we get the lead, maybe we called them or we emailed them, and we didn’t reach them or we don’t get a response and you’re like, “Okay, next lead.”  Like, what are law firms not doing, what should they be doing regarding getting that lead to a place where they can make a decision to work with you or not?

(00:30:04)

Philip Fairley:  Yeah.  People may get intake right but then remember, most law firms think their marketing stops when the phone rings.  So, what I’m talking about is nurturing?  That’s a clearly different type of marketing.  So, the larger, the more leads that you’re getting, the more sophisticated you have to be with this.  If you’re getting under 20, 30, 40 leads a month, you can potentially do some of this manually.  If you’re getting over that, you have to automate this.  Bring your questions to our open table because I can tell you some more about that, but let me talk to you about best practices.

So, one, you have to know, you have to slice your practice areas down as thinly as you possibly can in order to nurture appropriately.  So, what I mean by that, so if they come in and they need a divorce, well, we look at that as that’s not just family law or divorce.  That’s divorce with children, divorce without children, divorce as a business owner that has large assets, mediation potential, right?  So, you can look at these because you need different types of communication.  So, what you need to do is you need to communicate automatically, or if you’re getting less than 40 leads a month you can do some of this manually, but promise, I promise you, you put in automation, it will pay for itself in a month or two.  You do it manually, it will never get done straight but, you know, I know budgets are different.

So, let’s say for instance there’s a divorce with children and they didn’t make a decision to set an appointment.  One of the new things I just started talking about, Chris, probably about three months ago, because I’m so passionate about video right now, is scattering and implementing and publishing videos in your nurturing.  Oh my goodness, not in just your lead generation but in your nurturing.  So, here, if you take nothing out of this, here’s once practical strategy I can tell you right now that will put money in the bank next month.  So, for those people, you can do this for both two types of sections, one, the people that don’t set an appointment with you, and then the ones that go to your consult and don’t hire you.  Remember, those are your most expensive leads.  They went to your marketing, they talk to your intake, they set the appointment, you took the time.  Those leads are flipping expensive.  So, the ones that don’t set an appointment during intake or the ones that don’t hire you initially during the consult, you know what, usually you need four to ten email messages dripped out to them over time.  Like if you’re an estate planner, that’s going to be over two months.  If you’re criminal defense, that’s going to be over a week and a half.  Your sales cycle is different, right?  If you’re family law, maybe it’s over two weeks.

So, you have these messages prewritten, ready to send out on a schedule.  So, if they call in and they’ve got divorce and they have children, you’re going to talk to them about protecting their children and their future, and those things that relate to them versus somebody that has a divorce with no children, they’re like, “I just want to get it done, get it quick.  Get me out.”  These cost different type of nurturing, right?

Christopher T. Anderson:  Sure.

Philip Fairley:  One of the things, a strategy I want to tell you right now no matter what your practice area is, no matter what their case type or their specific matter is, that first message, the ones that don’t hire you at the consult or they don’t set an appointment, here’s what we do.  You send out a message to them, and it’s a video message embedded in an e-mail or a text, or both actually, what it’s like to be a client of ours.  Okay, number one, if you’re a bankruptcy firm, what’s the why of the person calling in?  “I’ve got to get out of debt.  I’ve got to protect my family,” right?  So, if it’s bankruptcy you’re like, day number one working with our firm, we take all the pressure off you.  You’ll never have to talk to another collector.  We’re going to hold your hand through the entire process.  You’re going to have an entire team fighting for you, be coming between you and everyone else, we’re on your team.  Okay?  I don’t know about you but that kind of resonates with me.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Right.  I mean, I think that’s fantastic because now you’ve put this – I don’t want it because it’s a video, it’s an image, but it’s not the video image but you’ve actually put – you’ve let the client put themselves in the chair of being your client.

Philip Fairley:  Yes.

Christopher T. Anderson:  You put the prospect in the chair of being your client and they can’t get rid of that.  That’s like that’s now there.

Philip Fairley:  They’re confused, they don’t know how the court systems work.  Even if they’re a repeat client and you’re criminal defense, they definitely don’t know how the court system works or they would be doing it, right?  They’re confused.  They don’t want to talk to an attorney, sorry.  Sorry to break it to you.  One, another thing, they all think you’re the same and scary and going to charge them a lot of money every time they pick up the phone.  What it’s like to be a client of ours, day number one, here’s one other place where you can do some nurturing.  This pre-sells and will increase your sales close rate at the consultation.  And if you’ve got a show rate problem, like if you’re an estate planner you’re like, “I don’t remember the last time someone didn’t show up for an appointment.”

(00:35:00)

If you’re a bankruptcy, I’m like, “Yeah, one out of two.”

Christopher T. Anderson:  Right.

Philip Fairley:  I’m criminal defense, “Yeah.  I’ve got a 30% show rate every single week.”  Here’s another particular strategy that will solve that.  It won’t make it 100%, but then you’ll close a lot more at the sales, at the consultation.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Yeah?

Philip Fairley:  So, you know, what we do is set up systems for our clients, our intake systems, we call it turbine, but you set it up in whatever platform you’re using.  So, when they set the appointment, all right, they get a text message just like the dentist.  “Here’s your location.  Here’s the Zoom link.  Here’s our office address.  Here’s our phone number.  Here’s the time.  Here’s a calendar invite to put it on there,” right?  That’s normal.  Kind of what I call table stakes?  You set an appointment, give the information to the person, set the appointment because, one, you just don’t want to leave it up to guessing.  Then we usually, depending upon their sales cycle, usually that same day within a couple of hours, we have it set to then send them what we call a profile video.  This is a video of the person that they’re going to have their consultation with, and it’s a minute, two minutes, three minutes max.  And it’s not, “I went to Northwestern Law and I had a – This is where I clerk and this is–,” you know? People don’t care about that.  Right?  You’ll want to talk, you’ll want to humanize yourself.  Throw a dad joke.  I would throw a dad joke in because if I’m a dad, I’m being a little humorous.  What are my passions?  I love to cook and I love to travel.  If you saw my waistline, you would understand why I like to cook.  And I love to travel, I love my pet, and my daughter’s in travel volleyball.  I started to be an attorney because here’s my story, or happened to my dad or my family, or I came to help people just like you.  I can’t wait to see you.  Make sure you bring all your questions.  End of the video.

Now you’ve already almost had like a first sales meeting with them.  So, by the time they see you it’s like, “Okay.  This guy already, or this gal, I already know what he looks like or she looks like.  I know why they’re doing this,” and you get to frame the type of person, an attorney you are even before they show up.  That fixes show rates and helps you pre-sell them even before they come to the consult.

Christopher T. Anderson:  I think that’s amazing.  So, listen, we talked about like – and I just want to kind of nail this down a little bit because we’ve talked about like this will make it better, this will make it better, this will have good results, this is what people are doing wrong, this is what you should do better.  But we’ve taught – and the very front of the show we said something about being data-driven.

Philip Fairley:  Yeah.

Christopher T. Anderson:  So, do you have any case studies about how improving intakes, do you have any like numbers we could throw around here about how improving intakes has actually helped an actual law firm do better?

Philip Fairley:  Yes.  And I don’t want to use this as a plug for Renalytix, but I will tell you, when law firms start looking at their numbers, like what’s your close rate, what’s your qualification rate, why they didn’t hire, how long does it take for them to hire later, what percentage set an appointment, what percentage show, from what lead source, by which practice area, which intake person sets the highest appointments.  We have clients all the time that will have four attorneys taking consults who are like, “Yeah, we just round robin.  Whoever’s free and available on their calendar, they get the next appointment.”  Right?  How many law firms do that?  Can I see a show of hands?  Obviously I can, but I would see a room full of hands.  When you know what their close rate is, then you accordingly assign people that can sell, that can close, they take the consults.  So many times we walk into a law firm and they’re like, “Yeah, there’s me, I have a partner, and I have three associates.  Me and my partner take most of them but my partner closes up 14%.  I close it 53%.”

Christopher T. Anderson:  Right.

Philip Fairley:  And we tell them your partner needs to just do the work and stop taking consults.  They need to stop showing up to court, you do the consultations.  But when we implement Renalytix into our client’s firms, we’re talking about into their billing, into their time on desk, into their practice management, into their intake, into all their marketing.  How much is like cost per lead, how much the cost per client acquisition, all of these things?  When you start running your firm by numbers, our average client within 18 months has increased their revenue by at least 40% without increasing their marketing budget.

Christopher T. Anderson:  And that’s phenomenal, right?  Because that in a sense is not free money because you still have to service the work, but it sure juices your ROI on the marketing.

Philip Fairley:  Then your marketing budgets shrink because you’re paying less to acquire a client, you rest at night knowing every lead is nurtured to the nth degree, talk about being able to get a good sleep at night.  I can make payroll and I know every lead is being nurtured to its nth degree.  Just extracting because there’s so many people that call a law firm that are confused, they’re not ready to make a decision.  And so, you may be warming them up and they’re like, “Okay, yeah, I probably do have a case that I need,” and then they’re calling three other firms and then the one that emphasizes with them, that sends them a profile video or what it’s like to be a client, they’re like, “Yup, I’m doing it.  I’m hiring them,” all the while you warm them up to the idea that they actually had standing.

(00:40:10)

Christopher T. Anderson:  That’s right.  That’s right.

Philip Fairley:  And you’re not on their radar anymore.

Christopher T. Anderson:  And that does happen.  I know it.  And unfortunately, Phil, we’re going to have to leave it right there.  There’s so much more we could talk about.  We’ll probably bring you back and do some more because there’s topics we didn’t even touch yet but for right now, the first thing I want to say to our listeners is just to remind that Philip has agreed to be on the Community Table on the June episode.  So, that’s June 15th I believe.  It’s always the third Thursday at 3:00 Eastern.  I think it’s June 15th and so if you have questions for Philip, you can come there and ask them.  But, Philip, not everybody’s going to be able to do that.  So, what’s another way if people want to learn more about what we’ve talked about here today, how can they reach out to you?

Philip Fairley:  Yeah.  The best way is – and obviously if it’s a one-to-one, I’m always open for a consultation or just quick, you know, pick my brain, I love to talk.  I think you can see the passion, how passionate I am, because this is just life-changing.  It changes their family, their future.  But the best way to learn about these types of like real strategies instead of theoretical change your mindset type, that’s important but I’m talking about real strategies like we were talking about today, is come to one of our Rainmaker retreats.  Our next one’s in August, and that’s in Vegas right on the strip at the Paris Hotel, and then we’ll have one at the end of the year as well.  We usually do three or four a year.

If you go to rainmakerretreat.com, rainmakerretreat.com and you’ll find out all about, you’ll see videos of testimonials, what people learn.  It’s a couple hundred bucks.  You will walk away with a notebook of, “Oh, now I need to put a mirror in here.  Now I need a profile video.  Now I need to do these four steps.”  They come back with a runbook, a playbook for their firm.

Christopher T. Anderson:  Fantastic.  All right.  Well, thank you, Philip.  And of course this does wrap up this edition of The Unbillable Hour.  Thank you all for listening and for hanging out here with us.  My guest today one more time is Philip Fairley.  He’s the president of the Rainmaker Institute, rainmakerretreat.com is where you can sign up to learn more at one of his Rainmaker Retreats or from that you could also just reach out and say, “Hey, I need to talk for a few minutes.”

Philip Fairley:  Yeah.

Christopher T. Anderson:  And of course, come to the Community Table, third Thursday at 3:00, and Philip will answer your questions, and I might answer a couple too.  Until then, I am Christopher T. Anderson and I look forward to seeing you next month as we bring on another great guest, and as we learn more about topics that help us build the law firm business that works for you.

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