Join us as we dive into building a high-performing law firm sales team. Discover why sales isn't a dirty word and how a structured process can transform prospects into clients. We'll discuss the importance of belief, the role of non-attorney salespeople, and the power of a consistent training system. Whether you're a solo attorney or managing a large firm, learn actionable steps to boost your conversion rates and grow your practice. Tune in to master the art of law firm sales! 

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Welcome to Your Practice Mastered Podcast

MPS: Hey law firm owner, welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm MPS.

Richard James: And I'm Richard James. And MPS, today, we've got a special episode. but 

The Importance of Sales in Law Firms

Richard James: We're going to be talking about how to build the high performing law firm sales team. Is that right?

MPS: We sure are. Look, if you want a consistent stream of new clients for your law firm, it all starts in your sales process. And don't worry, we're going to cover sales being a dirty word for you law firm owners that might believe so. But we've got to figure out how to take our prospects and turn them into paying clients.

So Rich, let's break this down a little bit. We talk about the concept of building a high performing law firm sales team, where do they start?

Richard James: Well, 

Building Belief: A Success Story

Richard James: First, I think they have to start with belief. right? So, Let me illustrate it with a story. 

So when I first got into this industry and I started working with a lawyer, and he said, Hey, you want to take all your crazy ideas and build a firm in Phoenix? I said, sure. They were doing $0. They literally had just started. And we grew it to three and a half million dollars in just a couple of years.

And back then, that was a good story. I think we could do even better now with the institutional knowledge that we have. But at that point, that was a really good story. And people go, well, how did you do that? How'd you go from zero to hero so quickly? the answer was sales. 

And the answer MPS is sales.

MPS: It is. 

Sales: A Service, Not a Dirty Word

MPS: But I want to cover something because a lot of law firms hear sales and think it's this icky work, right, that it's sales. They get that slimy feeling about it. but I need you to understand, and Zig Ziglar says, it's best sales, not something we do to our prospects, I'm going to say here. It's It's something we do for our prospects. 

Otherwise what's going to happen? Either A; they're going to face the consequences of not taking action, or B they're going to go to go retain your and if you feel you're the best firm to go ahead and help them, well that's not a good a good feeling So we should try to make sure we can do all in our power the right way to get that prospect to retain the firm. Rich, would you agree with that?

Richard James: I mean, I think you nailed it. right? So if there was an audience in front of me, I would say, so how many of you feel that you're really good at what you do? And they would raise their hand. They would say, I. They would think it in their head and I'd be like, Oh, how many think you're really the best at what you do? And they would think about it. And I'd be like, okay, how many believe that like, if there's somebody who needs your services that they should choose you over your competition? And they, you know, they're the ones that say yes. 

And to your point, MPS, if they think they're the best and the client is going to get the best service through them, and they're going to get the best likely outcome through them, then they have a responsibility to the client to make sure they hire them.

They also have a responsibility to their company to make sure they hire them because this is how we build a profitable company. And so, yeah, and because I think, you nailed it. And so, if we can get them there, so if they go, okay, Rich, all right, MPS, I got it. believe. 

I've drank the Kool Aid. I'm ready to admit that sales is the path to success, and so I've got to get that nailed. 

Optimizing Your Sales Process

Richard James: What if they think, wait, well, yeah, but shouldn't I focus on like marketing and generating more leads first? I mean, don't, What what about that argument, MPS?

be Would you, would you agree? 

Richard James: Yeah, 

yeah, no, I mean, you nailed it. Right. So, you said it best. If you're, if, You might as well go ahead and take the pile of money you spend on marketing and take it out back and light it on fire. Because if you don't have the ability to convert those leads into sales, you know, and of course here's one of the challenges, right? when we say this, and you know this; a lot of attorneys automatically think, oh, well, look, if I get in front of them, they're going to buy, like, they're going to retain the firm. right? Have you heard that before?

MPS: yeah, I mean, jeez, if I collected a collected a penny every time I heard that, I would a very, very, very wealthy wealthy jackpot over here. Yes, I've heard that all heard that all the It's either, if they sit in front of me, I'm going to close them, or the automatic default default percentage is 80%. 80 80 of the

Richard James: So they think like, 

The Who and the Process

But you could go to YourProfitableLawFirm.Com to figure out if But Rich, we've got to start with this idea of who and then we've got to start with this idea of structure So why don't we just quickly talk about the talk about the who?

Richard James: Yeah, if I may, just as a plus one to add on to what MPS said a little earlier, he found out that attorneys think they close at 80%, but we found the truth is they close it actually less than 40%. And so my challenge to you is, before you go into a doubting Thomas mode, measure your own close rate. Like, Just take a week or a month. 

And to just plus one on that one more time, Michael, whether we're talking to the law firm owner who is a small and solo, and it's just him and a receptionist like that helps them out part time. Or we're talking to a firm that has you know, five attorneys or 10 attorneys, and they've got a complete staff, and they're you know, on the road, the three, four, 5 million this is true in both of those scenarios. And so both we find both firms don't measure their product, actual productivity and their close rate properly and regularly. And neither of them pay attention to the who, nor do they pay attention to the process. 

So now back to your question, you want to know a little bit 

Non-Attorney Salespeople: The Secret Weapon

Richard James: Well, 

found after measuring this many, many firms is that non attorney salespeople on average perform at better rates, close rate, than attorney than attorney And the primary reason for that for that is non attorney non attorney salespeople give legal give legal And because they can't give legal advice, it leaves them one option. That one option one they have to follow the structure. And because they have to follow have to follow the now they are equipped to follow that structure, and only that structure, work the prospect through, and get the consultation closed. 

However, MPS, if they're still stuck on this, and they really can't get over their own belief about that, or maybe they're concerned about their bar association and they haven't done the due diligence yet to determine if this was feasible for them, can they take the right system and structure and train attorneys to use it?

Implementing a Structured Sales Process

MPS: process, that's not, hey, you know, maybe

Richard James: Oh yeah, 100%. The attorneys oftentimes think that the responsibility during the consultation is to give legal advice. fact, especially the attorneys who charge for consults. Now, whether you should charge for consults or not is an entire other discussion that we're not going to get into today.

As a matter of fact, we should never give legal advice during the initial consultation. And rather, listen, we don't want to suggest that legal advice shouldn't be given, but it should be given after the consultation is over. Once the client retains the firm, the whole point of the initial consultation is for the client to retain the firm so that we can give them legal advice. 

What did it look like for you? Did you try to close everybody? Did assume you were going to close a hundred percent? Did you alter or change your pitch to try to close everybody? What did it look 

MPS: Yeah, that's a great

Measuring and Training Your Sales Team

Richard James: The first step I think that we talked about is, let's get the truth. So let's first set the stage by knowing what the truth is. Where are we already at? converting it? Now, here's some of the numbers you're going to want to get to get a baseline. first number you're going to want to get is what's your actual close rate? right?

So it's the close rate, just to be clear, the formula is really simple and it's math, but it's only arithmetic folks, so don't get scared. So listen, the close rate is simple. It's the number of people that retain the firm, divided by the number of people you meet with, minus anybody who's not qualified. Right? So it's, only the close rate of the qualified folks. All right. So that's your close rate.

And then the third thing you really want to measure is, how much are you receiving during that initial consultation as a down payment? And again, if you're a retainer firm, getting the initial retainer. If you're a flat fee firm, you're trying to maximize how much you're receiving as a down payment.

If you can measure your baseline, understand what your close rate is, understand what your client value is that you're currently selling, understand how much money you're getting during the initial consultation, we now have a basis to work from. Would you agree with That michael? 

First and foremost, you should always have some version of some consistent weekly training to make sure your sales team is getting coached and trained on a weekly basis. The second thing is you need to make sure you have an outlet every week for your team to be able to get questions answered. So whether that's on those training and coaching calls that you have, or you're just generally opening some time every week to be able to give your sales team an outlet to work through those questions, you need to have those two important meetings. But above all, one of the most important tools when it comes to accountability for your sales team is, you need to have a a scorecard.

Final Thoughts and Next Steps

MPS: Rich, would you you agree?

Richard James: Yeah. And to just like to, call out the elephant in the room, right? So maybe you're a lawyer and you're just realizing like, Oh my gosh, I don't have this skill. I don't know what to do about this skill. And maybe you're wondering, like. I didn't really want to know this skill. I didn't really want to have to have this skill. Like I just wanted to be a lawyer and I want to have my own firm. Or maybe you have a larger firm, and you realize that, yeah, you run your firm, but you spend a lot of time in the legal world or maybe the marketing world, but You don't have that skill to run the sales team.

Cause if I don't know what a good one looks like, it's going to be really hard for me to hire somebody. right? So Just as a overall statement, what NPS said is absolutely true, but it may be bubbled something up for you going, oh, like, I don't know how to do that. I don't want to do that. I don't like doing that. And maybe that's true. I'm hoping it bubbled up for you. Oh, I don't know how to do that. But yeah, it makes sense. And if I want to grow my firm, I just need to get better at that. And I've, I just improve that skill, my firm becomes more valuable. Yeah, that's the answer we're looking for, right? That's the type of law firm owner that wins. 

So that's a general overall concept, but I wanted to make sure it was inserted into this conversation. Because I do fully recognize after doing this for almost 15 years now, working with thousands of attorneys, I know that not all of you are matriculate towards this conversation. Some of you are repelled by this conversation. And I want you to know, that that's okay. You can just go hire somebody to do this for you. but if, you really want to learn it yourself, that's where the real win happens, When you want to start learning yourself. I don't know if that was a tangent you wanted me to go down or not, but I felt it was necessary to

But Rich, I was an excellent overview to give some tactical feedback on how to start building a high performing sales team to make sure they can get up and running and start that process. And I just want to thank the law firm owners that took the time to listen and hopefully got some value out of this. How about you, How about you, Rich?

Richard James: Yeah, no, totally, And PS. And I think someday, we, you know, it's awful hard for us to cover in just a podcast episode, all of the steps and minutiae of the structure and how all this works, but hopefully, we can give them an oversight and overview of what these steps can look and feel like someday and make an episode about that.

MPS: Hey, thanks for listening. That's the pod. pod you hit that follow or subscribe button, depending on where you're listening or or watching.