Turn Calls/Inquiries into Signed Retainer
Agreements and Cash in the Bank… Remotely
Interviewer: Do you have any disclaimer on the phone, like, “By the way, we’re going to talk about ‘X, Y and Z’ but I just wanted to let you know that just by talking about it doesn’t mean that we have an attorney/client relationship, but I am giving you legal advice.” Do you say that? Do you have to say that?
Josh: I don’t think that you really do because, truthfully, at least in California, even if you say that, they can come back at you later. Just putting a disclaimer on something doesn’t do anything but make you feel good. If you stick to a standard script of information, then if they ever came back at you, you could just say, “Look, I tell people they have this issue,” the DMV issue, for example, and they have 10 days. That’s sound like legal information. I tell them that the prosecutor does this on a normal case. That’s standard information. I tell them that they can lose their license between four months and a year for a first time DUI. That’s standard information.
As long as you don’t get into the specifics of their case and you stick to more or less a script, and I don’t mean you have to write everything out but you stick to saying the same things every time, you’re going to find that do real well and that you also have less liability. Other attorneys, I think, again, they want to get people in their office because they want the contract signed. It has nothing to do with liability. They want the contract signed. That’s the bottom line. It’s a trick of the trade and every attorney knows it. Get them into the office. That’s why I’m telling every attorney that’s listening to this, change the game plan. Do something different.
Interviewer: Let’s give them some more specifics. Do you suggest attorneys, not word for word, but do you suggest that they script out this new way of going to speak to potential clients?
Josh: If they’re going to be doing it on the phone, for example they’re doing DUI’s, if they’re going to be doing a DUI practice and they’re going to be getting leads over the Internet, something that you and I started out doing, then they should have a general idea what they’re going to say every time. Ten days, that’s a big one. You have the right to an attorney. You have the right to go to trial. You have this. You have that.
What is it like working with my office versus another office? Something I tell people is, “Look, the way I’m talking to you now is the way I will always talk to you. I will never, not answer the phone. The phone number that you have right now is the phone that rings directly to me. You will not reach a secretary. You will not reach an attorney that works for me. I have people that work for me, but you’re not going to reach them. You’re going to reach me. You’re paying to talk to me.”
I do everything I can from the second I say hello to the second they sign the contract to differentiate myself. Once they sign the contract, there’s not a whole lot of differentiation in the way one good attorney is going to handle the case versus another good attorney. The only time we have to differentiate our self is before they sign the contract, at least in my opinion.
Interviewer: Another phenomenon I was encountering with attorneys, and maybe it was just me, but they seemed very wooden and they seemed like they don’t talk very much. They give you one word answers and it’s very careful about what they say. Do you think that that translates to them talking to people on the phone and maybe they’re literally even socially awkward or they just feel like they have to be very short, otherwise they’ll get themselves in trouble or otherwise they won’t say the right things? I’m sure that negatively affects the person’s view of them if they’re just tight-lipped like that and serious and “[professional]”.
Josh: I think attorneys have an idea of what we’re supposed to be. A good example for this is doctors have this whole Hippocratic Oath and they’re supposedly not supposed to have any transference, I think is the word, where they don’t have a personal relationship with their patients and that’s including any sort of friendship or anything like that. And doctors all have this idea that that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
If you ever saw the movie “Patch Adams”, that’s based on a true story. It was somebody who was a lot like me that said, “Just because every other doctor is out there that does things this way, doesn’t mean that’s the way it has to be.” That’s what I do, I change things up. I think a lot of attorneys have an idea that they’re supposed to be stoic, they’re supposed to be serious, they’re supposed to be robots.
The people that hire me, generally, are the ones that end up calling me “Josh”. They don’t end up calling me “Attorney Hale” all the time. If they look at me like I’m another human being that’s trying to help them, I think that’s very beneficial because they know that I actually do want to help them. It’s a big difference when somebody calls you your name, your given name, rather than “attorney”. I think a lot of old-school attorneys would say that’s a sign of disrespect. I would say the exact opposite. They feel that they’re important enough in your life that they can call you your given name.
Interviewer: That’s what a lot of them are. I don’t know. They feel naked unless they’re standing in front of their law books and unless they give you a one-word very, very specific answer. They say anything extra, they’re going to lose face or I don’t know.
Josh: I think the problem that a lot of attorneys have is that they see themselves as attorneys. When they’re on the phone, they’re not an attorney. They haven’t gotten the client to work with them. At that point in time, they’re a salesperson and every attorney dreads seeing himself as a salesperson. He’s a professional who went to law school, who passed the bar exam, who upholds the highest standard of ethics. He’s an attorney.
He’s not an attorney. He’s nothing until he gets the contract signed. Until he gets that contract signed, he’s got to convert the client. He’s got to get the client to want to work with him. The whole basis of that is he’s got to be a good salesperson too. That’s why, in the legal profession, we have the term “rainmaker”. It’s an attorney that works for the firm that converts the most clients. Well, what does rainmaker actually mean? It just means salesman of the month. It’s just a different term for salesman of the month. But attorneys can’t even use the term “salesman of the month”, they have to change it to the word “rainmaker”.
Interviewer: I got you.
Josh: Because they feel that they have this ethical standard to be different than everybody else and that’s not true. It’s a profession, which means we still have the right to make money doing what we do. The way we make money doing what we do is by getting people to want to work with us and, ultimately, to give us money.