Turn Calls/Inquiries into Signed Retainer
Agreements and Cash in the Bank… Remotely
Interviewer: Let me say a couple more questions. What happens if, and I’m sure this comes up a lot, a potential client starts asking you specifics about their situation and, they may not be pumping you for information but they’re just generally freaked out so they start asking you all these specific questions? I’m sure one response is, “Come into the office,” but what’s another response that would work just as well that wouldn’t, maybe, give away all the info or give it away, what would work better?
Josh: Be truthful. I say many, many, many times the same thing to every client and that is, “Look, right now, anything I say to you would be a guess. I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to your question. What I can tell is that I won’t have any idea,” for example I keep going back to DUI’s because I worked with you in the past with DUI marketing. I know we’re doing other things now and I’d be happy to discuss converting some of those clients but I’ve gotten the most experience there. When I talk to those people, I try to always, Jiminy Cripes, I forgot my train of thought. What were we talking about?
Interviewer: That’s fine.
Josh: I just went off-rail, Rich. I apologize.
Interviewer: No, that’s fine. I was saying to you, the question was, when potential clients start asking you all kinds of specifics about the case . . .
Josh: Oh, Okay. I know exactly where I was going. I apologize. You got me back on track. Okay. Basically I say to them, “Look, anything I tell you is going to be a guess and I can’t really answer your question, particularly in a criminal case.” They say, “Well, why is that?” I say, “I don’t have the police report. One of the biggest issues in your case is I’ve got to see what the police had to say about the incident, a DUI in particular.”
You have the field sobriety test. You have the preliminary screening. You have the booking. You have Title XVII. You have this, that, the other. You have to see that police report to be able to give them any sort of guess as to what going to happen on their case. Instead of backtracking and saying, “I can’t answer the question,” you can say, “In a lot of circumstances, this is what might happen, but none of this is going to be really valid until I see a police report. I don’t know.”
I think that works real well because people understand that. They know that attorneys have to have 100% of the information or we have 0% of the information. It’s black and white because the second something is not eliminated for us, that’s the thing that’s going to stop us up. That’s the thing that’s going to be a problem.
If I don’t have all the information, then all I can do is tell the client, “Hey, this is completely a guess. I don’t know. What I can tell you is once we get that police report, I’ll tell you what I think. Secondly, I’ll tell you, in my experience, my best prognosis as to what’s going to happen in your case.” People really respect that because they understand an attorney doesn’t necessarily know right up front. A lot of times they’re not looking for the attorney to know.
They’re just looking to know that once the attorney gets the police report, that, “Hey, this is what’s happened in the past and this is what I think I can do for you. From there, more than anything, regardless, I’ll fight for you. No matter what else happens, even if you’re police report is just bad, bad, bad, I will fight for you. That’s my job.”
That’s what people really want to hear when it comes to an attorney. They don’t want to hear specifics about their case. They don’t want to hear case law. They want to hear that an attorney cares enough to fight.
Interviewer: That’s what they all say, you know. “I’ll fight for you,” and all that but you’re communicating it in a different way. This also makes me think that this is another point where attorneys would feel tempted to… well, I’m not going to say they’ll say unethical things, but they may be tempted when someone’s pressing them on the specifics of their case. “Can you get this taken care of? Can you this business, can you get it dropped?” I’m sure, like a lot of them, you got to have an answer or the best way to handle that. That’s why I’m asking.
Josh: The thing that I hear that is the most borderline as to what you’re talking about, I hear this a lot more from what I keep referring to as “old-school attorneys”, is the phrase, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. I’ve got it handled.” What does that mean? It really doesn’t mean anything but it makes the client feel like the attorney’s going to take care of them and that, if it’s something where they’d be going to jail, they won’t be going to jail. It just makes people feel safe and secure.
To me, it’s borderline unethical. We have no idea what’s going to happen on a case. I think that that’s exactly what you’re talking about is where some people will say something like that. That’s two things. One, it’s borderline unethical, but, two, as far as converting somebody, what are you saying that’s different than anybody else? The whole point is you’ve got to do something different, which is not what they’re doing at that point. They’re just saying, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you,” that’s what a lot of attorneys say.
Interviewer: Okay. Yes, I mean, you could also say too, “Hey, a lot of other attorneys will probably try to tell you that they can get this reduced or dropped or, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it for you,’ but I think that’s a mistake because X, Y and Z,” so you can further, I guess, set the expectation when they talk to other attorneys and turn it in your favor that way.
Josh: I think any time you can set their expectations in so far as what they’re going to be hearing from other attorneys, you’re doing yourself a favor and you’re helping the client not choose to work with somebody else. That’s always the goal. If you’re not in this to convert leads, then you should probably be working for a corporation. If you’re working for yourself, you’ve got to convert. That’s how you make money. Again, I keep using the same word and it’s going to hold true the entire conversation, “differentiation”.