Unpacking Your Process: What Savvy Lawyers Actually Do With Clients
As a lawyer what do you actually do with each new client?
It’s a simple question and it should have a simple answer, right?
If only.
When I ask lawyers to tell me what they do every time a new client walks through the door of their law firm they stumble and struggle to provide a clear answer.
I get it. It’s like muscle memory. It’s not something you ever really think about — until you’re pushed to.
But you need to be pushed to think about this.
It’s essential to building a firm that doesn’t rely on you. A law firm that gives you freedom, in every sense of the word — financial freedom and personal life freedom. A firm that can be scaled.
How does understanding what you do with your clients result in a 7-figure firm?
To own a law firm that will earn you 7-figures and give you the freedom you desire, you need to build your firm in a way that is scalable.
Imagine if you tried to scale everything you do in a traditional firm. It seems like a logistical nightmare and it would be.
But if you focus on developing your valuable legal expertise and experience into a product that you can deliver online, you can start to see how you can scale.
As part of that, you need to understand your process with clients. This will help you fill out and create a package that will become your scalable online legal solution.
So what lawyers have fabulous processes?
When you first start thinking about how you interact and work with clients, it can be helpful to understand what savvy lawyers that are thriving online are doing.
So I want to share five hot principles the savvy lawyers we work follow to help as many clients as possible, as quickly as possible (aka at scale).
1. Savvy lawyers understand their ideal clients
If you’ve heard me talk about scaling your law firm before, chances are you’ve heard me talk about niching in on your ideal client.
So I’ll keep this brief. By focusing on one type of client you can focus on establishing the one process you typically follow with this type of client.
All of a sudden scale starts to feel achievable.
And that’s because it is.
When you focus on your ideal client you’ll be in a position to make a model, you’ll be able to design an online signature legal solution and you’ll be able to leverage automation.
2. Savvy lawyers know their moments of truth
By knowing your ideal client you can start to establish your moments of truth. What are moments of truth? They are the key interactions your clients experience when they deal with your law firm. In these moments your clients either fall in love with your firm or turn away and leave.
Here’s an example of the moments of truth for the 7-figure law firm I created, Legal Beagle, which served first home buyers:
A client would be served an ad on social media (ping), the client would visit my website (ping), the client would request a quote (ping), the client would onboard with us (ping), the client would receive their sale and purchase agreement (ping) and the client would move into their home (ping).
This is just a quick summary of some of the moments of truth our clients would face when interacting with my firm. By doing this we uncovered that we had a potential moment of glory — an opportunity to really wow our clients when they signed on with us by taking our online experience and connecting with our clients in their real-life. We did this by sending them a tangible gift to strengthen that connection.
Your clients have hundreds of potential moments of pain or moments of glory. You’re aiming to always deliver moments of glory — that’s when your law firm exceeds expectations. And, by identifying potential moments of pain you can set up systems to avoid or lessen the impact of potentially negative interactions.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as you look for your moments of truth:
- What do clients value about what you do for them?
- What questions are your clients always asking you?
- What do clients thank you for?
- What do clients give negative feedback about?
By knowing these interactions (or touchpoints) that can result in glory or pain, you start to build out the journey your clients go through which will help you establish your process with clients. Think of their journey as a roadmap detailing how a client becomes aware of your brand, their interactions with your firm, and beyond.
3. Savvy lawyers focus on providing solutions, not explaining the law
Here’s the cold hard truth — your clients don’t give two shits about the law. It can seem shocking to lawyers but it’s true.
What your clients really care about is themselves. They have a problem and they want you to solve it.
Maybe that problem looks like the couple who wants to buy their first home but don’t know how.
They’re definitely not thinking about the law.
They’re thinking about what their life will be like once they’ve navigated the hurdles in front of them and they’re proud homeowners.
If you want to scale then you need to start connecting with your clients and speaking directly to them in their language about how you have a solution to their problem.
When you start doing this not only will your moments of glory increase but you’ll find it far easier to market and sell your service. It’ll start to sell itself.
4. Savvy lawyers understand that what they do every day isn’t unique
We all like to feel special and lawyers are no different when it comes to how they think about their work.
Maybe you like to think that what you do at your firm is unique — and your IP is — but every single lawyer has repetition in the process surrounding how they work with a client.
Savvy lawyers use their understanding of the journey their clients go through to identify their process and find the repetition in their work. Then they go out and automate these tasks to free up their time to work on the areas that are unique to them.
Sameness is rife in the legal industry. If you take the repetitive tasks off the table you can actually spend time on the work that will allow you to grow your reputation as a provider of unparalleled and unique service.
5. Savvy lawyers make their model
A model is how you create an online legal solution that is truly unique and differentiates you from your competitors. It distils your genius into a system that serves and sells.
A lot of clients actually don’t know what lawyers do, but by putting your brilliance into a model (or framework) you’re going to be able to easily explain what it is you do and how you’re going to get results.
It creates clarity for everything you do in your law firm.
If you don’t have this right, then it doesn’t matter how amazing your marketing is or how talented your team is, you won’t find scalable success. You need this.
A well-defined model takes all the gold in your client process, matches it with your ideal clients, focuses on amplifying your moments of glory and leveraging your clients’ moments of pain to deliver incredible results time and time again. It’s a bulletproof system for building a badass legal empire.
Helping lawyers build their model is my superpower. If you’re an entrepreneurial lawyer and you want to work with me to make your model, then you can through my programme Scale Up.
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Claudia King is a legal tech entrepreneur and founder of Automio, the home of growth-focused lawyers. Automio helps growth-minded, entrepreneurial lawyers scale their law firms from 6 figures to 7 figures using cloud-based legal technology & world-class training programmes. Claudia has grown two legal businesses to 7-figures and her framework is supporting 100s of lawyers to create law firms that allow them to be happy, rested, impactful, collaborative and rich (in every sense of the word).
P.S.
Want to work with me to find your strengths and work with them to grow your law firm to 7-figures? Schedule a Strategy Session with my team. We will get on a call for 45 minutes and craft a step-by-step game plan for your firm, including:
- Identify your current situation in regards to the economic uncertainty
- Uncover the #1 thing holding you and your law firm back
- Develop a 3-step Action Plan that will get you results ASAP
P.P.S
If you’re keen to learn more about scaling your law firm with online legal solutions, head over to our new Savvy Lawyers Facebook group. Join me and a community of entrepreneurial lawyers talking about how you can use online legal solutions to make money while you sleep.
Originally published at https://autom.io on June 09, 2020.
