#376: 6 Keys to Closing More Consults

You may think that converting more consults is some sort of gift that some lawyers have and some don't. But I'm here to tell you that this is a learnable skill. And in today's episode, you are going to learn six keys to creating more successful consults in your practice. So if that interests you, keep listening.

Hi, I'm Dina Cataldo, a master coach and ex criminal prosecutor I created. Be a Better Lawyer Podcast for driven lawyers like you who want more from life than sitting behind a desk. You've been playing by other people's rules. Those rules have left you overwhelmed, unfulfilled, and feeling like a hamster on a wheel. I've been there. I was doing everything people told me to do to be successful, working late nights, weekends, and trying to make everyone happy. So why wasn't I happy and I wanted more in life? When was I going to find time to find and pursue that?

Well, I did, and I'm sharing with you my secrets to living a happier and more fulfilling life. This podcast gives you a lifetime of wisdom, mindset, principles, and bedrock strategies to give you unshakeable confidence, more time to pursue your goals, a powerful sense of purpose to uplevel your life and law practice and so much more.

These are things we were never taught in law school. This podcast bridges the gap between law, school and life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started.

Hello, how are you doing today? I want to know what you feel like when you enter a consult on a scale from one to 10, one being horrible, 10 feeling amazing, what would you rate it at? And don't say seven, because seven is average. I want you to pick a number that isn't the average number and that is gonna give you a real understanding of where you fall when it comes to consults. If you're an eight, nine, or 10, fabulous, I am so happy for you.

But this episode is gonna help you even more. And if you are under, if you're a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or six, then you know that this episode is going to be for you. So let's start with these six keys, these six fundamental keys to helping you create more clients in your practice from consults. The very first fundamental principle here is that you need to take a moment to be in the other person's shoes.

This person is likely confused, overwhelmed, maybe they're insecure because they're going into a lawyer's office and many people are intimidated by lawyers and they are just hoping for a friendly face. Somebody who is going to be able to help them break down their problem in as simple terms as possible so that they can understand it.

Now they, I'm not saying these people are dumb, but they are not warriors, most of them. And those that are, they need your help too. They need to understand the real issues. In a case, many times somebody will come to you and they will believe that they have one issue, and you look at that issue and you know right away, this is not the only issue you have, my friend, there's a much bigger problem here. We need to clean up these other little areas. And it's up to you to be able to communicate to them those little areas.

And if you are not fully present, if you are not able to enact these six fundamental principles in these consults, then you are not potentially not going to be able to help them as much as you could. So that's why I wanted to go through this today. And I wanna share with you, like as I'm moving into this home, into Sedona, I am starting to notice all those little areas that needed packed ups or need a little extra love, little extra cleaning.

And this is what I wanna offer to you that you begin doing in your practice. If you're not doing it already, is every single week, designate some cleanup time to your practice. Find those areas that need a little more attention. You may not be able to address them immediately, but you can put them on your calendar. You can square away some time so that you can do those things.

And this is what I do with my clients every single week. We meet up every week for 50 minutes. Now you have 50 minutes for your practice. I guarantee you that to find those areas that need some cleanup, a little extra dusting, so to speak. And consults might be one of those areas.

So if it is, then take this episode and designate an hour this week to clean up this area for you. I'm gonna give you a few little exercises that you can take away from this episode to do just that. Alright, so we've got the first fundamental principle, the first foundation you need to better converting consults, which is to take a moment to be in their shoes. They are hoping that you are the person who can help them. So be that person. And that requires, which brings me to the second fundamental principle that requires you to be of service to them.

And that's actually the prerequisite for making money in your practice, is to be of service. You must give to receive whether you have a paid consult structure or whether you have a complimentary consult structure. It just doesn't matter what you are creating in that consult is something that is of service to them.

And it's important that you're clear what that service is. Is that service going to be listening to their problem and being able to lay out the next steps for them in a logical manner that might be the value that you are providing to them? And that is amazing because that's what they need right now. It may not be any legal advice. It may be giving them the next steps that may need to take in order to solve their problem. It may be explaining the legal system to them.

This is something I did all the time for the victims that came into the DA's office is needing to explain the criminal justice system in as simple a way as possible and why it works so slowly, right?

And it's the same thing for you. If you have a practice area where you know there's gonna be hiccups because of the certain judges in your practice area where you know there's gonna be hiccups because of the opposing counsel, you know that there's gonna be problems ahead of the way.

The value that you can give them is an understanding that this is not a smooth process. And to set up their expectations in a way that will allow you to serve them in the long term. Because if they're coming to you, they may not know any of these issues and it's up to you to shine a light on them to show them exactly what's going on.

But not only that, you wanna share with them why you are the person that they wanna work with. Because you know what? I work with these judges all the time, and this is something that I do every single day, is negotiate cases with them.

So they know me, I know them. That's just one example. Or I deal with issues like this all the time. So it's okay. When we hit these hiccups, I know exactly what to do. And that is what I wanna share with you here, is that you've gotta be clear about the service that you are providing to them, because that is also going to give you more confidence when you go into a consult and that confidence can be felt by them.

That energy is something that they are gonna be able to sense from you whether you are certain that you can help them or not. And that is going to bring me to the third premise of higher converting consults here, which is believing in the value of your services. You must believe in the value of your services before you walk in that door. Before you go into that zoom call, you must understand that your services are incredibly valuable.

And if you don't, I have an exercise for you, so don't worry. I'm curious for you, have you ever asked this question of yourself, what do I believe about the value of my services? Because when you ask yourself that question, do you feel confident or do you feel unsure?

You feel uncertain that you are really bringing a great value of services to your client, your potential client. One way that you will know that you are not confident in this area is if when you're in a consult, you automatically give discounts, <laugh>, when you are immediately wanting to say, oh no, I can do it for free. Or, oh no, I can give you a discount though. Don't worry about that because you are not certain of the value that you are bringing to the table. That's why you're doing that. And it's okay, but first you gotta notice it.

And then you gotta, you gotta stop it because it is like a leak in your car, <laugh>. It is something you have got to check on and you've gotta check in with, and you must become confident in the value of your services or you are gonna be leaking revenue left and right. So here's the exercise that I wanna give you. I want you to ask yourself, what are all the questions that you're afraid someone is going to ask you during a consult?

Just write them all out, all the ones that you're a little nervous to answer, you're not really sure if you wanna know the answer to, you're afraid of what your answer might be and how their response is gonna be, how they're gonna react, write it all down and then answer each one of these questions. I highly suggest you write this out and when you type it out, write it out.

I want you to read your answers out loud. Notice where you have any waiver in your responses. This is going to show you where you are wavering in the belief of your services. For example, you might be afraid that somebody's gonna ask you the question, well, you know, Bob, down the street, he charges, you know, X amount of money. Why are you charging y amount of money?

I want you to be able to answer that question because if you are constantly believing that your value is dependent upon other people's prices, then you are not going to be charging what you want. You're gonna be discounting your rate, you're not going to feel good about the work you're doing, you're gonna feel resentful.

So it's important that you answer this question for yourself and you could tell them something like, yeah, Bob does do that and he's a really nice guy and if you wanna go talk to him, you should, right?

It could be as simple as that. Or it could be, yeah, you know, that's interesting, but I'm curious, why did you come to me instead of him? And chances are the person who has asked that question is then going to say something like, well, you know, I heard about you from my friend, and my friend said, you know, she had a really great experience with you and you're, you might ask them like, what exactly did she say?

And she said, well, you know, they're very kind, they're very open-hearted. They answered all my questions. I felt really taken care of during the whole process. And then you just say, okay, that's beautiful. Just be there in the moment with the potential client that you're talking to and get curious because there's a reason they came to you. They came to you because they knew you could help them.

And it's important that you know that for yourself. That's what I'm getting at here, is that you know for yourself how valuable you are. I know so many lawyers who say, yeah, there are other lawyers in my area who provide cheaper services, but they're not providing the same kind of support.

They aren't doing the same kind of case work. They don't specialize in that particular case law. And that is something that you need to be sure about for yourself is what are you bringing to the table? How much experience do you have? Maybe Bob's brand new or maybe Bob's about to retire. Whatever is happening is you need to understand that within yourself. You are the one who must believe in the value.

And the only way you can believe in the value of your services is if you do an exercise like this to really check in to understand, look, what are all the things that make me amazing at my job?

And yeah, that might sound a little egocentric, but honestly, you've got to do this exercise in order for you to bring this to the table, to bring this into the conversation. It's not egocentric, it's simply acknowledging your expertise. And there's a lot of female lawyers who shy away from exercises like this, who shy away from being seen as the expert because they're afraid of seeming egotistical.

You are not egotistical, you are not egocentric. This is about mindset and what you need walking into a consult in order to answer the questions that are coming your way. All right, I think we've covered that one pretty well. The next fundamental principle of better converting consults is this curiosity over reactivity.

So here's what happens when you go into a consult <laugh>, your brain is thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. And, and it's up to you to continue to bring yourself to the present moment.

And here's what this looks like. You'll be talking to somebody, they'll be asking a question and they're gonna say words. Your potential client is gonna say something like, you know, I've gotta pay for daycare. They're just gonna say like, oh yeah, I have, I have daycare, I've got private schooling. All of this. You're just gonna be making conversation, but they're gonna be saying words and your brain is gonna be thinking they can't afford it.

And then your body is going to tense up and you are going to feel a little anxious because your brain is thinking they can't afford it. And that means I'm not gonna have the client and that means that I'm not gonna be able to make rent this month.

And all of these things, your brain is gonna be thinking in the background. So the way you're gonna know this is happening is that you are feeling tense, you're feeling anxious, you're feeling tight, something is happening in your body.

You notice you're holding your breath, you freeze like a deer in the headlights. Those are signals that this is just an area that needs to be cleaned up and that you need to learn the skills to manage your nervous system inside of a console.

So when a potential client says words and they and your brain starts to say things like they can't afford it, it's important for you to not judge, not get in their wallet, not try to guess what their situation is, but instead listen to their words. Have you even made an offer yet? Have you even given them any idea of how much the cost of your services is yet? No. Maybe that's the case, right? You haven't done that at all. So then when you get to the point where that actually happens, feel what's happening, notice it, and you say the price, what's going on?

What happens when you say the price? Are you thinking a million miles a minute? Are you automatically discounting, notice what's going on here? All that means is that your brain has gone haywire. So if they say, oh, that's a lot of money, you can ask them the question, well what does that mean? This is what I mean by curiosity <laugh>, right?

Curiosity over reactivity instead of just automatically reacting and discounting and they say, I can't afford it, you could say, oh, well what does that mean? Or That's a lot of money. Well, what does that mean to you? 'cause that means something different to every single person. So when you get curious and you're in the present moment and you're asking questions out of curiosity instead of judgment or these assumptions that your brain might be making, then you have the opportunity to extend the conversation to be able to find out what the real problem might be.

Here's another example for you. So if a client says to you, I need to think about it. If you just say, okay, out of a reaction because you're tense and you're afraid that you're gonna come off salesy, all of those fears that come up and you just let them walk out the door without the help that they wanted from you without the decision that they wanted to make about the your legal services, then you've just done what we call in the coaching industry.

You've gotten into the pool with them, you've totally believed them, you've jumped into the pool with these people. Instead, I wanna offer you to get curious. You can say something like, sure, what exactly did you wanna think about? So simple, right? Yeah, sure. What do you, what exactly do you wanna think about? And the reason this is so important is because you are the best resource for these people who are asking questions, who have questions.

And as soon as they walk out the door now, they no longer have your expertise, they no longer are able to ask the right person the questions. Instead, they're asking their brain and their brain doesn't have the answer. Instead they're asking their spouse and their spouse doesn't have the answer. Guess who has the answer? You have the answer. So I just wanna offer that to you. Sure.

Like what exactly did you wanna think about? And when you ask this, you can find out what exactly the question is and you might be able to answer it right then and there. And once they're out the door, they no longer have you, they no longer have that best resource. So it's your job to ensure that their questions are answered and that they understand the process. Alright, so let's talk about the next fundamental principle and what really prevents higher converting consults is that thought.

I'm gonna highlight the thought I just mentioned, which is believing that your potential client can't afford you. Because when you think this, you're actually beginning to take away the power of their decision making. And we never wanna do that. We always want the other person to have that ability to make a decision. But when you think this thought that the other person can't afford you, your brain also starts to do other things in the back of your mind.

Notice if this is happening for you, it starts to think things like, oh, this is such a waste of time, I should be doing other work. And when you begin thinking those thoughts, you begin to feel anxious tense. You start to wanna rush out of the conversation. And when you rush out of the conversation, you're not able to be present. You're not able to notice whether you're being reactive or not.

You're not able to do the things that you need to do while you're in the consult and able to provide the service that you want to provide. This is something that I work on with my clients, like they, we work on it, consult to consult. So if you have consults during the week, we break them down, we evaluate them, we look at exactly what's going on, and then I can help you regulate your nervous system system and understand what's going on in your brain that is creating the reactivity, that is creating the issues that you're seeing in your consults right now.

Okay, so now let's look at the final thing that I wanna share with you about consults, which is the unfocused problem. This is a problem that I see so often is that, uh, a consult goes long because you start spending a lot of time in one area.

You know, you're not able to complete the consult the way you want to, you miss things, you, you forget to talk about things because you are nervous, which is natural. Or the client begins to want to talk about other things and you're not redirecting the consult the way that you need to and having that client control. So what I wanna offer for you is to create a very simple structure and you probably are already doing exactly what works, you know what works for you.

So I want you to ask yourself, what do you wanna talk about in a consult? What are the main things that you want to talk about? The main topics might be something like attorney-client privilege, uh, you know, an introduction that that time where you're building rapport, there's the legal system, maybe there's some specifics to your particular legal industry that you wanna be able to share with them.

The way that you're talking to them about the engagement, how you're gonna work together. You know, talking about money, talking about financing. There might also be the time, hopefully you have this in your consult where you have it set up where they are signing a retainer agreement right then and there. So what are those sections? What are those areas of your consult? Write them out. How much time, just estimate. There's no right or wrong. This is an experiment.

How much time do you want to spend on each of these areas so that you are able to stay focused? So if you do notice, you go off topics, you've got a little cue card for yourself that says, oh yeah, I wanna make sure that I talk about this area of the legal industry. I wanna make sure that I talk about my expertise in this particular area and a common problem that I see, like write it all down.

And then you have that clarity going into a consult. And that is gonna make all the difference. When you have clarity, your client is gonna have clarity and it's gonna make them more likely to want to work with you because you have broken everything down so simply and they know that you are the person who can help them. So let's break down these six keys to higher closing rates on your consults. Number one, take a moment.

Be in their shoes. Understand that when they come to you, they're probably nervous, maybe even stressed out from the legal situation that they're in. Number two, you want to serve before they sign. And that's the prerequisite is to be able to serve before they sign. What is the service that you are providing in your consult? And in longer engagements, be clear on that so you can be clear with them on what the services that you are providing.

The third premise here is that you must believe in the value of your services. Ask yourself, what are all the questions that you're afraid someone is going to ask you during a consult? Then answer them for yourself. This is going to help you understand where you're wavering in your value and begin to focus your attention on building your mindset around how valuable your services are.

Number four, curiosity over reactivity. Whenever you notice your body getting tight, I want you to pause and just get curious, get present, and then get curious. 'cause when you're present, you are going to be able to ask them the questions that you need to in order to get clear, everything that needs to get clear so that they can then take the next step of working with you. Number five, you need to believe in your client and your client's ability to make decisions for themselves.

Decisions like where they're gonna get the money. Decisions like that are not your decision. So get present and focus on your client and what they need and clarifying any questions that they have and answering those questions in the moment. And one thing that I wanna offer you here is when you go into a consult, you always want to be in a place of sufficiency. What does that mean? It means that you don't need anything from this client.

If you are going into this consult thinking I need to make money, I need to get something from this client, you are not being in service, you are then being needy, and that is something, an energy that is felt by the other person. Instead, just go in remembering that no matter what happens in this consult, it's not gonna make or break you. You are okay no matter what you are taking care of no matter what.

And this really helps you focus on the client's needs instead of your own in that moment. And that is really service. And finally, you wanna give yourself a simple structure so you can focus your mind at any point during your consult, no matter what happens.

Alright my friend, this is just one area you can work on in your practice to begin clipping up those little areas that you see that need to be cleaned up and in the process, not only becoming better at consults, becoming better at serving the people that you want to serve. And when you become better at serving the people that you want to serve, the revenue naturally follows. Alright, I hope you have a beautiful rest of your week. Bye.

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