During the brainstorming session and discussion mentioned in the previous post, another topic that the in-house and outside counsel focused on was the way that lawyers present themselves and their proposals in legal sales meetings. This is the Red Zone of law business development – the time when lawyers are face to face with their prospects and everyone involved needs to be at the top of their game. If you’ve been fumbling when the pressure is on, you’ll be happy to know that there are things that you can do to step up your game.


In order to start connecting, you need to build a rapport with your prospects. There was strong agreement among the group that the following are all critical to making a connection:

• Showing preparation is an asset. Don’t be afraid to refer to or show your notes during the meeting—this is just a sign that you’ve done your homework.
• Use your pre-meeting research to demonstrate what you have learned about your prospects, their businesses, the challenges they are facing, and what they really need.
• Work with your client or prospect to create a clear, concise definition of the problem they are facing.
• Don’t focus on using big words to impress your clients. Big words do not an intellectual make.
• Be clear about your firm’s strengths and advantages when you are engaged in law firm selling. There’s no reason to make the differentiation from other firms personal; if your message is strong and you are confident that you’re the best one to do the work, there’s no need to mention your competitors by name.

Effective lawyer marketing is all about closing skills. Building a rapport with your clients or prospects during your pitches and presentations will help you choose the right tools and close more business.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 5:21 am and is filed under Closing Skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.