Each year, Major League Baseball’s World Series is a reminder of the importance of developing strong closing skills. Regardless of which teams make it to the “big dance,” the players to watch are the power hitters and the closing pitchers. This year, the Philadelphia Phillies returned to the series, but the power of the hitters and the closing skills of the New York Yankees pitchers combined to dethrone last year’s champs.


Just as strong closing pitchers are critical to an MLB team’s success, an attorney’s closing skills are crucial for law firms. In our recent survey, the overwhelming majority of responding attorneys indicated that closing was an essential component for business development training.


Whatever analogy you use when you’re making an important pitch to a prospect it’s important to focus on the close. Perhaps one of the most underutilized tactics for closing involves simply having an agenda.


When you’re invited to the big dance and have an opportunity to generate more business– whether an informal dinner meeting to discuss future opportunities with a current client or a formal RFP response–take the time to talk with your prospect ahead of time. Indicate what you believe will be important and be sure to identify your prospect’s ideas and priorities. Focus on each of these areas, practice your responses to possible questions; consider different approaches, anticipate what might be “thrown at you,” and even ask your business development consultant to play devil’s advocate and introduce additional scenarios.


The preparation that you put into a meeting will ensure that you’re ready for the big event. After the handshakes and greetings, “warm up” by reviewing the agenda with your client or prospect. Ask them if anything new has become opportunity or a challenge for them, get their input on the importance of discussion items and involve them in agreeing to the order in which topics will be discussed.


Think of your agenda as a playbook for the meeting – and go back to is as necessary to adjust your play when they throw a curveball or count on receiving a soft pitch. Make sure that your bases are covered throughout the meeting – focus on addressing all of their questions and needs, and don’t be afraid to swing for the fence and ask when their decision will be made.


The more that you practice your plays, the more that your performance will improve and the more success you’ll have.

No matter how many times Spider-Man was knocked down, captured, delayed, or rejected, he found a way to get through the situation and to win the fight.


Maximizing Rejection is an extension of this lesson – one that this business development consultant emphasizes to clients. Just because your proposal is not the one chosen doesn’t mean that you don’t still have a future prospect.


Instead of giving up when you don’t close the sale, try the following:

• Analyze your process to determine the reasons why your law sales effort was less than successful. Learn from this experience and use the knowledge you gain the next time that you’re making a pitch.
• Follow up with the prospect after 3-6 months have passed. Asking how the engagement is going will let them know you still want to work with them, and that you’re interested in keeping in touch.

Regular contact helps improve your chances of being retained in the future. Don’t give up: remember, Spidey eventually got his man – and you can close more business if you follow his lead, and continue to pursue your prospects.

John Daly, a great PGA golfer, was once asked to describe his style of play, The Lion came back with “Grip it and rip it” – a philosophy he expanded into a book focused on helping would-be golfers perfect their stance and grip so that they could hit the ball further than before. The book’s premise boils down to the thought that with the right training and practice, reaching a goal is as simple as going for it.


When you have a sound strategy for making legal sales and you build on your experience to the extent that it becomes second nature, you’ll find that Daly’s approach works well for law business development. The message is simple: concentrate and close. As you gain confidence, you’ll be able to take the next steps – focusing on four objectives:

1. Identifying more opportunities
2. Building a higher attack/pursuit rate.
3. Developing a pipeline.
4. Creating more business builders.

When you’ve developed your skills in these areas, closing sales naturally follows. You’ll be able to stay out of the rough and get to the green in fewer strokes.

“Go ahead; make my day” is one of the most frequently repeated movie quotes. However, that memorable line isn’t the only great advice that Dirty Harry offers to lawyers who are interested in making more legal sales.


Since most attorneys don’t conduct sales meetings with a 9mm Glock in hand, when you’re planning a meeting with your clients or prospects, it’s probably better to focus on Harry Callahan’s advice from The Dead Pool: “You want to play the game you’d better know the rules.”


A business development consultant can help you learn “rules” that will help you prepare for meetings or calls and produce successful legal sales:

1. Understand the economics of the business your prospect or client is involved in. The more you know about the financial side of a client’s business, the more focused your message will be to their needs.
2. Know your audience and what resources will be available. It’s important to know to whom you will be speaking and what their role is. It’s also helpful to know what the facility where you will be giving the presentation is like. If you have a presentation with slides, for example, you’ll need to have access to screen and projector in order to show them.
3. Plan and rehearse your presentation, conversation, or phone call. Be sure to anticipate the questions that your prospect or client is likely to ask and to develop your answers.
4. Clarify the objectives at the beginning of the call or meeting. Even if you come to the table with one plan in mind, remember that situations change. Your client or prospect’s needs may have changed between the time the meeting was scheduled and the time you sit down to talk; taking stock at the beginning lets you make any necessary adjustments and gets them involved early.

Get your clients talking 60% of the time and then listen to how they are responding. Pay attention to how they give and receive information to get clues on what communication techniques they favor. Make sure to address their concerns and focus on creating a positive result – closing the sale.

Of course, a business development consultant can do more than help you prepare for the meeting. You can also learn to stay on top of your game by conducting a post mortem after the meeting, presentation or call. Your business development coach can help you pinpoint questions that you could have asked but didn’t, identify answers that have room for improvement, and create a plan for going after additional opportunities that were presented.


When you know the rules of the game, have the right “coach” and put in enough time preparing, you’ll be ready to go ahead and ” make each meeting work!”

A good quarterback is always pushing his team toward the Red Zone – and needs to be focused on outsmarting the defense to complete the play. No one knows this better than football superstar Brett Favre, who spent 16 years showing Green Bay Packers fans that he had what it took on the field; last year he came out of retirement to play a season with the New York Jets, and now, as the season is about to get underway, Favre is ready to give his all for the Minnesota Vikings.


For lawyers, the lesson that Favre teaches is less about football and a lot more about making a comeback. Brett’s return to pro football clearly demonstrates that he knows how to identify new opportunities, how to negotiate and how to close deals. Each of these things is also an essential part of successful attorney selling.


Throughout the process of closing with a client, it’s important to know that he or she is open to reconnections. When you bring a client to the decision point, be sure that you have answers to the following questions:

• When will you make a decision?


• Is there additional information that you need – or that will be needed to smooth the internal decision-making process?


• When should I follow up?

The more that you’re prepared to meet your prospects’ and clients’ needs once you’re at the negotiation table, the more sales you’ll be able to close. When you love what you do and are willing to “sweat” to develop strong closing skills, you might find yourself, like Favre, on a list of all-time greats!

We’ve all heard the quote made famous by hairstyle icon Vidal Sassoon: “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good.” Vidal understood that making his clients look their best was key to his own continued success. The same holds true for attorneys. In order for the client to look great, the lawyer must be highly organized in depositions, in hearings, and in trial.


Although most lawyers rise to the occasion in the courtroom, many look very unprepared in a legal sales setting. Rather than being prepared for a phone call, a dinner meeting or before making a formal proposal, they try to wing it–an approach that ensures no one looks good!


Fortunately, there are steps that can be taken to set an agenda that will improve your closing skills.


Talk to the prospect or client before the session, offer a preliminary agenda, get their input, and revise as needed. When the call or meeting starts, present an agenda again but before you get started ask if your client or prospect wants to proceed in the recommended order; ask if any new challenges have arisen before you start the presentation. Clarifying the client’s objectives (not yours) before beginning a sales session is a skill that can be learned during business development training sessions.


It is critically important to get the client/prospect talking more than you. You can do that by completing research on the client’s business, competitors, stock price, and other info and by using that information to frame your questions and presentations. In other words, you’ll be able to give your clients and prospects the chance to look good – and you’ll look great in the process.

When told that the peasants of France were so poor that they could not even afford bread, Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake.” Even if scholars argue that the young queen never spoke the phrase, there is an important lesson to be learned for those who are involved in law sales. When you aren’t listening to your clients’ real needs and offering them what they’re asking for—like alternative billing arrangements–it’s going to be difficult to keep them coming back for more.


Rather than looking at client retention, client services, and practices like alternative billing arrangements that would help to grow the business, large “name” firms have focused on the reputations of their top lawyers. They are so busy leveraging their associates into high profits that they’re essentially offering their prospects “cake” rather than services that actually meet their needs.


When it comes to keeping clients, it’s the small and mid-sized firms that offer the best value. These smaller firms are looking at their current clients and their top prospects, they are embracing changes like alternative fee arrangements, and, as a result, are positioned to address the needs that are most critical.


By looking at creative law selling methods, offering alternative billing to win major clients, and learning techniques that make and keep your clients happy and adding value to your services, you’ll be on your way to business development success.

For the L.A. Lakers, it was a long time between championships. After being called basketball’s first dynasty for early back-to-back wins, the Lakers started to see long gaps between titles. During the 2008 NBA Playoffs, the team was embarrassed by the way they lost the finals to their longtime rival the Boston Celtics. After the loss, they made a team commitment to keep at it until they won – a commitment that paid off in the 2009 finals.


Similar to the Lakers’ challenges, making a commitment to a comeback success is related to an often-overlooked concept in legal sales – an approach I call Maximizing Rejection. Simply put, if you don’t win a proposal, are passed over for new client work, or aren’t even invited to the dance, do not go in the corner and let yourself disappear. Instead, make sure that you continue to be present. As you continue to gain more experience in lawyer marketing, you’ll realize how important your investment with the company or agency is, and why continued follow up and follow through is so worthwhile.


Things not going your way? Here are some suggestions on turning things around:

• If another firm has been selected for an engagement, call back to follow up with your prospect in 3-4 months. Remind prospective clients that you look forward to working with them in the future, and ask if they are getting what they expected and what they need from the firm that was hired.
• Keep clients who’ve received proposals on your “touch” list and make sure to follow through with a contact 2-3 times a year. Consider inviting them to be on a panel with you at an upcoming professional/bar association event—it’s a great way to reconnect.

Practicing proactive legal sales is a matter of recognizing that the prospect made an investment in spending time with you and your proposal. They got to know you–and if you were close in the finals, keeping in touch will enhance the prospect of future work. Don’t give up – stick with your commitment to your prospects, continue doing your best work, and close the sale.

A very happy new year to you all. Legal marketing is going through it’s typical first of the year cycle where clients and prospects are playing the “budget” game. But the economy is not the only factor you should consider when converting an opportunity to close more business.
 
Hesitation might also occur on behalf of in-house counsel or public agency executives due to the pressures of bureaucracy. Who else needs to bless the engagement? Will the person you are dealing with survive RIF’s?
 
Competitors are searching for ways to outmaneuver you. Traditional attorney marketing now requires innovation and extra effort. Client retention becomes even more critical to maintaining a pipeline.
 
And reaching the market place is changing radically. Is your firm continuing to spend heavily on print and media advertising or using pop-up ads, landing page features, webinars, etc. to reach the same client base?
 
Lastly, what are real “deadlines” for purchasing your services. Are they looser than ever, providing the client every possible out to delay or not retain?
 
Closing skills today must recognize:
 
* Budget
* Hesitation
* Competition
* Market
* Deadlines.
 
The new year and our new economic structure demands greater attention, application and time to win clients. Happy new year!

The second part of the training program addressess how to actually get the work: i.e., how to close. These skills are not quite as straightforward as the all the dilligent “to-dos” of superior marketing that we have itemized in previous columns. In fact, the challenges of face-to-face selling, of asking for the business and getting it, are likely a lot more daunting to associates.
 
As part of their training, associates should understand that, while there are indeed “naturals” who succeed without seeming to raise a sweat, the rules of this game can also be learned and effectively applied as well. Among the teachable precepts:
 

• - Identify the final decision maker.
• - Identify the pressures that buyers face.
• - Develop a broader understanding of prospective clients.
• - Start with a value proposition.
• - Give something away.
• - Underscore accountability.

 
In our next several columns, we will explore each.
 
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