Yesterday, I talked about using a special offer to get prospects on your list to hire you instead of another attorney. But what if they’re not ready to hire an attorney? How can you persuade them to do so?
Send them to school.
In your blog posts, newsletter, seminars, and private conversations, you must educate people about why they need an attorney, and why it should be you.
If they don’t know they have a problem, they’re certainly not going to do anything to resolve it. If they aren’t aware of the seriousness of the problem and the potential consequences, they still may not do anything. And if they don’t know the options that are available, they may think they don’t have any.
Your job is to continually make them aware of these problems and your solutions. But you can’t simply tell them, you have to show them, by telling them stories
My eighth grade history teacher made history come alive by telling stories about the people who lived it. Hearing about George Washington’s life, his struggles and victories, we not only learned about that period in our nation’s history, we were affected by it. We not only understood what it was like, we felt it.
If your prospects don’t feel something, if you simply deliver a steady stream of facts, they will eventually tune out. The facts are boring. Talk about people.
Pepper your messages with stories about people who are similar to your prospects. Give them a face and a name if possible. Describe their background. Talk about their problem and the pain it caused them. Or about the opportunity you helped them take advantage of. And then, talk about how this relief from pain or pleasure from gain. . . made them FEEL.
Because if you want your reader to do something (i.e., hire you), you have to transfer to them the feelings of other people who were in the same boat.
If you are allowed to use testimonials, do so. But a well told story can achieve almost the same effect.
But wait. You’re not done. In addition to stories of relief from pain or achievement of gain, you need to tell stories about people who didn’t take action, or took the wrong action. They did nothing, and lost. Or they delayed and missed out. Or they hired the wrong lawyer and wound up worse than when they started.
Success stories and tales of disaster. You need both.
And yet they still may do nothing. Why? Because. . . they don’t want to.
In “The Seven Reasons Prospective Clients Don’t Hire an Attorney,” I said that of all the reasons people don’t hire an attorney the most difficult to overcome (and the most frustrating) is, “No Want.”
If they don’t want it, they don’t want it. Why is that? I really don’t know. And as the late Jim Rohn used to say, “I wouldn’t enroll in that class.”
Keep them on your list. Continue to educate them. Keep telling them stories. One day, they may see the light. Maybe when someone they know encounters the very issue you’ve been warning them about. It’s like people who won’t do any exercise or quit smoking until their brother or best friend drops dead of a heart attack. That’s a story they can’t ignore.
In the mean time, don’t worry about it. Focus on the “easy to get” clients.
My political views finally revealed (not)
When I first got stated on Facebook, one of my “friends” posted an incendiary political comment on my wall. In response, friends with opposing viewpoints took him on. Back and forth they went, telling each other in heated tones who was right. Others joined in. Soon, a full blown flame war was taking place.
It was great theater.
I let the two sides go at each other for while and I stayed out of it. No way was I going to get involved in that mess.
And then it really got ugly.
The original poster starting insulting people. Despite repeated requests by the majority to curtail the invective and stick to the issues, he continued his name calling. The more he was asked to tone things down, the worse he got. I had no choice but to remove him as a friend.
Even though this was an extreme situation, it reinforced the notion that discussing politics in public is not a good idea. Unless you are certain that everyone in “the room” is of a like mind, you’re just asking for trouble.
If you’re a professional or in business, your political views should not be posted on social media. Why risk alienating half of your friends and followers? Even when the discourse is civil, political postings provide an insight into your thoughts that can drive a wedge between people who might otherwise get along just fine.
I have political views. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel like posting my opinion about one thing or another, or re-posting what someone else has said.
I’d be nuts to do it.
So I bite my tongue. And save it for a private conversation.
It’s called being in business.
I have many friends on the other side of political aisle. We like each other. We do business together. We can talk about almost anything. Â But not politics. We don’t go there.
In business, you can’t go there.