S2:E10: How to Help Your Firm Succeed in Sales

S2:E10: How to Help Your Firm Succeed in Sales

Join Seth and Jay as they discuss the “dirty word” that is sales with Rob Lime. Rob Lime, a sales coach, touches on how to help a team sell when they are not necessarily trained in sales. Rob explains that the overwhelming negative association that people have with sales is something that marketers and lawyers have to overcome in order to sell successfully. Seth, Jay, and Rob go on to discuss a few of the best practices for those not traditionally trained in sales, one being the use of upfront contacts for attorneys. Rob also explains how being well versed in sales can help a trial lawyer “sell” their case to a jury. Seth and Jay follow up by touching on the biggest takeaways for lawyers as it pertains to sales training.

What’s In This Episode?

  • Rob’s journey into sales and the science of sales.
  • When you sell the right way, your prospect is more comfortable.
  • The difference between selling and helping.
  • How a lawyer’s passion for their product can impact sales?
  • Is x amount of money worth it to fix the problem?
  • Rob’s 100-level, 100-foot view.
  • Managing people is a huge headache.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Welcome to the podcast edition of Maximum Growth Live. The number one program for lawyers who want to grow their practices. Each week, our hosts, Seth Price and Jay Ruane tackled the fundamental questions about how to grow the profit and profitability of your law firm. To watch the program live, submit your questions and hear the latest episode, tune in every Thursday at 3pm Eastern on Facebook for our live show. Maximum Growth Live is a production of Maximum Lawyer Media.

Jay Ruane

Hello, hello, and welcome to another edition of Maximum Growth Live. I’m your host, Jay Ruane, CEO of Firm Flex, as well as managing partner of Ruane Attorneys, a civil rights and criminal defense firm in Connecticut. And with me, as always, my man down in the Sunshine State, making sure that he is enjoying the warm weather as I look at the dark gray skies of southern New England with the nice cold crisp air. I am jealous of my man, Seth Price of BluShark Digital, your SEO firm for lawyers, as well as managing partner of Price Benowitz, who now has a residence in Del Boca Vista, and I’m going to come and take it for you, from you when you come back. So, Seth, how’s your week going this week?

Seth Price

It’s going well, you know, excited to have our guest on today. You know, we’ve talked sales in the past, and it’s, you know, the very heart of what my team, my client management team is, as well as trying to figure out how to take myself out of day-to-day BluShark. And we have Rob Lime with us today, who is one of my favorite people in the sales space. You know, I, my journey into this was a lot of friends in New York who run venture backed companies that have used a group called Sandler Sales Training, and came to rob through mutual business friends, and have really enjoyed studying the science of sales and like, best practices not, and I think you’ll talk about this today, but it’s not a dirty word, figuring out how to leverage and empower your people to solve problems from people on the phone. And, you know, I’ve talked too many times on the show that I think of ourselves as plumbers, you know, not as lawyers. When the hot water heater explodes, who’s going to help you with that problem? And I think Rob has really helped me on that journey. So, I can’t wait to have him out here.

Jay Ruane

Yeah, it’s interesting, you know, a couple of years ago, probably more like 10 years ago now, I watched the straight-line persuasion method videos that were Jordan Belfort, you know, The Wolf of Wall Street. A lot of people know him from that movie. And I actually had reached out to some friends because you were in New York at the time, I was coming up in New York at the time. I had a bunch of friends who worked in that industry in that, you know, boiler room type industry, and I found a friend who actually had the Stratton Oakmont objections binder. And so, I got a copy of it and was looking at it as, you know, if I have people on the phone, because at that point, we were, we started off doing a lot of in person consultations. It transition to a lot more phone, and now it’s phone and zoom, right? And I don’t know, quite frankly, if we’re going to go back to having iniperson stuff because people are a lot more comfortable with the, the phone and, and the video stuff. But, you know, the idea of training yourself for sales is something that a lot of lawyers find abhorrent, you know, they think of themselves, uh, well, I’m a lawyer, I’m not a salesperson. I just do good work, people will find me, I don’t have to worry about closing business. And in this day and age, that’s just not reality, right? I mean, you know, there are fewer fish in the ocean and more fishermen out there. So, if you can’t close business, you’re gonna be in a real problem, don’t you think?

Seth Price

Absolutely. And so, you know, for me, it’s just been an interesting journey. I forced myself to go into it. I see a lot of people – we’ve talked to Mark Godoy as a guest here and others who used non attorney salespeople – and generally, what I have found is I’ve always relied upon people who are just information givers, and that they present so much information that somebody says, “how can I live without you?” And the idea that I brought some best practices to the table, you know, very exciting. And no, it’s been, it’s been a, you know, it’s been eye opening experience for myself.

Jay Ruane

Awesome. So, I’m excited. So, why don’t we do this? Why don’t we take a quick break? We’ll hear from our sponsors, and then when we get back, we’ll have Rob from Sandler Sales Training and we’ll have a little conversation, Seth, you and I with him about the role of sales in the service-based law firm. Sound good?

Seth Price

Sounds great.

Jay Ruane

Folks, we’ll be right back with more Maximum Growth Live.

Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

In this world today, if you want to grow your business, you want to grow your firm, you want to take on more cases and make a bigger impact, you have to have a digital blueprint. Statistically throughout the time that we’ve been working with BluShark Digital, our law firm, the Atlanta divorce law group grew over 14,100%.

Jay Ruane

Seth and his team have years of experience in this area. BluShark is truly a part of the firm. So, I don’t consider BluShark any different than the employees in my office.

Seth Price

We’re thrilled to have Rob Lime with us today. He’s a sales guru and a coach for myself in the sales world. Welcome, Rob.

Rob Lime

Thanks for having me.

Seth Price

So, I came to Rob because I learned about the sales world, with BluShark and Price Benowitz I was looking for ways to up our game from a scaled sales perspective. And a number of my friends from the corporate world use Sandler Sales Training and after speaking to Allison Williams, a past guest of our show, I ended up meeting Rob, who has done a phenomenal job of helping sort of not just train but empower our sales team with sort of best practices. I was very sort of skittish on this, as a lawyer coming in, you think of sales as like the enemy, as something, but the entire team has been won over by Rob, and I’d love to just talk a little bit about your philosophy, because whether it’s somebody’s intake, or whether it’s some other aspect of business, sales is everywhere, and you’ve done a really nice job of sort of breaking down some of these fundamentals and helping a team that is not a traditional sales team sell.

Rob Lime

Yeah, yeah, Seth. Well, thanks for that introduction. It’s a really, it’s a really good question. Number one, any, any professional services organization, or it seems to be a really, really common way to think in professional services, organizations, sales as a dirty word, right? So, to me, one of the first things that I think belongs on the table is let’s talk about our life collection of experience with salespeople, and how it is overwhelmingly negative, right? And let’s, let’s talk about how we can’t think of sales as a dirty word if we’re going to succeed in growing top line profitability, closing more opportunities. And also, let’s talk about why we, why we hate salespeople, and how we can behave differently than the salespeople of our past experience, has behaved to, to, to cause us to hate them. So, that’s, I think that’s a really important thing, you know, sales, professional services. It’s not, it’s not selling, I just talked to my clients, and sometimes they pay me. You know, you’re in the business of influence, right? And, and your prospective clients show up and based off of how the meeting goes, they either hire you or you don’t. So, yes, yes, you’re in sales. So, to me, the first thing is like, let’s acknowledge that you’re in sales, whether you’d like to or not, and, you know, let’s deal with it.

Seth Price

Now, one of the things I was surprised that, as we talked, I realized our people were not salespeople. They were people who were smart, understood substantive areas, like most lawyers do, or most digital people do. And then they would just present it and were likable, and that would work. Well, I had been sort of amazed that is, not knowing what I didn’t know, which is much of life, and sort of, the sort of sponge that I found our people to be that it was not a dirty world, but rather just best interpersonal practices to help get yourself to a win-win conclusion.

Rob Lime

Yeah, so when you sell the right way, right? The “right way”, your prospect is more comfortable, right? Like the art of selling is about really at its heart is facilitating a great decision, right? Now, if you work for a great company, and you have a great offering, or you have a great product, you have a good service and you have a marketplace advantage., oftentimes, that decision is to hire you, right? Facilitating a great decision for your prospect ends up being that they should they should hire you. They, they’re in front of you for a reason, they have a problem, the problem is impacting them, they’re likely in some way committed or can become committed to fixing the problem and you can help them then fix that problem. So, the, if you are, if you are selling the right way, your prospect loves you for it, right? Your prospective client adores you for it, the conversation is, is very comfortable. You know, we talked, we talked about how we hate salespeople because the traditional salesperson is constantly applying pressure. Tell me yes, let’s get started, give me some money, and everybody hates it, right? The prospect, the prospective client hates it, the salesperson hates it, they just think that that’s how that they have to behave to make some money into their job. And the reality is, is the opposite. You know, behaving in the opposite way is useful. I don’t know who originated the thought that you should never give your prospect and out, you should never give your prospect the ability to say no, I’m going to string that person up by their thumbs or something, because, well, what a terrible idea. Your, your prospect will not ever tell you the truth, if they don’t feel like the truth is welcome, right? One, one thing that they might tell you is, I don’t want to do business with you. They tend not to, that tends not to be the thought, they tend to want to tell you something critical, like, I’m not sure I want to do business with you, I’m not sure the money that you’re asking, I’ll get the investment and return. I’m not quite sure you understand my problems. I’m not quite sure you’re the right person to help me fix the problems. But if you, if they don’t feel comfortable that they could share with you negative thoughts about you, include up to and including no, then you’re never going to get any really high-quality information. You’re never going to get the truth.

Seth Price

What are some of those things that you see? Because I think most of us, with few exceptions in our audience, are probably selling the way you found us, which was smart people that understood the substance that were likable. What are some of the things that you’ve seen, I’ll give you an example of one that I really that I love, which was especially during COVID. When you’re on a zoom, sort of at the beginning, talking to somebody about how much time they have for a call as a basic first step. I’ll say to somebody, is it a good time, but the idea is that you’re setting a, an idea of timeframe, and what next steps will be, which I think is one of the sort of core tenants of Sandler. You talk a little bit about, what are some of those sort of easy takeaways? What are some of the things people could bring back to their team and say, ¨hey, this is something you could implement¨? You know, with a team that is pretty much nice people, but not traditional salespeople.

Rob Lime

Yeah, so the classic Sandler technique of upfront contract is appropriate here. And you don’t have to be in Sandler to, to use the upfront contract or something that looks, or is related to the upfront contract, you’ll find a lot of times, elite, really, actually, in almost all cases, elite level salespeople find a way to get prospects to agree to an agenda and an outcome every time that they have a conversation, right? And you can add time on to that, if that’s important to you, but great, great– and also, it makes the prospect really comfortable, right? If you agree in advance, hey, how much time are we going to take? What’s your agenda? Here’s mine, and here’s how this meeting typically ends, the prospects more comfortable and the meetings more productive, right? It’s very, it’s very difficult to conduct a productive meeting If you’re not, if there’s not a clear way how the meeting is going to end. If you don’t, if you both don’t agree how the meetings going to end, what the outcome is going to be?

Seth Price

And for most lawyers, that is a signed retainer. So, the idea that you’re going from here’s a bunch of information to– I love to parrot back what I have learned, which is, if we think we can help you, and you decide you can help us, we’ll be presenting you with a retainer at the end of this and sort of setting the expectation so there’s not that awkward moment at the end of the, at the end of the interaction.

Rob Lime

Yeah, I love, I love the, I love the, I love presenting the binary, some people do a couple of different outcomes. I love the binary. Hey, Seth, this meeting always ends in one of two ways, right? One of those ways, and I like to do “no” first, one of those ways is that we decide not to work together, it doesn’t make sense for whatever reason, you didn’t see what you needed to see and, or I don’t believe that that I could help you. But if, if either of those things happens, you’ll be comfortable, and they say, ¨yeah, you promise if you don’t feel like I can help you, you’ll share that with me, right? Yeah, and you won’t be offended if I don’t believe I can help you, that I share that with you, no, okay¨ And the other possible outcome for the meeting will be that, you know, and sometimes it makes sense to outline the next step, I’ll present you with a retainer, and we’ll collect a down payment, and we’ll decide what the next meeting looks like. Sometimes it’s appropriate to get real clear about here’s what a yes means. Sometimes people say, you know what, we’ll figure it out in the end, as long as we have a lot of clarity for what’s happening next. Yeah, that’s, that’s typically how that goes. And that is something that you’ll, that someone can take away from a podcast and apply today. ¨Hey, team, why don’t we, you know, every time that we have a conversation with any prospective new client, why don’t we? Why don’t we tell them, hey, typically, the meeting ends in one or two ways, are you comfortable with that? Do a no, no, yes, kind of thing? And also ask them, hey, what are you hoping to get out of the meeting”, right? Like just those two steps, you’ll find that can, can lead to much more productive and much more comfortable meetings for the prospective clients.

Seth Price

Jay?

Jay Ruane

You know, it’s really interesting to me, somebody told me years ago, when I was first, first working for myself, that the difference between selling and helping is only two letters, and really, that’s sort of the attitude you got to come in. But one of the things that’s interesting to me is that in law, there are a lot of different sort of timelines for the purchase decision. You know, we’ve got personal injury, where really all they need to do is sign their name on a piece of paper. You’ve got criminal law, where something’s usually happening in the next two weeks, so there’s an artificial urgency. You’ve got family law, that takes a little longer because, you know, the first time somebody says the word divorce in their head is different from when it’s on their lips versus when they go see a lawyer, and then….

Seth Price

Unless you’re on the other side, unless you’re on the other side of the case.

Jay Ruane

And then you, and then you have that artificial urgency. And then you got trusted estates, which is trying to sell to people who don’t want to think about the thing they have to insulate for. So really, across the board in law, there is a lot of variability, but it sounds to me, like no matter where you are on that spectrum, some simple things like setting up the “No, no, yes”, can really help you identify, and really, it should be, you know, whatever goes on in the middle is fine. The intro is one thing, but you really want to end sort of like Carrie Shrug or Mary Lou Retton coming off that boat, you want to stick your landing every time because that’s going to do that. So, I have a lot of pushbacks from some of the lawyers in my office about doing any type of selling, because they think that selling as itself is, like you said, a dirty word. I pitch it to them as selling is more of something that is a skill that they can use throughout their career. Can you tell me a little bit about how maybe being adept in sales can help a trial lawyer explain and sort of sell their story to a jury?

Rob Lime

Yeah. So, sales is influence, right? Great salespeople know how to influence. Great, great trial attorneys know how to influence. And, and there’s, there’s, I don’t know if I want to call it “pageantry” but you know, there’s some, there’s an aspect of, of presenting your case. If you’re, if you’re doing it in front of a jury, if you’re doing it in front of a prospect, you know, trying to ask for a couple $1,000, $50,000, $1,000,000, that, that there’s, there’s pageantry involved. I was actually working really closely and really deeply with a group today that I coached that I was, you know. Claire, if, if you were saying that to your kid, I can hear your critical parent coming out, right? Because I’m just not buying, you know, there was a moment in the conversation where it’s like, man, you’ve got to come after this guy, a little bit in a nurturing way, and I need you to, I need you to bring out your critical parent. So, the words were right, you know, I was like, I agree fundamentally with what you’re doing, and I like your words, but it’s the presentation, right? I can’t, I can’t get behind. You’re not going to have the emotional impact on the guy that you need to have with that, with that presentation, and you, you have to be, you gotta be a little shocking in this moment. And you know, I didn’t go to law school, I’m not a trial attorney but I would, I would imagine that, that being in front of a jury, there are those moments. You also, and this is coming from somebody who frankly, I’m not necessarily that naturally, that likable of a person, but you have to be, you got to be likable, and you got to come across in a way. And I think great advice for a salesperson to prospect, I think great advice for attorney to juries, you, I, like, when I’m in front of a prospect, it’s I want to find reasons to like this person, because if I can find ways to like this person, then they, and I come in, I go about it pretty passionately, they will find a way to like me, right? But I’m going to try to like them first. I think, I think that’s a, I think that’s a universal, you know, principle that you can apply to in both scenarios.

Jay Ruane

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, one of the things that’s a challenge, I think for a lot of lawyers, is that they don’t see themselves as being a sales person in any way, because they specifically went to law school because they wanted to focus so narrowly. Let’s talk about how it could be easier for a lawyer to sell because they truly are passionate about their product, right? I mean, these are lawyers who’ve devoted themselves to trust and estates or to family law, and they actually, it’s not somebody selling a widget, because this is his job and he makes good money doing it. I mean, the lawyers themselves seem like they should be naturally better at selling their services because they do have a passion for it. Can you talk about that in the role that truly, like, loving what you do and how that can impact sales?

Rob Lime

Yeah, so the, the, I don’t, another myth about great salespeople is that we can, it’s like, we, you, we can close, like there’s some closing, there’s some kind of moment at closing, or there’s some kind of hard closing or there’s, you know, the he could sell ice to Eskimos. I don’t ever want to meet the guy who could sell ice to Eskimos because he’s a conman, right? Because Eskimos don’t buy ice, right? Like, in every great salesperson, and I think any, any salesperson that has, you know, a lot of consultative sales training has some kind of move in the end where there’s– It’s like, you have a problem, you want to fix the problem, I understand it, I know I can fix it, right? Like, I got that conviction. And they’re telling, you know, anyway, and every, like the hardest closing move that I ever have it’s not, you know, “give me the money” and winning, and tell me “yes”, it’s always something like, “Seth, why aren’t, why aren’t you, why aren’t you letting me help you? Like, why, why will you not let me help you? Like, is it that you don’t believe I can help? Is it that you haven’t come to understand, you know, that I’m great at this particular thing and I have the experience?” But I envision lawyers that are really passionate about their practice area that have a lot of experience get faced with prospective clients that, that just won’t get out of the way and let, let me help you. Like, why are you in the way? And it goes against, there’s sort of a social norm, where somebody gives you, frankly, some BS, and you just let them get away with it, right? ¨Yeah, Rob, you know, let me, let me think about it. I’m going to talk to my, my dog walker and make a decision, and get back to you¨ and I’m supposed to go, ¨Hey, that sounds great. I can’t wait to hear back from you¨, right? But the reality is, is the best service for that, that prospective client – and, you know, also, if I want to close the deal and make some money too – is, “I can appreciate that, sounds like your dog walker’s opinion is really important and I don’t blame you for considering it.” But, I gotta tell you, typically, Seth, when I hear that, you know, what that person who’s telling me that kind of stuff really wants to say is “Rob, I just don’t truly believe you can, you can help me fix my problem”. Are you sure that’s not what you want to tell me right now? Right? It’s that moment where it’s like, I can help you, right? Why don’t you see it? And why? Why? Just let me help you get out of the way and let me help you.

Jay Ruane

Do you think, you know, it’s one thing for people to approach, you know, somebody inside a store, and they might have reservations about the cost of something. Do you think there’s some social stigma when a lawyer says ¨hey, it’s going to cost you X¨, and somebody doesn’t have or can’t figure out quickly how they’re going to be able to afford legal services in that manner? And do you think those type of ¨let me talk to somebody¨ is just a sort of a way to save face and not say, ¨Look, I think you can solve my problem, but I don’t have the money and I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t have the money because I just spent an hour with you¨? And if, you think that it’s sort of like a knee jerk reaction by the public, and that’s an easy way to not cast themselves in a bad light?

Rob Lime

Yeah, it’s, it’s possible because one thing entrepreneurs and people who make maybe a top 10% income have, have this problem a lot less than, then, you know, the median household income. I live in Indianapolis, the median household income for the city that I live in is like $50,000, right? So, if you take the average household income of $50,000, that person tends to be fed, financial, and like the books that they read or written by Clark Howard and Dave Ramsey, and they are really uncomfortable going to find money that they don’t have in that exact moment, even if it’s the right thing to do to fix a really bad problem, right? Like somebody who makes $50,000 a year that has a leak in their roof is unlikely to go borrow some money or find some money, even though it’s the right thing to do at that moment, to fix the leak, because it’ll prevent them from having to invest future money and in house repairs, right? And from a sales perspective, one thing that, this particular attorney in this fictional scenario that we’re talking about, probably isn’t any good at because most people aren’t. So here’s the problem; is it worth this amount of money to fix that problem, right? You shared with me, here’s the problem, here’s how it’s impacting you, here’s what happens if you don’t fix it. You shared with me that you’re, that you’re very highly committed to fixing it. So, is X amount of money worth it to fix the problem, right? I’m not asking you about how much money you believe I should charge. I’m not asking you about how much money you have access to. I’m asking you, with that amount of money it would be worth it, right? And what I want is a yes. And I’ll go ¨Great. So, let me help you figure out a way to put it together¨ Right? Because, because they might not have it, right? And they do think that they should be embarrassed about it, they really shouldn’t. But elite level salespeople also can help prospects, put together money, find money that they don’t necessarily have, or they didn’t necessarily think that you’re going to ask for, because it’s the right thing to do.

Jay Ruane

Now, a lot of, a lot of lawyers in sort of, in that situation, try to do this sort of pre qualifying when they say, ¨Okay, you’re gonna come to me, I believe $400 an hour, I require a $5,000 minimum retainer. Does that sound okay? And if it does sound, okay, can you, then we can book your appointment¨. Do you think that, that is a successful strategy? Or do you think that, that can turn off prospects who don’t think in the terms of, of their own finances and finding that money? Because, you know, a $5,000 roof repair can save you $100,000 with a foundation repair.

Rob Lime

Yeah, yeah, that’s a fine strategy if you can get away with it, right? If you are hitting your goals, if you’re making money, if you’re getting referred, if you have more work than you can handle, that’s a fine strategy. If, if you could afford it, if you can get away with it. If you’re in a position where I did $400,000 last year, and I gotta get to $800,000, and there’s a real compelling reason, and I can’t wait to do it, and I got to do it, and I’m going to grow and I’m going to, that’s a terrible strategy for that person, right? If you’re high growth and you’re trying to capture new, new clients, its a terrible strategy because it is going to, it is going to turn people off. So, for the person who, who would prefer to capture that prospect, what I’m way more interested in, come in, let’s have a conversation and have, have the understanding that, you know, whatever it is, maybe out of every out of, out of every 10 intake meetings you have, you only get two clients or whatever your numbers are, you know, be comfortable knowing that there is a little “wasted effort” in attracting new clients. But I don’t know, I would absolutely, I would absolutely get sick if, if most of my clients, including my clients who are attorneys, would treat that prospect in that way because that very easily could be an opportunity that we’re throwing away.

Jay Ruane

Gotcha. Seth, you have got to follow?

Seth Price

So, yeah, yeah. I got a final question, which was, yeah, I wanted to get your thoughts on the biggest mistakes you see people making. What are some of those things that, like, you walk in and you cringe? And like, it will be low hanging fruit for our audience, and try to change them?

Rob Lime

Yeah, I hate, I hate to be cliche. I hate to be cliche, but I have got… So, entrepreneurs, including attorneys who hire me, tend to be hard driving, gotta grow, got to do better, intellectual humility, right? I don’t, I don’t know everything, that’s what Rob’s for. But you would be surprised by the amount of people who have it together running a profitable business, making some money, don’t have goals, right? Don’t have key performance indicators tied to their goals. So, like one of the first things that I want to do in an organization is, what do we get into? And on a, on a daily timeframe, what kinds of behaviors does everyone in the organization need to be engaged in for us to get to this, to this place? A second thing is a milestone, and here’s the sales word, right? So, we’re going to stay away from it, because sales is a dirty word, but a milestone centric sales process that is properly sequenced. There’s this, there’s this sort of breed of, of sales professional, and probably attorney who feels that it’s a bragging point that I wing it, right? They just show up and I just wing it, and I wing it, and I wing it. Well, that, that, unfortunately, is not, that might work for a single employee, but that’s not a scalable approach. So, most, most companies, including professional services, including law practices, don’t have a properly staged sales process that is staged with the right sequence in mind.

Jay Ruane

I love it. I mean, some of the stuff that you’re telling is this stuff that, you know, if you really took a step back and look at 100 level, 100-foot view, you can say, okay, I, you know, if I’m running my firm as a business, these are the things that I can do, but a lot of times our audience is in the weeds, and they’re not able to take that. So, I really love what you brought to the table today, Rob, because what you’re giving us is stuff that we may know in our gut, but hearing that from an outside source, I think is really going to drive that type of thing. I know a couple of things I’ve already said, you know, I’ve got to make sure that the people on my intake team listen to this episode because there’s some really good stuff there. I really liked the “no, no, yes” anchoring, and making sure that, you know, when the call goes from the intake person to the sales lawyer, they’re gonna say, ¨Okay, here’s the process that the sales lawyer is gonna grow. They’re gonna talk to you, and if they think that they can offer you our services, and you fit, they’re gonna pass you back over to me so that we can talk about executing the contract and retainer¨. And I really love the way how that sort of a roadmap to hiring as, as we go. So, thank you for that. That was really phenomenal. Seth?

Seth Price

Yeah, no, I was gonna say as a compliment to Rob, I’m pretty cynical about this whole space. The, the traditional salesperson, I think of who’s like, to be honest with you, the moment somebody says that I, like, shut off. I’m like, no, lie to me, and it becomes a whole back and forth. So, what I can say is, when I brought my team to you, I was expecting pushback. I didn’t know what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised that it was, it was not just, it was not just taken in but appreciated. And the people were already trying to say, ¨hey, I could try it this way or that way¨. And all of that was, I appreciate it, and thanks for coming on today to sort of share some of this information. We’ll have your information in the comments for anybody wants to get a hold of you and talk, talk more, more detail. But thank you for all that you’ve done for us, and, Jay, any, any parting words?

Jay Ruane

No, I just, thank you so much. I definitely think my team is going to be reaching out to you because I think, you know, having a plan and like me, you know, my love for systems, you know, having a system in place that your people can rely on, even if they don’t have to use it literally as a script, but they know they have that to rely on and, and hit those waypoints. I think that is going to make your KPIs, you know, function, and that’s going to allow you to know where you’re, where you’re winning and where you’re losing in the sales process. So, no matter if you’re a trust lawyer or a personal injury lawyer, these are the types of things that matter to us long term. So, Rob, thank you so much for being with us today.

Rob Lime

Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it. Take it easy.

BluShark Digital

Hey, it’s Becca here. I’m sure you’ve heard Jim and Tyson mention The Guild on the podcast and in the Facebook group. The Guild is this perfect mix of a community, group coaching and a mastermind. Guild members get so many benefits, including weekly live events and discounts to all maximum lawyer events. Head over to maximumlawyer.com/theguild to check out all the benefits and watch a few testimonials from current members. So, head to maximumlawyer.com and click on The Guild page to join us. Now, let’s get back to the episode.

Jay Ruane

All right, Seth, great stuff there. You know, we had some conversation, a little technical difficulty in it but, you know, when you’re in a live show, that’s, that’s what happens. But I gotta tell you, man, the more I think about the role of sales, I think that only it helps your business get to the next level and grow when you have a defined sales process instead of a haphazard sales process, but I also think that they are takeaways that lawyers who deal with the public, who have to convince the public, you know, in trial settings can take some of this information, and use that to better their legal skills as an attorney. What are your thoughts?

Seth Price

No, look, whether your trial skills, whether it’s dealing with opposing counsel, whether it’s in HR, whether it’s with client acquisition, I mean, these are tried and true issues that we deal with along the way. And there’s no fairy dust, It’s not like this is remarkably changing everything overnight, but it’s just tweaking what you’re doing and putting thought behind it. Creating, you’ll have the systems in place, so that you can replicate what you’re doing over and over again, rather than some person you’re delegating to sort of wing it, and that’s, that’s why I’ve enjoyed, you know, digging deeper into this.

Jay Ruane

Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s interesting. I mean, even if you go to McDonald’s, right? McDonald’s has a sales system. If you don’t order french fries, they say, ¨Would you like fries with that?¨ And that converts people to say “yes”, right? And these are multinational corporations that has a very simple sales system that they integrated across the board. And we’re talking about lawyers selling thousands of dollars of services, just a little tweak to your sales process, the language that you use, the order in which you do things can really mean the difference between growing your firm exponentially or stagnating. And unfortunately, if you’re stagnating in the modern world, you’re dying, right? Don’t you think?

Seth Price

Absolutely.

Jay Ruane

Now, so one of the things that interestingly, you know, getting off of the sales thing. One of the things that came up and I want to talk to you a little bit about it, because I think it’s something that we’re going to be able to talk about in future episodes is, a question came up in the maximum lawyer big group this week about what advice can you give somebody who was, went from a very small operation, one lawyer, one assistant, and has had sort of explosive growth in the year, now multiple lawyers, multiple staff, and that lawyer finds herself in a quandary, because now she needs to do more managerial stuff. And that’s really sort of something that I think we need to talk about a little bit more because everyone likes the idea of growth and scale, but not everybody wants to be a manager of people. I know, I have decided I don’t anymore, after 20 plus years, I’m getting to the point where I, you know, I want to be sort of the visionary role, but you have to have a pretty big operation to have the role of visionary, you know, because this essentially is a, you know, it’s a, it’s a chair that doesn’t really necessarily add to the bottom line on a day-to-day basis. So, what are your thoughts generally about preparing yourself for that scale so that people can start thinking about a little early? And I just want to pique your interest in it because I’d like to talk about this on a future episode.

Seth Price

No, no, absolutely. And I, you know, to me, it’s something I struggle with, I’ve put layers of management, and I think part of it is elevating your admins office manager, eventually the firm administrator. That’s the general track that people follow in our world. But, you know, as I’ve scaled, and scaled aggressively, certain areas have scaled more easily, and certain areas, I have, you know, when you turn a blind eye, it’s one of those areas where if you aren’t managing, when you say “I’ll help you something”, it generally causes issues. And I have a division right now, small one, where I’ve empowered somebody to manage their team, and they have made it very clear, they don’t wish to do that. So, it’s really, it is a microcosm of this. And those are the situations where you’re like, where it’s so hard because, you know, right now, that person you’re talking about, she’s trying to manage, let’s say, three attorneys, good, good for them, but when I see that is when that, when you have one of those three attorneys managing people, that’s sort of the level that I’m dealing with right now is how do I ensure that each of the direct reports is managing people the way you need them to do? And some of this is training. So, I hope we’re able to bring some guests on to give some greater clarity to that world because it is, it is difficult. I’ll sort of leave with this thought, which is, I remember interviewing for jobs back in the day, and people always talk about management of people and how many people you manage, and it was all part of that sort of ecosystem. And that was not to myself and he made more money, the more people you manage, but I was always like, you know what the aspiration is? Find a job where you manage the little to no people and make that same money, because managing people is a huge headache. So, you know, I don’t have a lot, I chose and scaling a firm, many people have managed, but there are people out there with a very expensive widget that have little to no people, and that’s always sort of like, grass is always greener.

Jay Ruane

Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of management of people, I want to see how is it? How’s it going? We talked on Tuesday about your use of 15Five to start getting some feedback, have you. I actually went back in and took a look at my questions. And it’s interesting, I’ve been doing it for so long, I have 2000 of those surveys in my, in my file folder, and what I did is I tasked the VA to log in a ghost because one of the questions I have is, what’s your one big idea? What can, you know, help us out, make us faster? That type of thing. And I tasked the VA to go back and give me a list of just those answers, because I have a feeling there’s some nuggets there. So, folks, if it’s something that interests you, be sure to check out Tuesday’s episode because I show my questions that I use for my weekly check ins with all my staff and all my lawyers.

Seth Price

You know what I should do? I should get one of the 15Five people on one of the future episodes because, you know, as I mentioned that college buddies, C suite there, let’s see if we can get somebody there to sort of talk about what they’ve learned over the years.

Jay Ruane

Let’s see, folks, this is the problem. When you go to Penn like Seth, you have these friends from college, who, who have connections and build industries, and that type of thing. I went to school in Scranton, Pennsylvania, my college friends owned parking lots in Manhattan, waste management services in northern New Jersey, and bars and restaurants. Who knows, who knows, I know they may not pay as many, as much in taxes as your friends, but that’s because they have chosen to be in a cash business. But that’s what it comes down to, folks. Seth is the guy with all the connections, I’m just here for, for comic relief. But I want to thank you for being with us again, here on Maximum Growth Live. I am Jay Ruane, CEO from FirmFlex, your social media marketing company for lawyers. And I would invite you if you love systems, please join our Facebook group, it’s called “Systemising your law firm for growth”, so that we can give you the systems you need to take on little projects that can make a great deal to your bottom line. I love systems and I love talking about them. Seth, he is Seth Price, he is all things digital marketing. Everybody in the world seems to know who he is, it’s amazing. When I go to any legal event, and somebody says ¨Oh, do you know Seth Price?¨ He’s the most well connected person in the legal space nationwide, and he is the founder of BluShark Digital, an SEO firm for lawyers, as well as Price Benowitz, your DC, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina law firm. Thank you for being with us. Seth, anything else you want to add?

Seth Price

No, have a great weekend.

Jay Ruane

All right, have a great weekend, folks. Bye for now. We’ll see you next week.

BluShark Digital

Thank you for listening to Maximum Growth Live. Please remember to subscribe to our podcast for the latest episodes and tune in live on Facebook every Thursday for our live show. For more information visit Maximum Growth Live on Facebook or maximumlawyer.com And be sure to share us with your friends.

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