In this episode of The Law Firm Blueprint, hosts Jay Ruane and Seth Price are joined by intake expert and author of The Law Firm Growth Machine, Kerri Coby White. Together, they explore crucial strategies for optimizing law firm intake processes. Kerri shares her invaluable experience working with firms nationwide, revealing the most common intake mistakes and actionable solutions that firms can implement to convert leads into clients. From integrating intake software to creating a leak-proof intake funnel, this episode is packed with tips every law firm should consider. Kerri emphasizes the importance of having a dedicated intake team, mastering the art of the “two-part conversion,” and the role of empathy and leadership in intake. If you’re looking to improve your law firm’s client intake process and boost your conversion rates, this conversation is a must-watch. Don’t forget to subscribe for more tips on law firm management, intake strategies, and expert insights from the legal industry’s top professionals!
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Hello, hello, and welcome to this edition of the Law Firm Blueprint. I’m one of your hosts, Jay Ruane, and with me, as always, is my man, Seth Price down there in the headquarters of Blushark Digital, as well as the the lair of Price Benowitz, I don’t think Seth really does much lawyering from his lair, but that’s okay, we still love him. And with us today as we continue this wonderful series on intake, is our friend, author and expert in intake data, Kerri Coby White, thank you so much for being with us, Kerri , I know I’ve read your book. You want to throw it out there for us?
Absolutely, please. The Law Firm Growth Machine. Silly name, great meaning!
You know, it was a really good book when I read it and I was so excited when Seth had booked you to come in onto the show so that we can have a conversation. I feel awkwardly like a nerd. I feel like I should send out more emails to people after I’ve read their book, because people, I always get it, and I’m delighted, but I’m also like, they don’t want to hear from me, but…
I’m still learning to cope with people asking me to sign it. It feels so awkward, like, really, it’s just some really good information, but it’s like, not the next great American novel by any stretch.
Well, it’s a great book. And Seth, why don’t you start us off here? I have some questions already lined up for intake, but you lead the ship.
Well, look, we’re loving the series on intake and Kerri. You’ve been at this, you know, for a while now. And the thing that I always love talking to experts in an area about is you’ve seen the inside of so many law firms. You’ve seen the good, you’ve seen the bad. What are sort of, the what’s the lowest hanging fruit that most law firms have, or the mistakes that you see being made over and over again?
Okay. Well, that one is super easy. And to steal a line from our good friend Harlan Schillinger, you don’t know what you don’t know. And so there are so many law firms who think they’re doing a great job at intake, but they don’t even know what they’re missing because they’re not aware of missed calls or leads that went to no man’s land, or chats that were never returned, or texts that just died on the vine. So before you spend another dime in marketing your law firm, you need to absolutely make sure that your intake is leak proof. Is a leak proof funnel, that every single lead is actually coming into your system.
Okay, I’ll tell you this. You’re the intake person. So talk to me once you are focused on intake, what are the technical things that you see people like doing wrong for lack of a you know-. Where, where, where are those holes? What are those most frequent holes that you’re seeing?
Well, I think one of the biggest holes is, is decentralizing your your lead sources. So you may have some leads that are ringing to the phone and hand, you know, someone’s handing someone a slip of paper with a contact name on it, and then you have some leads that are being delivered directly into your case management software, and then maybe you have your LSA portal, and you have a CRM that the emails from your website are going to and so people are really disjointed. And so the first thing I’d like to see is that all leads, no matter where they come from, are centralized. And I always tell everybody there’s a right tool for every job. And if you’ve ever tried opening a wine bottle with a screwdriver, you know that firsthand. Let your lawyers work in their case management system, but make sure that your intake team has intake software that is going to effectively manage lead conversion. You want all the leads to come in. You want them to move through the pipeline and then get handed off into the case management system. So if you’re, if you’re looking for the first place to start is, hey, where are all the leads going, and how are they getting there?
What are your thoughts and something that I’ve struggled with, I went to Salesforce years ago. I’m crazy for intake, and it did not fully integrate. Over the years, we’ve gotten better and better integration with our case management softwares. What are your feelings on, you know, using one piece of software that has an intake component, right? So, FileVine, you know, bought Lead Docket, you have Smart Advocate that does its own, you know, clearly, Litify is, has it. But when you, when you move off of those in the B2C space, very often the intake software is inferior, and you don’t want to necessarily use their intake. What’s your thought on having to getting the right software and then having to zap it or transition it over, versus being all under one roof?
Yeah, so I do think we’ve gotten so much better over the last several years in all these integrations, especially the way AI is helping with that. So you’re zapping, you have direct integrations, APIs and web hooks. So it’s worth the investment if you have a system that is working really well for intake. I all those systems that you just mentioned, Seth, I still see them as primarily case management. And so intake is trying to operate in a case management system and you know, Smart Advocate and certainly Lead Docket, like they’ve, they’ve built in a heck of a lot of capabilities for intake, but I still see intake as the client journey. And I know you said Salesforce, we certainly built something very much in a Salesforce-esque way. It’s a pipeline. We have a new lead, then they’re a warm lead, then they’re an engaged lead. You know, we’re moving them through this process, and it’s very visual. And I think when you give a team that’s going to be managing, especially if you’re a high volume firm, you give a team the tools to manage that pipeline, and then the last step that marks that case won pushes it into the case management system. Now every team is dealing with what is best suited to their needs. So I look at and you may have heard me say this a zillion times, the 5T in any department for me, I’m always focused on intake, but the 5T for every department is, who is the team? What tool do they need to do their job best? What tactics are they going to employ? What targets are they trying to hit, and how are we tracking that progress? So the team, the tools, the tactics, the targets and the tracking every department needs to look at that. And the thought that we could have one tool that’s going to meet everybody’s needs seems kind of crazy, but if we can get a tool for each department and have those tools talking to each other, then we’ve come a long way, and that’s where we’ve really seen a lot of movement in having intake specific tools that then talk to your case management system.
Before I flip to Jay, you know, understanding that software and that tool is really important, but that is like moving a mountain that takes time and effort and experts like yourself to come in and help evaluate and map out, et cetera. What do you think some of the more wins are that most law firms that, if they open, you know, if the partner actually walked into the office or opened the hood of what’s going on in intake that you think that would make money in the short term, understanding that you for systemic change, you have bigger things that you would…
Certainly. You’re going to have big, bigger fish to fry if you’re really going to make a huge change. But if you’re just going to walk in, I think the first question that as the person overseeing intake is, you know what? I’m going to actually stop myself there. Let’s, let’s pause on the person overseeing intake. There’s rule number one, somebody needs to make intake their baby. And that is so important. Somebody has to make intake their baby. I did not start out as a little girl dreaming of being an intake expert. What happened was I had a really good career in marketing, but I wasn’t getting credit for the great work I was doing, because leads weren’t becoming clients, clicks aren’t clients, calls aren’t clients. Clients are clients. And so I had to make intake my baby, if all the effort of great marketing was going to result in clients. So rule number one in your law firm, somebody better make intake their baby, and they are meeting with intake weekly, if not daily, to look at what we got, where it is, where it’s going, what’s working, what’s not working. Why this one was lost, what should be changed as a reflection of what we’ve seen from lost cases. So make intake your baby. Now, if someone who has made intake their baby walks into the intake department, here’s one thing they can do today to say, let me take a step back and see if I can affect change. There are several very important skills for someone in intake. They need to be high EQ, because you’re dealing with people who are in various levels of shock, trauma, stress and strain. And so we need people who know how to communicate with these folks. We really don’t want them on a script. They need to have a call path. And then we as the law firm, have all this really important information that we need to get. To think that we’re going to find somebody who knows how to master a call path without relying on a script, be high EQ, and still be able to express authority and leadership in terms of sales and conversion and still get all the nitty gritty data that the law firm needs to start building a case is asking an awful lot of one person to execute over the phone. So what I have been looking for when I walk into intake departments is, who are you and what do you do best? Are you my front end person that’s great at connecting with callers and building rapport and earning their trust and moving them toward that conversion. And then you over here? Are you really good at sitting down with someone to get all the data and make sure you’re not going to misspell anything, and you’re going to collect everything I need and have it ready to open that case. So what I like to to promote is what I call the two part conversion. I’ve got my sales team, which is doing the 4S. Screen, sell, sign and schedule. Screen the caller for your criteria, sell the firm as to why we’re the ones to solve this problem for them, get the most basic one page letter of letter of an agreement signed so that I can open your file and get it in front of an attorney in the morning and then schedule the comprehensive intake interview. Nobody who’s calling a law firm is ready for intake. They are calling for information. Give them the information they need, get this handy little one pager signed, and then get them scheduled for that comprehensive onboard.
Before Jay goes, I just, I’m going to question on that. So in one sense, especially on the plaintiff side, I would think, you know, people, are people doing that? Are they looking for somebody to solve their problem? Because yes, you want- I agree with the one pager, but shouldn’t you be at the point where you can take that and you know, not just provide information, which, if they want it, you want to give it. But if what you know, after that’s there, if they’ve said, this is a case you want, isn’t the next step to engage and make sure it’s connected and signed up.
Yeah, so I look at that sign up as that one, that one pager is the most basic sign up which, which gets us to the next point. Very few people call the law firm expecting to be on the phone for 35-40 minutes. Filling, giving all of this information, they don’t have their adjusters, the claims number on them. They don’t have all the health insurance digits. They’re not ready for all that. So what I like is to give them what I call the mob boss moment, the moment of burden transfer. “I’ve taken this problem. I’ve told you, you’re in good hands. I’m not giving you any homework right now. Right now, you’re in great hands. You called the right place. We can take care of this for you. Let’s get this on file, we open it up, and I’m going to schedule you for an appointment with Danny at 2:30 tomorrow. Here’s what I need you to bring to that to that call.” And now we have, we’ve set expectations. And here’s the other thing, people who are in that various stage, from shock to strain, the stressed caller is the number one caller to a law firm. The mental state of that caller is not so hot, and so we’ve now given them the peace of mind that we have- we’re taking care of this problem, and here’s exactly what’s going to happen next. Here’s how you can be prepared for that, and here’s what we’re going to do. I want them signed on call one. We’ve solved this problem. We’re going to go away and do A, B and C, you’re going to go away and do one, two and three, and then we’re going to meet and you’re going to feel really good about it.
Are you not sending an actual retainer, but just sort of a pre retainer?
It’s either the most basic retainer, or what I found has helped more clients get one call closes than anything, a is your most basic retainer with a termination clause, either a 48 hour or a two week or I have one client who has 30 days. In 30 days, if this isn’t a great fit for either party, the lawyer or the client, then we can disengage from this retainer, fee free. And that gives a lot of people the peace of mind, like, let me go ahead and get this signed so we can get this opened because time is of the essence when it comes to the law. So let’s get this opened. Let me give you the short little list of what we need, what what information we’re going to collect so that you can go chase it all down your medical providers and your health insurance information and your car insurance information. Nobody’s expecting to do that. When they call for that that quick, they’re calling Information confirmation and a reason to hire you. Here’s the other-
Kerri, okay, is there, is there a benefit, though, not to go after that? I get it. You don’t want to go over the but spending more time and making that bond like that mini relationship, almost like a first date, where you want to be able to express empathy if they’re just calling you off, hopefully a really well optimized website or maybe a billboard or radio, whatever it is, they don’t have much of a connection. And as part of that, yes, you want that signed, and not that you would delay it, but in order to get over the hump, to get it signed, yes, you don’t want to get with difficult questions, but you do want to somehow integrate with that person, where they feel like you’ve, you’ve spent a meeting-
Seth, it still takes enough time to get to that like, if you’re really screening, we’re not trying to just barely ask any questions to get them signed. We, we’re, we’re screening for high quality cases. We want someone that is truly qualified. We don’t want to have to disengage from anyone because we didn’t do a good job screening. But what happens when I have the wrong person on that line is they’re trying to get information and fill in the intake form, and they’re not good at it. Okay? So then we have tons of issues and missing information and poor information, inaccurate information, and then you’re really pissing off the paralegals, and is coming back on intake when it’s like, wait a second, who’s good at which piece of this job? Or maybe it’s even, you know, it’s a two part conversion. And you could say, I can get this started for you right now. I’m going to put you in good hands over here with Jay. Are you? Do you have the information you need? Now? Here’s the other thing, and I read a lot of law firm reviews. There are so many law firms that have nasty reviews because there’s been too much of a gap from the sign up to the next point of contact. Huge gap. You just chase me and chase me and chase me to get me to sign your retainer. And now I haven’t heard from anyone in three weeks. It really pisses people off. So if you can tell, and this is, again, super important for the stressed out and strained caller, set the expectations. Here’s exactly what we’re going to do today. I’m going to see if I can solve your problem, and I certainly hope so. And if I can, I’m going to ask you to let me do that. We will get a letter of engagement on record today so that I can get this file in front of an attorney tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’m going to schedule you with Danny, who’s going to do the thorough intake. So I’m going to give you the few items that I need you to bring to that consultation. Well, you may have 48 hours now where that person just feels relieved. I’ve got someone to I don’t have homework, I didn’t call with a pen and pencil in hand. I am now signed up, but I know my next step, and that gives people a lot of peace of mind, and leaves them floating on air for 48 hours. And it’s also at that time that I go ahead and send my ‘so how did how was your experience with on the phone with our team today’, and they’re going to give a raving five star review, because they know exactly what happens next. They know what was already accomplished, and setting expectations and being reliable is really important, important to somebody who’s undergoing stress.
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting that you bring that up. I’m hearing things that you’re saying, and I’m like, wow, you know, we stumbled a lot where we would have our intake team chasing people. I’m in the, you know, fee for service criminal defense practice, and people were chasing our clients, and then they would give us a credit card, and the communication would stop, that’s it. And clients would be like, “Dude, you are on me every day, three times a day for 10 days, and now that it gave you money, I haven’t heard from you in a week. What’s up with that?
Exactly.
We revamped our whole system, and so now there’s an intro call and then a second intro call the next day, and then we don’t talk to them for a month, and they’re perfectly happy,
And they’re perfectly fine. And I tell everyone that Jay, when I when I work with an intake team, I tell people, hey, this is going to improve your intake so much that your client service better be willing to up their ante too, because they’re going to look weak compared to the intake team’s attentiveness and so exactly what you said. So now let’s say I’ve got 48 hours of burden transfer. Okay, so I’ve done this sign up, call that I got the one pager. I’ve scheduled the comprehensive intake interview. I’ve gotten all that information. By the time that data is all entered, it goes to someone who it gets assigned to. It triggers a little notification to say, hey, send the ‘Nice to meet you’, or make the Nice to meet you phone call. And that’s just the next person who’s been assigned to your case, your case coordinator who says, “Jay, just wanted to let you know I received all the information from the intake interview you had with Danny. You’re in great hands. It’s going to take us a couple weeks to get things rolling here, but we will certainly be in touch as soon as we have information to share. In the meantime, here’s some basic tips on recovery during the aftermath of a motor vehicle accident.” You have to woo these people, and I remind law firms of this all the time. This is a really well paid service that that you’re, you’re you’re providing people with a service, and you’re being well paid for it, right? We need to serve them, so we do owe it to them to be in touch and to let them know how things are going. And so, you know, building into the system that 45 day tickle that goes, Hey, now it’s been 45 days, let them know, nothing to report here, and then look at the cadence of feedback from your clients. If you’re getting good data, and everybody should be, you’re getting information about when people get antsy, and in personal injury in particular, around the four month mark, super antsy, super antsy. So that’s when you should, at the just shy of four week mark. 11 weeks in, there should be a call going out. Somebody should be making contact. It’s time for law firms to think about the client service side of of the engagement.
Yeah, I mean, I always tell my people, we’re a client services business that practices law and, you know, I mean this, it’s interesting. I was talking to a family lawyer, and I said, and we were talking about their clients. And he said to me, “You know, when we talk to a new client, we have to be the person that their spouse that they want to divorce isn’t, so we have to listen.” We should be active listeners.
I’ll take this the dating analogy or the the personal analogy one step further. Kerri, it almost feels like the engagement, this, getting that thing is like a successful first date. And if you don’t call after that first date, and you blow it off for a couple weeks, that’s not a good look.
That’s not a good look.
And again, the analogy may break down, and that if you you know, called four hours later, that would be a bad thing, but positive reinforcement as quickly as reasonably possible is-
Well again, Seth, if you had been chasing this gal to go out on a date relentlessly for nine days prior to her finally taking you up on it, and
That’s Seth, you know, that says that’s what his dating life was.
It was a numbers game.
Ah,
If you were lucky enough to get there, you know, the idea is you don’t want to, you know, take that for granted, because you’re, you know, you’re going to poison the rest of the relationship, or may not, or maybe not, conclude it if you are not able to just have that reasonable follow up.
Right!
And I mean, every law firm struggles with it. We’ve been, we added, and we’re actually upgrading an intake attorney to try to be part of that, because it is such a painful process. Historically, it’s been intake on the PI side, going to a paralegal and with a lawyer calling subsequently. But the amount, you know, we if we go back, we just track every one of our negative reviews, 4.9 average across all of them, but there’s always some issue.
Haven’t heard a word!
Haven’t heard a word, but took too, too long. Too too long.
Yeah, or but I usually see it before the like, that’s what usually flags the law firm to go ‘somebody needs to call’. So let’s get in front of that. So we build into our system the NPS score, the Net Promoter Score, every quarter, checking in just say, Hey, I know waiting is the hardest part, but we’re working on your behalf. Sometimes no news is good news. In the meantime, how’s recovery coming? How likely are you to refer us to a friend you know, just staying in touch with people and then you know, these long engagements, we have to remember again that this is a service. How are we serving them? It may be that at the six month mark, it’s just built into your workflow that a, you know, a $10 gift card to the ice cream shop in your town goes out on the on the six month mark, you know, we just have to take care of people a little bit, and those small gestures make a big impact, and that’s going to help with your referral business.
Yeah, one of the things that really helped my intake and my client satisfaction is, you know, we automated, you know, birthday cards that go out to all of our clients. And it used to be that I signed them, but now it’s my intake team and the lawyers themselves that they’ve worked with. We, obviously, we have a service that we we mail them through. We’re having it come from the people that they engage with us, because my clients don’t talk to me, and, you know, I have very little exposure to them. So why are we not sending it from the people that actually matter, other than this random dude who’s got the name of the firm, and that’s really ramped up the satisfaction of our of our clientele.
And you’re thinking through the next step. So like you’ve had this, this first date call with the intake person, you’ve moved them on to the comprehensive intake interview. I automate another message that then goes out that says, “Hey, John Danny, told me everything went well. Just wanted to let you know you’re in good hands. This is really where my part of the journey ends. But you’ll be hearing from our client service team in the weeks to come. Best wishes to you. I’m sure you’ll be and you’ll, I’m sure you’ll make a full recovery”. You know, just we have to think through these things, and with all the automation tools, there’s no reason not to. You have to slow down, to speed up, map it all out, build it out, and then put it in place.
You know, I have a question, and it comes when I talk to other lawyers who often push back at me and say, “Well, you know, I have to be involved in every single intake. I have to, I have to make the phone call, get them on the phone. I’ll spend an hour and a half to two hours with them, and then, then I’ll find out, Oh, they never had any money to hire me, or they’ve been shopping around”. You know, what is it about lawyers? Do you think that? Is it an ego thing? Is it a control thing? Is it a combination where they’re like, I have to do all of intake, because lawyers are not best suited for for the intake role, in my experience, what about you?
They’re not. They know they know too much. Okay, that’s why their calls are going on an hour and a half, two hours. They know too much, and so you’re wasting time. And everybody needs to be engaged in what is high value activity for the role they play. So if you are an attorney, that’s not high value activity. If you have- go ahead, Seth, you Yeah, oh, you’re muted. You’re muted.
I would say, I agree and I get it, but remember, we’re talking about the more advanced firms when you like- It’s the one question which is sort of part of would be my next question, is the investment in intake. Because if you have your worst person in intake, the lawyer is going to be better at intake than that worst person. Oh, you gotta hire well and invest. It’s not just like if you have no budget, you can’t hire that well and they’re not going to last anyway. So the question is, have you invested enough so that you can extract yourself? So there are two reasons somebody will stay. One is ego Jay, but the other is the other choices are not viable, and that unless you’ve given real thought and invested in put good people, and had somebody in charge, put people that can answer the phone you won’t get out of the way, because you’re right. You are better than the than the person you have there.
I go over that, and one of my other little books on hiring, it’s an investment. I mean, people. This is not a warm body job. You need the right person in the role. And so, ask for that little guide on hiring for intake.
Yeah, because what I see is a lot of people on intake are just saying, “Well, I’m just gonna, you know, my next step, I’m gonna hire a VA, give them no training, and they’re now my intake person”. And you know, they know how to answer the phone and take a name and a phone number, but that’s not intake. That’s just a live answering service in your office.
Taking that, and this is something we’ve been talking about a lot recently, offline, which is the difference between in, between an answering service essentially in house, you know, which has a place, right? Like Jay that person overseas may never sell a DUI, but somebody can bring somebody in, be energetic, be positive, and frankly, just get the phone answered, and then not lose the opportunity. Versus, let’s say, on the plaintiff side, where the person has to come away with a signed retainer that it’s the longer you discuss it, it’s almost like two entirely different industries. There are commonalities, but a plaintiff shop versus- and we struggle because we have both within Price Benowitz, we are now at the point where we have an entire different team for plaintiff’s work than we do for fee for service, because it’s it. We knew this early on, and there were people that like they love the criminal, but hated the PI or vice versa. It is too different. Like, if you’re doing personality testings, you want a different person.
I agree completely. It’s very, very different role. And I think they the call has to have a very different structure when, when it’s fee for service,
Right? And it may not be. And to Jay, going back to your point about international, that international can do the warm up act much more readily than they will be able to like- closing a fee for service case is not for the faint of heart, right? So you almost have three different skill sets. There’s an a connection with clients, right? Which you is a much broader skill set you have the, “Can you sign a one page document that has no money coming to me?” And the third being, “I need you to now engage and send me a bunch of coin at once”.
That’s really, I mean, that’s it’s expanding my own thoughts about how intake needs to operate. We’ve got a good we’ve got a good team here, but I definitely think, you know, I am learning how they have structured themselves, and it’s almost that way, you know, I’ve got five people on intake. Only two of them are closers, you know, and the other people,
What do you say, Jay? We’re going to do a little bit of business therapy here, how did they structured themselves? I’m sure Kerri is like, that’s like-
Well no, because it was my intake leader.
I understand, but with, but, but at the end of the day, Jay’s Mr. Systems. And so yes, you’re that. It’s not like you’re going to, you know, say no, but like, the fact that you have taken that step back goes against Kerri’s original piece, I mean, which is, yes, you have an intake leader, but are, you know, is, is your thumbprint on it? Whether it’s you or somebody else, are you letting this person do it? You know, on their own?
It’s going to beg my next question, because I am starting to see some turnover in my intake team, and I’m wondering if the the churn that we’re seeing isn’t necessarily because of the systems that we have in place, because they seem to be working just fine. Our revenues continue to grow. But here’s a question that we didn’t prep for, but I’m going to throw it out there to both you turn over, is there a lifespan of somebody who can do intake and handle it, because they’re, they are talking to people that have problems and are stressed and strained and like, is there? Like, is it 18 months? Is it 24 months? Is it five years before a person’s like, burnt out of this.
You gotta take, you gotta take this. Because I could, I could see the gears turning.
Yeah. I mean, I wish I had an answer to think it’s because I do have people that have have worked with us for years in that role and and I think it’s a personality thing, because, I mean, I I’d be off the plantation, it just would not work for me to be in that role, day in and day out over years. So I think it’s about finding the right person. I also think that there should be an like, there are enough things to do in an intake that I think should be rotated through, so that you don’t have someone purely taking calls all day, every day. And so I think when you’re when you’re, you take, oh, go ahead.
No no, I’m just going to give you the counter argument, when you hire right, you can, if you can find somebody who actually likes it.
If they like it, yeah. So it is, it is finding the right person. But if you have a team where it does great on you, yeah, they still get burned out. And you know our friends over at LCC, uh, Scott Blackburn, who they listen to calls exceedingly well. They’re, they’re on it. They take people off phones when they when they can see they’re having a bad day, and everyone’s going to have a bad day. So in terms of that churn, well, first off, I think one of the this is a great little takeaway tip, establish levels in your intake department, so people have a sense of what they’re working towards as a career. So I’m an assistant intake specialist. I’m intake specialist one, which means I do this. I’m intake specialist two, I’m intake specialist three, I’m a an intake supervisor. I’m an intake department lead, like, start giving people a path, as opposed to I’m an intake I’m going to be into an intake for the rest of my life, and hit define goals for what that means. So when you are on, when you join the firm, in those first 90 days, you are an intake newbie, we got to come up with some name for them. And at the end of 90 days, we’re going to have your first initial review, which then qualifies you as either staying with us or going as intake level one. And put some, put some real thought into what these levels mean, and what it means in your firm to reach that next level. And I think that that gives people a lot, no different than everybody who who they’re talking to on the phone, setting some expectations. So by the time you’re here five years, if you’re amazing at your job, you could be leading intake. You know that might help get the right people through the door. All right, if you’re someone who is great at talking on the phone all day and is going to thrive in that role, but if they’re great at talking on the phone, they may be also great at talking to the team and doing some ongoing team training and doing some group meetings with the virtual people who are sitting outside of the office. So I think you have to think about it a little bit more than just this one person answering phones, and make it a career path that people who come into your firm can see themselves on.
Great about the career path, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna challenge you on this so something, we just had a complete meltdown, and I looked at the numbers, because we go to like a Mike Morris firm, where everybody’s been there for like, 15-20, years, or in Andrew Finkelstein, where people been there 25-30 years, like, what’s wrong with me? And post Covid, we reinvented ourselves. It was a whole different intake. And I noticed that the criminal side, the fee for service side, was retaining, and the non-fee for service side was not as well. There was more turnover there. And like, what is wrong? Because I was not moving towards the Finkelstein, Mike Morris world. And I looked at it, and I was like, there was one obvious glaring piece, and you talked about it because it was different levels. If you want somebody at a level where they can get a retainer signed, that is not nothing, that’s not a level, that’s not entry, that’s not one that takes some gumption. Yeah, and even with covid, where we can hire domestically; nationally, the number we were paying was too low. When I looked at it, was, it was, it was dollars and cents, like, and half the time, you know, money solves a lot of problems. Like, if we had been paying 20% more, through this job, that would we would have gotten a better person the first place we would have, we would have retained them, like each of these things, and it’s, there’s so many times we’re like, i’m like, you know, there’s an excuse for every departure. Too high one was a woman, very high, close rate, very high drama, found her way out. Okay, had we paid more, would we have had a better quality person in the first place? A certain amount of attrition, where somebody finds their way out, assuming you want them, you can make all the excuses in the world, but money is a factor.
Absolutely.
And people don’t leave. They put bosses, not… but if you give a number, there are going to be bumps in the road. Jay and I are going to do stupid things at some point with our organizations, that if there’s enough of a cushion in salary I am, this is talking globally. This isn’t you shouldnt be an a-hole. But if you don’t have that extra bandwidth of money there, and you just said, Kerri, it is a daunting thing to do this day in and day out. I want that person. I don’t want to shift them off to somewhere else. I mean, there’s exceptions, and if you get it great, but if you find you, if you test higher and get the right person to do a good job, you. Yes, you want career path. You want to be able to get them up, but make sure that you aren’t skipping, easier advice to give them to take, but when I looked at it, and I was like, “We are underpaying $10- $15,000” and once we did, once we saw that the caliber of people we got just went through the roof.
Completely, completely. And I write about that in the in the intake guide, it’s an investment you’re looking at saving, you know. And I used to think about this with babysitters, even, like, if, if I was, this is, you know, my kids, high teens and 20s now, but you know, 15 years ago, I was paying 12, but if I paid 15, it would cost me an extra $9 and I would be a local hero that everyone wanted to babysit for. Those were people who are going to keep a Saturday night open for me.
Or would cancel somebody else to get to your house.
Exactly and that’s the thing you’re looking at, a very, it’s not a huge gap between where you are and where you could get to that next level of talent. And the other thing with the people who are good closers, because, like you said, Seth, that’s not something that the level ones are going to be- they’re not nailing that unless you found a unicorn. But if you’re going to get somebody who is a closer then there are a lot of other companies that pay a heck of a lot more, not legal industry to get to get sales, to make sales. So if you have someone who is sales inclined but also has this empathetic side, then you’re going to find people who have other opportunities. There’s a great, here’s a great little website to visit. It’s called Can They Sell, CTS, and you can get a Can They Sell score, which maps on two axes.
You get us the link, because we’re gonna put it ip
Yeah. So, so I think this is really fascinating, because this is an important thing for business owners to understand when it comes to people who can and cannot sell. When people can sell, they tend to have both high ego and high empathy, and that makes perfect sense in the in the legal industry. I really want to do well, because I’m driven to get to intake level five, but I also feel really strongly about helping this person. That’s the person we’re looking for. So if you look at the the two axes for ego and empathy, the super hard workers who really don’t care about making that that quarterly bonus, are your, they’re in the yellow box. I have a visual. They’re in the yellow box. They work really hard, but they really aren’t driven to do well for themselves or others. It’s not high ego and it’s not high empathy. You’re looking to get to that upper right hand corner, high ego, high empathy. So do these little tests, the Clifton Strengths test, $35, really great psychological behavior profiling for workers and the Can They Sell scores, CTS, very simple. What box do you fit in? And you want to always be moving people toward high ego, high empathy, which means I want to help you, but I really want to do well. And if you want to develop a culture in your law firm where people really want to do well, you have to figure out incentive structures and bonuses and and I don’t really like pinning people against each other and incentive structures, but how are we all driving toward goals? And that comes back to the most basic thing that every law firm owner should be driving home to their people, KPIs. What the heck are we striving for? How are we tracking toward that? And I read this on LinkedIn years ago, KPI doesn’t just stand for key performance indicators, it’s keep people informed. How are we doing? And if we keep people informed, then they’re more motivated to get to that next level. They need to know what their purpose is every single day. For me in intake the North Star metric every day is, how many qualified calls did I sign? That’s it. That’s my one measure every day. So when I get on the phone, I’m like, how many swings, how many hits? Four for four, three for three, two for two. That’s what I want to hear. Now, you may have closed four other files that were still open because they hadn’t converted yet, and they were, you know, kicking kicking tires. But my daily metric is how many qualified calls were signed? The one call close. That’s all. That’s the goal for the day.
Okay and as you wrap up, just to as we start to hear the same thing over and over again, Bill Biggs, percentage of wants, it’s all if that, if you look at nothing else that is, that is, and it’s the one thing that, again, if everything’s driven by that, then at least you have that beacon to move towards.
Right! And obviously that’s the most important conversion metric when you’re looking at the month as well. But for I know we’re like, I know my team, if you had three qualified and two signed, you may sign that other one tomorrow. So that’s a great stat for the end of the month. That’s my wanted conversion. But my daily metric is the one called close. That’s because, because you want your people-
So your saying there’s two different stats. One-
Yeah, it’s a daily metric-
And then while on the phone, second, what is it? What does it end up at? It’s and both are, both are important.
Both are important. But I want my team every day to know what’s my purpose here today. My purpose here today is to close on that first call.
And I would say one thing that we’ve worked on is, if you aren’t closing on that call, escalating to another voice, just like the manager in the back of the car dealership has to shake your hand to-
And to bring that guy from that from the back room. He’s coming out. He’s wiping the donut dust off his chin. Yep, that’s the guy. Yeah, closers too. But I think this all comes down to Jay. Know your people. You gotta really know these people. And I write about this in the in the most recent PILBA Magazine, the, these kids these days that we just don’t know how to motivate, and they’re not they don’t like talking to people. They’re all ours, so we better get busy training them up, talking to them. You need to have everybody in a room learning how to talk, because they’re so used to having their phone in a face, their face on a phone. Or whatever it may be, doesn’t matter how we got here. They’re ours. It’s our responsibility to train them up.
Wow. Well, with that, folks, I don’t know about you, but I have to go back and listen to all of these and write down all of these acronyms and guides and tips and tools, because I felt like I was just drinking from a firehose Kerri. And I can’t tell you how awesome this series already is with your knowledge. I mean, this has just been, I’m just blown away. I’m personally blown away, and I think I’ve got my systems and my team really dialed in. And now I want to go back in there and say, first of all, everyone’s got to watch the show, and then we’re going to have a conversation about it. So thank you so much for being with us today.
Well, Jay, the lesson there is that baby intake always needs a diaper change, so.
That that is the that is the quote of the day, that is the quote of the day.
Pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, folks. That’s going to do it for us on this edition of the Law Firm Blueprint. Of course, you can catch us anywhere you get your podcast, by subscribing to the Law Firm Blueprint podcast, or you can catch us live on LinkedIn and in our Facebook group the Law Firm Blueprint, 3 pm Eastern, 12 pm Pacific, every Thursday. Once again, thank you to our lovely guys, Kerri Coby White, as well as me and Seth Price, we are the Law Firm Blueprint. Bye for now.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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