Sales Speak: How to Close New Business

Chances are you already know the decision-makers (aka prospects) who can retain you. The purpose of your research is to learn everything you can about prospects so you can get in front of them. The one thing that's really going to pay off for you is to learn their industry. Figure out whether a decision-maker's company is the market leader or the market laggard. What's going on in the industry? Is it in a recession? Is it doing well? Keep looking until you find a business problem that the decision-maker is currently facing.

The next thing to find out is what organizations they belong to. What are the circles that they travel in? The point is to find a way to put yourself into that circle. Then research further and find out what the two of you have in common: Did you go to the same school? Are you from the same part of the country? Do you know the same people? The next step is to discover someone who can make an introduction for you. The more you know about the decision-maker, the easier it will be to be to get in front of them.

Connecting

How do you connect with the decision-makers? Frankly, the very best way is to talk to the people that you already know the best, and that's your own clients. The most successful business developers visit their clients, go to their stores and explore their factories. Clients love it when a lawyer takes an interest in their business, and on-site visits also create an opportunity to build your practice by asking for three things:

1. The first thing is a recommendation. When your client gets a call from a GC, you want her to recommend you. This works with the way GCs search for lawyer: They will draw up a short list and then call other GCs. Research by the BTI Consulting Group found that a client recommendation is two and a half times more potent than anything else you can do in business development. The reason is that once a client recommends you, the GC's search for a lawyer has concluded. That's all they needed to hear. They got a live recommendation from somebody who's working with you.

2. Second, ask for an introduction. If you have a relationship with a client in which you are a personal or a trusted business adviser, ask the client to introduce you to someone who is in the same industry. The client will not be surprised by this request. He will already know that success in business comes from giving and asking for introductions. If you have a good relationship with the client, he will be more than happy to make the connection.

3. Ask if there is a problem you can solve for the client. Whenever you're in the office of a client, you should find out what's going on, and see if there isn't a new file that you can pick up.

Meeting

Once you have researched your target person, identified a problem he or she faces and gotten an introduction, it's time to get face-to-face. Your aim is to get past the stage of exchanging e-mails to an in-person meeting as quickly as possible.

The purpose of meeting somebody is to see if you can cultivate a relationship with them. It is not to make a pitch. Nobody likes to be pitched. Instead, approach the meeting as an interview. You are trying to determine what business problem the other person has that you can solve with your focused legal services.

Leave a firm brochure behind and instead prepare five intelligent questions for the other person. Think of the meeting as a friendly deposition, where you are gathering more information about the prospective client and his or her business. This is an opportunity to probe deeper into the issues you learned in your research.

The idea is to get the other person talking: If the other person is talking, you are selling. The person you are courting should do more than half of the talking. Your role is to listen to what they have to say so that you can understand the other person better.

A crucial point to listen for in the conversation is a sense of urgency. Clients want to solve only problems that they consider to be urgent.

So, let's say you are talking to the owner of a chain of health clubs, and one of their members hurt himself on an exercise bike. For example, it might go like this:

Q: “One of your members was hurt. How has that affected you?”

A: “Well, it's affected me a lot. I have to talk to the home office now. They want to know why we put the wrong pedals on. This has just taken over my life.”

Q: “What bothers you most about it?”

A: “We were just trying to do the right thing. We installed these bikes to help people get fit. Who knew that there were different pedals? We just sort of took the parts that came with the bike, and we were just trying to do the right thing.”

Q: “Why is it important that you solve this problem now?”

A: “As it turns out, we've got a lot of members, and we've got these pedals on bikes all over the country, and chances are, there are a lot of other people who could get hurt. We've got to nip this in the bud. We just can't sit on this thing.”

Q: “What would happen if you didn't do anything?”

A: “I can tell you what happened, because it's happened before. They'd all get together. They'd form a class action and they'd file suit against us, and we'd be tied up in court for years.”

As you can see, just by asking questions that are probing for a sense of urgency, you have prompted the other person to tell you why it's so important to bring you in on the matter right now. By answering your questions, the other person has sold himself on retaining you.

Following Up

Remember the dating analogy. You're not going to get the answer to every question on the first date. In the first meeting, you should basically seek to establish some rapport. And yes, you probably won't go into that much depth on the first meeting. But you never know. You just might.

Most new business is won by persistence over time. After you've spoken to a potential client, keep a list of what I call value-added ideas. By value, I mean it solves a business problem of the client with legal services. These ideas will be your talking points when you see the other person again.

Follow up with a thank-you letter. Send helpful e-mails with news items from industry publications. Make an occasional call to chat about people in the industry. But most importantly, make it a point to turn up at the same meetings the other person does. Continue your research and learn what industry associations the other person goes to. Go to the same presentations and programs. Set dates for future meetings.

Once the other person has gotten to know you and is convinced that you are really interested in him or her, there will be a meeting where the other person has something urgent to discuss. It will be something that bothers them. It will affect their job and be important to solve it now. That will be the moment when you close the client by simply saying, “I can help you with that.”

Larry Bodine, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is Editor-in-Chief of Lawyers.com. E-mail: [email protected].

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There is a tried and true method to seal the deal with a new client ' an area that many lawyers have trouble with. Attorneys are typically very good at describing their skills and recounting problems they have solved for other clients, but they struggle with asking for the business.

In sales, this is known as “the close,” which is actually the easiest step in the sales process, so long as you have set up the foundation that leads up to it. There are five steps:

1. Research.
2. Connect.
3. Meet.
4. Establish Rapport.
5. Follow up.

Bear in mind that business development is just like dating. If a guy were to ask a gal to go out, he wouldn't ask her to get married on the first date. There's usually a lot of getting-to-know-you and courtship involved, and then eventually, if it works out, you get to the close. And that's where we all want to be.

Research

Chances are you already know the decision-makers (aka prospects) who can retain you. The purpose of your research is to learn everything you can about prospects so you can get in front of them. The one thing that's really going to pay off for you is to learn their industry. Figure out whether a decision-maker's company is the market leader or the market laggard. What's going on in the industry? Is it in a recession? Is it doing well? Keep looking until you find a business problem that the decision-maker is currently facing.

The next thing to find out is what organizations they belong to. What are the circles that they travel in? The point is to find a way to put yourself into that circle. Then research further and find out what the two of you have in common: Did you go to the same school? Are you from the same part of the country? Do you know the same people? The next step is to discover someone who can make an introduction for you. The more you know about the decision-maker, the easier it will be to be to get in front of them.

Connecting

How do you connect with the decision-makers? Frankly, the very best way is to talk to the people that you already know the best, and that's your own clients. The most successful business developers visit their clients, go to their stores and explore their factories. Clients love it when a lawyer takes an interest in their business, and on-site visits also create an opportunity to build your practice by asking for three things:

1. The first thing is a recommendation. When your client gets a call from a GC, you want her to recommend you. This works with the way GCs search for lawyer: They will draw up a short list and then call other GCs. Research by the BTI Consulting Group found that a client recommendation is two and a half times more potent than anything else you can do in business development. The reason is that once a client recommends you, the GC's search for a lawyer has concluded. That's all they needed to hear. They got a live recommendation from somebody who's working with you.

2. Second, ask for an introduction. If you have a relationship with a client in which you are a personal or a trusted business adviser, ask the client to introduce you to someone who is in the same industry. The client will not be surprised by this request. He will already know that success in business comes from giving and asking for introductions. If you have a good relationship with the client, he will be more than happy to make the connection.

3. Ask if there is a problem you can solve for the client. Whenever you're in the office of a client, you should find out what's going on, and see if there isn't a new file that you can pick up.

Meeting

Once you have researched your target person, identified a problem he or she faces and gotten an introduction, it's time to get face-to-face. Your aim is to get past the stage of exchanging e-mails to an in-person meeting as quickly as possible.

The purpose of meeting somebody is to see if you can cultivate a relationship with them. It is not to make a pitch. Nobody likes to be pitched. Instead, approach the meeting as an interview. You are trying to determine what business problem the other person has that you can solve with your focused legal services.

Leave a firm brochure behind and instead prepare five intelligent questions for the other person. Think of the meeting as a friendly deposition, where you are gathering more information about the prospective client and his or her business. This is an opportunity to probe deeper into the issues you learned in your research.

The idea is to get the other person talking: If the other person is talking, you are selling. The person you are courting should do more than half of the talking. Your role is to listen to what they have to say so that you can understand the other person better.

A crucial point to listen for in the conversation is a sense of urgency. Clients want to solve only problems that they consider to be urgent.

So, let's say you are talking to the owner of a chain of health clubs, and one of their members hurt himself on an exercise bike. For example, it might go like this:

Q: “One of your members was hurt. How has that affected you?”

A: “Well, it's affected me a lot. I have to talk to the home office now. They want to know why we put the wrong pedals on. This has just taken over my life.”

Q: “What bothers you most about it?”

A: “We were just trying to do the right thing. We installed these bikes to help people get fit. Who knew that there were different pedals? We just sort of took the parts that came with the bike, and we were just trying to do the right thing.”

Q: “Why is it important that you solve this problem now?”

A: “As it turns out, we've got a lot of members, and we've got these pedals on bikes all over the country, and chances are, there are a lot of other people who could get hurt. We've got to nip this in the bud. We just can't sit on this thing.”

Q: “What would happen if you didn't do anything?”

A: “I can tell you what happened, because it's happened before. They'd all get together. They'd form a class action and they'd file suit against us, and we'd be tied up in court for years.”

As you can see, just by asking questions that are probing for a sense of urgency, you have prompted the other person to tell you why it's so important to bring you in on the matter right now. By answering your questions, the other person has sold himself on retaining you.

Following Up

Remember the dating analogy. You're not going to get the answer to every question on the first date. In the first meeting, you should basically seek to establish some rapport. And yes, you probably won't go into that much depth on the first meeting. But you never know. You just might.

Most new business is won by persistence over time. After you've spoken to a potential client, keep a list of what I call value-added ideas. By value, I mean it solves a business problem of the client with legal services. These ideas will be your talking points when you see the other person again.

Follow up with a thank-you letter. Send helpful e-mails with news items from industry publications. Make an occasional call to chat about people in the industry. But most importantly, make it a point to turn up at the same meetings the other person does. Continue your research and learn what industry associations the other person goes to. Go to the same presentations and programs. Set dates for future meetings.

Once the other person has gotten to know you and is convinced that you are really interested in him or her, there will be a meeting where the other person has something urgent to discuss. It will be something that bothers them. It will affect their job and be important to solve it now. That will be the moment when you close the client by simply saying, “I can help you with that.”

Larry Bodine, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is Editor-in-Chief of Lawyers.com. E-mail: [email protected].

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