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Rainmaker Report
Practice Building Tips for Today's Attorneys
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December 2016
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888-588-5891
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How to Manage Leads and Convert Prospects Into Paying Clients
The purpose of marketing is to generate leads. The purpose of your intake system is to convert those leads into clients. To take your law firm to the next level you need both.
The problem is most attorneys spend all their time and money focusing on getting more and more leads, but fail to recognize that what you do with those opportunities is just as important as generating them.
Over the last 16 years, we have developed a proven intake and lead conversion system that has doubled the conversion rates of thousands of attorneys all across the nation. It consists of four major components:
Keep reading.
Sincerely,
Stephen Fairley
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Our lead conversion system consists of four major components: (1) training for your front office and intake staff; (2) specific tactics and strategies to maximize your conversion at each stage; (3) an intake customer relationship management (CRM) software that automatically tracks and follows up with every lead; and (4) tracking and measurement of key metrics.
1. Training for Front Office and Intake Staff
Most law firms have a receptionist, but a receptionist is very different from an intake person. When hiring someone to handle calls from prospects, you are essentially looking for a sales person-someone who feels very comfortable "selling" over the phone. They are selling prospects on why they should come in for a consultation.
Here are the major areas your intake staff should be trained on:
- How to quickly qualify or disqualify prospects (this should be no more than 4-6 questions).
- Precisely what information you want collected: name, phone, email, reason for call.
- Talking points on exactly how you want the phone answered.
- Answers to the most frequently asked questions prospects call about.
- Scripts for when they leave voicemail messages.
- Brief guide on how to use your phone system.
- How to use your lead tracking system or intake CRM.
- Your firm's relevant information, such as website, address, driving directions to your local office
- Protocol on expectations of how, when and how frequently to follow up with prospects.
- Top three reasons why they should come in for a consultation (for local clients).
- Top 3-5 reasons why they should hire you. What makes your firm unique?
- How, when and with whom to set appointments for initial consultations.
- What to do when you don't know how to handle a prospect.
- Key phrases of empathy and support.
- How to control the call for when prospects want to talk too much.
- Sample intake form filled out correctly as a guide.
- Training on how to use any software required of them.
2. Specific Tactics and Strategies to Maximize Conversion at Each Stage
We have discovered over 45 techniques your intake staff can use that can rapidly increase your lead conversion rate. Here are a few of the top techniques we cover in our Rainmaker Intake University program:
- Every lead must be followed up within five minutes! When the initial follow up call/contact goes from 5 to 10 minutes, lead conversion drops by up to 400 percent!
- Every lead must be called back a minimum of six to 10 times! When dealing with consumers you need to be persistent, often calling them back four, five or more times before you reach them. Once you reach them you either disqualify them and stop calling or qualify them and set the appointment.
- The first day, each lead should be called two to three times. The average consumer calls five to seven law firms when making a buying decision and the law firm who gets them on the phone first will likely be chosen.
- Scripts need to be written for voicemails so they aren't always the same. Unless you give them direction, most staff will leave the same, generic message as every other law firm. Come up with different voicemails that encourage the prospect to call your office back.
- Never make an attorney or paralegal responsible for making follow up calls. They will not do it. They just won't. Trust me. We have tried every possible incentive to get associates or paralegals to make follow up calls and they will not.
3. An Intake Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
Once your firm is getting more than 30 to 50 leads per month (that's contacts from potential clients, not consultations or sign ups), you really need to have a software system for keeping track of all these incoming leads and where the leads are in the sales cycle.
A good intake CRM should:
- Integrate with your website, live chat, phone system and other major lead sources.
- Provide an electronic intake form that helps your intake person qualify and disqualify leads.
- Track every lead and where they are in the sales process.
- Notify your intake person when a new lead comes in.
- Allow your intake person to track their contact with the prospect.
- Enable your intake person to follow up with each lead via email and text message.
- Track your lead conversion rates by lead source and whoever is doing the initial consultation.
- Provide metrics and data (hopefully via visual dashboard).
4. Tracking and Measurement of Key Metrics
There are several metrics every law firm should measure regarding their intake:
- How many leads are you getting every day? Remember, we want to measure leads, not just appointments, consults, or sign ups.
- Where are these leads coming from? Use tracking phone numbers whenever possible.
- How many appointments are set by practice area?
- How many of those appointments show up for the consultation?
- What is your closing rate at the initial consultation?
- How many people sign up later after the consult?
- If you have multiple people handling consultations, what are their individual conversion rates?
- What is your cost per lead by lead source?
- What is your cost per client acquisition by lead source?
If you track and measure each of these numbers, you will be far ahead of your competition. This data will allow you to make smart marketing decisions and identify holes in your system. The fastest and most cost effective way to grow your law firm is not to spend more money chasing more leads, it's to fix your follow up and maximize your lead conversion rate.
If you would like to find out more about the Rainmaker Lead Conversion System and our automated marketing software we customize for clients, I invite you to sign up for a complimentary strategy session with one of our trained Rainmaker Law Marketing Consultants by calling 888-588-5891 or filling out this form.
If you'd like to learn more proven strategies for business development, I invite you to attend a Rainmaker Retreat, our two-day law firm marketing workshop. We have sessions every month around the country - go to RainmakerRetreat.com to check the schedule.
We have helped over 18,000 attorneys across the nation discover the secrets in building a financially successful and personally satisfying legal practice and we would love for your law firm be our next success story!
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Our Client Spotlight:
Doug Thomas of
Thomas Pollart & Miller, LLC
Doug Thomas shares his story of how he was grinding away at a practice he found unfulfilling and reinvented himself and his firm in a way that is truly inspiring.
In this interview he shares the three key components to a successful law firm which enables him to have a balanced lifestyle and reap the rewards of success.
Read the interview
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