It’s a Small World
WHAT ARE YOU
SELLING Your Clients? by BRADLEY MILLER
When I mention the word “sales” to most lawyers, I usually get one of three looks in response. Sometimes I get a horrified look, like I just told them their child is ugly. Sometimes I get a look of indignation, as if the concept of sales is beneath lawyers, like the mud on the bottom of our wingtips. And sometimes I get a coy acknowledgment that “selling” exists but is not something that is discussed in polite company.
advertise. Sales was little more than an initial meeting with an engagement agreement being signed at the end (and sometimes not even a written agreement).
Sales is a dirty word to many lawyers, but it is an integral part of running a law practice. Selling is simply the act of persuading a prospective client to buy your legal services. Every law practice does it, whether you call it that or not. If you can’t convince people to buy your services you won’t be in business long, no matter how great a lawyer you are.
Clients don’t buy your time
Unfortunately, many lawyers are not very good at sales. We went to law school to be lawyers, not salespeople. In the past, a lawyer or group of lawyers could hang their shingle and expect new clients to soon start walking in the door. It was a seller’s market, the number of lawyers was relatively low and firms didn’t really need to
We are now in a buyer’s market, though, and clients have the power. Choice abounds. The number of lawyers continues to increase each year. Non-lawyer legal service providers offer alternatives to hiring lawyers for many legal issues. It is time for lawyers to acknowledge that we can’t just wait for clients to come to us—we have to sell our legal services. And—we mostly suck at it. When lawyers do try to sell their services, most try to sell one of two things: their time, or their experience.
You can’t sell time and clients can’t buy it. Time is a constant constraint, not an asset (or a cost). You can’t hoard time like emergency supplies. You can’t trade time to someone else like baseball cards. Time has no value.i As a constant, it is always moving forward. No matter how nicely you try to package six-minute intervals, you can’t sell time (what you are really trying to sell is the work that you do for the client during that time, but most lawyers don’t talk about it that way). Assuming that you could somehow sell time, clients aren’t buying. Clients don’t care how long it takes a
22 | Columbus Bar L aw yers Quarterly Spring 2020
