Are you a salesperson? A lot of lawyers feel uncomfortable with the idea of selling their services. But think about it for a second. You’re selling your knowledge, professional qualifications, and experience in the form of the legal products and the services that you provide. It's that simple.

This week’s tip: You are in sales…and if selling doesn’t come naturally, you need a sales script to support you.

Welcome to Gimbal’s Tip of the Week, where you get practical, actionable advice you can use right away to start building a more productive and profitable legal practice.

A few years ago, we overhauled the sales process at one of Canada’s largest firms. As part of that project, we looked at how their most successful lawyers tracked opportunities and followed up with potential new clients. We discovered 22 different databases where lawyers stored critical contact information, and processes ranging from none to switching a wedding ring from one hand to the other as a follow-up reminder (which only works if you get one opportunity at a time, right?), to detailed calendar reminders.

Essentially, the firm was relying on rainmakers with an innate ability to convince clients to engage them.

If you don’t have that innate ability, a script will help you close the deal.

In last week’s tip, we encouraged you to put four key marketing assets in place to bring in more business.But if the pipeline is full and you don’t have a sales process that reliably converts those potential clients into paying clients, your revenue will suffer.

That’s why the airplane analogy is so apt in describing the elements of a successful business. With marketing as the right engine to bring in potential clients, and sales as the left engine to close on leads, you’ll have the thrust that your business needs to move forward with greater efficiency and productivity.

So your action item this week is to create a sales script for one of your legal services.

Once you have a script that you’re comfortable with, you’ll be able to use it yourself AND you’ll be able to train everyone in the firm to use it as well. Suddenly, you’ll have a sales force equipped with the exact message you want to share, using a script that you know works.

A successful sales script invites people into a story that makes them the hero and you their guide. Typically, it has 5 parts:

•  It identifies the problem your clients have
•  It shows clients how your services solve that problem
•  It provides them an easy step-by-step plan for engaging you
•  It describes the stakes (what happens if they don’t engage you and what happens if they do)
•  It gives them a clear call to action (what you want them to do next, like book a call)

Business Made Simple [link to: https://www.businessmadesimple.com/?ref=davidskinner] has a great online resource you can use to build your own sales script. It’s designed to make selling easy, even if you hate selling, and includes short explainer videos to guide you through. Just visit OnlineSalesScript and check it out.

Professionals who follow this proven formula feel more confident in sales discussions. They’re able to close more engagements and enjoy greater revenue, benefiting them and the firm!

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