Recently, I ran a workshop for a client on building business relationships. The managing partner attended and asked: “What is the most important thing you work on with your clients?”
Without hesitation, I indicated that “follow-up” is the most important skill that I work on with lawyers.
In legal marketing, staying top of mind over a long period of time is crucial.
Good follow-up ensures that you will stay top of mind so that someone will think of you when they have a need or hear of someone who does
This is challenging for lawyers for a number of reasons. For starters, we identify as professionals who are above selling. Sales feels a little dirty to many of us.
In addition, we don’t like rejection and research by Dr. Larry Richard bears that out. Compared to the general population, we are less resilient. We don’t like to follow-up because we fear rejection or failure.
As I reflect more on how I answered the question posed by the managing partner, I still believe that follow-up is something that most lawyers need help with. But I have to say that “active listening” is equally important. I actually spend just as much time helping my clients hone their active listening skills.
As attorneys, we’d like to show how smart we are. We are trained to be articulate spokespeople for our clients. Our instinct is to listen to respond.
Sometimes that works to our client’s benefit and sometimes it helps us to build the business relationships that we need to build.
At other times, our failure to be active listeners really gets in the way of relationship building. If we are not listening to understand, we are missing crucial opportunities to strengthen our the bonds we have with potential referral sources.
Listening to understand means asking questions and then listening to the answers in a nonjudgmental way. Echoing back what the other person said and asking if that is what they meant, goes a long way in making someone feel heard.
Instead of giving a substantive response, try saying:
✔️Tell me more about that
✔️And what else? (You can ask this several times and really drill down to find out what is their real concern)
Both of these phrases are also powerful ways to make people feel appreciated and heard.