Favorite Posts | The [non]billable hour

Give Clients More Certainty

Clients crave predictability. They find comfort in knowing what to expect — especially in stressful situations like the ones you handle for them everyday.

But how can you deliver more certainty to your clients? After all, outcomes are impossible to predict and matters ebb and flow from beginning to end. You keep your clients “in the know,” writing them when something’s going on, calling or meeting with them when there’s something to discuss and billing them (almost) every month.

If you want to understand how predictable you are to clients, begin by looking at each file as they do.

While a file may remain “active” to you, your clients may feel otherwise. Their only cues to the activity on their case come from you, in the form of correspondence, calls, meetings or bills . When they’re not receiving regular, predictable updates on what’s happening, they become uncomfortable and stressed.

Want to better understand how your clients perceive your handling of their matter? Using the diagram below as a guide, take a few active files and a blank calendar, and map out for each the days you write the client, call them, meet them or bill them. What do you see?

If you asked your clients to name the next thing they expect from you (and when they’ll get it) would they have a answer?

If your client interactions look as unpredictable and scattered as the ones below, that’s probably how your clients are feeling about the work you’re doing for them. By giving them a measure of certainty about the things you can control, you’ll have much calmer clients, who are much happier with the work you do.

Written on 12/29/11 in Best of the Blog, Client Service

Ten Rules of Rainmaking

I often quibble with the term “rainmaker” because I think it too often describes lawyers more interested in getting new clients than in keeping current ones. However, because “10 Rules for Business Development,” and “10 Rules for Keeping Clients So You Don’t Have to Replace Them” don’t have the same nice ring as “ 10 Rules of Rainmaking,” I’ll use the term here. Let me know what you think:

1. You’ll never be passionate about rainmaking until you start searching for clients you’ll be passionate about serving. Remember, a great client is one for whom you’d work for free, but one who’d never ask you to.

2. The best way to get new clients is to impress old ones. Measure the happiness of your existing clients with the same diligence you measure your time, so you can work less on developing new business and more on deserving it.

3. While there are hundreds of “strategies” to get new clients, there’s only one strategy to keep them: serve them well.

4. When meeting a potential client, don’t sell your competence, sell your compassion. They must know you care about them before they’ll care about you.

5. The single best way to get new clients is to ask your best ones, "How do I get more clients like you?"

6. A client will never be as surprised by great legal work as they will by by good service.

7. Your new client’s definition of a “great” lawyer is probably far different from yours. You must understand their expectations before you’ll ever be able to meet them.

8. Recognize that while it is usually easier to ask for new business from prospective clients than it is to ask for more business from current ones, it is rarely more profitable.

9. If your answer to “What kind of clients are you looking for?” is “Ones who pay,” you’ll get paying clients. Terrible paying clients.

10. The best thing you can promise a prospective client is more sleep. Ask what problems keep them up at night, and build your practice to solve them.

I'd love your input, and feel free to add any of your "Rules" in the comments. If you enjoyed these, check out my other posts in the series: Ten Tweets about Twitter, Ten Resolutions for the New Year, Ten Rules for Law Students, Ten Rules for the New Economy, Ten Rules for New Solos, Ten Rules of Legal Innovation, Ten Rules of Legal Technology, Ten Rules of Hourly Billing and Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing.

Also, if you'd like to get more ideas like these in real time, follow me on Twitter.

Written on 02/12/09 in Best of the Blog, Marketing, Ten Rules

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Thinking Unthinkable Thoughts

Kevin Kelly thinks about thinking the unthinkable:

The futurist Herman Khan introduced the idea of “thinking the unthinkable” as a way to loosen up the imagination in trying to forecast the future. Most time we are unable to guess the future because we are inhibited by conventional wisdom – something that everyone knows is true. For instance everyone (including me) knew that an encyclopedia written by amateurs that could be changed by anyone at anytime was simply a silly, impossible idea. That prevented anyone from forecasting wikipedia. Herman Khan stressed that we should assume what we know is wrong and begin to imagine how the unthinkable might happen.

Looking back even ten years, who would have predicted the legal present we’re experiencing now? Services like Facebook, LinkedIn, Avvo, LegalZoom weren’t around, and the biggest technology decisions most lawyers had to make was between Wordperfect and Word.

Looking forward to 2020, what is “unthinkable” for law practice? What things are we absolutely certain won’t happen in the next nine years? Here are a few of mine:

There will be no “medium-sized” law firms any longer. All lawyers will either practice in firms of less than 10 attorneys or more than 1000.
The court system, as a venue for dispute resolution of any kind, will cease to exist. Every dispute will either be settled in mediation or through submission to a computerized, artificial intelligence system, and parties will be bound by its decision.
Thompson/Reuters/West and Lexis/Nexis will merge. Nobody will notice.
Law schools will merge with business schools to actually teach students both to “think like a lawyer” and to run a profitable business.
Facebook will introduce a feature that automatically recommends to divorcing couples how they should separate their friends and property.

Leave your unthinkable 2020 predictions in the comments, or tag them on twitter with #2020Unthinkables. I’d love to hear what you think won’t happen in 2020, too.

Written on 06/27/11 in Best of the Blog, Innovation, Law Firm Retreat

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Resolve to Apologize Better

Everyone makes mistakes. Even lawyers. That's why, in 2010, you should Resolve to Apologize Better. Why apologize? Apologies increase client loyalty and reduce malpractice exposure. But how do you apologize better? Practice! Here's a great guide from Psychology Today (about apologizing to women) that sets out the six mandatory elements a good apology: 1. Acknowledge…

Here are some of my favorite posts. I hope you enjoy them.