Climb into your personal time machine and go back to your college days. To be more exact, go to your class on Constitutional Law. In this class you are studying the United States in the late 1700’s (pre-Constitution) and our fledgling nation has just secured its freedom from Britain, and we are plodding along under the Articles of Confederation. You are studying the works of John Locke, Adam Smith, Voltaire, and Tom Paine. The one word that keeps popping up regarding different forms of government is “Virtue.” Let’s kick that around a little bit.
The word virtue comes from the Latin root vir, for man. Initially, it was understood to mean manliness or valor, but over time, the meaning morphed into “a sense of moral excellence.” At the beginning of our nation, it was thought to mean “a taste for order in matters of morality.” Now that we have established a baseline for this word, let’s fast-forward some 230+ years to modern times.
What role does “virtue” play in the modern sales cycle?
Let’s change up the scenario – let’s suppose every Lawyer/Law Firm in America has a killer website, a blog, a newsletter, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page, and a Twitter feed. How is a potential client going to weigh the differences? I contend it will come down to two things: Subject Matter Expertise and “Virtue.”
People buy from people they like and trust.
(Virtue = Trust) in the marketing equation.
Too many people get hung up on selling too early in the process when they should be trying to first establish a sense of trust. We will give “Subject Matter Expertise” its due in a future blog – so today let’s stick with creating or demonstrating trust/virtue/character. The reason I used multiple words here is they are all interrelated and an outgrowth of that aura of a warm and fuzzy feeling you need to envelop yourself in.
Before you can establish trust, however, you need to establish and build character and virtue.
In your initial conversations with a prospective client consider leaving the sales rhetoric at home. When it is your turn to talk, AND YOU HAD BETTER BE LISTENING, (see Legal-Metrix LLC Blogs: The Lost Art of Listening Part 1 http://legal-metrix.com/the-lost-art-of-listening-part-1/ and The Lost Art of Listening Part 2 http://legal-metrix.com/the-lost-art-of-listening-part-2/ Steer the conversation toward anything that shows you to be an honest, respectful, forgiving, and kind human being. This is NOT the time to be bragging about burying some opponent at trial.
This is the time to show yourself as a “real person” who shares the same values and concerns as your prospective client. You should be almost in anti-sales mode. Almost as if you are evaluating the potential client to see if they embrace the same high values you and your firm value and exude.
The less you try to sell in this situation, the more successful you will be.
The next step in this process is to show genuine knowledge and interest in the client’s business. Your end game here is to eventually become a member of the clients’ “inner circle,” to be viewed as a resource. To achieve this level you have to engender trust. That is the easiest part of this equation…..seriously.
To create trust with a client you have to make promises, and then you need to deliver on them. The more promises you make and deliver on, the greater amount of trust you will receive.
In case you missed it, the whole key to developing virtue in that initial meeting is to forget about selling and instead try and establish a mutual set of values with your prospective client. Let them know you work with high-level clients and just not anybody. Make them WANT to be a client of yours.
Lastly, you have to be in for the long haul, not the quick fix
Happy Groundhog Day and enjoy the rest of your week.
