The 8 Contacts Rule of sales is essential for solo attorneys and does wonders as part of your law firm marketing strategy to edge out the competition.
Some attorneys have income that is directly linked to how much he or she pounds the pavements. It may not be ideal, but this type of attorney is a salesperson, plain and simple.
There are many rules and different ways to sell, but one rule takes precedence as the base of all sales: the 8 Contacts Rule.
Put simply, the 8 Contacts Rule discusses the idea that it takes eight points of contact to seal the deal and turn a prospect into a paying client. This doesn’t start when you have physical or vocal contact with the client; it starts when your client first becomes aware of your presence.
Prospects won’t be clients immediately. You have to nurture the relationship.
Basically, sales is like a funnel. A potential client starts at the top of the funnel as a prospect and once the prospect reaches the bottom of the funnel, they are a paying client.
How you work the relationship has a direct impact and whether the prospect will become a paying client and driving them to the top of the funnel. This is relevant to marketing efforts such as advertising, blogging, networking, speaking appearances, and so forth and is known as your first point of contact.
As soon as a potential client enters that funnel, how you nurture that relationship becomes increasingly important because it allows you to guide them to the bottom. The wrong step can cause a prospect to leave the funnel.
This beginning is where the eight additional contact points begin.
The points of contact are a mix of active touches (like phone or in-person consults or status emails) and passive touches (like receiving a copy of your firm’s newsletter).
Your Eight Points of Contact need to be managed wisely.
The Rule itself sounds easy, but for many attorneys, it is very difficult to execute on a consistent basis. Scheduling for the small firm attorney can be wildly challenging and it is crucial to implement a system so you can manage your points of contact.
Setting up the system in four steps:
- create a place in your contacts list to organize your prospective clients and set up a spreadsheet to manage the contacts,
- create templates and scripts for the touches,
- schedule the points of contact starting at the date of the initial contact; and
- delegate the tasks to someone such as an assistant or law clerk.
Implementing a system allows one to get all of the passive points completed automatically. The active point are then allowed to be cued by another person and given your direct attention to be be finished as soon as possible.
How can the 8 Contacts Rule give an edge?
Here’s why the 8 Contact Rule works so well for attorneys: most of your competition is giving up on prospective clients after four or fewer points of contact.
In the entirety of potential clientele, very few are actually ready to hire you or your firm now. In terms of percentage, think 10%. This Rule makes you stay in front of those who may not be ready to buy today, but have a good chance of buying in the future.
In many cases, the competition will have long given up, and you’ll be the last man standing. An easy close in any book.
And here’s the beauty of it, by using the 8 Contacts Rule, your firm will close more new business:
- without any Jedi sales skills;
- without improving your legal skills;
- without changing your marketing strategy; and
- without any significant additional expense (if any at all).
You have to be on point to be successful and your persistence is will be an asset to you and your legal career.
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