April 9, 2026 • 17 mins
Attorney consultation training fails when firms rush it. We built a 21-week system that actually works.
Learn the 5-phase consultation process that fixed our close rate and scaled Sterling to $18MM.
—
📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@karls.anthony
📚 Order The Waterfall Method Book here: http://rocketclicks.com/the-waterfall-method/
📝 Schedule a FREE Family Law Firm Audit: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/
---
📄 CHAPTERS
0:00 - Attorney Consultation Training That Fixed Our Close Rate
0:47 - Why Your Marketing Dies in the Consult Room
2:05 - The Low Close Rate Data That Started Consult College
2:44 - Why Attorney Training Takes 21 Weeks (Not 2)
4:12 - How to Get Attorneys Past the Sales Stigma
6:06 - Phase 1: Building Rapport and Setting the Roadmap
9:00 - Phase 2-3: Discovery and Vision (Finding Their Peace)
12:00 - Phase 4-5: Clarity and Closing With Confidence
15:34 - Key Lessons: Speed Kills, Watch the Game Tape
16:57 - The Human Element That Makes Consultation Training Work
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Do your attorneys just suck in the consultroom?
(00:03):
You get marketing going,you get leads going,
and then you finally get to the consultand your attorney can't close.
We developed our own consult collegeto help our attorneys improve their skills
I hope you love it and get some valueout of how we train our attorneys
to dominate the consult room.
(00:24):
Welcome back to the Sterling familyLaw Show.
I'm your host, Tyler Dolph.
Mary, thank you so much for comingback to the Sterling Family Lore Show
big episode today.
We're talking about coaching attorneys,and we've coined that
into a program called consult Collegethat we use at Sterling.
This has to be pretty funbecause you have to go to
(00:45):
all of our attorneys and say, listen,forget all the things you've learned.
Let me tell you how to deal with people,how to listen,
give us an overviewof how this came about.
And then what's it like?
Yeah.
So this came about because we recognizethat marketing can give us the leads.
The intake team can generate thoseand opportunities.
And then it stops.
(01:06):
And we had a problem andwe had to identify what the problem was.
And once we identified that inside thecouncil room, we were not being humans.
We were not letting someonefully unburden.
We could pinpointnow we need to improve that area.
And that'swhere Council College was really born.
It is now a 21 week programwhere new attorneys and new hires
sit with me once a week,and we talk about the philosophy
(01:30):
behind our council process,why it works, why it matters,
how does it feel for the client?
And if you're a three hour meetingthat you're still in law school?
Or you're a brand new attorney out of lawschool, you also have a half hour with me
where we do mock consultations once a weekduring that 21 week process, as Love it.
(01:53):
Last time with Mary. Never a bad thing.
So how did you recognize thatthis was an issue?
Right.
What I'm trying to say isyou got to have the data.
You got to understand.
Hey, my consulta close rate is dwindling.
What are we going to do about it?
That really was the datapoint is we recognized
we had all of these opportunitiesin front of us,
but we weren't closing them.
We were losing the clients.
(02:14):
And we really needed to understandwhy someone walked away.
And when they did walk away,what was the value
that we were presenting them, and how didwe miss that value add to their life?
And that's, that's reallythe identification is we had a really low
close rate.
We needed to solve thatfrom a business perspective,
because we knew we couldn't growand we we couldn't
be the best version of ourselves either.
(02:35):
Helping families through one of the mostdifficult seasons of their life.
So. Well said.
Okay, 21 weeksseems like a really long time.
Talk to usabout why it needs to take that long.
What?
What are you doing in the details?
What's week one look like versus week 21?
Yeah.
So we have a five step council process.
(02:56):
The consultations are brokeninto five different phases.
We call them in-house and in order to dothe five phase as well,
you need to see me do it.
You need to tell me how to do it.
And then you need to show methat you can do it.
So that's a three week process per phase.
And then we also want themto have enough time to pinpoint
areas of improvement themselves and wheresomething went wrong on their own time.
(03:21):
But then also watch a colleaguekind of hit it from a different angle.
What are some different unique deploymentsthat they use that you hadn't
even considered yet, or where some areasthat maybe your colleagues don't struggle,
but you do struggle.
And how can you utilize those individualsto better yourself as well?
And so I didn't want to just do 15 weeksand break it up that way.
(03:44):
I wanted to go really in-depth and pullin a lot of different sales strategies,
a lot of different voices from the salesspace and human connection, to
to really get awell-rounded individual inside
that council room.
Yeah.
Because I assume that attorneysdon't even like the word sales.
They don't want to be associated with it.
(04:04):
They don't want to be salespeople.
They became lawyers to be lawyers.
So how do you get them over that hump?
I mean, listen, you're eitherselling or you're being sold something.
Grant Cardone said thatand I think that's true
in every different career path you have,whether you're in it or you're an attorney
or you are a salesperson,there's just this connotation around that,
(04:28):
that job description that makes it feelreally smarmy or just like, icky.
That's not true.
I think the reality is, iswhen you are helping
someone becomethe best version of themselves,
and when you're helping clients really getto what gets them out of their pain,
that goes away.
And that's really a part of collegetoo, is you're not selling
(04:53):
just a service.
You're selling somethingthat matters to the individual.
And I know personally, if a client leavesus, they're not going to be supported
the way we can support them.
They're not going to be takencare of the way we can take care of them.
And I know that because I've worked hereso long and I know
what these attorneys can do,and I know the heart that they all have.
(05:13):
And the new attorneys need to know that toa new hire
is just really need to know that, too.
Because if you believe in what you'reselling, it doesn't feel disingenuous.
It feels really good to make surethat everyone that's in front of you
is getting the help that theyand their family require and need.
100%.
I mean, I said that all the time, like,you're selling your kids
going to school, right?
(05:34):
You know that they need to go to schoolso they can learn that's a sale.
They're going to eat healthy.
You want them to eat healthy,that's a sale.
So, it doesn't always have to be slimy,which is great to hear.
not at all.
I use itand I talk about this all the time.
I use sales in fostercare. I'm a foster mom.
And have you ever tried to parent a fosterteen that has baggage
(05:56):
and baggage of trauma.
You're selling them all day long.
It's just a different wayto think about it.
100%.
All right.
You mentioned five phases.
Let's go through the phases.
so phase one is the roadmap.
You set the frame for what we're aboutto talk about what we're doing here today.
And you want to do that with certainty.
And a calm natureso that the client understands.
(06:17):
Hey, I know you're going througha really painful season.
I did my due diligence by listening into the intake call, reviewing those notes,
looking actuallycap records really just quickly, quickly
establishing that rapportwith the individuals that they know what
they're about to embark upon with you andthat you're a trusted voice in that room.
(06:38):
So phase one is just simply buildinga relationship, inviting them to
to trust you and to know that,you have context on their situation.
After phase one,do you want the client to, to really
unload, like,is that the what's the goal of phase one?
Yeah.
The goal is to createclarity, authority and immediate trust
(06:59):
so that in phase twothey can fully unburden.
It's really setting the stage, settingthe roadmap that allows them certainty
and calm.
All right.
Let's jump into phase two.
Phase two is listening and unburdening.
This is my favorite portion of thethe script or the roadmap
that we're about to do.
It pulls the pain forward.
(07:20):
The goal here is to let the client releasewhat's heavy,
what's been weighing you down,what is the pain that you're currently in?
And you do that by listening,listening, validating
and just digging deeper into them.
It is a lot of tell me more about that.
How is that impacting your future?
What would that do if you stayed in thisseason of pain for the next six months?
(07:43):
It's listening. It's unburdening.
Is it, as part of the coaching process,helping
the attorneys, not trying to solveanything during phase two?
Don't answer any questions.
Don't say, oh, I can help with that.
Oh yeah.
It's the biggest roadblock or hurdlethat a new attorney has to jump over
because they have all the answers,or they think they have all the answers.
(08:04):
I think is a better way to say thatbecause they're
they're presenting problemsand an attorney's job
is to solve problems.
But in reality,you have to go beyond the surface.
You have to dig out the root.
Because when someone says to you, well,I just want to get through this quickly.
Okay. Tell me more about that.
What pain are you in that makesyou want to get out of this quicker?
(08:27):
Well, it's just causing mea lot of financial stress.
Okay, tell me more about that.
What's been impacted the most by thefinancial stress you're currently facing?
Well,I can't pay my mortgage and an attorney.
Okay?
You have to keep digging in orderto find out where they currently are,
where they want to go,and then what's stopping them
from putting that next foot forward.
(08:49):
And you got to do that by listening.
Hey, family law firm leaders.
My partner, Tony Karl'sjust released his book where he lays bare
our precise blueprint for growingsterling lawyers from 0 to 17 million.
This is the blueprintthat we still use daily.
And Tony explains it in very simple terms.
The truth is, this is not simple to do.
(09:12):
Success requires and demands hard work.
But if you have the patienceand the work ethic to do
it, your family, law firm will succeed.
how doyou know that you're done with phase two.
There is an immense sense of relieffrom the individual.
It's why we like to do consultationsin person or by video.
(09:32):
You can see when someone has unburdened,their body posture is calmer,
they're more relaxed,they don't feel like they're carrying the
weight of the world on their shoulders,because a lot of these individuals
that are consulting with ushave not even spoken to their friends
or family about the pain that they're in.
It's all bottled up inside.
(09:53):
And if you do a really good job herein listening and unburdening,
you can see it on the screen,you can feel them release that tension
and then, you know,you've done a really good job
and you can move into phase three.
Then and only thencan you move into phase three.
And and for our listeners,this could be 30 minutes, 20 minute.
(10:14):
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Listening and unburdening could take 20 to35 minutes getting the full picture out.
Because think about youand you're married right now.
You've got finances, you've got kids,you've got taxes, you have a business.
There's just a lot going on inan individual's life.
And there could be different pain pointsand all four of those areas.
And it's your job to ensureyou've uncovered
(10:35):
all of the different pain pointsthat this individual is in.
So good okay.
So we we've establishedtrust and authority.
We've allowed them to unburden.
Now once phase three.
Answering the big question.
This is where I need the attorneyto paint a vision for the future.
(10:55):
The goal here is to shift from emotionalinto directional.
Show them that there is a finish line.
And when we say ask the big question,our big question is let's fast
forward six months.
Imaginethat Sterling has put this behind you.
What does your life look like?
Whatever that client says to you,that is the goal that you anchor
(11:17):
the rest of your counsel to,because that goal is
what makes that person feel at peace.
And here's the thing that is really hardfor new attorneys to understand.
Their version of peace could be totallydifferent than your version of peace.
Your version of peace is the attorneycould be very factual
to the point by the book, by the law rightthere.
(11:39):
Peace is very emotional.
All right I've got a houseand my kids are happy and yeah.
And that's the goal.
That's what you anchor to.
Because I can tell you 100%,they're not buying that.
You are an attorney.
They're buying what you can make them feellike in the next six months.
And if you can anchorall of the legal solutions to that feeling
(12:03):
game, set,match, they're not going anywhere else.
That's such an important point that,it doesn't matter
what your version of success is,they need to feel
that their version of success is,most attainable with you.
And so how do we move them into thatnext phase, then?
(12:23):
Phase four is clarity and next steps.
So this is where the attorney establishesauthority, starts
answering those legal questionsbut also bridges that goal into hope okay.
The goal here is connect their vision.
What they just told you with our processokay.
Clarity kills fear every single time.
(12:44):
So the attorney's job here is to clearthat up.
A lot of this is going to be anchoredin the Sterling's three unique.
So we're exclusively fixed fee.
We only do family law.
We have proven success.
I think we're up to 15,000 pastclient reviews at this point.
But it's to bridgeall of those three uniques into the pain
and the goalthat they have for their future
(13:06):
and how to sterling get them,get them there.
And that's really wherethat authority comes in.
That's great.
And so that's more tactical,like at based on everything you said.
And the vision for success that you havehere is what next steps look like. Yep.
And the attorneys could do this all dayevery day because it's very much
answering those legal questions,guiding them through.
(13:28):
You have a fear of the court okay.
Here's how I would approach that. Right.
Like this is finally the partwhere the attorney can come back
and give their $0.02 on.
This is what I'm going to be ableto legally do for you.
And here's how I'm going to do it.
And then I'm assuming phasefive is the big close.
Yeah.
Show the value and close with confidence.
So the goal here is present.
(13:49):
The options tie the value to their outcomeand close decisively.
Allow them to see thatno matter what their pain is and
what their goal is for the future,they achieve it at Sterling.
And you're going to do thatin a number of different ways.
You're going to obviously linktheir feature advantage benefit statement
to the recommended product offeringthat we have off of our one pager.
(14:12):
And that's the other really cool thingthat we do at Sterling is it's not a
one size fits all firm.
We know that there is valueto full representation,
but we also knowthat there's value to mediation.
We know that there's value to documentdrafting
or for the pro se litigantthat wants to do this on their own.
If you want someone to review itbefore it gets submitted to a judge,
we have that option too.
(14:34):
So in the big close,not only are you confidently presenting
why Sterling is a solution,you're confidently picking
the right service path for the individual.
And I'll tell you, that's aboutfive weeks of work with the attorneys
because they in in law schoolpresent very easily full representation.
(14:54):
But there's all these different optionsthat are really available.
So how do you confidentlydescribe document drafting and court prep?
How do you confidently describea limited scope agreement?
And we do that together in the classroomas well.
based on what I've heard, your bestpath forward is ABC.
Yes. And let me tell you why.
(15:17):
Love it.
So, if, law firmowner is listening to this
and they're like, man, we got to,you know, our our concept clause
rights, things, we got to implementsomething like this.
What are some, like, key lessonsyou learned building this
and where you scraped your kneeand had to pivot?
What what advice could you offera law firm owner in trying to implement
(15:37):
something like this?
I think speed is somethingthat is a real detriment to law firms.
They want to identify the problemand solve the problem
within a week,within two weeks, within one month.
That's just not possible.
If you're doing it right,you need to slow down, break apart
(15:57):
what you're actually doing,what you want to be doing,
and what you want that client to feelwhen you maximize your time
in the counsel roomand really understand how this impacts
the person, you can better yourself.
And then you can of course, betteryour business because of it.
The other thingis, this is really hard to hear to.
(16:17):
I think everyone should listento themselves back.
I think you should downloadevery single consultation
you do and listen to yourself.
Listen to yourself just on audioand then watch yourself.
You learn the mostby looking at what you're currently doing
and hearing how you sound.
Okay, I watch the game tape.
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly like that.
If you're an athlete,you watch yourself perform for a reason.
(16:40):
It's the same thing in the consult room.
You're going to pick upon little minute details you didn't know
you were doing,and then you're going to learn from those.
That's great. That's great advice.
Anything elseyou could offer our audience as it relates
to helping attorneysbe better in the consult room?
I think remembering to be human,remembering that yes,
(17:01):
this is a business. Yes.
You want to grow your business,but these are individuals lives
that have a very personal impacton every area of their life,
whether it's family,children, work, all of the above.
You have to remember that this personis in pain, and to treat them with
(17:24):
anything less than white glove servicefor the pain that they're experiencing.
It's not the way to do it.
a lot merrier. The best.
Thank you so much for sharing with ustoday.
Really appreciate you being on the podcastand we will see you again very soon.
Thanks, Tyler.
Do your attorneys just suck in the consultroom?
(00:03):
You get marketing going,you get leads going,
and then you finally get to the consultand your attorney can't close.
We developed our own consult collegeto help our attorneys improve their skills
I hope you love it and get some valueout of how we train our attorneys
to dominate the consult room.
(00:24):
Welcome back to the Sterling familyLaw Show.
I'm your host, Tyler Dolph.
Mary, thank you so much for comingback to the Sterling Family Lore Show
big episode today.
We're talking about coaching attorneys,and we've coined that
into a program called consult Collegethat we use at Sterling.
This has to be pretty funbecause you have to go to
(00:45):
all of our attorneys and say, listen,forget all the things you've learned.
Let me tell you how to deal with people,how to listen,
give us an overviewof how this came about.
And then what's it like?
Yeah.
So this came about because we recognizethat marketing can give us the leads.
The intake team can generate thoseand opportunities.
And then it stops.
(01:06):
And we had a problem andwe had to identify what the problem was.
And once we identified that inside thecouncil room, we were not being humans.
We were not letting someonefully unburden.
We could pinpointnow we need to improve that area.
And that'swhere Council College was really born.
It is now a 21 week programwhere new attorneys and new hires
sit with me once a week,and we talk about the philosophy
(01:30):
behind our council process,why it works, why it matters,
how does it feel for the client?
And if you're a three hour meetingthat you're still in law school?
Or you're a brand new attorney out of lawschool, you also have a half hour with me
where we do mock consultations once a weekduring that 21 week process, as Love it.
(01:53):
Last time with Mary. Never a bad thing.
So how did you recognize thatthis was an issue?
Right.
What I'm trying to say isyou got to have the data.
You got to understand.
Hey, my consulta close rate is dwindling.
What are we going to do about it?
That really was the datapoint is we recognized
we had all of these opportunitiesin front of us,
but we weren't closing them.
We were losing the clients.
(02:14):
And we really needed to understandwhy someone walked away.
And when they did walk away,what was the value
that we were presenting them, and how didwe miss that value add to their life?
And that's, that's reallythe identification is we had a really low
close rate.
We needed to solve thatfrom a business perspective,
because we knew we couldn't growand we we couldn't
be the best version of ourselves either.
(02:35):
Helping families through one of the mostdifficult seasons of their life.
So. Well said.
Okay, 21 weeksseems like a really long time.
Talk to usabout why it needs to take that long.
What?
What are you doing in the details?
What's week one look like versus week 21?
Yeah.
So we have a five step council process.
(02:56):
The consultations are brokeninto five different phases.
We call them in-house and in order to dothe five phase as well,
you need to see me do it.
You need to tell me how to do it.
And then you need to show methat you can do it.
So that's a three week process per phase.
And then we also want themto have enough time to pinpoint
areas of improvement themselves and wheresomething went wrong on their own time.
(03:21):
But then also watch a colleaguekind of hit it from a different angle.
What are some different unique deploymentsthat they use that you hadn't
even considered yet, or where some areasthat maybe your colleagues don't struggle,
but you do struggle.
And how can you utilize those individualsto better yourself as well?
And so I didn't want to just do 15 weeksand break it up that way.
(03:44):
I wanted to go really in-depth and pullin a lot of different sales strategies,
a lot of different voices from the salesspace and human connection, to
to really get awell-rounded individual inside
that council room.
Yeah.
Because I assume that attorneysdon't even like the word sales.
They don't want to be associated with it.
(04:04):
They don't want to be salespeople.
They became lawyers to be lawyers.
So how do you get them over that hump?
I mean, listen, you're eitherselling or you're being sold something.
Grant Cardone said thatand I think that's true
in every different career path you have,whether you're in it or you're an attorney
or you are a salesperson,there's just this connotation around that,
(04:28):
that job description that makes it feelreally smarmy or just like, icky.
That's not true.
I think the reality is, iswhen you are helping
someone becomethe best version of themselves,
and when you're helping clients really getto what gets them out of their pain,
that goes away.
And that's really a part of collegetoo, is you're not selling
(04:53):
just a service.
You're selling somethingthat matters to the individual.
And I know personally, if a client leavesus, they're not going to be supported
the way we can support them.
They're not going to be takencare of the way we can take care of them.
And I know that because I've worked hereso long and I know
what these attorneys can do,and I know the heart that they all have.
(05:13):
And the new attorneys need to know that toa new hire
is just really need to know that, too.
Because if you believe in what you'reselling, it doesn't feel disingenuous.
It feels really good to make surethat everyone that's in front of you
is getting the help that theyand their family require and need.
100%.
I mean, I said that all the time, like,you're selling your kids
going to school, right?
(05:34):
You know that they need to go to schoolso they can learn that's a sale.
They're going to eat healthy.
You want them to eat healthy,that's a sale.
So, it doesn't always have to be slimy,which is great to hear.
not at all.
I use itand I talk about this all the time.
I use sales in fostercare. I'm a foster mom.
And have you ever tried to parent a fosterteen that has baggage
(05:56):
and baggage of trauma.
You're selling them all day long.
It's just a different wayto think about it.
100%.
All right.
You mentioned five phases.
Let's go through the phases.
so phase one is the roadmap.
You set the frame for what we're aboutto talk about what we're doing here today.
And you want to do that with certainty.
And a calm natureso that the client understands.
(06:17):
Hey, I know you're going througha really painful season.
I did my due diligence by listening into the intake call, reviewing those notes,
looking actuallycap records really just quickly, quickly
establishing that rapportwith the individuals that they know what
they're about to embark upon with you andthat you're a trusted voice in that room.
(06:38):
So phase one is just simply buildinga relationship, inviting them to
to trust you and to know that,you have context on their situation.
After phase one,do you want the client to, to really
unload, like,is that the what's the goal of phase one?
Yeah.
The goal is to createclarity, authority and immediate trust
(06:59):
so that in phase twothey can fully unburden.
It's really setting the stage, settingthe roadmap that allows them certainty
and calm.
All right.
Let's jump into phase two.
Phase two is listening and unburdening.
This is my favorite portion of thethe script or the roadmap
that we're about to do.
It pulls the pain forward.
(07:20):
The goal here is to let the client releasewhat's heavy,
what's been weighing you down,what is the pain that you're currently in?
And you do that by listening,listening, validating
and just digging deeper into them.
It is a lot of tell me more about that.
How is that impacting your future?
What would that do if you stayed in thisseason of pain for the next six months?
(07:43):
It's listening. It's unburdening.
Is it, as part of the coaching process,helping
the attorneys, not trying to solveanything during phase two?
Don't answer any questions.
Don't say, oh, I can help with that.
Oh yeah.
It's the biggest roadblock or hurdlethat a new attorney has to jump over
because they have all the answers,or they think they have all the answers.
(08:04):
I think is a better way to say thatbecause they're
they're presenting problemsand an attorney's job
is to solve problems.
But in reality,you have to go beyond the surface.
You have to dig out the root.
Because when someone says to you, well,I just want to get through this quickly.
Okay. Tell me more about that.
What pain are you in that makesyou want to get out of this quicker?
(08:27):
Well, it's just causing mea lot of financial stress.
Okay, tell me more about that.
What's been impacted the most by thefinancial stress you're currently facing?
Well,I can't pay my mortgage and an attorney.
Okay?
You have to keep digging in orderto find out where they currently are,
where they want to go,and then what's stopping them
from putting that next foot forward.
(08:49):
And you got to do that by listening.
Hey, family law firm leaders.
My partner, Tony Karl'sjust released his book where he lays bare
our precise blueprint for growingsterling lawyers from 0 to 17 million.
This is the blueprintthat we still use daily.
And Tony explains it in very simple terms.
The truth is, this is not simple to do.
(09:12):
Success requires and demands hard work.
But if you have the patienceand the work ethic to do
it, your family, law firm will succeed.
how doyou know that you're done with phase two.
There is an immense sense of relieffrom the individual.
It's why we like to do consultationsin person or by video.
(09:32):
You can see when someone has unburdened,their body posture is calmer,
they're more relaxed,they don't feel like they're carrying the
weight of the world on their shoulders,because a lot of these individuals
that are consulting with ushave not even spoken to their friends
or family about the pain that they're in.
It's all bottled up inside.
(09:53):
And if you do a really good job herein listening and unburdening,
you can see it on the screen,you can feel them release that tension
and then, you know,you've done a really good job
and you can move into phase three.
Then and only thencan you move into phase three.
And and for our listeners,this could be 30 minutes, 20 minute.
(10:14):
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Listening and unburdening could take 20 to35 minutes getting the full picture out.
Because think about youand you're married right now.
You've got finances, you've got kids,you've got taxes, you have a business.
There's just a lot going on inan individual's life.
And there could be different pain pointsand all four of those areas.
And it's your job to ensureyou've uncovered
(10:35):
all of the different pain pointsthat this individual is in.
So good okay.
So we we've establishedtrust and authority.
We've allowed them to unburden.
Now once phase three.
Answering the big question.
This is where I need the attorneyto paint a vision for the future.
(10:55):
The goal here is to shift from emotionalinto directional.
Show them that there is a finish line.
And when we say ask the big question,our big question is let's fast
forward six months.
Imaginethat Sterling has put this behind you.
What does your life look like?
Whatever that client says to you,that is the goal that you anchor
(11:17):
the rest of your counsel to,because that goal is
what makes that person feel at peace.
And here's the thing that is really hardfor new attorneys to understand.
Their version of peace could be totallydifferent than your version of peace.
Your version of peace is the attorneycould be very factual
to the point by the book, by the law rightthere.
(11:39):
Peace is very emotional.
All right I've got a houseand my kids are happy and yeah.
And that's the goal.
That's what you anchor to.
Because I can tell you 100%,they're not buying that.
You are an attorney.
They're buying what you can make them feellike in the next six months.
And if you can anchorall of the legal solutions to that feeling
(12:03):
game, set,match, they're not going anywhere else.
That's such an important point that,it doesn't matter
what your version of success is,they need to feel
that their version of success is,most attainable with you.
And so how do we move them into thatnext phase, then?
(12:23):
Phase four is clarity and next steps.
So this is where the attorney establishesauthority, starts
answering those legal questionsbut also bridges that goal into hope okay.
The goal here is connect their vision.
What they just told you with our processokay.
Clarity kills fear every single time.
(12:44):
So the attorney's job here is to clearthat up.
A lot of this is going to be anchoredin the Sterling's three unique.
So we're exclusively fixed fee.
We only do family law.
We have proven success.
I think we're up to 15,000 pastclient reviews at this point.
But it's to bridgeall of those three uniques into the pain
and the goalthat they have for their future
(13:06):
and how to sterling get them,get them there.
And that's really wherethat authority comes in.
That's great.
And so that's more tactical,like at based on everything you said.
And the vision for success that you havehere is what next steps look like. Yep.
And the attorneys could do this all dayevery day because it's very much
answering those legal questions,guiding them through.
(13:28):
You have a fear of the court okay.
Here's how I would approach that. Right.
Like this is finally the partwhere the attorney can come back
and give their $0.02 on.
This is what I'm going to be ableto legally do for you.
And here's how I'm going to do it.
And then I'm assuming phasefive is the big close.
Yeah.
Show the value and close with confidence.
So the goal here is present.
(13:49):
The options tie the value to their outcomeand close decisively.
Allow them to see thatno matter what their pain is and
what their goal is for the future,they achieve it at Sterling.
And you're going to do thatin a number of different ways.
You're going to obviously linktheir feature advantage benefit statement
to the recommended product offeringthat we have off of our one pager.
(14:12):
And that's the other really cool thingthat we do at Sterling is it's not a
one size fits all firm.
We know that there is valueto full representation,
but we also knowthat there's value to mediation.
We know that there's value to documentdrafting
or for the pro se litigantthat wants to do this on their own.
If you want someone to review itbefore it gets submitted to a judge,
we have that option too.
(14:34):
So in the big close,not only are you confidently presenting
why Sterling is a solution,you're confidently picking
the right service path for the individual.
And I'll tell you, that's aboutfive weeks of work with the attorneys
because they in in law schoolpresent very easily full representation.
(14:54):
But there's all these different optionsthat are really available.
So how do you confidentlydescribe document drafting and court prep?
How do you confidently describea limited scope agreement?
And we do that together in the classroomas well.
based on what I've heard, your bestpath forward is ABC.
Yes. And let me tell you why.
(15:17):
Love it.
So, if, law firmowner is listening to this
and they're like, man, we got to,you know, our our concept clause
rights, things, we got to implementsomething like this.
What are some, like, key lessonsyou learned building this
and where you scraped your kneeand had to pivot?
What what advice could you offera law firm owner in trying to implement
(15:37):
something like this?
I think speed is somethingthat is a real detriment to law firms.
They want to identify the problemand solve the problem
within a week,within two weeks, within one month.
That's just not possible.
If you're doing it right,you need to slow down, break apart
(15:57):
what you're actually doing,what you want to be doing,
and what you want that client to feelwhen you maximize your time
in the counsel roomand really understand how this impacts
the person, you can better yourself.
And then you can of course, betteryour business because of it.
The other thingis, this is really hard to hear to.
(16:17):
I think everyone should listento themselves back.
I think you should downloadevery single consultation
you do and listen to yourself.
Listen to yourself just on audioand then watch yourself.
You learn the mostby looking at what you're currently doing
and hearing how you sound.
Okay, I watch the game tape.
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly like that.
If you're an athlete,you watch yourself perform for a reason.
(16:40):
It's the same thing in the consult room.
You're going to pick upon little minute details you didn't know
you were doing,and then you're going to learn from those.
That's great. That's great advice.
Anything elseyou could offer our audience as it relates
to helping attorneysbe better in the consult room?
I think remembering to be human,remembering that yes,
(17:01):
this is a business. Yes.
You want to grow your business,but these are individuals lives
that have a very personal impacton every area of their life,
whether it's family,children, work, all of the above.
You have to remember that this personis in pain, and to treat them with
(17:24):
anything less than white glove servicefor the pain that they're experiencing.
It's not the way to do it.
a lot merrier. The best.
Thank you so much for sharing with ustoday.
Really appreciate you being on the podcastand we will see you again very soon.
Thanks, Tyler.
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