September 4, 2025 • 26 mins
Sales training isn't optional for family law firms—it's the difference between 15% and 30% close rates on cold leads.
A lot of attorneys resist sales training because they think it's "dirty." The data shows attorneys sell constantly—to judges, clients, and peers. Our systematic approach at Sterling turned a 15% cold lead closer into a consistent 25-30% performer through daily role-play training and our Council College program. The result? You need fewer consultations to hit revenue targets, and your intake team development becomes predictable instead of hoping for natural talent.
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📄 CHAPTERS:
0:00 - Sales Training Reality Check: Why Attorneys Resist What They Already Do
1:45 - Redefining Sales Commitment: From Dirty Word to Professional Service
5:32 - Sales Training as Growth Strategy: Daily Role-Play Systems That Work
8:38 - Council College Framework: Teaching Attorneys to Listen Before Speaking
12:10 - Lead Follow-Up Systems: The 91-Day Sequence That Converts Cold Prospects 14:37 - Mary's Method: How One Intern Became Our Best Sales Manager
18:38 - Balancing Process with Authenticity: Why Scripts Kill Conversions
23:28 - Activity vs Achievement: The Vince Lombardi Sales Truth
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you tired of inconsistent sales results and
leads that slip through thecracks?
The real problem might not beyour process.
It might be your people'scommitment.
In today's competitive familylaw market, mastering sales is
not optional.
It's your edge.
My name is Tyler Dolph.
I'm the CEO of our agency,rocketclicks.
(00:22):
We are a full service agencythat works exclusively with
family law firms to help themgrow their business, attract
more leads and have a wonderfullife.
Today I am joined by ourpresident, tony Carls.
He's also the co-founder of ourvery own family law firm called
Sterling Lawyers that hasscaled to over 30 attorneys
(00:44):
across 25 offices.
We are very excited to have himhere today.
And today we're going to talkabout commitment the commitment
to personal sales growth and toevery lead that enters your
funnel.
We'll break it down into fivecore ideas, each packed with
practical tips for family lawprofessionals.
I really hope you enjoy it, tom.
(01:05):
Great to have you back.
We are continuing our series ondiving deep into sales and sales
within family law firms.
A lot of law firms do it a lotof different ways.
You know our smaller law firmclients.
It's your head attorney isdoing all the consults and all
the sales.
Once you see the growth in lawfirms and our own firm we're
doing.
We've evolved all the way intonon-attorney sales, but sales
(01:28):
still matters, whether you'redoing it yourself, you're
outsourcing, whatever we'regoing to talk today about the
five ways sales commitmentdrives growth in a family law
firm, and the first one we'regoing to talk about is
redefining commitment in sales.
Give us a little perspectivehere on what you've seen over
(01:48):
the years.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I would start out with saying this is probably a
topic that most of our attorneysdon't want to hear.
That's been my experience atSterling, primarily because
sales is dirty and I don't wantto be a salesperson.
The truth is, attorneys areconstantly selling their clients
(02:11):
on safety and security and afuture that they don't have
today.
They're constantly sellingjudges and opposing parties on
their ideas and their positions.
They're constantly sellingtheir teammates and their peers
in the marketplace on theircompetence.
Attorneys are probably in theirday-to-day interactions.
(02:34):
They sell more than mostpositions.
They sell way more than peoplein marketing, because most of
their interactions are they'recommunicating ideas that other
people need to, that they wantother people to accept as the
idea we're going to move forwardwith.
So you know, I think redefiningcommitment in sales means how
(02:58):
do we recognize that everythingwe're doing is a sale?
It's like everything we'redoing is a sale.
It's not a dirty word.
It's a dirty word when you're ascumbag salesperson and you try
to cheat people out ofsomething, yeah, then it's
absolutely a dirty word.
But when done ethically and inthe right intention and with
professionalism, it's what weall do every day, every single
(03:21):
one of us that is successful inthe marketplace.
We're constantly selling either, actually selling our services
through a service perspective.
You know, one of the things wetalk about here is we're, we
don't.
We don't need your money, sowe're going to tell you, we're
going to show you what we can do, we're going to show you the
proof of how it works, and youknow we're going to, we're going
(03:42):
to follow up with you on on it.
We're going to show you theproof of how it works and you
know we're going to, we're goingto follow up with you on on it.
We're not going to negotiatenecessarily on price, because
this is, this is how much workit takes to get this done.
And here's the outcome and thisis, this is what it looks like.
So, like, consistency in salesis like how are we?
Are we believing that it'simportant?
(04:04):
Are we showing up in all thesemoments?
Are we, are we doing thingstruly out of service?
Like because, if we are, thesell should come from the fact
that you truly believe that youare the best person for
potential client to work with,because you're going to give
them the most security and mostconfident position in the future
(04:29):
, and you're selling out of thefact that you authentically
believe that it's not a saleanymore.
You believe it and you wantthem to believe it.
So you're, you're communicatingthat belief.
You're all you're communicatingin sales, if you're doing it
well, is belief and confidencein what you have to offer and
not everybody will take it, andthat's fine.
But the reality is like that inwhat you have to offer and not
everybody will take it, andthat's fine.
But the reality is like that'swhere you want to come from from
a point of sales.
(04:49):
If you're going to do salestricks, you should feel gross
because it's not going to workand it's going to feel
disgusting.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It's not sales, it's that's.
That's manipulation right.
That, to me, is the differenceis if, if you truly believe in
what you are advocating for,whether it's a product or a
service, or a point of view or adinner location at home, you
(05:16):
are selling.
You're selling because youbelieve.
You're convicted to share thisbelief with another party.
Right, that's sales.
Manipulation is all the otherstuff, it's all the gross stuff
that that makes sales have a badname.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Exactly.
Yeah, I mean the way we do ithere at RocketClicks is every
person that that onboards,regardless of position, they
have to go through a salestraining program in Udemy.
That's one of their.
I think it's a week.
I think it's either week one orweek two.
We have four weeks ofpre-planned work for everybody
that starts, I believe, eitherweek one or week two.
(05:52):
They have to go through a salesworkshop and like understand
that part of what they're doing,even though they're not in a
sales role, is they're sellingthe ideas that we have as an
agency around what it looks likefor family law firms to grow
and grow consistently and scaletheir business.
Because if they can'tcommunicate it, no law firm
(06:13):
owner should buy it.
No law firm owner, in ourweekly calls that we have with
them, should buy an unconvincingstrategy from one of our
strategists.
Because the reality is is whyshould I believe you if I don't
really think you believe in whatyou're talking about?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, I think you touched on our second point
there, which is investing insales training as a growth
strategy, and I know you havethe sales team at Sterling, the
non-attorney sales team thatgoes through training all the
time, and then we have our ownsales training here at the
agency.
How have you seen that reallyuplift your sales team and top
(06:56):
grade them to continue toimprove?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah.
So on the, on the intake sideit's, you know, a lot of times
what we're looking for is peoplethat are they're early on in
their sales career becausethey're working in an intake
type role.
So we want to teach them how todo it well and do it ethically
and do it with conviction.
Our best intake people they'renot good sales people quote
unquote from like a processperspective.
(07:21):
They communicate their beliefin Sterling and that's why
they're successful in that role.
Those that don't do that well,they don't perform well from a
metrics perspective.
Same thing on the non-attorneysales side.
Those are more seasoned, higherend sales type people that are
making, you know, in the, in thesix figures and they're um, you
(07:45):
know, they have more of thesales skills, but again, it's
the same.
It's the same thing.
Um, and in those two, in thosetwo roles over at Sterling,
every day we do a role playtraining and it's just something
we do every day and it'ssomething that our sales manager
(08:06):
runs, and we essentially goover a topic and role play that
topic with a couple differentpeople on the team, in front of
the team as a group, and whatthat does is it gets everybody
more confident.
They start asking questions,they start seeing things that
they may have not experienced ifthey're less, if they're less
experienced on the team, andeverybody grows because now
(08:26):
we're in a like everybody's partof a growth, a growth mindset
in that one area from a skillsperspective.
And then on the attorney side,we developed what we call
consult college over at Sterlingand it's something all of our
attorneys, before they starttaking consults, have to go
through.
Yeah, I believe it's athree-month course and most of
(08:48):
it is around how are youcommunicating the future, how
are you shutting your mouth sothat they can tell and unload
their story?
Because what a client doesn'twant to do is hear how smart you
are.
What they want to hear is that.
What they want to feel is heardand understood and like.
That's a different type ofcommunication than regurgitating
(09:11):
statutes and different types ofcase law and situational things
.
That is going to weigh abovethe client's head.
You know, there's one of thethings.
We record our consults, whetherit's attorney or non-attorney,
and we use it as trainingmaterial internally.
(09:32):
And there was one consult wherea lady came in.
She's telling the story of howshe's where she is getting a
divorce.
Her mom had died the week priorand then her dog died that week
.
So just like she's like justpouring her soul out to our
(09:52):
attorney and this was one of ourattorneys.
That was like this was beforewe were doing console college.
This was one of our attorneysthat was more of a I'm going to
tell you how smart I am.
In the consultation room shedidn't empathize at all.
After all that was said, shejust communicated here's the
next step, here's how we'regoing to go.
And it was.
It's just like it's a funnyrecording to hear, but it's so
(10:15):
obvious when you listen to itthat what's the human response
in that circumstance?
It's like are you okay?
Like, do you, do you need a hug?
Are you?
Are you actually doing okayright now?
Cause that's a lot, that'stough.
So and our attorneys that dothat, naturally they're amazing
(10:36):
in the consultation room, butit's because they make a
connection.
They're not selling anything,they're selling that they
believe they can help you.
They're authentic, they tellyou the truth, they're not
trying to oversell you anythingthat you shouldn't hear.
So and back to it investing inthis type of training has
(10:59):
massive impact on revenue,because you get more efficient
in your funnel, you need lessconsults to get deals, so on and
so forth.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I would say that people have different
backgrounds that grow up intobeing in sales in some way or
another.
Some people do it based on EQand reading people and being
able to read situations, andthat's how they're able to be
good at sales.
Others know the facts betterthan everybody else, and so by
having a training where you cancome together and learn best
(11:31):
practices as it relates to yourfirm like your point about
empathy is so important, right?
If I'm a salesperson, I'm onlyfact driven and I don't show any
empathy, Well then you're goingto have the call that you
described.
But if you can learn a littleempathy and hey, if someone's
pouring their heart out, take asecond, take a beat, ask them
how they're really doing Likethat's going to improve your
(11:54):
ability to make a great livingand also impact people's lives
in a positive way.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, I would say another thing here is this isn't
optional.
Investing in sales trainingisn't optional.
If you're going to beprospecting in the marketplace,
if you're getting only referrals, you don't need this because
they're already pre-introducedto you and they're going to
close at a really high rate.
(12:19):
What we see often is a clientcomes in, they don't have a
prospecting funnel and then whenthey get prospects from the
marketplace that aren'treferrals, they close them
really poorly and then they justthink the leads suck and the
reality is it's like no, you'renot good at actually doing the
sales part because you're soused to layups.
(12:39):
Referrals are so easy to close.
That same, that same person thatI described, she she had lots
of referrals because she wassuper connected in the Lake
country area.
So she, you know, she's kind ofa very involved with her church
.
She was involved with I forgetwhat other, forget what
(13:00):
organization Oconomowoc but likeeverybody knew who, she was
right.
So when you pulled herreferrals out of her closing
rate, she closed so poorly.
But when you looked at hertotal closing rate with
referrals included, it lookedlike she was one of our better
closers.
And the reality was no, herreferral closing rate was like
(13:22):
80%, which is great.
Her cold lead closing rate waslike 15% because she actually
didn't know how to do it.
She didn't know how to do welland console college helped her,
helped her like role play outthat, that opportunity that I
described so and she got.
(13:43):
She got better.
You know, is she ever she'sprobably never going to be a 40%
closer, but she became a 25 to30% closer very consistently and
that makes a big difference.
That's like way less consultsthat you need scheduled.
So sales training here, ifyou're going to be prospecting
in the marketplace, isabsolutely required, because you
will fall on your face if youdon't know how to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Love it, I mean as it pertains to sales training.
You know, our third point hereis follow up with every lead, no
matter what, and I think onething I learned early on in my
career was that you never knowwhat's going to happen until you
have the conversation.
And so you might as wellcontinue to try to have the
(14:32):
conversation, because you know,if you can stay positive and
work the program, the goodthings are going to work out.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Tell us why this matters in law?
Well, I don't think it's anydifferent.
I can tell you a a story about.
So our, our, our sales managertoday.
Her name is Mary.
When she started she was justan intern working on the
marketing team and she was likerunning around the state, um,
helping us at night when we wererunning our workshops, so
that's kind of what she wasdoing.
(14:57):
She put the sign up outside andshe would like have the signup
sheet.
She agreed all the customers,all the potential clients, and
she would seat them in theconference room, make sure the
attorney's presentation was setup, so on and so forth.
So she did that for I don'tknow three, four months.
She helped with some otherstuff too on the marketing side,
but she wasn't in, she wasn'tday-to-day in the org.
(15:18):
And then she and she wanted tobe.
So the one thing I told her isif so, if you're going to come
in and you're going to be, you'dbe on the intake team.
If, if you follow up andunderstand what, what happens
with every single client andactually care about their story,
you will be the best personhere.
(15:39):
And she's a Mary's, a rulefollower and she so.
Every day she had a new pieceof paper.
She wrote down every singleperson's name that she didn't
have an answer from from theprevious day and all the people
she talked to that she didn'thave an answer from today on
that list and every day she'dwrite all their names down.
Every single day.
(15:59):
New piece of paper, write alltheir names down Manually, like
that, and she would follow upuntil she heard from that person
how they were moving forwardand if they needed anything.
It didn't mean they all closedwith her, but they all knew Mary
cared, they could just feel itand she she truly believed that
(16:19):
Sterling was the best place forthem to be and that's why she
performed so well, because shefollowed up with care about
making sure that they were safe,cause we hear tons of stories
that are hard and not everybodycan afford Ford services.
But she was good with.
She did research on otherresources and other ways to go
about it and she would follow upuntil she knew that person was
(16:41):
moving forward in a way thatthey felt safe and she's very
successful as a result.
She did intake, she did.
She was our best non-attorneysalesperson.
She now runs our sales team.
She's very wildly successfulthere.
That's so awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
It just like gets me excited hearing that Love the
follow-up.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It's a good follow-up .
It's like it's everything, it'severything.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
There's some stat about the number of deals that
close on the first call versus,like, the 15th call.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Oh, yeah, and it's it's so many more deals later.
I, yeah, and it's like so manymore deals later.
Yeah, I think.
It's like.
I think it's more than 50% ofdeals will close between calls
eight and 12, some stat likethat, so it's a massive portion,
and most people hate doing thefollow-up and they're like this
(17:36):
is pointless.
I followed up four times andthey don't even answer my phone.
It's like yep, you haven't hiteight yet.
Have you Keep going?
You hit nine.
Have you hit 10?
Have you hit 11?
Oh, look, they answered.
They answered and they now arereally.
They really believe that youcare?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I mean, we've seen that, even on the marketing side
, where we'll get a lead andwe'll continue to follow up and
have conversations, and it maytake a year and if you know when
it finally happens, we always,you know, laugh like, hey, look,
there's another example.
You just got to stay in touch.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, yeah, don't have them restart their their
search process.
They already contacted you once, so they just don't believe you
care.
So help them believe that youcare, follow up.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Which you know that kind of leads into, like our
fourth point, which is balancinghigh commitment with smart
efficiency.
So how are you creating thoseefficiencies, those rhythms,
those processes and maintaininghigh commitment at the same time
?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
processes and maintaining high commitment at
the same time.
So I think you can over processsales Music to my ears, yeah,
like.
I think there's a real truththere.
And what ends up happening iswhen you over process and, like
you, over commit to to a process, all the person on the other
(18:58):
side of that sales hears is yourscript and then it's not
working anymore, if that makessense.
So there's, yeah, you lose theenthusiasm of the sales team as
well as you.
You don't sound authenticanymore and your, your potential
clients, feel that.
You know, when we first rolledout consult college, the V1, um,
(19:23):
our our like revisit on what wetaught um wasn't as good as it
could be.
So what I would say maybe aquarter to a third of our team
did was they just implemented ascript and that, like nothing
changed.
They followed the process.
We measured that.
They followed the process, butthey didn't close any better
(19:44):
because all they were doing islike checking the boxes.
They were committed, but theyweren't, weren't really working
with, you know, smart efficiency.
They were overly, they wereoverly committed on process and
they weren't balancing IQ or EQ,like you said before.
I think that's a really smartway to think about it Because if
you're overly processed and youdon't have any EQ, you're
(20:06):
probably not going to close thedeal.
You're all EQ and there's noprocess.
You're probably losing peoplealong the way because they don't
know where you're going andthey're like well, he was a nice
guy, but I don't reallyunderstand anything he said.
So having a balance of both, Ithink, is really important.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
And there's always going to be.
I think we talk about it.
There's going to be a healthyfriction between sales and ops,
right?
That is a good thing, ifmanaged correctly.
And how do you get both teamsworking officially together,
knowing that there's going to bethat kind of friction?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I would say the like.
Getting the team to work welltogether is helping them,
helping them both understandeach other's roles.
I think that's when there'swhen there's like full awareness
of the tensions in both ayou're going to problem solve
better.
So like you're not going to, um, you'll be less likely to say
(21:02):
that's their problem, causeyou're you're like okay, I see
how that sucks and I see how I'mcreating more work.
Like this happens.
So intake teams a big complaintintake teams have and if your
intake team isn't telling youthis, it's probably just because
they're not telling you thetruth is they can't stand how
often things get rescheduledBecause they already, if they
(21:25):
did a good job doing thatinitial sale well, especially on
a paid consultation, to have anattorney who didn't manage
their calendar well, to have anattorney who didn't manage their
calendar well, tell them toreschedule a consultation is so
demotivating, right.
But on the other side, likethings happen on attorney's
(21:45):
calendars that things need to berescheduled, so like that's a
tension point that's often there.
It may not be talked about in alot of firms because your
intake team might not be tellingyou the truth, but that it's
there, trust me, it's there andhaving healthy communication
around that, so that you're bothrespecting each other and
(22:06):
you're getting the best out ofeach other, will allow the
intake team member to be ashighly motivated as possible in
that call and they're going tosound more authentic and they're
going to be a betterrepresentative of you and your
brand.
Um, you know that comes throughthe communication between
between both and having theintake team understand this is
(22:27):
going to happen.
We don't want it to happen.
So how do we make, how do we,how do we create a situation
where this happens as few timesas possible and then on the
attorney side, like reallyunderstand, like what that means
, like that's um.
So that communication, I think,is um really important because
(22:50):
better high qualityconversations you can have with
each other, with each otherinternally, the better problems
you're actually going to solve.
So and that comes back to kindof really balancing process over
relationships Like how do youdo?
Speaker 1 (23:04):
how do you?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
do both Well yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
You got to work together to have a shared fate
and a common goal and be able tounderstand strengths and
weaknesses of both teams.
I want to close on our finalpoint, which I think is is I
giggled at it when we wereprepping for this and it's the
avoiding the busy equals thecommitted trap.
(23:28):
A lot of times salespeoplemaybe a majority of salespeople
love the well I'm busy.
That must mean I'm doing a goodjob thing.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, I mean busy equaling committed can look like
a lot of activity and not verymuch result, so kind of back to
the like.
If you have a really stronginflow of potential clients but
you're you don't have a greatclose rate on those, the problem
(24:01):
might be the fact that your,your team, isn't committed and
they're not actually doingfollowup.
It might not have anything todo with the quality of the lead,
because there's, you know, weover at Sterling we follow up,
for we have a 91 day followupsequence that gets perfectly
executed, not a high percentageof the time, but we get to about
(24:28):
70% of that often and we do itbecause it works and we balance
the idealized follow-up againststaffing and profitability.
But the reality is we'recommitted to follow-up and we
see results as a result, notjust dump more into the funnel
because we can hire more intakepeople.
(24:49):
Let's hire the right intakepeople, let's hire the right
intake people.
Let's have the right processes,right procedures.
We'll need less leads, we'llhave be more profitable, so on
and so forth.
So I would say you know, beingoverly busy and not getting
results is not a not a greatthing.
If your team is busy and you'renot scheduling consults,
(25:10):
they're working on stuff thatdoesn't matter.
The Vince Lombardi quote isdon't mistake activity for
achievement.
It's something I say all thetime.
It's very true in sales.
You can be super active and notachieve anything.
Achievement is like did I get adeal across the finish line?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
That's it.
Go back to the scoreboard.
And that's the beauty of sales.
Right, it's a scoreboard.
It's very clear.
Am I doing the job or not?
Am I making money or not?
I love this.
Tony.
I appreciate your time andinsight in continuing our deep
dive into the sales at familylaw firms and really excited for
(25:52):
the next episode as well.
Uh, we'll look forward toseeing you over there.
If you found this episode uhexciting, if you enjoyed it,
please continue to follow, uhour journey as we continue to
deep dive into the sales role,uh role at family law firms.
Uh, make sure to check out ournext episode, which is the Great
(26:12):
Shortage of TalentedSalespeople.
We're going to dive into whyit's happening, what it means
for your firm and how to build arecruitment and retention
strategy that actually works.
Check it out here and we willsee you there.
Are you tired of inconsistent sales results and
leads that slip through thecracks?
The real problem might not beyour process.
It might be your people'scommitment.
In today's competitive familylaw market, mastering sales is
not optional.
It's your edge.
My name is Tyler Dolph.
I'm the CEO of our agency,rocketclicks.
(00:22):
We are a full service agencythat works exclusively with
family law firms to help themgrow their business, attract
more leads and have a wonderfullife.
Today I am joined by ourpresident, tony Carls.
He's also the co-founder of ourvery own family law firm called
Sterling Lawyers that hasscaled to over 30 attorneys
(00:44):
across 25 offices.
We are very excited to have himhere today.
And today we're going to talkabout commitment the commitment
to personal sales growth and toevery lead that enters your
funnel.
We'll break it down into fivecore ideas, each packed with
practical tips for family lawprofessionals.
I really hope you enjoy it, tom.
(01:05):
Great to have you back.
We are continuing our series ondiving deep into sales and sales
within family law firms.
A lot of law firms do it a lotof different ways.
You know our smaller law firmclients.
It's your head attorney isdoing all the consults and all
the sales.
Once you see the growth in lawfirms and our own firm we're
doing.
We've evolved all the way intonon-attorney sales, but sales
(01:28):
still matters, whether you'redoing it yourself, you're
outsourcing, whatever we'regoing to talk today about the
five ways sales commitmentdrives growth in a family law
firm, and the first one we'regoing to talk about is
redefining commitment in sales.
Give us a little perspectivehere on what you've seen over
(01:48):
the years.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I would start out with saying this is probably a
topic that most of our attorneysdon't want to hear.
That's been my experience atSterling, primarily because
sales is dirty and I don't wantto be a salesperson.
The truth is, attorneys areconstantly selling their clients
(02:11):
on safety and security and afuture that they don't have
today.
They're constantly sellingjudges and opposing parties on
their ideas and their positions.
They're constantly sellingtheir teammates and their peers
in the marketplace on theircompetence.
Attorneys are probably in theirday-to-day interactions.
(02:34):
They sell more than mostpositions.
They sell way more than peoplein marketing, because most of
their interactions are they'recommunicating ideas that other
people need to, that they wantother people to accept as the
idea we're going to move forwardwith.
So you know, I think redefiningcommitment in sales means how
(02:58):
do we recognize that everythingwe're doing is a sale?
It's like everything we'redoing is a sale.
It's not a dirty word.
It's a dirty word when you're ascumbag salesperson and you try
to cheat people out ofsomething, yeah, then it's
absolutely a dirty word.
But when done ethically and inthe right intention and with
professionalism, it's what weall do every day, every single
(03:21):
one of us that is successful inthe marketplace.
We're constantly selling either, actually selling our services
through a service perspective.
You know, one of the things wetalk about here is we're, we
don't.
We don't need your money, sowe're going to tell you, we're
going to show you what we can do, we're going to show you the
proof of how it works, and youknow we're going to, we're going
(03:42):
to follow up with you on on it.
We're going to show you theproof of how it works and you
know we're going to, we're goingto follow up with you on on it.
We're not going to negotiatenecessarily on price, because
this is, this is how much workit takes to get this done.
And here's the outcome and thisis, this is what it looks like.
So, like, consistency in salesis like how are we?
Are we believing that it'simportant?
(04:04):
Are we showing up in all thesemoments?
Are we, are we doing thingstruly out of service?
Like because, if we are, thesell should come from the fact
that you truly believe that youare the best person for
potential client to work with,because you're going to give
them the most security and mostconfident position in the future
(04:29):
, and you're selling out of thefact that you authentically
believe that it's not a saleanymore.
You believe it and you wantthem to believe it.
So you're, you're communicatingthat belief.
You're all you're communicatingin sales, if you're doing it
well, is belief and confidencein what you have to offer and
not everybody will take it, andthat's fine.
But the reality is like that inwhat you have to offer and not
everybody will take it, andthat's fine.
But the reality is like that'swhere you want to come from from
a point of sales.
(04:49):
If you're going to do salestricks, you should feel gross
because it's not going to workand it's going to feel
disgusting.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It's not sales, it's that's.
That's manipulation right.
That, to me, is the differenceis if, if you truly believe in
what you are advocating for,whether it's a product or a
service, or a point of view or adinner location at home, you
(05:16):
are selling.
You're selling because youbelieve.
You're convicted to share thisbelief with another party.
Right, that's sales.
Manipulation is all the otherstuff, it's all the gross stuff
that that makes sales have a badname.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Exactly.
Yeah, I mean the way we do ithere at RocketClicks is every
person that that onboards,regardless of position, they
have to go through a salestraining program in Udemy.
That's one of their.
I think it's a week.
I think it's either week one orweek two.
We have four weeks ofpre-planned work for everybody
that starts, I believe, eitherweek one or week two.
(05:52):
They have to go through a salesworkshop and like understand
that part of what they're doing,even though they're not in a
sales role, is they're sellingthe ideas that we have as an
agency around what it looks likefor family law firms to grow
and grow consistently and scaletheir business.
Because if they can'tcommunicate it, no law firm
(06:13):
owner should buy it.
No law firm owner, in ourweekly calls that we have with
them, should buy an unconvincingstrategy from one of our
strategists.
Because the reality is is whyshould I believe you if I don't
really think you believe in whatyou're talking about?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, I think you touched on our second point
there, which is investing insales training as a growth
strategy, and I know you havethe sales team at Sterling, the
non-attorney sales team thatgoes through training all the
time, and then we have our ownsales training here at the
agency.
How have you seen that reallyuplift your sales team and top
(06:56):
grade them to continue toimprove?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah.
So on the, on the intake sideit's, you know, a lot of times
what we're looking for is peoplethat are they're early on in
their sales career becausethey're working in an intake
type role.
So we want to teach them how todo it well and do it ethically
and do it with conviction.
Our best intake people they'renot good sales people quote
unquote from like a processperspective.
(07:21):
They communicate their beliefin Sterling and that's why
they're successful in that role.
Those that don't do that well,they don't perform well from a
metrics perspective.
Same thing on the non-attorneysales side.
Those are more seasoned, higherend sales type people that are
making, you know, in the, in thesix figures and they're um, you
(07:45):
know, they have more of thesales skills, but again, it's
the same.
It's the same thing.
Um, and in those two, in thosetwo roles over at Sterling,
every day we do a role playtraining and it's just something
we do every day and it'ssomething that our sales manager
(08:06):
runs, and we essentially goover a topic and role play that
topic with a couple differentpeople on the team, in front of
the team as a group, and whatthat does is it gets everybody
more confident.
They start asking questions,they start seeing things that
they may have not experienced ifthey're less, if they're less
experienced on the team, andeverybody grows because now
(08:26):
we're in a like everybody's partof a growth, a growth mindset
in that one area from a skillsperspective.
And then on the attorney side,we developed what we call
consult college over at Sterlingand it's something all of our
attorneys, before they starttaking consults, have to go
through.
Yeah, I believe it's athree-month course and most of
(08:48):
it is around how are youcommunicating the future, how
are you shutting your mouth sothat they can tell and unload
their story?
Because what a client doesn'twant to do is hear how smart you
are.
What they want to hear is that.
What they want to feel is heardand understood and like.
That's a different type ofcommunication than regurgitating
(09:11):
statutes and different types ofcase law and situational things
.
That is going to weigh abovethe client's head.
You know, there's one of thethings.
We record our consults, whetherit's attorney or non-attorney,
and we use it as trainingmaterial internally.
(09:32):
And there was one consult wherea lady came in.
She's telling the story of howshe's where she is getting a
divorce.
Her mom had died the week priorand then her dog died that week
.
So just like she's like justpouring her soul out to our
(09:52):
attorney and this was one of ourattorneys.
That was like this was beforewe were doing console college.
This was one of our attorneysthat was more of a I'm going to
tell you how smart I am.
In the consultation room shedidn't empathize at all.
After all that was said, shejust communicated here's the
next step, here's how we'regoing to go.
And it was.
It's just like it's a funnyrecording to hear, but it's so
(10:15):
obvious when you listen to itthat what's the human response
in that circumstance?
It's like are you okay?
Like, do you, do you need a hug?
Are you?
Are you actually doing okayright now?
Cause that's a lot, that'stough.
So and our attorneys that dothat, naturally they're amazing
(10:36):
in the consultation room, butit's because they make a
connection.
They're not selling anything,they're selling that they
believe they can help you.
They're authentic, they tellyou the truth, they're not
trying to oversell you anythingthat you shouldn't hear.
So and back to it investing inthis type of training has
(10:59):
massive impact on revenue,because you get more efficient
in your funnel, you need lessconsults to get deals, so on and
so forth.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I would say that people have different
backgrounds that grow up intobeing in sales in some way or
another.
Some people do it based on EQand reading people and being
able to read situations, andthat's how they're able to be
good at sales.
Others know the facts betterthan everybody else, and so by
having a training where you cancome together and learn best
(11:31):
practices as it relates to yourfirm like your point about
empathy is so important, right?
If I'm a salesperson, I'm onlyfact driven and I don't show any
empathy, Well then you're goingto have the call that you
described.
But if you can learn a littleempathy and hey, if someone's
pouring their heart out, take asecond, take a beat, ask them
how they're really doing Likethat's going to improve your
(11:54):
ability to make a great livingand also impact people's lives
in a positive way.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, I would say another thing here is this isn't
optional.
Investing in sales trainingisn't optional.
If you're going to beprospecting in the marketplace,
if you're getting only referrals, you don't need this because
they're already pre-introducedto you and they're going to
close at a really high rate.
(12:19):
What we see often is a clientcomes in, they don't have a
prospecting funnel and then whenthey get prospects from the
marketplace that aren'treferrals, they close them
really poorly and then they justthink the leads suck and the
reality is it's like no, you'renot good at actually doing the
sales part because you're soused to layups.
(12:39):
Referrals are so easy to close.
That same, that same person thatI described, she she had lots
of referrals because she wassuper connected in the Lake
country area.
So she, you know, she's kind ofa very involved with her church
.
She was involved with I forgetwhat other, forget what
(13:00):
organization Oconomowoc but likeeverybody knew who, she was
right.
So when you pulled herreferrals out of her closing
rate, she closed so poorly.
But when you looked at hertotal closing rate with
referrals included, it lookedlike she was one of our better
closers.
And the reality was no, herreferral closing rate was like
(13:22):
80%, which is great.
Her cold lead closing rate waslike 15% because she actually
didn't know how to do it.
She didn't know how to do welland console college helped her,
helped her like role play outthat, that opportunity that I
described so and she got.
(13:43):
She got better.
You know, is she ever she'sprobably never going to be a 40%
closer, but she became a 25 to30% closer very consistently and
that makes a big difference.
That's like way less consultsthat you need scheduled.
So sales training here, ifyou're going to be prospecting
in the marketplace, isabsolutely required, because you
will fall on your face if youdon't know how to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Love it, I mean as it pertains to sales training.
You know, our third point hereis follow up with every lead, no
matter what, and I think onething I learned early on in my
career was that you never knowwhat's going to happen until you
have the conversation.
And so you might as wellcontinue to try to have the
(14:32):
conversation, because you know,if you can stay positive and
work the program, the goodthings are going to work out.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Tell us why this matters in law?
Well, I don't think it's anydifferent.
I can tell you a a story about.
So our, our, our sales managertoday.
Her name is Mary.
When she started she was justan intern working on the
marketing team and she was likerunning around the state, um,
helping us at night when we wererunning our workshops, so
that's kind of what she wasdoing.
(14:57):
She put the sign up outside andshe would like have the signup
sheet.
She agreed all the customers,all the potential clients, and
she would seat them in theconference room, make sure the
attorney's presentation was setup, so on and so forth.
So she did that for I don'tknow three, four months.
She helped with some otherstuff too on the marketing side,
but she wasn't in, she wasn'tday-to-day in the org.
(15:18):
And then she and she wanted tobe.
So the one thing I told her isif so, if you're going to come
in and you're going to be, you'dbe on the intake team.
If, if you follow up andunderstand what, what happens
with every single client andactually care about their story,
you will be the best personhere.
(15:39):
And she's a Mary's, a rulefollower and she so.
Every day she had a new pieceof paper.
She wrote down every singleperson's name that she didn't
have an answer from from theprevious day and all the people
she talked to that she didn'thave an answer from today on
that list and every day she'dwrite all their names down.
Every single day.
(15:59):
New piece of paper, write alltheir names down Manually, like
that, and she would follow upuntil she heard from that person
how they were moving forwardand if they needed anything.
It didn't mean they all closedwith her, but they all knew Mary
cared, they could just feel itand she she truly believed that
(16:19):
Sterling was the best place forthem to be and that's why she
performed so well, because shefollowed up with care about
making sure that they were safe,cause we hear tons of stories
that are hard and not everybodycan afford Ford services.
But she was good with.
She did research on otherresources and other ways to go
about it and she would follow upuntil she knew that person was
(16:41):
moving forward in a way thatthey felt safe and she's very
successful as a result.
She did intake, she did.
She was our best non-attorneysalesperson.
She now runs our sales team.
She's very wildly successfulthere.
That's so awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
It just like gets me excited hearing that Love the
follow-up.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It's a good follow-up .
It's like it's everything, it'severything.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
There's some stat about the number of deals that
close on the first call versus,like, the 15th call.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Oh, yeah, and it's it's so many more deals later.
I, yeah, and it's like so manymore deals later.
Yeah, I think.
It's like.
I think it's more than 50% ofdeals will close between calls
eight and 12, some stat likethat, so it's a massive portion,
and most people hate doing thefollow-up and they're like this
(17:36):
is pointless.
I followed up four times andthey don't even answer my phone.
It's like yep, you haven't hiteight yet.
Have you Keep going?
You hit nine.
Have you hit 10?
Have you hit 11?
Oh, look, they answered.
They answered and they now arereally.
They really believe that youcare?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I mean, we've seen that, even on the marketing side
, where we'll get a lead andwe'll continue to follow up and
have conversations, and it maytake a year and if you know when
it finally happens, we always,you know, laugh like, hey, look,
there's another example.
You just got to stay in touch.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, yeah, don't have them restart their their
search process.
They already contacted you once, so they just don't believe you
care.
So help them believe that youcare, follow up.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Which you know that kind of leads into, like our
fourth point, which is balancinghigh commitment with smart
efficiency.
So how are you creating thoseefficiencies, those rhythms,
those processes and maintaininghigh commitment at the same time
?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
processes and maintaining high commitment at
the same time.
So I think you can over processsales Music to my ears, yeah,
like.
I think there's a real truththere.
And what ends up happening iswhen you over process and, like
you, over commit to to a process, all the person on the other
(18:58):
side of that sales hears is yourscript and then it's not
working anymore, if that makessense.
So there's, yeah, you lose theenthusiasm of the sales team as
well as you.
You don't sound authenticanymore and your, your potential
clients, feel that.
You know, when we first rolledout consult college, the V1, um,
(19:23):
our our like revisit on what wetaught um wasn't as good as it
could be.
So what I would say maybe aquarter to a third of our team
did was they just implemented ascript and that, like nothing
changed.
They followed the process.
We measured that.
They followed the process, butthey didn't close any better
(19:44):
because all they were doing islike checking the boxes.
They were committed, but theyweren't, weren't really working
with, you know, smart efficiency.
They were overly, they wereoverly committed on process and
they weren't balancing IQ or EQ,like you said before.
I think that's a really smartway to think about it Because if
you're overly processed and youdon't have any EQ, you're
(20:06):
probably not going to close thedeal.
You're all EQ and there's noprocess.
You're probably losing peoplealong the way because they don't
know where you're going andthey're like well, he was a nice
guy, but I don't reallyunderstand anything he said.
So having a balance of both, Ithink, is really important.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
And there's always going to be.
I think we talk about it.
There's going to be a healthyfriction between sales and ops,
right?
That is a good thing, ifmanaged correctly.
And how do you get both teamsworking officially together,
knowing that there's going to bethat kind of friction?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I would say the like.
Getting the team to work welltogether is helping them,
helping them both understandeach other's roles.
I think that's when there'swhen there's like full awareness
of the tensions in both ayou're going to problem solve
better.
So like you're not going to, um, you'll be less likely to say
(21:02):
that's their problem, causeyou're you're like okay, I see
how that sucks and I see how I'mcreating more work.
Like this happens.
So intake teams a big complaintintake teams have and if your
intake team isn't telling youthis, it's probably just because
they're not telling you thetruth is they can't stand how
often things get rescheduledBecause they already, if they
(21:25):
did a good job doing thatinitial sale well, especially on
a paid consultation, to have anattorney who didn't manage
their calendar well, to have anattorney who didn't manage their
calendar well, tell them toreschedule a consultation is so
demotivating, right.
But on the other side, likethings happen on attorney's
(21:45):
calendars that things need to berescheduled, so like that's a
tension point that's often there.
It may not be talked about in alot of firms because your
intake team might not be tellingyou the truth, but that it's
there, trust me, it's there andhaving healthy communication
around that, so that you're bothrespecting each other and
(22:06):
you're getting the best out ofeach other, will allow the
intake team member to be ashighly motivated as possible in
that call and they're going tosound more authentic and they're
going to be a betterrepresentative of you and your
brand.
Um, you know that comes throughthe communication between
between both and having theintake team understand this is
(22:27):
going to happen.
We don't want it to happen.
So how do we make, how do we,how do we create a situation
where this happens as few timesas possible and then on the
attorney side, like reallyunderstand, like what that means
, like that's um.
So that communication, I think,is um really important because
(22:50):
better high qualityconversations you can have with
each other, with each otherinternally, the better problems
you're actually going to solve.
So and that comes back to kindof really balancing process over
relationships Like how do youdo?
Speaker 1 (23:04):
how do you?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
do both Well yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
You got to work together to have a shared fate
and a common goal and be able tounderstand strengths and
weaknesses of both teams.
I want to close on our finalpoint, which I think is is I
giggled at it when we wereprepping for this and it's the
avoiding the busy equals thecommitted trap.
(23:28):
A lot of times salespeoplemaybe a majority of salespeople
love the well I'm busy.
That must mean I'm doing a goodjob thing.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, I mean busy equaling committed can look like
a lot of activity and not verymuch result, so kind of back to
the like.
If you have a really stronginflow of potential clients but
you're you don't have a greatclose rate on those, the problem
(24:01):
might be the fact that your,your team, isn't committed and
they're not actually doingfollowup.
It might not have anything todo with the quality of the lead,
because there's, you know, weover at Sterling we follow up,
for we have a 91 day followupsequence that gets perfectly
executed, not a high percentageof the time, but we get to about
(24:28):
70% of that often and we do itbecause it works and we balance
the idealized follow-up againststaffing and profitability.
But the reality is we'recommitted to follow-up and we
see results as a result, notjust dump more into the funnel
because we can hire more intakepeople.
(24:49):
Let's hire the right intakepeople, let's hire the right
intake people.
Let's have the right processes,right procedures.
We'll need less leads, we'llhave be more profitable, so on
and so forth.
So I would say you know, beingoverly busy and not getting
results is not a not a greatthing.
If your team is busy and you'renot scheduling consults,
(25:10):
they're working on stuff thatdoesn't matter.
The Vince Lombardi quote isdon't mistake activity for
achievement.
It's something I say all thetime.
It's very true in sales.
You can be super active and notachieve anything.
Achievement is like did I get adeal across the finish line?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
That's it.
Go back to the scoreboard.
And that's the beauty of sales.
Right, it's a scoreboard.
It's very clear.
Am I doing the job or not?
Am I making money or not?
I love this.
Tony.
I appreciate your time andinsight in continuing our deep
dive into the sales at familylaw firms and really excited for
(25:52):
the next episode as well.
Uh, we'll look forward toseeing you over there.
If you found this episode uhexciting, if you enjoyed it,
please continue to follow, uhour journey as we continue to
deep dive into the sales role,uh role at family law firms.
Uh, make sure to check out ournext episode, which is the Great
(26:12):
Shortage of TalentedSalespeople.
We're going to dive into whyit's happening, what it means
for your firm and how to build arecruitment and retention
strategy that actually works.
Check it out here and we willsee you there.
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