The Sterling Family Law Show
The Sterling Family Law Show is where successful family law attorneys share the exact systems they used to build million-dollar practices.
Host Jeff Hughes scaled Sterling Lawyers from zero to $17M with 27 attorneys.
Co-host Tyler Dolph runs Rocket Clicks, the agency in charge of supercharging Sterling and other family law practices to success using revenue-first marketing strategies.
Together, they share the playbook for building the law firm of your dreams.
If you're looking to grow exponentially, generate revenue, and get good at business, this podcast is for you.
The Sterling Family Law Show
Mastering Attorney Consultation Skills for Family Law - #161
Attorney consultation skills are killing law firms. Here's the truth about why attorneys fail in the consultation room.
Family law attorneys think consultation skills are about showing how much they know. Wrong. The #1 issue we've trained at Sterling isn't knowledge - it's getting attorneys to stop talking and start listening.
This episode breaks down our proven family law consultation process that transformed our client conversion rates. We cover law firm sales mindset shifts, attorney confidence building techniques, and the systematic approach to family lawyer client conversion that doesn't feel manipulative.
📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@TylerxDolph
📝 Schedule a FREE Family Law Firm Audit: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/
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📄 CHAPTERS
0:00 - Attorney Consultation Skills: Why Law Firm Owners Hate Selling
5:41 - Sales Is A Learnable Skill: Stop Talking, Start Listening
10:16 - Consult College: Building Law Firm Team Sales Training System
12:59 - Service Mindset Transforms Legal Sales Process Improvement
19:22 - Curiosity Over Charisma: Attorney Communication Skills That Convert 23:28 - Mindset Shifts: Law Firm Revenue Growth Strategies That Works
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Ready to find the accountability partner you need to build your dream family law firm the same way we grew Sterling Lawyers?
Follow these steps:
1. SUBSCRIBE TO JEFF'S NEWSLETTER: https://jsterlinghughes.com/
2. BOOK A FREE 30-MINUTE AUDIT WITH US: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/
3. CONNECT WITH US:
LinkedIn: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls,
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4. TELL US WHAT YOU WANT:
Tell us in the comments if you liked this episode and what other kinds of episodes you would like to see.
Have you ever felt unsure selling your law firm's services are icky or gross. You're not alone. But I'm telling you, it's hurting your firm and your ability to grow. We unpack the hidden reason most law firm professionals dislike sales, and how to flip that mindset for more revenue without feeling salesy. Welcome back to The Revenue Roadmap, a podcast dedicated to helping family law firms grow revenue, build profit, and have the firm of their dreams. I am Tyler Dolph CEO of Rocket Clicks, a hyper focused digital marketing agency helping exclusively family law firms build and grow. We also own and operate Sterling Lawyers, which is a 32 attorney family law firm. So everything we do is built on the fact that we've we've done it ourselves. And we built this podcast to help all of you grow your firms. Today I have Tony Carls, who is the co-founder of our law firm, Sterling Lawyers and also the president of our agency, Rocket Clinics. And today we are talking about that feeling of of salesy ness and feeling gross in selling, your firm. And maybe it's not you as the owner, but it's your team. Not wanting to sell and the feelings that come along with that. We talk about the five mindset shifts that you need to have in order to fall in love with selling. I really hope you enjoy it. All right. Welcome back. Today we are continuing our selling and a Family law firm series. We're going to talk about the five mindset that shifts to fall in love with selling at your law firm. So this is going to be a fun one because I love selling. This is like my favorite thing ever. But we know a lot of law firm owners don't. And, I believe that, you know, there's a lot of reasons for this. They were going to talk about some of the top five that we came up with. The first one being that most people don't like selling because it feels manipulative. Give us a little breakdown of this idea. Well, I think in the legal space. What? You don't want to be seen as is. You know, authentic, something you're not. So. Because it's going to definitely impact your, your reputation and there's, there's the reputation of salespeople that they are kind of overly pushy, sometimes aggressive, annoying. It's all self-serving. You know? So, you know, applying those, those three traits to any I don't think it just is just attorneys. If you look at CPAs or even people in the trades, you know, doing chassis work or roofing or whatever. But they don't want to be seen as is. Kind of like slinging garbage, like, let's say they want to. Yeah. They don't they don't want that. They don't want that feeling attached to them. They don't want their persona attached to them. So, you know, I think there's a lot of bad salespeople out there who are pushy and aggressive and self-serving. And I think that's, you know, the the they're not typically helpful in the marketplace, like, oftentimes where they may get results. They also, you know, I think in the past we've had we've had some of that where, you know, a, a relationship was, was created and, someone was manipulated into believing we were something we weren't. And we typically see those clients turn up much more quickly. So and the reality is like, that's not what you want for a business. So, you know, that that instance we had to, you know, have hard conversations and start doing things right. Because if sales is done well, sales should be felt a service and it shouldn't feel manipulative. If what you're doing is clearly communicating your authentic belief that what you're what you're trying to offer the person who's sitting in front of you. From a care perspective, this is the safest place for them to be. So like, that's often how we talked about it at Sterling is, you know, our we would do an exercise called the Most Important sale. And like the whole point of that was to get the intake team or the non attorney sales team to. Do you actually believe this is the safest place for people going through divorce to be? Because if you don't, they're not going to believe you either. Like they're going to think you are pushing aggressive and self-serving and you're not really doing your thing. So like, what are your what is your belief based on? So because of it's based on if I want to make my commission, I want to make money. You know, people are going to feel that and they're going to feel the negative. Yeah. I was going to expand on the same thing. That one. You have to believe in what you're selling. You don't believe in what you're selling. It's. It's going to come off as an authentic. You're going to sell the crappy, you know, van that doesn't actually work and be that used car salesman. But if you if you believe in your firm ideals and you believe in the fact that your firm is helping these families during a very difficult period in their lives, and they need your services because you believe that your services are actually the best services that they could, could use and require. Then you're going to come off as very authentic. And I think for, for the law firm owner who who started the firm, who does the work, who is the attorney? This part's easy. And of course, they believe this, narrative. But, my guess is it's for the paralegals and the non attorneys, sales and anyone else who's not the law firm owner to actually have that kind of same conviction and same belief. Yeah. I think that's super important because it's. In any in any type of sales conversation, whether it's setting up free consultation or you're in a council room with, with the client or we're talking to a client, they everybody can feel authenticity. You can't fake that. So, you know, there's a there's, a passage in the Bible that says something, something to the effect of have a reason for the hope that you have. I'm like, that very much applies to sales because, like, if you don't have a reason why you believe what you believe and like, it isn't rooted in in something firm and foundational. Like you understand the process and you really believe that this will get the results that they're looking for. You're going to come off as inauthentic because they're going to feel like you're they're going to feel your your lack of conviction. And, you know, like we had a previous cop podcast on the just the whole concept of conviction. So that would be kind of yeah. the funny about all of this is, as humans, we're always selling. We're selling our lives. We're selling our kids. We're selling our coworkers. So the narrative that. Oh, well, I'm not in sales is false, like everyone's in sales. It just depends on what you're selling and whether you actually care about it and believe in it. To that point, I want to move us on to item number two, which is sales is a learnable skill. It's not it's not a natural talent. And I think some people are like, oh, they're, you know, natural salesmen or they could sell ice to Eskimos. And that's kind of what we're talking about. We're talking about the fact that being able to have consistent communication and, and conviction in a family law firm, being able to communicate the work that you're doing is an important skill that all law firm owners and anyone talking to, to, families need, needs to have. Yeah. I mean, I could I can tell you the number one issue that we've trained around at Sterling. And as it relates to performance in the consultation room is not about how much the attorney knows. Typically, it's it's about helping the attorney stop talking. Stop like, let the client unburden themselves and then respond with empathy. And, you know, EQ so that you they feel heard, they feel understood, and they feel like you're going to help them solve a problem they don't need, like they're they're sitting in your office. So they clearly think you're smart enough to sit in your office. Now they need to know if you care and like so like what does that look like? Like, is your conversation organized or are you all over the place. So that's another another issue. So do you just kind of wander all over or do you set the table about here's what we're going to do next hour. Here's what we're going to do. Here's we're going to talk to you. First thing I want you to do is just tell me what your story is. Tell me about your story. And I'm going to ask some questions in between. And then what we're going to do after sorry. Hear. All of that is we're going to go into what your what the potential solution is going to look like. And then I'll walk you through what our retainer looks like. Does that sound good to you. And that's just at the table. And then follow that. Follow that pattern. It's not hard to do. That's literally that's literally if you're going to like make it super generic. It's literally what we do. And it's, it's it's not about communicating from the lawyer to the client how much statutes we've memorized in case law. We know. And all of those things, it's about having them unburden them themselves and their story, pulling out the details that are required so that we understand what's happening from a legal perspective. But it's really about getting them to unburden themselves and then responding in an empathetic way so they feel heard. So they feel seen because that's what they want. They're not currently feeling heard or seen. That's why they're getting a divorce. Like these are typically the easiest counsel to to move forward from. If, if we can just do a good job of understanding, like there is a learnable sales skill here and it's not how much, you know, it's like how well can you help them be feel heard and seen and people that get to get the the stereotype, oh, he could sell a ketchup popsicle to an Eskimo. White gloves. It's because they're they're what they're naturally good at is helping people feel heard and seen. So that's like that's the natural talent, quote unquote. But anybody can do that. But most of us do it in our lives. If we have kids, if we have spouses, if we have partners, if we have, you know, team members, you know, this is something that we're already doing, like, this is just something. Are you bringing it into the consultation room or not? Right. Yeah. That's a that's a really strong point. And and I'm like, obviously that resonates with just being a human. Listen to the other human. We tell our, one of our sales guys that all the time, like, hey, just just be a human. You don't have to be a robot. Like, you don't have to read the script word for word for word. If it comes off like a robot, like a human. Yeah. Like what? What happened when? After we gave them that advice. Like, literally the next 30 days prior to that, he might. I think he had, like, one booked appointment in a 30 day period. I think he got five in the first week or four in the first week after. Just like going through that simple exercise of like, hey, are you trying to build a relationship or are you just trying to read the script? Yeah. It was a pretty exponential, and super fun to watch the outcome of that little piece of feedback, as it relates to the, like, actually building the skill. Can you talk a little bit about what you did at Sterling? How did you build a team? Because because you guys built a full team of non attorneys sales. Right. So you had to build in all that education and build the process. Give our audience a little bit of of color on how that went. You know what what worked what didn't work. Yeah. So we I mean, we we have what we call console college here at Sterling. And basically what it is, is it's, or what it what it was this was three years ago, so may have evolved a little bit, but, generally what it was, was a 3 to 6 month curriculum where you would go through each, each section of the sales process to understand, like what it is and why we're doing it. And, and role play, listen to listen to consoles that are good, listen the ones that aren't good, and talk about all of the different, potential opportunities that exist in that, in that room, in that setting. So it's really just about kind of teaching the basics. And then letting them be themselves. Like we don't want them to be read a script. So our first, first iteration of this was, we leaned too hard on process. We didn't lean, if that makes sense. It wasn't our intention, but that's the outcome was several several of our attorneys. They just leaned into the process, and then they were like the salesperson you mentioned earlier, they were just going through the script. They're doing it every time. They weren't getting results. It's like, because you're not building, you're trying to build a relationship. Like what we gave you as a structure for a conversation. Don't just blindly say all the things. Know where you are, the point of that structure, so that you know where you are in the conversation. That way you can continue to lead the conversation, guide it to where it needs to go. Not so you can repeat it verbatim. Yeah, 100% right. You still gotta be a human. And the thing I loved about console college and the structure you built was. It was almost like guardrails. Like just live within this playground. Add value. Listen, be a human. And as long as we eventually get to the end point, then. Then you've done your job correctly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, our first version was super simple. It was basically we just taught a four box theory. So intro, which is basically table setting, the fact finding which was getting them to unburden their story presentation, which was here's how we can here's a different ways we could solve this legal issue. And the close was here's how, here's our retainer. Here's how it works. Here's what the next steps would be if you want to move forward. It wasn't pushy at all. We are in in cancel room sales. I think it was less than 5% that close that day. Most of our sales came in the first 14 days. So we had an outbound team that would follow up and make sure they didn't have any questions. Or if they did, they get answered all of those things. But it all felt like service. It did not feel like sales. So, That's awesome. I so. our third item, which is Yeah. a service mindset. Transforms the sales Yeah. Hundred percent. time and time again. You talked about console college, the law firm. We have what we call like our, our audit presentation to any family law firm owner that's looking to grow their firm or we want to be value first. Right. So we do analysis of their firm. We give them, insights that we've learned at, at Sterling at our own firm. And by, by starting with service we the goal is to communicate that like, hey, we're on your side, we don't want to just add a thousand firms want to do it the right way in the right order. Yeah. And it's about creating value. It's not just about extracting value. So, you know, if, if if you only have what's in it for me, perspective and a sales it's going to feel it's probably gonna feel like. So if you have a like how are we creating value together. And here's the, here's the way that I, I can help you and like you do it from a perspective of I don't need your money. Like if you're if you're convicted enough and you believe enough, you know that the next potential deal is going to be there. Because you have a good quality product and it's going to work. So you're not selling from a place of fear where you're like, I need the deal so that I can make my budget. You're selling from a place of conviction and and like, you're very persuasive because you're authentic. And it it starts to feel more like a coach mentor relationship because you're giving honest advice, because you're not worried about, oh, if I give them the truth, like they're not going to sign. And then I'm like, I'm kind of screwed if that's where you are, that that likely means you might not believe in your product as much as you should. And you're not doing it from a service mindset perspective. I think when you do, it doesn't feel like sales at all. Yeah. Great point. And I think as you're building your own law firm. Right. If you're listening to this and you're you're a single attorney owner, and you do need that next case to to feed your family. We get it. You know, we've been there. But as you continue to grow and you build confidence and you build a pipeline of of consults and leads, that's going to give you the opportunity to, to be more yourself, to be able to have those real conversations and know that it's okay. Like, if they're not buying you or your firm, they they may not be the right fit. And that's okay. You don't need to win every deal in order to to be successful. Yeah. Yeah. Typically the ones you convince in, they're going to be the ones that churn out and leave you a bad review because, like, you probably did some manipulation, you're probably over leveraged some tactics that shouldn't be leveraged, and then you couldn't deliver on the service or the promise that you manipulated in. And now you got an niche. Now you have or you have an issue for the next sales opportunity, because now you got a better view. So like doing this in a good way is is a positive cycle upwards doing in a bad way. You can create, you know, really negative, marketplace experiences for yourself. No, 100%. And I think again, back to like, as you scale your firm, you may do this amazing today as the owner, but as you scale your firm and you add more people that are going to be talking and consult, you have to remind them of these points and why it's so important to sell from a place of belief, and not from a place of like, I have to get this deal or I'm not going to make my commission. So we could probably do a whole nother episode on, like, how you compensated new salespeople to make sure that they're doing it from the right belief standpoint, as opposed to, if I don't make the sale, I'm going to get fired standpoint. Yeah. And I mean, there's so I mean, one of the data points that we found in our, and the one of the reasons we went to non attorney sales, as a large percentage of our consultations is we found some attorneys, if they were super busy, their conviction went away because they were probably being honest in like subconsciously about the fact that they right now I don't believe this is the safest place for you because I'm too busy. And then they just kind of go through the motions of the consultation and it wouldn't go well. And that's, that would be that's that's the reason why. And that, that that creates a compounding problem. Because now you need to schedule more consults to get the same amount of deals that you need every month to keep your your caseload healthy. But now your calendar is more jacked up. So you're booking things out further, which means you're going to likely close worse. So there's just like a compounding effect of doing this poorly, where if you do it from a place of, you know, conviction and, and confidence and like, you understand those, those trends and those patterns, it can really unlock your potential growth because there's they do exist. Like we saw several top performers who it's like, oh, like every, every three months, they closed really poorly. And then we dug into their cases and like their case cycle that they were on kind of naturally that's when they were much busier. Like we looked at their calendar, how many free trials and trials they have and all of that. And it's like, oh, okay. So they were super busy. They probably felt rushed in the consult because they had other stuff to do, and subconsciously they were telling the client, this isn't the same as place for you right now. I just can't take you on Really? Yeah, exactly. So. interesting. So being, you know, it's not like it's on black and white. I think that's what what we're trying to communicate is that there's so many factors that go into being great at sales and being able to, to, have people believe in what you're telling them. And it's not just, you know, the rubric or the whatever. It's it's everything. I want to move us on here to our fourth item, which is confidence and sales comes from curiosity, not charisma, which is very interesting. Early in my career, I feel like I lived on charisma and enthusiasm and just being positive. But it really only gets you so far. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would say that this kind of what I was mentioning earlier. When you can. When you can you sell or serve a client from a place of confidence and authenticity. You become a coach and a mentor, not a yes person. Because of a charisma is really like, yeah, that's exciting everybody. Everything's going to be great. Everything's going to be good. Nothing's going to go wrong. This is going to be a great asset. So we're going to change the world. Like that's what charisma is for, right? Like it's everything's positive. It's like let's go okay. Exactly. Versus like you know, you know, one of the things that we teach, our team is two concepts. One is how do do you really understand the dominant buying motive of somebody? And like, let's say let's that is a real thing that occurs. And oftentimes you don't go deep enough on that. And what ends up happening is you you end up trying to talk about something that the, client doesn't really care about, because you weren't curious enough about really understanding, like, why? Why is this important to them? Why is this important? Why now? Like, what are all the things that got us to where we are today that make you want to move forward in this life transition? The second thing we really talked to teach our team to understand and discover with the client that most salespeople avoid is their real objection. So everybody has one real objection, and they only have one real objection. And it will typically they're not going to tell you. And it's almost never the price. But they'll always say it's the price. And oftentimes when they say price, what they're actually saying is I can't afford for this to network because I can only do this once, like this one time. Exactly. So if I don't believe you can help me, I don't want to work with you. So now this is a price issue because I can't pay for this twice. But every every potential person that is buying an idea, whether that's a service from a law firm or a service from our agency or an idea internally, there's typically one major objection like, what is that? And like your job as a good salesperson is to understand that because now you're now you're selling and serving from a place of true understanding, not just what you think they need. You're actually like you understand the real why, why it's important to them, why now is important. And you understand like what's the real objection around? Is it the money? Is it the time? Is it the product or service that they have a concern about? You know, so once you understand those things now you can actually have a real solutions oriented conversation versus let me try this sales tactic on you. And I have found over and over. It is not about the tactics. It's back to being curious. It's asking the right questions. It's knowing that, like, especially in family law firms, like you're dealing with a highly emotional person who is going through a difficult period, who needs to be heard and seen, and needs to feel the value. And so if you come in and you're too rigid or you don't care, I'm going to pick up on that. Finally, our final point being the biggest obstacle is your own mindset, which I think is really interesting and something that we've seen over and over and over again as we're teaching additional salespeople here at both of our businesses. Confidence is key, and it comes from a lot of different areas that we've talked about. But if the mindset coming in is, well, I'm not in sales or I don't like sales or I'm going to suck at this, you're always setting yourself up for disaster. Yeah. Or if you're. If you're not actually convicted in your product or service, you're something. You're like, maybe those are maybe the, like, things you mentioned aren't even true, but you're like, yeah, I think what we do is okay, that's what the person across the table is going to hear from you, even though you're not going to say, yeah, I think my stuff's okay. They're going to hear that from your your conviction or lack thereof. So I think mindset is is a huge thing. So we do that exercise with our team at least once a year. Sometimes I think it's every six months that we typically do it. And it's just like, what's the most important sale in sales selling yourself that what I like. Here are the reasons why I believe in the company. I believe our product and service, and why I believe you should buy for me. Because like, I'm also part of this process. So I think mindset is really important because you can pick up on it. You know, when we were talking about, our salesperson, that was kind of just running through the script when he was there. Can not getting, not getting any bookings and not getting any traction. His mental state was lower. He didn't have belief. He was he had a lot of self doubt himself. So and that small tweak on how are you building relationships now? He's on cloud nine. He's like, he's excited. You can you can just tell like he's different. He's lighter. So it's because like he feels like he's having an impact and he's he believes in what we're doing. So it makes all the difference in the world. A couple points there. The thing, with him in particular was he had to see it. He had to see it in real life in order to believe it. And so I sat every afternoon, we'd sit together and make calls together. And, once he saw it in action, he's like, oh, I can do that. And then once he did it, and as I was watching, you know, his eyes lit up, and so you could see that belief actually take hold and happen, to your point about watching your sales tape, one just note or tip I have is that if you have a, a sales team at your firm and you have a very consistent person who's always, you know, crushing it month after month, and then you see a dip in their performance, likely it could be a belief issue. Maybe something changed in the culture, maybe something changed with the firm offering or the pricing or whatever it is. They need to be sold again on you and your firm and your offering. And so take them aside and make sure that they're totally sold and that they believe in what they're selling. And I bet you anything that performance will go back to normal. Yeah. Even on that, like it might not be. Maybe you didn't change anything about your your company or your product. But there's three things in that most important sale. It's company. It's product or service. And that's actually individual. So like if I was doing this with Tyler, with you Tyler, it would be why do you believe Rocket Clicks is the best place for family law firms to be? Why do you believe our product and service is the best for them? And why should why should they buy from you? And like that last one, maybe. Maybe something's going on in your life. Or, maybe you're not able to work out any anymore in the morning. Like maybe something else has occurred. And, like, now your belief in yourself is lower, and that's coming out in the sales process because that happens. Like if you don't believe what you have, what you have to offer as an individual to the world is valuable. They're going to pick up on that. Yep. So. Well, it's so good. Tony, I love obviously, we love talking about this stuff. And I think it's it's really helpful for for you attorneys out there who are listening to this, who are building a sales team, to know that it's it's not an overnight process. It's not black and white. You know, we're dealing with people stuff here. So we have to be able to follow the process. We also got to be a human, If you found this episode valuable, you will love our next episode, which is on the power of prediction and sales building a strong pipeline. Being able to understand the entire sales process. Make sure to check it out here and we will see you over there.
