How 75% of Our Revenue Came From Law Firm Lead Follow-Up

➡️ Register Here: www.RocketClicks.com/revive-dead-leads 

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Law firm lead follow-up is where 75% of our revenue actually lives. Most firms never touch it.

We break down the 90-day follow-up system that reactivates unconverted leads and adds revenue your firm is currently ignoring.

We’ll go deeper on this in our upcoming webinar on May 1: “How to Revive Dead Leads: Sales Secrets of an $18M Family Law Firm.”

Register to learn how to turn your existing pipeline into revenue you’re currently missing.

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➡️ Register Here: www.RocketClicks.com/revive-dead-leads 

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📝 Schedule a FREE Family Law Firm Audit: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/

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📄 CHAPTERS  

0:00 - Law Firm Lead Follow-Up: The Myth of the Dead Lead 

1:00 - Every No Is a Not Yet: The Mindset Shift Behind High-Converting Intake 

3:01 - Why 75% of Revenue Lives Inside Your Follow-Up System 

5:07 - Five Real Reasons Leads Don't Convert on the First Intake Call 

9:25 - How to Find the Dominant Buying Motive on Every Intake Call 

12:01 - Gross vs. Intentional: What Real Family Law Lead Nurturing Sounds Like 

18:04 - Scaling Intake Team Accountability With QA, Huddles, and Role Play 

21:42 - The 90-Day Unconverted Lead Reactivation Process That Actually Works 

23:52 - Why Your CRM Is the Foundation of Every Law Firm Sales Process

Curious to discover your personalized roadmap to scaling a law firm, no matter where you are in the business? 

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Transcript

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0:00

If your firm talked to 30 people last month who didn't retain you and you left it at that. You're literally wasting revenue buried in your CRM. This episode shows you the difference between losing leads and recovering revenue. Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show. I'm your host. Tyler Dolph. I'm also the CEO of our family law firm only consultancy called Rocket Clicks that was born out of our very own family law firm, Sterling Lawyers, that will do over $20 million in revenue this year. today we're going to talk with Mary and Tony again on the power of follow up and what we do at Sterling. Mary and Tony, welcome back to the Sterling family Law Show. You know, we're coming off an amazing webinar that we just completed, had a record attendance, and it was all about the intake process at Sterling. And so we thought, okay, we need to expand on this and really dive a bit deeper. And so today we're going to talk about the myth as it relates to dead leads and the power of super strong follow up. Mary, get us started by just talking about your philosophy as it relates to why you should follow up and why, you know, leads aren't dead. If they say no in the first call or if they say, let me think about Just said it all in one sentence. This does not have to mean if somebody says no or they have to think about it or talk to their great uncle who's going to pay for the consultation. That doesn't mean they're telling, you know. And every no is closer to a yes. And that's really the mindset that you need to have going into these calls. It's just a not yet. It's just not yet one step closer to that. Yes. But you need to hold the truth that you are the safest place for this individual to be. And if they picked up the phone and called you, you owe it to their future to ensure that they know that and to do everything that you can to ensure that they get there. So it's one step closer each and every time. I'll just say Mary. I think what's unique about the way that we. We've always done it at Sterling. And how you you got to do this when you started that doesn't mean that they're going to transact with you. But like Mary's last statement, like you owe it to them to make sure they go through the process, like where did they did they get to a place where they can now take a next step forward? It doesn't mean necessarily going through divorce, but like, did they did they connect with maybe a therapist or a counselor or whatever? The thing is that's next so that they can move forward in their life because it doesn't necessarily it's not a let's do a hard sell and make sure that we get everybody that calls a divorce or, you know, get involved with their family so that they could have another stressful moment. Like, that's not what was meant by that, but it is. It is our job. They entered our world, and we feel like it's our responsibility to to care for them and move them to the next step in moving forward in their life, and whether that's with us or with another resource, that's what we want to make sure we're doing. And that's what a good, good salesperson on the phone is going to do. And that's what that no or not yet or I'm not ready yet actually means. But if there's no next step follow up care for the person. That's why they called you be different than everybody else in the marketplace. Totally agree. I think the most powerful stat that we have as it relates to looking at all of Sterling's data, is that 75% of our revenue gets recorded during our follow up system. It doesn't happen on the first call. It happens on subsequent calls. And and knowing that and having the narrative that some of these family law firms have, which is like, if I don't close on the first call, they're dead. I should never do anything with them. The amount of lost revenue there is pretty astounding. It's crazy to me when I think back to my time as an intake agent, and I spent four years in that position, the majority of my deals closes whatever you want to say. It was not first time callers, it was majority. It was follow up. I loved follow up. I loved the last week of the month because I was sitting, going through the last 60 and 90 days of my clients that I previously spoke to and ensuring that they knew that we are the safest place to go through this. If they choose to go through this, but we're also the safest place to give referrals, to give the best solution for whatever the pain that they're in, then that's the mindset that you need to have is. I love when Tony said they entered your world. Yeah, they picked up the phone and they called the law firm, which was a really scary phone call to make. Now it's your job to treat them well and to treat them with truth and love in a way that's meaningful for their future, with their families. Can we just like when we're talking about clothes, we're still talking setting a consultation. That's what we're what we're talking about here. So there's a lot of activity that happens post clothes, because some of the 75% that's on consultations becoming funded agreements. And then another statistic we're talking about I think we're talking about intake. So intake specifically you're a lot of your values not happening on that first phone call or 40% is happening on all the follow up. So both on the post consultation, you're 75% of your revenue is coming after that consultation date. And then even on the intake, more than 40% of your intake value, your sets are going to come after that first one. So if you're not doing follow up on both sides of this, you are missing massive amounts of revenue. I'm sorry to interrupt. I just want to make sure we're calibrated in what we're talking about because we're talking about follow up. All of this should be part of everybody's plan, but it's on both parts of this operation. It's not just one or the other, it's both. And they're a little bit different. Like to answer Tyler's question, when they walk away on the front end, the intake side, which is what we're focusing on for this next webinar, it's not generally because of price. They walk away because they didn't feel understood. Nobody could pinpoint the urgency or what the cost of doing nothing really is. The solution was not personal. It did not reflect the needs that their family actually had. No one led them to the decision. That's that's a huge one. And then they they had unspoken concerns that you were too afraid as the individual that answered their call to go deeper than surface level. And so because you're not actually addressing the real concern, you're addressing the wrong one. And that's why they don't move forward. So I want to jump around a little bit, because I think that what you said is really important and that if the first call, the potential client doesn't feel heard or understood, or maybe they're on the fence still right, and they're not going to close anyway, what mistakes did maybe we make early on? Or do you see our teammate in that first call. But they then can correct or fix later on? Have you ever been to a dentist or a doctor's appointment where they're just asking you the historical questions about your family history, your medical history, the last time you were at the dentist? That's what it is. They share facts, not emotions. And in this industry, in these types of conversations, your questions have to dig deeper than tell me your email, your phone number, your county, the opposing party's name. What were your maiden name was? What kind of case are you looking for? It's. It's got to make the individual feel like they picked up the phone during the hardest season of their life, and are going to talk to somebody that actually understands the pain that they're in, and follow ups need to truly here. I heard what you said about your children and you missing drop off at school. Everything that we talk about now relates to ensuring that you can drop your child off at school. Does that make sense? So it's really like having the opportunity to dig deep. Yeah. Yep. And then that goes into the next one. The cost of doing nothing. The cost of waiting. The the lack of urgency. Well, if if I'm on the phone with Tyler and he's telling me that he really misses the fact that he can no longer drop his sons off at school, and he's missing baseball practices, and he walks away from scheduling that consultation where I know that that's the first step closer to allowing him back that time with his child. And I fail to mention that. I fail to pinpoint. Tyler, I know that you're in pain, and I cannot imagine having to go another week missing all of your son's baseball practices when I know Holly's at the other end of this, waiting for you, waiting to get you that time back. If I'm not going to say that to you, Miss Opportunity, missed opportunity to connect with that person and make them feel fully understood and to pinpoint that, hey, doing nothing is a decision, and that decision is not one that I'm going to allow you to make without really addressing it. There's so much nuance in detail to what you said, because I think if I'm listening this, I'm like, yeah, we you know, we have our call center. Yeah, we ask those tough questions. But your point about like, once they divulge something so important to them that becomes the, the root at which the rest of the conversation has to apply to. Your beacon, it's your homing beacon pointing you to the direction that they're going, right? Like your follow up post, that has to be simple and it has to guide them towards that beacon because they told you why they're in pain. So now guide them towards the solution. You in the in the webinar we did you we asked two questions really to uncover what we're talking about here, which is their dominant buying motive. And like everybody has one of these. And it's your job as the intake person to to get it. And once you get it okay. Now it's your job to to manage it and to move it forward as it pertains to like what what did they tell you and what's how do you help them solution that thing. And it's not complicated, but most people just stay surface level and stay transactional. And then they have a heart. Then they look at their their numbers and they're like, why aren't we performing? Well, we need more leads. Like that's literally where the conversation goes. And it's because we're not doing the job that we should be doing. And the reality is like, we're not trying to be manipulative, but they're everybody has a dominant buying motive for everything that you purchase, whether it's a backpack or a shirt or getting your hairstyle to certain way, like you have a DVM for all of those things. And like the if you're if you're on the sales side of that, it's your responsibility to figure out why. And then, okay, now how do I move this thing forward and tie back to that thing constantly because they just told you the answer, what are you doing with the answer? Like they gave you the answer key? What to be great. If you were in school and the teacher always gave you the answer key to every single, you know, test or question, you'd know what to do with it. They ask so simple questions. I mean, what are those two questions like? Ask the questions and do tie backs. Exactly. And it also helps you in your follow ups. So if you don't have enough information, your follow ups are going to feel very transactional. They're going to feel very chasing rather than leading. But when you dig deeper, when you understand what is actually at stake, what is the pain? Well then every single conversation can be different. But again, it's always pointing towards that beacon. What step are we taken to get you one? No. Closer to the. Yes. Yeah Mary. What like just do do the generic gross follow up Tyler. And then do the one that you just described, Tyler, about him wanting to pick up his kids and do baseball like it's it's so different. The second one doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like a sales I would be happy to. So, Tyler, the gross follow up would be. Hey, Tyler, I talked to you last night, and I'm just seeing how you're doing since that conversation. Are you ready to book that console? Know who is this again? What? exactly. Oh, yeah. Exactly. That's terrible. for sure. Okay, if I were following up with Tyler and I knew that his sons were at stake in the time with his sons matter to him, that conversation sounds. Hey, Tyler, this is Mary from Sterling Lawyers. Did I catch you at an okay time? You did. Thanks, Mary. Tyler, I've been thinking about your situation all night, and I came across a YouTube video on fathers rights on our website that I'm going to text over to you. But what I really wanted to do today is focus on the cost of waiting. Because I know you value time with your child, and I know that you value all of those moments that are going to build deeper relationships with your child. And I'm not willing to let you have another week go by where that is at risk. So what I'm going to do today is I'm going to send you that YouTube video, and I want to take the next step with you to ensure that your children and you have a really good relationship as you progress towards your future. Have you thought at all about the decision that you and I ended with on the next step for you and your children, and that consultation with Holly is still available, so I would love to book that for you today. Thanks so much, Mary. I'm ready. When was the last time your team called to book a lead who didn't book? If you can't answer that, neither can your intake team. And that means every lead. Who said I need to think about it is sitting in your CRM right now without an owner, without a follow up date, and no next step? That lead is not dead. That's revenue that you will not get that you forgot about. At Sterling Lawyers, 75% of our revenue comes after that first conversation, 75% meaning even if you just do this poorly, you will change your firm over night. We track this across thousands of cases, and we found the money in the follow up. We're teaching the exact follow up system behind that number in a free training. How do we prepare for every call? What do our agents actually say? And what is the cadence that runs behind every lead until they book? Please see the link below so that you can sign up today. To me, like the difference is so much more. There's so much more heart like I matter to you. Oh, you were thinking about me. Like you were thinking about my situation. They remember the details like it's all in the details and it's not hard. Like we're not trying to create anything crazy. It's just people will go where they feel like they're cared for and they're going to get serviced. Well, this is a huge decision. It is at the beginning of this I gave you, I think, five reasons why people didn't move forward. And I said no one is leading them to the decision. I think it was the fourth one that I said at the beginning. That's a huge deal. These individuals calling a family law firm R worn down, they are worn out, they are heartbroken. They are in physical, emotional and spiritual pain and turmoil. They can't make decisions. Most of them physically cannot make the decision. You have to do it for them, and you have to do it in a way that is spoken with truth and love. I know I am the safest place. When a client calls any of my intake agents, they are in the safest hands possible, going towards the safest attorneys, leading them to the safest outcomes for their family. That is the belief that you must have when you're answering these clients, because they cannot make the decision and you're going to have to do it with them. But in order to do that with them, you have to do the four blocks as well, and you have to do your follow up. Well, it has to be personal. It has to be about them. Tie backs have to exist at every opportunity presented to you in that client. Just like, just like a weird nuance in here that probably is not us living this out has made us a better firm. Because you know what happens when the intake team doesn't feel like that? They're going to say something about our service, and we're going to have a real conversation about how we're servicing our clients so that our intake team feels very comfortable and not lying about our service. And it creates a way better firm, way healthier firm, because we're actually we're actually all working together, and we're not trying to create this like just this thing that produces money. Like we're actually trying to live out what we, you know, what we idealize in our mind about building a law firm and helping people. And it creates a it creates a way, healthier culture. And it it creates conversations that are uncomfortable but real. And those are that's how you build a great firm. It's not just this process. It's okay. What are. What's the what is the outcome of this process actually being implemented? Because one of them is high performance, but you're not going to get higher performance if Mary and her team don't feel like it, feel like they're lying to people all the time, you're going to actually create opportunities for you to have real conversations that you may not be having today, or you may be avoiding having today, but that's the reality, because what's going to happen is that person is going to call back. We're going to get a call with a current client, and they're going to be pissed off about something. And like, sometimes those are illegitimate. And we all know that there's a lot of things that happen in the family law case that are we're clients have feelings, and we still have to own a portion of the pilots reality in terms of what we created. But there's going to be patterns that emerge. And someone like Mary's gonna bring them up in a in a leadership type meeting, and you're going to have a way better firm at the root. And maybe it's just we need to set better expectations with our clients going into certain types of types of scenarios, because we didn't do a good job prepping it before a hearing. So now they feel like they haven't been service. Well, but Mary's going to hear that. And then if we don't do anything about it. We're going to sell worse on the intake side because we're going to feel inauthentic and the clients feel like we're trying to sell them. So there's a whole bunch in here that is unbelievably valuable for creating a great culture, great firm, great service, and really helping clients move forward in a Yeah. Well said. I was thinking, Tony, as you were talking about how how well and natural Mary gave us that example. And I assume that a lot of firms have, like, one killer, one amazing, you know, great person on the phones. But we've decided to to really scale our firm. Right. Which means that we can't be reliant on unicorns. We got to be able to scale this process out. And so while Mary is a unicorn in her own right, Mary, how do you keep the team accountable? How do you ensure that they all are believing this, that, that we are the safest place? And how do you make sure that that they're doing the follow up in the right sequence? So three ways QA is the biggest advantage you have. Because you'll catch these moments and you'll be able to then coach to those specific moments. And this is very heavy right. Like you have to think about an intake agent has a bucket. And each day that bucket is going to get fuller and fuller with the details that are being provided to them. These are not easy calls to handle, right? And there's got to be ways to relieve that that full bucket. So how do you do that? Well you QA them and you make sure that they feel supported when they do make a mistake and that it's okay to make mistakes and that we're going to fix it together and we're going to fix it fast. The second thing, though, is daily huddles. You come together as a team. You talk about what's not working, what are the things that need to be fixed in the next 24 to 36 hours? And then my favorite thing in the entire world is role playing. I had two huddles already this morning, and role playing was the main focus of both of them. You don't have all the right answers individually, but you have them as a group and you can you can role play together, which is the best and the safest place to expand. You're not doing it with clients, and you can learn from each other, and you can utilize what one agent is doing on a new agent that has never experienced that situation before. And you all get better over time. You all get better. one of the best things for an intake person to hear is like, hear how the story ended. So like and QA is going to be a helpful part, a helpful part of that, because you're going to find wins and you're going to be able to, you know, shout them out like you talk about the bucket that's being filled. They know they're doing a good job and they're impacting people positively that it's going to like spur them to continue doing that. So like those those types of things don't they're they're fairly large and they go a really long way. That's a great is being able to ensure that not only the team is doing the right thing, but that there's an opportunity to shout them out and reward them and make sure that they feel that love, because that's only going to compound the belief that they're in the right spot. that's one of the reasons, one of the reasons we do reviews for, for for people, it has way more to do with internally than it does. Just external validation is if our team can see and feel like, oh man, this really matters. I am making an impact with the people that were serving. It has it has a really good impact on those team members, and they get a sense of pride and all the baggage that the here on the inbound every day. If they're like, okay, there's a reason I'm doing this and it feels more purpose driven than just transactional, then you create better. You get better performance as a result because now it's now it's purpose driven. I can see the purpose. I can see the outcome. Oh man, I'm so glad we were able to do that for, you know, clients so and so so it's there's a lot there because these are hard, hard conversations. There's a lot of baggage that our teams have to endure emotionally because they're you know, these are good. These are good people in the worst times of their life. Usually that's typically the, the, the, the saying and family law because you got great people out of work at their worst I want to get tactical just for our listeners on if they are enjoying what you're talking about, but are like, how do I implement follow up in my firm? Like one example is I know you, every unconverted lead gets a an account like owner, like a named owner like this. You are responsible for going to follow up on this. What other things like that? Did you have to implement so that the team could scale? Yeah. So 100% correct in your first statement that if you did the initial fact finding with the individual, you know, what the pain points are and what the tie backs are, you owe it to that person to follow them through until they essentially tell you, I no longer want to hear your voice ever again. In my entire existence, that's when you let them go. But also you had to implement a follow up like a follow up process. And what that looks like is very different for each individual. So in our system, we have a 90 day follow up process. It's not one call every 90 days. Tony can walk you through the details of how these are generated, but it goes on for 90 days. Here's the asterisk that goes along with that. The second I get you back on the phone, Tyler and you and I are no longer just conversing via text message or voicemails, but I'm actually talking to you live. My job at the end of that conversation is to lock in either a consult or to lock in another date and time a specific date and time that you and I are going to follow up on. The next thing that is going to get you closer to that. Yes, that 90 day process starts over on that day. So my longest client that I've ever followed up with her name is Elaine. It was 18 months long, 18 months on an annulment case that I will never forget. She was the sweetest woman in the entire world and was in a very painful situation that couldn't make the decision for 18 months. And that was okay. And she kept apologizing every single time we set up a call back. I know we did this six times before, Mary. I know I'm just not ready. It's not my life. It's not my pain. It's her pain. My job is to get her to the safety. And so I'm going to follow up with you until you tell me I never want to hear your voice again, doesn't want to hear my voice. So that's that's what it is. You need to have a follow up process, and you need to be okay. Have a thick enough skin to think of nose as a not yet and not yet are one step closer to that. Yes. Yeah. To me, this is all about like having a CRM, using the CRM and keeping it clean. There are so many firms that we talk to in our sales process. And Belasco, do you have a CRM? Yeah, but I also have this spreadsheet, or I also have this napkin that I take notes on throughout the day. And I think one thing that Sterling has done very, very well is it is the Salesforce is the Bible. Like if it doesn't live in Salesforce, it doesn't live. Don't care not don't care So thank you both for your time. That's amazing. We are going to be doing a webinar on our follow up process. So a little spoiler alert. This is a preview on our webinar. You're actually going to get our exact follow up process. We are going to walk you through it step by step. Today was more of a conversation that will be more of an educational seminar, if you will, but I really hope you really see this, that you enjoy this conversation. If you want to know more, please sign up for our webinar. It is totally free and it will be listed in the show notes. As far as dates and times and links and all the things. But really appreciate your time today and we'll look forward to seeing you again soon.