There is no question that many lawyers in Kenya hate being seen as selling his services to potential clients. Many a lawyer would rather live with the misery of a deteriorating practice than degrade themselves by selling!
Here is the classic defense. Lawyers are noble professionals. Lawyers are all equal. Selling our services brings disrepute to the profession as it involves making oneself appear superior to his colleagues. As such, the quality of services to the client should be left to recommend us to our next brief!
Others argue that to sell oneself as lawyer is to give in to the possibility of being compromised by the client. That is, it is to elevate the client to the position of control and let her call the shots. Lawyers will then degenerate to mere automatons at the command of their clients and our independence will go out the window!
There is no denying that the above arguments hold some logic. However, they are all based on the wrong premise. Selling is not about painting competitor as the bad guy. Selling is not undercutting. Selling is not compromising your professional integrity. Selling is not advertising. Selling, unlike advertising, touting and undercutting, is not prohibited under the Advocates Act, Cap. 16 of Laws of Kenya.
As Chuck Newton puts it, all lawyers sell their services. Why many of them do not know whether they play salesmen everyday is because they have no idea what selling, indeed, is. And that is the main reason why lawyers are still selling themselves short. Because they sell without knowing they are selling!
So, what is selling for lawyers? Should lawyers in Kenya sell their services? If yes, how can lawyers sell their services to achieve maximum returns/
Simply put, selling is about persuading another to do what you want him/her to do at your terms. A toddler who cries for food until his father gives him the feeding bottle is a successful salesperson. It has successfully made its pitch for the father's attention. A teenager who gets herself reprimanded by the mother for rudely asking for pocket money is just a poor salesman. She simply put the mother over the edge with her pitch for pocket money!
We all need attention. To use an analogy given in the Bible, you cannot light a lamb and put it under the bed and expect it to be appreciated. Clients will need to know you exist to appreciate the quality of your services. That can happen if you capture the interest and attention of the clients. Inevitably, seeking attention involves selling yourself to clients.
If seeking the attention one need is what selling is about, lawyers sell all the time. Lawyers sell to judges all the time they make an effort to persuade the bench to favour their clients' position in litigation. Lawyers sell to fellow lawyers when they seek indulgences. Similarly, lawyers sell to clients when they impress them with their presentations and get hired.
Lawyers use all imaginable medium to sell including submissions, teleconference, presentations, case reports, emails, websites, letters, premium cards, thank you notes, business cards et cetera. Some even turn to relationships to sell themselves e.g. by giving speeches in events, joining social chats like face book, engaging in community events, giving to charity, attending church service, requesting for referrals, keeping constant contacts with current clients etc. Needless to say, at times lawyers like teenagers do make the wrong pitch as well.
Now that we know what selling is, we cannot rationally deny that selling is an essential for all lawyers. Selling should not be the preserve of partners. Even associates should also make effort to sell. For instance, they need to sell themselves to the partners for promotion. Associates also have a duty to sell the overall image of the firm to the outside world. Indeed, even pupils have business selling themselves and the law firm! Every lawyer would be well advised to involve his paralegal staff in selling the firm by ensuring they project the right image and competence to the target market.
It is hard to see why selling would be prohibited by the law. And, thank God, Kenyan lawyers are not, at all, forbidden to sell their services! However, there are regulations to ensure that lawyers conduct themselves with decorum while selling their services to clients. And that is a good thing!
The question, thus, becomes how lawyers should sell their services to achieve maximum results. The answer is simple. Sell solutions not practice areas.
As Chuck Newton in the title of his illuminating article asserts, stop selling your practice area and start selling results! Whenever the opportunity presents itself to explain what you do to a prospective client, focus on what your services deliver to clients rather than explaining the dry process that is entailed in a given practice area.
Here is the difference. A lawyer selling practice areas focuses on his specialization. Chuck in the above article gives the following example of a pitch by a family lawyer erroneously selling his services "Hi, I'm Joe and I'm a family lawyer. I handle divorces for clients." Rightly, Chuck asserts:
"The problem is that people generally do not want to file bankruptcy, or pay for a will, or file for divorce, or sue an insurance company. Most people think of a lawyer like a mortician. A mortician maybe a necessary evil, but you do not want to hire one. That is what you do when your emphasis is focused on the selling the label of your practice area."
In contrast to the above, a lawyer selling the results of his services to clients explains how his services make a difference to the client's life. In so doing, he subtly helps justifies why it is necessary for the client to hire him. Such a lawyer also avoids confusing the client. A conversation about results is possible in ordinary language.
For example, a real estate lawyer selling results will avoid focusing her conversation with a prospective client on what she does e.g. drawing land sale agreements and transfers. Rather, she will highlight how her services help the clients attain the dream of acquiring their own homes.
It is just like the story of the stone masons. A lawyer selling practice areas is like the mason who saw his work as just joining stones together to make a wall. The truth is you joined the legal profession to make a difference in people's lives and not to merely file suit papers. A lawyer selling his results is like the mason who beamed with a smile and declared that his job entailed helping put up cathedrals.
Selling results for lawyers is, simply, focusing on the life solutions you deliver to your clients. Start selling your legal services the right way without further ado!
