The Power of First Impressions/The Initial Meeting

Remember when you were interviewing for your first job and everyone reminded you, “Make a good first impression!” You had copies of your resume in a sleek folder or padfolio and you had a notebook and sharp looking pen. You dressed to impress and had run over some lines in your head. First impressions have a lasting effect. This also goes for your law practice. The initial meeting and first words you exchange with a new client or members of a client’s family will stick. You are probably thinking to yourself, why am I reading this? I know this concept. Yet, first impressions must be considered in how you paint the picture of a successful estate plan and your ongoing client care program.

Let’s face it, we can all consider ourselves big picture thinkers, but when we are in the moment of learning something new and technical we get caught in the weeds, the same goes for clients first dipping their toes into estate planning. You can go through the motions of establishing your ongoing client care program, but what it comes down to is buy-in from clients. That is your success measure. To ensure they have buy-in from the get-go you need to paint the importance of your estate planning process in the context of ongoing. If you read my book, How an Ordinary Lawyer Creates and Sustains an Extraordinary Client Care Program, then you know that when I first started trying to encourage clients to come back so I could update their plans, they were so focused on the fact that I said a trust would “work” that they failed to realize the trust would only work if they put in the time to work with me continually. You have to be careful with the first impression your clients have of your ongoing client care program because if they think they can get away with merely establishing a trust and signing the line on a will, then you have lost them. They will make excuses not to participate in the ongoing piece of your process.

At the Client Care Academy, we teach you how to make a great first impression in your initial meeting and achieve client buy-in to your ongoing client care program. Once you have buy-in then you can elevate how you take care of client families, sustain a profitable client care program that takes care of clients, and generate predictable recurring revenues.

Ready to take the next step and start making great first impressions? Contact us today to sign up for the next Client Care Academy session!