How to Sell Without Selling with Theophan McKenzie

Welcome to Accountants Law Pod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Linda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Stephen Libhart. Welcome back to the podcast, and this week we have a very special guest and a great topic. So the topic is how to sell without selling. So how to not be that used car salesman where you're like, oh my God, I just don't believe anything you say. So he's going to help us tell— give us some tips and actually provides a service for some, can actually help your clients as well. So welcome, Theophan McKenzie.

Well, thank you, Linda. Great to see you again. Sarah, good to see you as well. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

We're fortunate enough where we can eventually go for coffee or something because we live in the same city.

So nice.

Yeah, a little bit. But yeah, I'd like to know, though, like, your service. I mean, we've all been in that conversation, right? Like you mentioned earlier, we're all buyers, so we've all been in that conversation. I just say used car salesman. It can be a brand new car salesman. I can remember going in to get my vehicle and standing there not knowing what car to pick, kind of not sure which one, and going in and like, I don't want to buy this vehicle because I don't like the person trying to push the sales on me. So I would imagine that's a big part of what you do. But you want to describe how you help people?

I mean, for the most part, I help people sell in a non-salesy way. It's very oversimplified. I mean, based on what you were just sharing, like when you go to a car dealership, that's what comes to mind. When we think salesperson, we think that sleazy, like, hey, so Linda, Sarah, what's it gonna take to make this deal, right? And we automatically think car salesperson. And I think every one of us after buying a car has gone home and taken a shower because it feels so gross. We're excited to have the new vehicle, but we're like, what just happened to me? But it's not just with car sales. It's pretty much with Just about any kind of sales. Salespeople today continue to sell in what I call a traditional manner. And when I say traditional, I mean they're focused on features and benefits. They're focused on overcoming stalls and objections. I just recently had 2 meetings with people that I met with on LinkedIn, and of course, one of them I was actually genuinely interested in his services. The other one did the whole, hey, let's get together and just get to know each other, which I love to do. I love to genuinely meet with people and connect with them. So these 2 guys, right? The first guy, he comes in and he's like, hey, because I was interested in his services. And he's like, hey, so why'd you want to meet with me? And I was like, oh, because I'm interested in X. And he goes, oh, okay, great. And then he just went for it and he just pitched. And I was just like, okay, here we go. Features and benefits, right? Just, you know, you know.

Yeah.

And he's just telling me all the amazing things that his company can do. The second meeting I had, the second meeting I had, it was the, hey, let's get together. Let's meet. Let's get to know each other. Okay, great. Well, he sent me a series of like 3 emails prior to our meeting. And there's like videos in there and all kinds of info. And I have no time. I'm thinking we're gonna meet and have coffee and just get to know each other. Why do I have to look at all this content?

Right? Yeah.

So we get in the meeting. He's like, hey, man, thanks for meeting with me. I really want to learn about you and your company. And if it looks like we have a good fit at the end of our meeting, then I'd love to have you come on board and We can help you with what it is that you're going. And I was like, okay, what's happening here? I thought this was supposed to— did you have a chance to take a look at those emails I sent you? Uh, no. And he goes, oh, well, I really like that people are pre-sold before they come into a meeting with me. So go ahead and take a minute now and take a look through all that stuff and then let me know what question. And I, oh no, what is happening right now?

New York.

So, but again, he started trying to focus on features and benefits and all this stuff. And, and so Salespeople today continue to follow a traditional method of selling, which is features and benefits and overcoming stalls and objections. And then I know you've both also heard of ABC, always be closing, right?

Yeah.

The problem is, like you said earlier, Linda, we're all buyers. And as buyers, we love to buy. I love to buy. Oh my gosh, Amazon is my best friend. I can order something right now and it'll probably be here between 5:00 and 10:00 PM tonight, right?

Yeah.

I love going online and looking for stuff and going and buying it or having it delivered. We love to buy, but we hate to be sold.

Yeah, so true.

And salespeople today are still following a traditional methodology for selling, which we're all familiar with. And when we start to hear it, we get a little whiff, and then we protect ourselves. We lie to salespeople. We get more information from them. We want their information, right? We don't make any commitments to, like, a next step or a next meeting. We hide from them, we ghost them, and these are all things that we do as self-defense mechanisms because we're tired of being sold to. And so what I do is when I sit down with a client, whether it's one single individual that's just trying to learn how to sell better, or I'm brought into a company to teach their entire staff how to sell, I teach them to approach selling from a non-traditional manner. So instead of features and benefits and me trying to figure out how to overcome those stalls and objections, it's really about having a genuine genuine conversation. I ask a lot of curious questions. I want to learn what's going on in your life or in your business that caused you to sit down and meet with me today. And then I don't really get into what my company does or how it does it until I've identified an actual genuine need that I could help them with.

Mm-hmm.

Then I share with them those very specific points about how I do what I do. Based on what they're telling me they need.

That's actually something Sarah and I do when we meet with the potential clients. I don't know where I learned that was let them talk because they're coming in with a problem, right? Let them talk. And I don't start off a conversation, what's your pain point? I used to do that and I don't do that anymore. I'll ask them questions just to get the information out of them because sometimes they already have that. I know I'm gonna be sold to wall up and we'll just start a conversation. And, you know, it's easy because it's the two of us, very much easier than one. But we'll just kind of have the conversation, let it flow. We'll ask questions like, okay, well, and tell us about the situation that you're in. And, you know, is the current bookkeeper still there? Or, and we'll ask those questions and then the story will come out. And sometimes the story will come out kind of harsh, like, oh, the last bookkeeper. And then they'll soften it back a bit a lot of times.

Right.

Don't make it sound like that person was horrible. But by the end of the conversation, it's like, well, she really wasn't that bad or he really wasn't that bad. But I might be overstating it, but I— this is how I feel. Because you wanna get those feelings out.

Yep.

What— and you wanna catch those little points in the conversation where they say, the one thing that drove me crazy is they never gave me reports. Or the other one that we hear a lot, I can't get them to reach out back to me. They won't answer any of my emails. Now, is that really true? It might not be because a lot of times we send them an email or a message, read message to Lizio. And they don't ever respond back to us. And it's like, wait a minute, you never answered this. Yeah, sometimes it's a two-way street, but the way they're perceiving it is their reality, right? So you have to really— you have to listen a lot in those conversations and ask the questions.

Theophan did it really well. And I had a question in there too, but I thought that you handled— what you're saying resonates with me is I'm coming to you because I have a need, or I may not know that I have the need, but I just had the— I just wanna have the genuine conversation. And from that may result to a benefit, a win-win for both. And generally, that's how I personally feel because I, like everyone, don't want to really be sold. Some people love to be sold to because they like that schmoozing. And I'm like, that's not for me.

Well, they like the game. They look at themselves as the cat and the salesperson is the mouse and they like to play with them. Yeah, come sell to me. Yeah, so true.

But you said something. Okay, so this I'm dying to know because we all get this and it's kind of like the LinkedIn platform. You— people reach out because that's part of it, and then you get all these requests and I'm like, I don't— I'm not responding because I'm genuinely like, I don't really— this is overwhelming. I don't I have the same thing. I've sent you 5 emails or 5 messages. Did you read? I'm like, did you consider the fact that I'm running a firm? I'm super busy and I didn't actually— you wanted to connect because you had a genuine message which turned into a huge sales pitch now.

Yeah.

I'm not responding. How do you handle that? Like, how do you— because you're actually, sometimes you figure out something that works for you to connect. And you want to make that. How do you, how do you figure that out, actually?

Yeah. So, so for all those folks that are sending you all those messages.

Yeah.

I found, I think about a year ago, I found a picture, I guess a meme of a guy standing there holding a sign that says, stop DMing me your pitch.

Oh.

So, so whenever somebody sends me like 2 or 3 messages in a row and they're clearly trying to sell me something, I just I just put that in there and send it.

Oh, I love that.

That's what I don't like about LinkedIn. I, and I know I'm missing opportunities that are good, but it's every single time you take a connection, I'm like, should I do this? And then it looks like I might want to, and they just hit you hard with the pitches. And it's constant. It's like, I'm a bookkeeping firm. I need, you know, do you need more help? And then if you answer them, it makes it worse. So you just tend to not respond.

Well, some people send you emails.

Yes, they do.

Then it drips away from that. So that's— I like that. But the fact that you have figured out how to build some sort of relationship, if it works, like, yeah, I mean, I know that you're— you, you really have a knack and you've long tenure of understanding this. So it's nice to learn from somebody who understands it from a position of like, oh God, I'm I'm busy working here, friends. I'm not interested in all this. Yeah. So that's interesting. So that is such a fascinating mindset shift. Features and benefits move away because really somebody's walking in the door, whether it be for our services or for our clients' services.

Yeah.

There's a need, some obviously family law. Super easy for the need to figure that out. Immigration, super easy for the need to figure it out, but you don't really know. So you're trusting the guidance.

Yes. Well, and I want to kind of address something that Linda was mentioning earlier, like some of the prospects that you'll talk to, they say, oh, we weren't getting regular reports.

Okay.

So on the surface, that is a potential need. What you're hearing is they want to receive regular reports.

Mm-hmm.

You also mentioned earlier the word pain. I really like the word pain. I look for 2 to 3 pain points when I do a consultation with a prospective client. And the reason is a couple things. So first of all, we make decisions intellectually, but we buy emotionally.

So true.

The intellectual statement, I wasn't getting regular reports from my last bookkeeping company. That's why I'm talking to you. That's, that's a symptom that they're presenting with. That's an intellectual statement. That's not an emotional response. So when somebody says, oh, we're not getting— we weren't getting reports from our other bookkeeping company. So yeah, we wanted to talk to you guys. Here's a great follow-up question, a curious question. Well, so Linda, what is it about getting regular reports that's important to you?

That is a good— I would, I would love to know the answer to that because I would bet they get little deer in headlights because they just know they need them, but they don't really know why they need them.

Right. So here's, here's a couple of things. First of all, what I strongly recommend is don't make assumptions.

Yeah.

When you hear a prospect say, oh, we're not getting regular reports, that's why we're talking to you, it's really easy for you, especially being in the business for as long as you have, to go, oh my gosh, regular reports are critical. Absolutely. Because you need to see where your numbers are so that you make, make buying decisions and maybe you need credit and you need to— so you need to have these reports. I totally get that.

Yeah.

Okay. You get that based on your experience and knowledge working with all the clients you've worked with up to this point in time. But what I guarantee you don't know is what it is about regular reports that's important to that individual that you're talking to right now. So don't make an assumption that you understand their reasoning behind the statement, behind the symptom they're presenting with. Start asking more curious questions and start drilling down to identify their real pain point. Oh, we're not getting regular reports. That's a symptom. What is it about regular reports that's important to you? Oh, well, you know, we weren't getting regular reports for about 3 months. As a result, we realized that we were cash poor. We weren't able to hit payroll on time one, one It just, it was so frustrating. And then, and then if you hear something like that, just as an example, and I'm just making this up as we're going, right? No, that's okay. Let's say you, that's what you heard and you go, your response would be something like, oh my gosh, you weren't able to make payroll. What was it like not to be able to pay your people on time? Again, we can make an assumption. Oh my gosh, not paying payroll on time. That's terrible. That affects people's ability to pay their bills. Your employees are, my employees are going to be so upset. We can make assumptions. But your assumption is not nearly as important as where that person is in the moment. So that next curious question, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry that you weren't able to make payroll. What was it like? What was it like for you to not be able to make payroll? And then stop talking and let them answer. And as you're listening to what they're saying to you and you're asking additional curious questions, you will eventually get to a place where you're able to identify their emotional pain point. And they feel heard. And you haven't done any features and benefits selling. You've just had a really good conversation with somebody about what they actually need.

Do you ever introduce the, the features and things that you do at all in the conversation? And after you've listened, is there any point where you could bring that into the conversation?

Um, it's usually towards the back end of the conversation. Once I've— once I've identified like 2 to 3 pain points, things that keep you up at night that you're truly emotional around that caused you to meet with me in the first place. Once I get to that point, and then, you know, we'll discuss what it would cost to work with me if you do decide to move forward. And I want to make sure I'm in front of all the right people that can make a decision. It's not until the back end of the conversation that I will address the solutions to your needs, to your pain points. And we could say that that's features and benefits, but it's very different To traditional selling. But traditional selling, the salesperson goes, here's the 10 amazing things that we can do, and they take that shotgun approach. So what I'll do is I'll identify, let's say, those 2 pain points, and then towards the end of the conversation, I will talk about the features and benefits of how I can help you with my product or service, but only as it relates to the pain points that came up earlier.

Yeah.

So if there's 10 things I can do, you're only gonna hear about 2 of them. Based on what you really need. And that's a really big difference because then once again, then I'm addressing the solutions for your pain points. And you as a buyer, you're going, holy crap, he gets me. This guy, he gets me. He understands my business. He understands my— oh, I'm definitely going with this guy. He gets me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you've made that connection. So there's 2 things that come to mind. Making sure that the conversation stays in the, in, in, you know, because people go way off the rails, right? So there's that. That's one question. How do we do that? How, what's the craft for that? And the second part is, it's kind of twofold, red flags versus symptoms. And like, as you're taking note, like, where do you help identify that? And I'm sure that's a part of the process in which you teach because you—

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. A big, a big part of the training, and I think one of the most difficult aspects for new people to— new people to a non-traditional, a modern method of selling. I think the hardest thing for them to learn is actually how to ask those curious questions and then practice active listening.

Oh, gosh.

It's so hard because salespeople, we've memorized these presentations.

Mm-hmm.

And when you try to explain to them that God gave you 2 ears and 1 mouth, shut up and listen. And you try to explain to them that they've been suffering from alligator syndrome for all these years. They have this big mouth and these 2 tiny little ears, and they just can't stop talking. And then when I train them and I'm like, okay, it's time to shut up, it's time to start listening, they go, huh? One of the most difficult pieces that I train people on is how to ask those curious questions and practice that active listening, because we, a lot of us, we just don't know how to do it. We just don't know how to do it. And then once you can actually master that conversation style, it won't just change your sales conversations. It'll change the conversations that you're having with other human beings that you come into contact with every day.

Mm-hmm.

Is you're starting to ask questions and learn more about the people that are in your life. And all of a sudden they'll go, wow, something's different about Sarah. She's all— she's like a really good listener now. I don't get it.

It's hard. It's hard to do that. Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm not— I don't mean you. I just—

No, no, no.

I know what you mean. Yeah.

Well, do you, Lynn? I feel this way. It's when you're actively listening, you're authentically yourself. Like, you actually want to insert, like, thought process or more questions, let's say. It feels like a community. I kind of saw this last night. I was walking back from something, and I talked to this person, and then I'm walking past, I see the neighbor come out, and right away they started talking. It was just like this identity. It felt like community right then and there.

Yeah.

I feel like that's what people are just— they love that. Oh, it's— you heard me. Okay. Yes. Validated you. I validate you. Yeah. I may not agree sometimes, but I validated you.

Right.

Yeah.

And, and you just actually brought up another really good point. I may not agree, but— so it's really important when we're meeting with prospects that we're making the conversation about them. It's, it's not about us. And one of the things I teach my students is when you're in a sales meeting, nobody cares about you. It's not about you. It's not about how amazing you are. It's not about how amazing your company is. Nobody cares.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've got to focus the conversation on the prospect. You've got to dig in and learn as much as you can about them by asking those questions and listening. And when they start to share a story, one of the things that we do in regular everyday life is we one-up each other. Sarah goes, Sarah goes, oh my gosh, I went fishing last weekend. I caught a trout that was this big. I went to Blue Lake. And I go, oh my gosh, Sarah, I've been to Blue Lake. I was there last summer. I caught a trout this big. Wah wah. Right? My hands are spread out farther because my trout was bigger than yours. We, we do that in an effort to feel like we want the other person to, to— oh gosh, you get me, you understand me.

Yeah.

But what we actually end up doing is we one-up them.

Yeah.

And that, and that happens in sales conversations all the time. Somebody comes to you and they go, Oh yeah, I'm meeting with you because I'm not getting— we— I'm not getting regular reports and I don't know what's going on with my business. And then it would be really easy for you to go, oh, tell me about it. Regular reports. You're not the only one I've heard this from. You know, we had this one client that we worked with. They hadn't gotten reports for 6 months as a result of not knowing where their business was. They had to file for bankruptcy and fire all these people in an effort to get your prospect to understand that you get them. Yeah, we end up one-upping them with a bigger, badder story.

Interesting. That is so true of anything. I mean, in any conversation, you see it all the time. Yeah.

At a subconscious level, your prospect, they're not going to say it, but they feel it.

Yeah.

And they're just like, oh, okay. So what I, what I explain is when your prospect shares something with you, a story, or they're telling you about something that happened, Just listen. You don't have to one-up them with a bigger, badder story. Just listen and show them that you understand. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry that that's happened. I mean, how long has that been going on? Or whatever the next curious question is. But don't start to make it about yourself. One way to explain this is like the game of hot potato, right? You got the hot potato and it's in your hands. I got to pass it to the next person. Oh, it's back. It's back. You got to toss it to the next person, right? Same thing in a sales conversation. When your prospects share something with you, Now it's your turn to talk. Oh, huh, I gotta get rid of this. I gotta get it back on them. Get the conversation back to them. Let them keep talking. What I tell my students is your prospect should be talking about 70% of the time. You should be talking about 30% of the time.

Okay, that's a good marker.

Yeah, something to think about because, you know, that's— I can remember when I was in yoga teacher training and one of the things, I can't remember the actual Sanskrit word for one of the tenets of yoga, but it You don't want to steal somebody's thunder. So Sarah comes to me and she's like, I lost 2 pounds. This is so fabulous. I'm so excited. I don't want to go to her. Well, I lost 5 pounds last week. So it just takes away from that person.

Totally.

And it's the same thing. That's just a minor example, like, we would— I would never do, but I mean, people do that. Like, I have a white house, so I have a bigger white house. You don't want to do that to somebody because you have to think about it from their perspective. They're excited to share something with you. And in this case of a sales conversation, when they come to us, they're usually coming to us with a pain point. But I just hate the word pain point. I wanted to get that information out without actually saying, what's your pain point? So if I have that conversation with them, I want to find out. And these are great tips because I know that I used to do that. And then now sometimes you let them talk. Sometimes it's very cathartic. I'll say this to Sarah afterwards, boy, I feel like a psychologist. We just had a psychotherapy session. Because the person just laid it all out there. They probably felt a lot better afterwards. We kind of felt like we had that heavy weight on us of their whole problem. And then when we get into the file, we'll say, oh my gosh, they have no clue how bad this is, or it's worse than they actually know. But a lot of times it could be just perceived by them that way.

Right.

Say to them, it really isn't that bad because then they're afraid of how much it's going to cost them. Because now you're getting into the money conversation, which is another thing that's part of sales that can be very difficult talking about the money side. It can be. That's the— I think that's the harder part besides the listening. And you can just kind of sit on your hands, or if you have like a rubber band, you can kind of give yourself a little snap to get yourself used to, like, you know, stop talking. I know I have a tendency to talk a lot. So you just want to get yourself in that habit of not talking. Let them talk. Let them. And we had that happen with a client that was, um, not too long ago. And the client was really upset. And it was nothing that had anything to do with us, but they were really upset and they thought it was something to do with us. It's actually something they did. And Sarah knew right away what it was. And she's like, stop him, stop him now, because he was going. And I'm like, no, let him go, let him go, let him finish it. And he was going on and on. And then finally we were like, this is what we see. And isn't this your name on the audit log?

It is.

Okay, so now we know the culprit of where the transaction came from. Yeah, you entered it. They didn't even know there was such a thing as an audit log. And then the conversation totally flipped, but he needed to get it out. He needed to get that off his shoulders, so to speak. And sometimes you just never know when you see, when somebody comes at you, the reaction is to like, whoa, stop. But then you want to, sometimes you get to sit back. My mother always said, think about it from the other person's perspective. What are they going through? You just don't know what people are going through at any given time. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. I think it's also where do you— at some point, you do have to put the bumpers on because you need some boundaries of, all right, this is not— you could pay an hour for this moment.

It's not going to this.

Or you're gonna— you know what I mean? Like, at some point, you have to find the space to hold to where, why did we have— why did we start the conversation? What is Where is it that you'd like me to understand what's going on in your world or something, you know, to get them back to—

Yeah.

Yeah. The relief valve is off. Then, yes, Sarah's just gonna bring in, looping them back into, well, let's just go through this methodically and then they calm down. They usually calm down. But I'm thinking as you're talking, Sarah, I was just thinking like for us or anybody listening that's like, oh, I hate the sales conversation because accountants are usually very introverted and they want, they don't even want to talk to the client, period. When email came out, they were thrilled because they didn't have to actually have a phone call. So for someone that's like that, they could hire you to help them through good tips on how to sell. Maybe they're not getting, they're getting the calls, but they're not finishing the lead and they're not selling their services well enough or providing the value, maybe not describing the value that they can Because that's an art too, letting them know that you provide maybe something totally different than what they've been used to and maybe having someone help them with that. And that's something you could, a service you could provide to some of our listeners or even if they're an attorney listening and they have a law firm where they've got the attorneys sell, they're selling the services, the people are walking in the door and they need to close the sale.

Yeah.

You know, that's something that you definitely can help with where People might not be— and the attorneys don't have time to, you know, the partners don't have time to train the staff. So you could hire— and I think a lot of people don't even know that this service exists.

Right, right.

I'm out here. Yeah.

Hey, so, so you, you mentioned the word pain point and how that's a word you don't like. I could not agree more. The word pain is a word that we use in the background during training. But one of the ways that you could start a consultation or as a sale, a sales meeting is, is I would not say, so tell me about your pain.

Yeah, I used to do that. That's what I mean. I used to say because they know it's a sales meeting.

No, they know it's a sales meeting. Yeah, your goal, your goal in the sales meeting is for them to leave the sales meeting feeling like they weren't in a sales meeting.

Exactly. Yeah.

So to start with, well, so what caused you to decide to meet with me today? And then just let them talk and then start listening for that emotional language. Right. And I I heard what you said about people getting emotional and then you're trying to bring them back down. I recommend just the opposite until after you talk about money. I want my prospect to be emotional. I want them to be upset.

Interesting.

Because the next thing I do after the— after that conversation about learning what they need and figuring out whether or not I can help them, the very next conversation I have is around what it's going to cost to work with me. I don't wait until the end of the conversation to talk about money. It's smack dab in the middle. So when I've got a prospect that's upset about their situation, they're emotional with me, then I move into the money part of the conversation. And you were saying it's a hard conversation to have. I could not agree with you more if your prospect's not emotional. If you're dealing with an A-type analytical person that's not giving you anything, good luck having that money conversation. But if I get my prospect to a point where they're really emotional and upset about what it is that they need from you, when I go into that money conversation, it is 10 times easier because now they're like, What is it going to cost me to make this pain go away? Please, I've got my credit card right here. Please just tell me.

Interesting.

Okay.

Yeah, that's a different mindset. I mean, mostly it's for me, it's centered around, okay, if you're going to— like, the story just goes further and further. I'm like, I'm not your life raft right now.

Right. No. Yeah.

Your spouse left you. I'm sorry.

Right.

That was 6 months ago. We're dealing with your business problem.

Yep, that's right. You know what I mean?

So it's like in those situations, and that happens, that's a legitimate thing that happens. But in the context of our clients, firm owners, and you and I've had this conversation.

Yeah.

It isn't always the best idea to have the attorney be that salesperson. I mean, there should be a go-between, right? Is what we've discussed. Yeah.

And there's not the rainmaker.

Yeah.

So here's the thing with attorneys in my experience, and I've worked with more than 80 law firms here in the last 3 or so years.

Yeah.

My experience with attorneys is their biggest challenge, unless they did some selling when they were in like college or whatever, maybe they were selling Kirby vacuums or something, and they're a little more familiar with sales, which I run into every once in a while. But the majority of attorneys, they have never learned how to sell. They went to law school to learn how to pass their exams and pass the bar. And then they get into a legal practice and they're like, oh my gosh, this is not at all what I thought it was going to be. And then if they start their own practice, then they've got to figure out all the things and wear all the hats. And they've never been trained on how to sell. The biggest challenge I've found with attorneys is getting them to do what I call unplugging lawyer brain.

Oh, whoa. That's a big thing.

Oh, oh, tell us more.

Yeah, because they walk into a consultation and it's essentially like, okay, what's going on? Oh, you're not going to believe it's the third time my husband cheated on me. You know, we went to counseling. I came home for lunch, caught him in bed with some woman, and I went—I almost went to jail. I was gonna beat her up, and I'm done. I want out. And the attorney, in their mind, they're going: "I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I hear divorce. I can help you with that. Great. Okay, cool. Yeah, let's get you out of there. Let's start a new chapter. Retainers five grand. We can start on your case tomorrow. What do you think? You want to? You want to go move forward? It's just they start talking about strategy. They start focusing on what the." case is going to look like. Yeah, they're very analytical in their approach to sales. And so I do my best to get them to unplug that lawyer brain.

Oh boy.

When you're sitting in a consultation, what I explain to lawyers is leave the statutes, leave the laws, leave the strategy at the door. When you sit down with this prospect, your mission is to find out what they need. What are the horrible things that have happened in their life that have caused them to sit down with you in the first place? Be a human. Be a compassionate, empathetic human and have a conversation with them. Show them that you actually care and you'll watch your conversion rates go up. Now, as a result of the number of attorneys that are more analytical and not desiring, or they don't want to do sales, they're not comfortable doing sales.

Yeah.

So we're seeing more and more law firms start to bring on what we call non-attorney salespeople.

Mm-hmm.

And, and in my opinion, I think the less law, legal knowledge the non-attorney salesperson has, the better. I mean, they have to have a general understanding of what the firm does, how they do it, you know, all that stuff, the technology stack, all that. But the less they know about law, the better, because then they, this non-attorney salesperson, can have a genuine deep conversation with the PNC, the potential new client, and start enrolling, enrolling, enrolling. And so typically what happens at a law firm is somebody calls in, they talk to intake, Mm-hmm. Intake schedules a consultation with a non-attorney salesperson. The non-attorney salesperson does the consultation, which at the end includes collecting that $5,000 retainer, for example, getting the strategy session on the calendar with the attorney, sending out the retainer agreement or the engagement agreement. So the non-attorney salesperson is doing all of that in the consultation so that by the time they're done, when that prospect says yes and becomes a client, They now have a strategy session on the calendar. They've paid the retainer. They've signed the agreement. Now, what does the attorney get to do? Production. Yeah. Billable hour work.

Yeah. Billable hour.

And I got to say, if I'm the owner of a law firm, I want my attorneys doing as much billable hour work as possible. I don't want them doing consultations.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

So I have trained attorneys. I have successfully trained attorneys on my selling system. And I have trained a lot of non-attorney salespeople as well.

I wonder how many law firms have even, if they're listening, how they would even think about that. Maybe this isn't even that idea never floated by them. They thought, oh, I could do just this one person because that person's overhead, even though they're going to be bringing the money in the door, they're overhead. I know how attorneys think. They have this idea of what overhead is like. Our firm is overhead, right? But how do we— they forget the piece like, well, we saved you over here or we save you over there. We kind of keep that on the side. So when we have those things like Yeah, if we increase our rate, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on? Why'd you increase it? Then they forget they added like 3 lawyers on the staff and the job got bigger. But also we might have saved them a lot of money on different places and we just kind of keep aside notes to remind them of that because it can happen during the year and they don't, they just don't forget. They just forget about it. So it's a good tip to kind of, as you're working with a client, and this is a Steve tip who's not here with us today, our 3rd guy on the podcast, our Our third partner on the podcast. Yeah, he gave us this tip, and I thought this was just, just eye-opening because I never thought to do it. You're there in the moment, you tell a client, I did this or that for you, and they're like, oh, thank you so much, you saved me money. But then they forget about it when we go to raise their rates. So it's a good tip to kind of keep that little note on the side.

Right, right.

But yeah, I could see, I could see how a firm might not even think about having that person, but I could also see knowing the personality types of lawyers, like you just said, that, that person that could be that intermediary closing the sales of the closer. I just started watching Suits finally on Netflix, Sarah, and it's like the closer, the closer. I'm like, I totally get it. But the closer might— they're good at that kind of work, but maybe they're not good at this. And it's a good— especially if you get a mid-market firm, they're big enough to have that extra person there just to do that one job.

Well, I think it's like, I think Theophan hit it. It's a transitional mindset. You're wondering, you wanna grow your business. You're wondering, do I have qualified leads? Where are they coming from? Can I, do I even have prospects to entertain or what's happening? What is being said when, because you can't be in every meeting.

Right.

You can't do every, like you as the owner may authentically be able to close a lot more. But you can't be that person all the time. They can't always look. Yeah. So your process, I'm sure, addresses a lot of it too.

Yeah. Well, we've trained non-attorney salespeople that end up with a higher conversion rate than the owner of the law firm.

Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. That's impressive too. Yeah. Well, and in that mind shift, to Linda's point about looking at this in an overhead Yeah, really. But there's a different perspective, a different lens to look at this. The monetary moment in the beginning, yes, becomes overhead, like, just like it is overhead to train a new staff person.

Yeah, but typically a non-attorney salesperson is going to be half the cost of one of your attorneys.

True. Exactly. And then your attorneys are working in billable hours, so you've now shifted it so they're doing more of that and not The stuff like the lunches. That's the thing that they were out doing a lunch to try to swoon the client in. And yeah, I don't know if that still happens a lot today, but it was a thing back in the day. And that's gonna save the firm money too. I mean, there's lots of ways to do that. This is a great conversation because it's something I think is a service that people don't think about. So I think that's a really important point.

The point of moving away from what is the so-called features and benefits, the pitch, the And understanding you're moving into the real space of what is it that's going on? Like, you want to know in a different way. You're asking it in a different way. I love that.

Totally. Well, we're tired of meeting with salespeople that just sit there and verbal vomit all over us. And at the end of the meeting, at the end of the meeting, we're like, did you even hear what I said? Do you even know? Do you even know what I need? Or are you going to do, are you going to do 10 more of these this week with other people? This is just your pitch. This is just what you do. And you're hoping that I'll dig into something that you said. Yeah. As opposed to sitting down with somebody, a salesperson, they go, well, so, Sarah, what brought you in today? What's going on? Yeah. Actually have a conversation. Yeah. It's kind of nice.

Not as hot. It's not as hard as you think it is, but it's not your typical, like, what your brain wants to go to. So you really kind of have to train yourself for that.

You really do. That's why we have our training, because we want to teach people how to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Do we, do we have time to talk about LinkedIn? You mentioned it earlier.

Yes. Oh, yes, please.

Here's, here's a great strategy, and this is exactly what I do. So I reach— I've got over 6,000 connections on LinkedIn, and I'm constantly reaching out to people just to offer, let's get coffee. Like, legitimately, let's get coffee. I'm trying to build my network. I really do want to learn about you and what you do, because maybe I can refer you out at some point, right? Who knows? Maybe not. Maybe we'll never know unless we meet. So when I say sit down for somebody with a coffee meeting that I've met on LinkedIn, I set a little agenda in the very beginning and I'll say, hey Linda, thanks for joining me on Zoom today. I really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule. Listen, before we go any further, I just want to make sure that we're both on the same page. I'm not here to try to sell you anything. I genuinely just want to learn more about you and your business, and I hope that you're here to do the same thing today as well. Oh yeah, absolutely. Okay, so we agree not to sell each other, right?

Yeah.

Okay. And then I'll just get into it. Like I had a great conversation with somebody yesterday from LinkedIn, and I learned all about her. She's going to get ready to move to Alaska. She's in Ohio right now. She's been married for 40 plus years. She's been very successful. We had a great conversation. Now, all the while, as I'm having this conversation with her or with anybody, I am listening. And I'm listening for anything that leads me to believe that I could potentially help this person. The meeting I had with her yesterday, I heard nothing. We really had a great conversation. I'm glad that I connected with her and I met a phenomenal human being. But I didn't hear anything during that conversation that led me to believe I could help her. So we ended with a, it was really great meeting with you. We should do this again sometime. Okay, take care. Good luck in Alaska. And that was it. Now, if I had heard something during that meeting that led me to believe that I could potentially help her, I'm not going to address it in this conversation, this coffee meeting. Instead, at the very end, I do something that I call a three-step invitation process, where I might say something like, "Hey Linda! Oh my gosh! I can't believe it's almost been an hour. We've only got about ten minutes left. Listen, hanging out with you and learning about you—this has been really, really great. I gotta tell you though, a couple of things that you said really stood out to me. You told me that you've got a team of six salespeople. Two of them have sales training, but different types of sales training. You've got four people that have never been trained on selling. You don't feel like your conversion rate is as high as it could be, and you're kind of curious. Maybe." sales training could be beneficial to you. Listen, the next natural step would be for us to get a consultation on the calendar where we could do a deep dive. I could learn even more about your business, some of the things you've been going through over the last couple of years. If you did decide to go through sales training, what would you hope that would look like for you? So we could sit down, do a deep dive. I don't know if I could help you, but the next step would be for us to schedule a consultation to actually figure that out. Again, coffee's been great. I've really enjoyed getting to know you, and I would love to do this again with you sometime, but I don't know. What do you want to do?

And you don't know if that person that you talk to that's moving to Alaska doesn't take that conversation and meet other people in Alaska saying, oh, I know the perfect guy for you. So that's not a wasted hour.

Oh, no, not at all. No, not at all. Not at all. But if I'd— but if I'd heard something that led me to believe I could help her, I would have done the 3-step invitation process with her like I just did with you. And then guess what? We have a consultation on the calendar. Yeah, you could easily, just as easily go, no, no, no, I don't think I'm ready for that right now. And I'll be like, Cool. Anytime. But it was great meeting with you, right? But, but sometimes those coffee meetings will turn into an actual consultation. So then, then what's happening? Then I'm spending time, 45 minutes-ish to an hour with individuals I'm meeting on LinkedIn. I'm having some really great conversations with people that never turns into anything else. Sometimes I do the 3-step invitation process. It turns into a consultation. That's a formal sales meeting. But again, no features and benefits, no overcoming stalls and objections. It's a deep conversation. To figure out whether or not I can help them, and then that consultation more often than not turns into a new client.

New client, which is fantastic.

Which is that's how I approach LinkedIn. Yeah, I love that. It's more about let's just get together and meet. Let's just get together and meet.

Leave me alone. Stop spamming me. I want to get a little meme and just pull it in because if you do start a conversation, it's done.

Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Great. That's a great. That's that's valuable to learn because it is. Because, you know, everyone, especially if you're new to starting a business, that's where you go. That's where you put your professional space on, you know.

Yeah.

How do I go to here? Like, you hear this all the time. Well, you know, whether you're a general, in a general space, you're a niche, you're a specific, you, it just identifying who you want to be in that space and how you want to Have conversation. That's where I think I settle in at for myself. But a lot of people are— that's the thing, is this conversion number, this whole numbers game. How many can you reach? Cast your net out wide. And what I hear you saying is you can do that. But then when you rein that in, you rein that in in an authentic way. If it's meaningful, great, move forward. If it's not, it's okay. We have a great conversation.

Yeah, I'm not wasting time.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. And, and it is when you start DMing people your pitch and you're just trying to get them like, oh, hey, take a look at this. Oh, we found this report. I mean, yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I mean, it does work. Yeah, but it's a lot of work.

I don't even answer you, right?

I mean, I have such a smattering right now. I have health and wellness to Like, I'm like, I'm not even associated with this industry. Where do you all think I live?

Well, even just getting on that top 100 list opens the door, Sarah, to all these people. They found the list, they go through it, and they're like, congratulations on the top 100. And then they throw their sales pitch right at you. And it's so blatant. It's really not great. I mean, I look at that going, no, you didn't. You just threw it. You just like you said, kind of vomit.

Yeah, word vomit. I use that word too. You opened up something I think is interesting. I know we talked about professional services quite a bit, but in the tech world, you're building an app either for a pain point that you want to resolve yourself selfishly, right?

Yeah.

You're servicing a lot of clients, but then you have to have someone come in and manage the space, a partner advisor. A sales channel, marketing. And there's so much opportunity to learn there, like all of that type of thing that you're saying, because what might work for us today may work, may not work. I may have a client later that might fit your need.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's interesting because there's just so much benefit. But you're right, we're living in this adage we sell like this. If you sell, you know, if you're in sales, and we've lost the ability to— and I do feel like the younger generation, they're not even like, that's just not even a thing. Right? Different. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and you know, something else that I've noticed with some of the law firms, well, with a lot of the law firms that I've worked with, not only do the owners or the attorneys not know how to sell, but they also don't know how to manage a sales team. They don't know how to manage an intake team. They treat it just like anything else. And so one of the things that Mm-hmm. And it's a 6 to 12 month engagement. You don't have to know how to do stuff. You bring me in, I become a member of your team externally, but I become a member of your team. I train your intake people. I'll help you hire a non-attorney salesperson. I'll train the non-attorney salesperson. I'll build out your SOPs. I'll build out the metrics, the processes, the, the PIPs, the write-ups, all the things and all the stuff that you need to have a solid sales department at your law firm.

Mm-hmm.

And I'll do it for you. Or your accounting firm people or whatever, your doctor's office, whatever. So I'll go in for a 6 to 12 month engagement and my intention is to put myself out of a job.

Interesting. That's an interesting way to— yeah. But you said some very concrete things that even us, we're as experienced writing SOPs, getting that, that's a lot of work.

It's so much work.

And if you're a, uh, if you're not just owning a firm, which we're seeing a lot of non-traditional people are starting to own law firms based on this new space, so you're getting a lot of investment people owning law firms. Yeah, that mind shift is coming in no matter what. Yep. So what does it look like?

Yeah, good question. And I've heard, I've heard some things because I'm a member of a couple of lawyer groups on Facebook. One of them's got over 10,000 members, and there's some rumblings about that. I think it's— is it Arizona where it's always been that attorneys, you have to be an attorney to own a law firm? Yeah. But now that's shifting. I think it's Arizona where it's happening.

I feel like that's— you're right. I'm trying to remember.

I'm not an attorney. I can go start a law firm in that state and hire attorneys. And so in the legal space, the attorneys are kind of like, oh my God, what's happening right now?

Yeah. And it's a little bit like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, definitely. But it's the same process, but they're gonna approach it. That competitive edge is jaded differently in that space. So it's gonna be an interesting shift. And if you're not staying ahead of it or thinking about it or fine-tuning it, like, to your point.

Yeah.

I always feel like every time we chat, I mean, I know that you and I met through a mutual, my mutual client. Yeah. Your client as well. Wonderful individual. But that's how these relationships build. And so I really think we need to do a part 2 because we're doing a bit of a series on this, and I think we need to do a part 2 and bring Steve.

I'd love to.

Yeah, that would be awesome. Oh, yeah. Dynamic with him too. Well, thank you.

And for people that are interested in reaching out to you, how would they find you?

Oh, website address, dot s three dot training. Believe it or not, dot training is a website extension. So yes, Sam. Yeah, S isn't Sam.

And I'm sure Tierra will put that in the notes for you.

Oh notes. Yeah. Yeah.

In our show notes.

Www.s three dot training. Yeah. This was a great conversation, and and I'm sure everybody want to tune in for more when we have him back. But thank you for joining us.

Yeah, I had a lot of fun.

Those of you who are are listening, we'd love for you to subscribe to the podcast and our YouTube channel as well. If you have any questions, topic requests, guest suggestions, you can email us at info@accountantslawpod.com or send us a message through our website, and it's accountantslawpod.com. And if you want to join us in the Accountants Law Lab, which we didn't even get to mention or plug this week, but it's a— it's our mastermind group that helps people learn how to work with attorneys and as bookkeepers and accountants. You can join us there at theaccountantslawlab.com. And if you want to follow Steve, who's not here, he's our other sidekick in this podcast adventure. He's at the Airstream— what is it?

Rally. It's a big rally. Yeah.

And if you want to follow that, we're going to get some pictures and things on our website, and that's accountantslawpod.com. So lots of good information, and I hope everybody learned something. I know I did. So Always. We'd love to have you back with Steve's here. It would be really fun. Yeah. So thank you for watching, everybody, and we'll see you all next week. Bye now.