Lawyer Sales is an Attitude.
Selling is an attitude pure and simple. When you are all stressed about getting the next sale, when your worried about money because your last commission check didn’t cover all of your expenses, and if your just ready to get the day over with, than please call in sick!
Because you are! You have a sickness that will cause you much harm to your career and success.
Seriously. In fact, I recommend to sales managers to tell under performing to go home and spend time with the family or do something to take your mind off of the job and personal stress. I know you are probably thinking. “OK James, you totally are nuts or don’t have a clue about running a sales force.”
Well think about it like this. How productive can you be at selling your product or services to an attorney when you are in the “loser zone.” Lawyers buy because of one or more of the following reasons.
a) They like you or your legal sales rep.
b) They see the confidence you or your sales rep has in the product.
c) They buy because they see a measure of financial success in you or your sales rep.
So let us think about this again. Do you think it is a good idea for you or your legal sales representatives to be out in the field making calls while they are over eager, desperate, beat down emotionally and lacking the confidence in themselves or worse in the product?
Will you or your sales team be productive with a defeatist attitude?
It is a fact that when you are down, stressed out and have a negative attitude you will naturally go in to a downward spiral. Your calls will be completely ineffective. Thoughts like “Yeah, no one wants this product” or “No one wants to buy our product because they don’t even know who we are” or “It is a bad economy no one is going to buy our service.” It is human nature to start blaming the company, the product or even worse the potential clients for your lack of sales performance. In many cases, legal sales representatives will begin a dangerous and destructive process of justifying their mind why it is not their fault for poor sales performance.
The best way to get your personal or sales team’s sales numbers up is through attitude. When I headed up several legal sales organizations, I made it a habit to pump up my legal sales reps. My job was to be their biggest cheerleader and help divert them from self destructive attitudes. I would take a rep out to lunch and discuss all the previous success they had in the past. We would discuss their sales success stories and help guide them back to what made them successful.
It isn’t time for hard nose sales management and/or threats. It is way too expensive to hire and train a new sales rep these days. Invest in some training, invest some personal time and be the coach you were hired to be.
This works every time and with every sales rep who has a proven track record. As long as they have had previous success it is easy to help guide them through the poor sales performance cycles. Let’s face it, we ALL have had a bad month or two in our legal sales careers. It happens. Just like death and taxes.
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