Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE
Are you a lawyer who struggles to be empathetic when working with clients? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, hosts Jim Hacking and Tyson Mutrux discuss the importance of using empathy to effectively communicate with clients.
Practicing voice inflection and empathy are skills that can help when working and connecting with clients. This is more so when speaking with potential clients and it can really seal the deal on getting people to trust you to take on their case. Jim emphasizes the importance of perspective and thinking about what it would be like to be the client calling the law firm to ask for help. Using feedback provided from a colleague, Jim speaks to the need for lawyers to be empathetic and how this is something his firm is working on.
Being empathetic is a balancing act in the legal space and Jim and Tyson talk about why this happens and how to get better at showing empathy when working with clients with different needs. It is important to sift and sort clients when they call in. You need to listen and let them know they are heard but also resolve the issue quickly and decide if you will move them down the line to the next step. If not, you need to kindly refer them somewhere else or let them know that your firm is not the right fit for what they need.
Take a listen to learn more!
9:13 Feedback from clients regarding clarity in communication
12:42 Discussion on the challenge of being empathetic while assessing potential clients
14:46 Strategies for respectfully ending calls with clients
Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here.
[ Sound Effects ] Our next in-person mastermind is coming up this fall and we're heading to Vegas. We're kicking off this mastermind with an in-person tour at Zappos downtown Las Vegas campus, where you'll learn their strategies behind company culture, core values, employee engagement, and customer service. Looking outside the legal industry for business concepts and strategies allows you to gain fresh perspectives and innovative solutions that can be applied to improve and differentiate your firm's operations. Following the tour are the mastermind hot seats. Every attendee has the opportunity to dive deep into their business obstacles with their mastermind group and coach. We believe that nothing beats working on your firm in-person. So join us in Las Vegas on November 7th and 8th. This is your chance to break through barriers, spark new ideas, and accelerate your law firm's success. Limited spots are available. Visit maxlawevents.com for full event details, and to grab your ticket today. [ Sound Effects ] Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the Maximium Lawyer Podcast. Maximium Lawyer Podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking, and Tyson Matrix. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome. [ Sound Effects ] Welcome back to the Maximium Lawyer Podcast. I'm Jim Hacking. And I'm Tyson Mutrix. What's up, Jimbo? How you doing, man? Doing well, I'm working from home. I did the, at the beginning, I did the little clap. Remember we used to do the clap to see where the video starts, the audio starts? Good. I'm at a home at the moment. Today's a workout day, so I were recording at 8, and so the kids are at home because they're off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday for a teacher's workshop. Oh my gosh. Why do they do those workshops in the summer? Or, why don't they do them like the day after Halloween, the day after Super Bowl, things like that that makes sense to me? I don't know. I don't know why they do it, but, so yeah, things are going on. What about you? I had to wear a suit yesterday. I actually went to court. I was in the St. Louis County Courthouse for the first time since well before COVID. I think probably five years since I've been in there. For what? It's a deportation case, and we're trying to get a conviction thrown out to maybe help our client not get deported. Oh, so you're actually handling it? Well, it's sort of a trick that I do that other people don't really in the office know how to do, and the prosecutor and I went to high school together. So that sort of helps. I got you. Well, that makes sense. I was in court with my dad on Tuesday for a traffic ticket, so I thought it was kind of fun. I got to go to court with my dad for the first time, and it was for his speeding ticket. He was, for those of you that don't know, he's a mechanic. Customer had come to him and said, "Hey, I have this issue whenever I'm accelerating." And so he needed it, but it was only at a certain speed. So he took it and he tried to get it to up to that speed. He wasn't on the highway, and so, because he didn't want to get on the highway with it, and he got a cop got him and gave him a ticket. So he was going like 70 to 50 or something like that. I got him an SIS. In Boone County, they don't amend them. It's a different ballgame, so I got him an SIS. But the best I can do. You know he's your dad? They want to give you a break? No, they don't do favors, dude. I get it. They don't want lawyers to be favored over non-lawyers, all that kind of stuff, but no. They also have highway 70 running right through Boone County. Yep. So it's lots of college students and all that, so it's just a different town. But all the surrounding counties are like that, too. They're pretty strict. Pretty strict counties. Kind of like Green County, down in Springfield. It's weird. Some of these counties are very strict about their speeding laws, which I don't know if that's effective or not, who knows, but you had a cool idea about something we could talk about today. And it comes from our friend Dave Dee now, for those of you who don't know, Dave Dee came to our last mastermind in Charlotte and gave a presentation that I think was pretty well received. I think a lot of people got a lot out of it, and he had a quote today that I'm actually going to use this morning with our intake team, and I will share it with you. Here's what he said, "How you present and your personality are more important to conversions than what you say. And so for me, I'm taking that sort of, and I'm segueing into some training on voice inflection, empathy, really trying to get into the shoes of our clients. And I think that for a lot of our listeners, they might benefit from spending some time thinking about what it's like to be the person actually calling the office and how intimidating that can be. And I thought we could spend some time on this episode, talking about sort of what we do about mindset perspectives and things we can do to try to not only boost our signups, but also make people feel like they're heard. There's this guy, I think there's a lot of research that backs what Dave Dee is talking about. There's this guy that I've watched on YouTube quite a bit, and I'm trying to find his name because he's not like one of the well-known sales guys. He's gotten a little bit more popular over the last couple of years. His name's Jeremy Minor, and what he talks about, he does get into some of the specific things you're supposed to say, but his whole approach is about how you say different things and the inflection in your voice, which is not something you hear a lot. I've watched a bunch of sales videos because that was something we kind of focused on last year, a lot about sales, and it is a lot about the sequencing, the how slow you talk, when to raise your voice, when to lower the pitch, all that. And I do find that really interesting, and I don't necessarily think that that's what Dave Dee is talking about, but I think that there's a lot more about this than just the words that come out of your mouth, because there's a lot of phrases that you can use that I think are helpful, but if you don't say them the right way, then it's not going to be very effective. But what's interesting about this, and this is, I thought maybe this was something new that you were learning as you're kind of revamping your intake with Gary, it kind of flies in the face of that a bit, so what is your thoughts on Dave's advice versus what you're doing now with the intake with Gary? It's funny that you mention that because I actually think it's because I'm spending so much time with Gary, thinking about an intake that I was receptive to Dave's message, in other words, we're trying to do everything we can to figure out how to improve intake, and this is just one piece of it, so I think it's so very easy for lawyers who are talking to leads or intake specialists who are talking to leads to just view them as one more lead, to just view it as another call that I have to get done before 5 o'clock, or this person is sort of bothering me, but I think we really need to take a step back and think about how are we being perceived by the people that call, right? So Gary's really good about what is it like for a regular person whose son is not a lawyer, who's gotten a traffic ticket, or gotten arrested, or gotten in a car accident, who doesn't have a son who's a lawyer, they can go to court with them. You know, what is that like for them to call a lawyer, right? So that's an intimidating thing. And Gary told the story the other day about how he needed to talk to his banker. His Gary's son got a bunch of bar mitzvah money and wanted to invest it. And Gary called the financial advisor who was going to help him set up this special account for the kid. He called it a Robinhood account or something, I don't know what that means, but I assume it's like our 589 program, you know, that thing that we do for the college savings. And he said the banker called him back six different times, which was good and he appreciated it. But every time he called, Gary was busy. So we need to really spend some time thinking about it's scary for people to call lawyers and talking to the lawyer isn't always the most important thing to them at the moment. They have other things going on. So this banker would call Gary when he was, you know, with his kids or with friends or at work. And so we really need to think about the whole experience. And remember to think about it from the leads perspective. There is, there is a technique and I've mentioned a little bit on the path in the past where and I don't know who I heard it from, specifically about the timing of the call. There is this one thing you can do where like let's say that you were talking to the person lead today and it's something where like they're not going to sign today and but like they they need a day or something like that or there's whatever you name the reason why they you got to you got to talk to them later. So you just say, well, it looks like, you know, it's eight fifteen now, Jim. Do you think eight fifteen tomorrow will work for you? Same time? Is that okay with you? So you give them like that very specific time on the same day like I think that that is I think that's a it's a pretty clever one and it's something that we've incorporated. So with that in particular, but there was something there's a friend of mine that is he's had a couple of cases with us and we were we were talking and I every time it's not like I plan to have him a client all the time but he's he's had a couple of cases with us and so every time I'm a k critique our process like let me know what like what we're doing well what we could do better at like one of the things he said we could do better as like like saying who you are like well like like kind of like what your position is like in the firm when you call like because he sometimes he's like I don't know who the attorney is like I don't I don't know if it's an attorney when they're calling me. So I thought it was a good feedback but one thing one thing he did say is that the empathy thing you'll have that down pat like you all are really just excellent at that how you you really take time with me and I I've kind of wondered how we how well we've been doing on that and this is a conversation I just had with him yesterday but we I think a lot of it has to do with this we did a training a few months back where Ella one of our case managers who we just promote promoted to an LRA she her mom came and presented she's a psychologist she's a professor at Clemson and she she taught us some techniques on and I'm trying to pull them up as we're talking the some techniques on like things you can do and in all the training was about not read like retraumatizing people that was like the the whole the what the presentation was about but it was a very it was very helpful and like having these conversations with people and in giving it was like empower is about empowering them where you let them make the decisions as opposed to you making the decision and telling them what needs to happen you give them a couple options this is not the way she put it but the way the way I kind of viewed it was there's a lot of parenting books out there and a lot of like people you'll tell you how to parent and I'd seen I had either read this or heard somewhere like how you like parent children you get you kind of give them options like whenever instead of saying don't eat that candy it could be something like well what you can do is you could choose to eat the candy but you can't go to your friend's house or you can go to your friend's house and I have a candy got like that kind of a thing you know you give them the option so they feel like they have a decision in it but I think there's a lot in that you can use when you're talking to clients where they they don't feel like they're being talked at the you can you can incorporate them into the process I'm laughing because just this morning my teenage daughter didn't want to go to school but she wants to have a sleepover tomorrow I said okay now this is me yelling from the bottom of the stairs you better get up and if you don't get up you're not gonna have that sleepover tomorrow so I don't know if that's the same thing but I think we underestimate the fear that people have calling us and you know a lot of times like you said they're calling about a trauma or something upsetting you know one of the things that's fun about my YouTube show is you know I do a show where I'll talk to immigrants for an hour three or four times a week are you tired of the marketing guessing game does your website feel more like a digital billboard than a client magnet if you're nodding along you're not alone and it's time to stop the uncertainty and start getting real results let's talk about your marketing spend are you just shelling out money every month and crossing your fingers do you ever wonder what impact your marketing is really having on your revenue well it's time to take the guesswork out of the equation with rise up media we've been working with them for over a year and the feedback from our fellow members has been fantastic rise up media is here to take your marketing to the next level they'll even perform a full audit of your online presence giving you the good the bad and even let you in on what your competition is up to that you're missing out on and the best part there's no obligation no catch no pressure if you decide to work with them their contracts are month to month that's right no long-term commitments tying you down so what are you waiting for to learn more about how rise up media can transform your firms visit rise up media dot com forward slash max law and rise is spelled with a Z rise up media dot com forward slash max law for free and they can ask me questions and sometimes the calls end up being twenty minutes long and the people in the comments and the people that come after they're always sort of surprised by how I'm able to stay patient and listen especially because you get people telling you the dumbest stuff now sometimes I lose my temper and get mad but for the most part I do do a pretty good job of just listening and letting people say their piece and I think I think there's just this natural tendency to want to rush and get to the next one and you know just keep going and I think slowing it down giving people the opportunity to be heard I know your team does a really good job of that not just in the sign up process but also during the representation that with your you know care coordinators and all that stuff that I think you have a really good system for doing that I think we've got to remember that we're not selling widgets we're not selling cars we are selling expertise but we're also selling connection and helping people feel better you know it's something I guess something like how do we balance that though with the situation where the client or potential client so you're like you're talking about that very very beginning call and the I mean you're taking a lot of calls and you're you really kind of do need to figure out okay are you a case or are you not a case right and do I need to move you down the line or do I not like how do you balance that that's a really that's a really hard thing sometimes I think where you you want to show empathy but there's a limit almost you know what I mean yeah yeah because some people are crazy and take advantage for sure or just one or just lonely hearts that just want to be heard yeah sure so I think one you have to have a system for sifting and sorting you have to be able to say okay which path are we going to and then you need an off ramp you need some kind of a graceful way to give them value to make them feel heard but to move it on rather quickly you know so if there's something you can point them to like for us you know people will call it just one advice on a particular topic and we sort of have a chart of videos that people can go watch I think you want to have something that makes it clear there's a path for people that want to keep going and should keep going and there's a clear path for people that don't and then you got to train your team and train yourself to sort of spot it early be empathetic but you know sort of dance your way off the call as quickly as possible you know something I do with current clients and I don't know if you think this is a good technique or not but I'll run it by you I will say to the client instead of say if I have like another call or something sometimes I will do this I don't I sometimes will say I have another call I've got to go but if I really don't like don't want to offend the person which I try not to I try to use this most I'll say hey Jim I don't want to waste any more your time I've taken up with your time and I'll go and let you go like so I'm like I'm like it's like I'm respectful of your time what do you think about that technique I feel like it's pretty good but I wonder what you think unless they just still really want to come talk him but yeah they can be effective yeah yeah help me help you yeah I think that's good you got any good nuggets like that like how do you get off the phone someone's like a talker mr. Mutrix I really enjoyed our time together this is not the kind of thing that we're gonna be able to help you with we really appreciate you trusting us enough to call but we're just not gonna be able to take you on as a client and we wish you the best of a lot so if I'm like talking to a potential client it'll be minus is something along the lines of Jim I really have enjoyed this call I really wish I could I could help you out I it's just one of those things where it's not really what we do and so you're better off you really don't want me as your attorney because I don't do this I don't do this type of work what we really should do is call someone that specializes in this and we'll give them like an aim or two so we should you should probably call Jerry Jerry is amazing give Jerry a call you know we sent you his number all the kind of stuff so I I talk about how much I would really like to help them out I just I'm not the right person for them and I rarely have I had that backfire I've had I've had that backfire I think once where well if you you know if you if you want to help me so much then you'll find a way like that kind of a it's like ooh I guess I guess you could try to use that against me but that's it tends to be a pretty effective way of getting them all to phone at least without try you know without offending them too much this is sort of funny because I think I've noticed that from the tone of your voice on this call some of these techniques you've used to get off the phone with me how do I have not have I really I was like I don't think so that's funny I have had someone tell me like they're technically using it and I'm like you fuckery or I shouldn't say that it couldn't shouldn't guess but like you said you have you said on me not you but other people so you haven't picked up much on the intimidating part of the lawyer piece I want to talk about that a little bit what are your thoughts on that about you know what are some big purchases you've made or big decisions that you've made and what you Tyson and what how can that translate into how you empathize with people that are thinking about hiring a lawyer who well I guess the first thought when you say that is like I there's something and so I'm kind of I'm gonna back channel through this there's something that some clients will do to employees that they will never do to me or to the attorneys and they'll be like they'll big time them and they'll talk big to them so they there is something about the way people perceive the attorneys versus non attorney so there's definitely something there because the way that they treat the attorneys versus non attorneys so there's definitely something there I think that the way maybe we should look at it then is you are the professional you need to act like a professional which means that when you come into the call you need to be prepared you need to know what you're talking about you need to give them the way forward explain the way forward to them so they are more comfortable about the process when it comes to making them feel more comfortable there is a so one of the reasons why we do a fact find like what we call our fact finding call really really early in the case because we're not like you were we don't have an attorney signing up the client unless they absolutely insist on talking to an attorney at the beginning right so you you're a little different because you know you're taking money over the phone we're not we're getting a signature but we get that we do that to connect with them and so we do we do little things where we always talk to tell our attorneys to say like hey how you doing today like so you I know that may seem like a really simple thing or an obvious thing I don't it's not super obvious to most people I don't think to say like how are you doing today like that is not that obvious I always thought that was a really obvious thing but you start with no matter what the who you're talking to or when you're talking to me hey how you doing today or if it's if it's like if someone has lost a child that's a different approach but you do like whenever you're getting on the line I know I know things are are I've been really tough like how you doing under the circumstances so you are you're acknowledging the situation but you're starting the call a little different I guess from there I mean you're like we're spending that time on connecting to them and then we'll also put things like specific things in the notes where we are we're acknowledging previous conversations and things that are going on their lives so like those are some things is that is that kind of getting to where you're talking yeah yeah I think I think too that we need to think about the language that we use when people call that you know thanks for calling you know you want to do some reassuring let them know that you know you call the right place we handle rear-end accidents every single day we just settled the case what do you do your attorneys do the exciting I know our people do our non-attorneys do that but do your attorneys do that stuff too yeah so yeah we've been working we work on oh so that's something maybe that's a blind spot for us because we don't we don't like our attorneys aren't trained to be like oh like like reinforce that once they've talked to them we don't actually have them do that that's maybe that's something that well it's good for two reasons one is it demonstrates expertise but it also builds connection you know like if you say you know oh you like the Chiefs I love the Chiefs oh you're worried about car accident cases oh let me just tell you about this depot I took last week or let me just tell you know just showing that I think that's one of the great things about social media is that if you show people you out and about doing the things that you want to get hired about then they out they sort of learn and they discover on their own sort of like you want a jury to make the decision you know that you're you're the one they can figure it out on their own that you're the person for them all right so let's say that I'm calling you I'm calling you for the first time you it would be something like hey Jim it's it's Tyson I'm one of the attorneys with matrix firm just calling you about your injury case and they'll say hey yeah whatever you'll say yeah I'm Jim good thanks for calling whatever and then we'll we'll kind of go into I would probably add in like hey how you doing today we'll have that little chat and then I guess the leading would be you know I'm I'm really glad I'm really glad you call us because this is what we do every day and so we're really really happy to be able to help you out that kind like that approach why it's first I haven't say tell me a little bit about your case so let them go a little bit give a little bit of detail and then try to think of something that you've done in the past oh shit I had a case just like this where this truck driver ran over this lady in a subdivision you know so the the something I will I teach our people to do is not necessarily ask them that question because here's why once we've called them we've already gotten all that information I want them to I want the client to know that we we know what the case is about so though so you know Jim I know you're I know you're calling about the the case you got I know you got hit by the semi I'll usually give him like demo like details it looks like that this happened a couple weeks ago and I and it looks like you're pretty banged up you injured your neck and your your knee and then I would kind of go into the with what you're talking about so I want I want to demonstrate to the client that we are we know what's going on with your case yeah and you don't want them to feel like they have to repeat themselves because that's that's one of those things where we used to intentionally to get make sure we had the right information because and this was out of fear that was out of fear where it was you'd have you you because you've dealt with injury cases before you have people that call and lie to you like that that was like so we were kind of operating out of fear where people would lie to us and tell us five different stories and it was it's like we don't do that anymore but it was something that we we were for a while operating out of fear which is not the as you know it's not the best way of operating we are about at time so we better start to wrap things up anything else any final words before you take a lead call clear your mind don't bring the baggage of what you're doing in the moment into the call try to be as present as you can I think that's really my special power is when I'm listening to somebody I'm like totally listening and I think that really comes across I think it helps people feel heard and even if they don't end up hiring you or even if they do that's a great start to the relationship it's good advice alright I know I've got a huddle and a little bit you do too so I'm gonna wrap things up before I do remind everyone to go to the big Facebook group join us there and search maximum lawyer lots of great information in there if you want to join us in the guild we'd love to have you go to maxlogyild.com Vegas masterminds coming up Scottsdale Hawaii is is is in April I think we New York I think we got a lot going on I think Savannah might be next year I don't I don't remember all the all the different play that is great it's gonna be pretty awesome but cited about that and so just go to maxlogyild.com and if you don't mind give us a five-star review we would really really appreciate it it helps us spread the word Jimmy what is your hack of the week well we talked about Dave D and I just signed up a little while ago for his email list and it's really good you'll get really good nuggets on presentation on marketing on sales it's free just go to Dave D dot com and we don't have a referral link or anything it's just something of value that I think you should read his content but also you should catch the rhythm and cadence of how he contacts you like the whole system is really good he's he's posting on Facebook three or four times a day and every you know two days or third day he's asking to his anybody want to get on the list or whatever so there's lots and lots of value before there's any ask and I think you could learn a lot just by watching what he does not necessarily even consuming what he sends which is actually very good as well yeah I it's it's watching him speak whenever he came to Charlotte was pretty like pretty awesome he's got some really cool technique so whether it's you know presenting or email or what social media whatever it is he's he's he's got some great techniques but that's good stuff my tip of the week I don't think I've given this one if if I did I'll just rerecord over this but I cracked my computer screen I think I told you that so I found a new thing that will hang on it's by Belkin it hangs on to the I did I did I did I did this one okay let's see it let me sorry let me I could remember if I did that one or not or if I just told somebody about it well maybe you didn't because we haven't really recorded in a while yeah yeah I don't think you did you maybe you just said it in the yeah so okay so I guess I'll keep okay maybe I just talked about early in the guild but the so it's it's just it's it's Mac save it's I bought it on the Apple store but you can get it on Amazon to I saw it both but like because your phone's got the back of it's got like the magnet on it for iPhones I'm sure this is it applies to Android phones too I can't imagine only Apple has that as an option but it just it you can use it as a camera on your on your laptop whether it's a PC or a Mac so that's something that it's really handy you don't crack your screen so and I've got children coming up with iPads right as the shows ending so but yeah that's my tip of the week good statement good conversation I'll talk to you it's recording today so I'll talk to you plenty of times today I'll see you later thanks for listening to the maximum lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content go to maximumlawyer.com Have a great week and catch you next time. 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