How To Avoid Getting “Shopped” Against Other Attorneys

When there is an abundant supply of attorneys in your local market, it becomes harder for you to differentiate yourself.  

As a result, it’s easy to let your guard down and adjust your expectations downward, out of fear you might lose a new client opportunity.

But if you allow yourself to become commoditized in this way, you open yourself up to being “shopped” against other advisors.

This is a problem facing many attorneys, even successful ones.

Your initial meeting with a potential client will often go well, but near the end of the meeting they’ll say something like: “Thanks for your time but we’re looking at 2 or 3 other attorneys besides you… we’ll get back to you”.

Ouch… you just invested an hour of your time for a “we’ll get back to you”.

Waiting for potential clients to get back to you is no way to build a reliable and consistent law practice –and being forced to chase them when they don’t get back to you, only pushes them away.

So, what do you do?

Focus on getting to the truth

When a potential client says to you the dreaded phrase “we’ll get back to you”, understand… it’s not about you, it’s about them.

They have been conditioned to believe that solving their problem requires shopping around for different solutions. The problem is, they aren’t qualified to evaluate any solution… if they were, they could solve their problem on their own.

Subconsciously, they also want to avoid making a commitment and shopping around provides the perfect distraction.

When they’re in “shopping” mode, you need to call them out, in a refined and elegant way.

After telling you they plan to see other attorneys, try responding with:

“May I ask, what is the most important criteria an attorney needs to have, for you to want to work with them?”

If assessing multiple attorneys is a genuine need, shouldn’t they be able to articulate their selection criteria?

I suggest to you, they’ve never even thought about the answer to that question.

Your goal always, is to get to the truth of your potential client’s problem not to convince them to choose you.

If solving their problem is not a genuine and urgent priority for them, this simple question will confirm that and allow you to disengage.

But if it’s a genuine priority, you will have diplomatically shown them that “shopping around” is a waste of time, and brought their focus back to solving their problem with you, assuming you match their criteria.

Remember, your potential client is not interested in how you solve their problem.

What they really want to know is whether they can trust you to solve it.

Learn how to build trust with your potential clients by ordering your complimentary book and consultation below.