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Client Management: Why Consistency Is Essential

People have a love-hate relationship with consistency. In all aspects of our lives, we crave consistency, and we hate it when we don’t have consistently good results.

But we don’t always like following the routine that will produce the best results. We feel routines limit creativity. And it’s hard to stick with a routine day after day, month after month, year after year.

But it’s impossible to grow a law firm, or any business for that matter, without routines and systems. You can’t just keep making things up.

Suppose you did something great. The next day, you forget how you did it, so you have to figure it out all over again.

That would suck. And it would be a huge waste of time.

If you figure out the best way to do something and document the process, you can repeat that process again and again and get the same positive results.

What If The Theatre Was Unscripted?

When you go to a play, the cast, director and stage hands are all following a script.

They know what works. They know how the audience will react. That’s why they use a script to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse.

They want to deliver a top-notch performance every time and make sure the audience has a consistently great experience.

Think about what it would be like if you went to a play and they were making it up every time they took the stage.

Actors would stumble over their lines. The storyline would be totally confusing.

It would be like watching my 7-year-old and 3-year-old daughters at play time. They’re cute and I love them, but on date night with the wife I won't be plunking down $100 to see their version of a play. Sorry, girls.

Of course, improv is unscripted. But improv is comedy. It’s meant to make you laugh.

And a lot of the jokes miss the mark.

So ask yourself this question…

Do you want your firm to be predictable, consistently drawing large crowds and meeting their expectations for an exceptional experience?

Or do you want your firm to be a roll of the dice, mixing total duds with strong performances (and occasionally, an unintentional comedy act)?

The Value of a Killer Script

With any play, there are things happening frontstage and backstage. If you expect to satisfy your audience, everything needs to be working cohesively.

The same applies to your law firm. You need to carefully plan and script how you’re going to communicate with your clients. The things they see, and the things you do in the backstage that support what they see.

You also need support and assistance, whether that support and assistance comes in the form of employees, technology or outsourcing.

That’s the only way to deliver the kind of experience that you want and your clients expect.

Think of your practice as a performance. A performance with a specific result – the best and most consistent experience that satisfies the client and drives referrals.

What do you need to do to achieve this result? How do you need to do it? How should you say it? Have you experimented with saying things in different ways?

It's an important point: when you speak with clients, you can say the same thing from a content perspective in two very different ways and get two very different results.

You know there are more and less persuasive approaches to making the same argument when you're lawyering. It’s no different when you’re interacting with a client. You can present the experience different ways. And that different experience can mean the difference between a client being delighted - and happily paying a premium - and grumbling. Even if the legal result is the same.

Think about how you present your performance. Write and fine tune your script, and get a standing ovation.

Every time.

Raj Jha