One of my lawyer mentors once told me “if you don’t like to sell, don’t be a CEO.” Many solo lawyers set out to make a difference or have an impact - not to be a CEO. But whether you want to call them CEOs or managing partners, or partners, or business owners - the fact remains that they are heads of their respective businesses - effectively, they are “CEOs.” And if you want to be a CEO, you need to get comfortable with selling.
Sales can be an uncomfortable word for many people. The feeling of being "sold to" can be awkward and uncomfortable. It doesn’t have to be “always be closing” from Glengarry GlenRoss at your firm, but if you’re not closing in one way or another - whether it’s with employees, vendors, or, of course, customers - your law firm will probably not last long.
For this bonus episode of Financially Legal I jumped on a Zoom call with Jaimee Hall from Legal Back Office. We dove in on sales, sales strategy, sales psychology, and most importantly, ways that we think lawyers can evolve their thinking about sales to improve at it and use it to grow their firms. If you are or want to be the leader of your own firm this is an episode you should tune into.