0:01

Estate planning attorneys , stop

0:03

spilling your candy . No

0:06

more providing unpaid consulting . Why

0:09

is it that so many estate planning and elder

0:11

law attorneys feel the need

0:13

to spend so much time educating

0:15

their clients , whether in their marketing

0:18

or in their sales meetings ? Even

0:20

I think it stems from the belief that

0:22

if a client just becomes educated

0:25

, if they fully understand the concepts

0:27

of estate planning and elder law , that

0:30

making a decision to move forward with the plan

0:32

will become obvious . But

0:35

is this true ? Let's be honest

0:37

. If your prospects came into your

0:39

office and they were fully educated

0:42

on all of these details

0:45

and all of these different scenarios of how they

0:47

could potentially plan , they

0:49

would be an estate planning attorney and not be in

0:51

your office . Listen , it's not

0:53

their intention . It's not their goal

0:55

when they engage with your marketing

0:57

or when they engage with you in

1:00

an initial meeting . It's not their

1:02

goal to leave your office with

1:04

their own JD so that they can go

1:06

home and draft their own estate plans . That's

1:09

not why they're coming to you . They're coming

1:11

to you because they're not educated , because

1:14

they can't draft their plans on their

1:16

own , and an hour-long

1:18

meeting is not going to be enough for you to shove

1:20

the years of experience and degree

1:22

that you've accumulated over the years into

1:25

their brain . It's just not going to happen . But

1:28

why do so many attorneys persist ? I

1:30

think it goes back to just the traditional model

1:32

, and the traditional understanding of what is up here

1:35

is of value . So I'm going to put that

1:37

out there and then , once you see the value

1:39

, you'll want to move forward . It'll

1:41

be obvious to get

1:43

an estate plan , a trust , whatever it

1:45

might be , whatever the prospect has learned

1:47

through the educational process . But

1:50

this just isn't true , my friends . What

1:52

motivates people ? What's

1:55

the issue at hand ? And it's not that the

1:57

prospect is uneducated . Instead

2:00

, it's that they haven't made a decision

2:02

yet to move forward . Whatever

2:05

the issue is in their life hasn't become a must

2:07

yet that they need to make

2:09

that decision to move forward . So

2:12

, as an estate planning attorney , our job

2:14

, your job , is

2:16

not to educate the prospect . You

2:19

don't need to give away hours of time educating

2:21

your prospect about

2:24

the different aspects of estate planning

2:26

. Instead , they need to educate

2:29

you . You need to

2:31

learn from them what's important to them

2:33

. You need to learn from them who's impacted

2:36

by their decisions . You need to learn from them how

2:38

long this has been going on . How long have

2:40

they been worrying about this . What are the consequences

2:43

? What's day-to-day like ? What's

2:46

the future look like if they continue down

2:48

the same path of not planning , if they

2:50

let these things fester , if

2:52

things play out how they

2:55

typically play out , what's the consequence

2:57

? Your prospect needs to have clarity

3:00

on those things and provide that

3:02

clarity to you , and then , once

3:04

we have that value from

3:06

the prospect , once we have that information

3:08

now , we can connect the dots

3:11

. I think a lot of times we fall into trouble

3:13

when we try to put the cart before

3:15

the horse . We tell the prospect

3:17

hey , get educated , here's everything you need

3:20

to know . In fact , if they visit your website

3:22

, what are we telling them

3:24

? Well , in most instances , when prospects

3:27

visit an attorney's website , it says we

3:29

do estate planning , we do probate , we

3:31

do elder law , we do special needs or

3:34

whatever the thing is . And then there's information

3:36

about that practice area

3:38

how a trust works , the difference

3:40

between a trust and a will , what probate's

3:43

like , when does a state go through

3:45

probate ? That's

3:47

not what they're looking for . That's

3:50

not going to motivate them . There

3:52

are other reasons why they're visiting

3:54

that site and the fact that they don't have a

3:56

trust is not the number one

3:58

reason . They're wanting a trust

4:01

to do something for them . The

4:03

trust is a means to an end , so

4:06

we have to find out what the end is

4:08

and lead with that . Whether

4:11

it's in our marketing material that'd

4:14

be , your Facebook posts , your website content

4:16

, your blog articles , your email content

4:18

, what you put out there onto LinkedIn , if

4:21

you're doing a podcast , if you're shooting videos

4:23

on YouTube everything needs

4:25

to be about that end result

4:27

. So think about your prospects

4:29

. What are they going through ? What

4:32

stage of life are they in ? Maybe

4:34

think about the young family with minor children

4:36

. What are they concerned about ? Think

4:38

about the family with adult children . What

4:40

are they concerned about ? Think about

4:42

the folks that are nearing retirement

4:45

. What's their worry ? Think about the folks caring

4:47

for an aging parent . What's their worry ? Think about the folks caring for an aging parent

4:49

. What's their worry ? Think about

4:51

the aging spouse . What's

4:53

on their mind ? What's keeping

4:55

them up at night ? If you

4:57

can diagnose these things , which you

5:00

should be able to do as an estate planning

5:02

attorney start thinking about those

5:04

issues of personal impact . They're

5:06

down there , below the service level problems , and they're down

5:08

there below the surface level problems , and they're down there below the

5:10

intellectual reasons . So you have to get

5:12

past both of those to the issues that

5:14

really matter to people . And when

5:16

you do that , your firm

5:19

is going to be completely differentiated from

5:21

everybody else . What's

5:23

the number one way that prospects make

5:26

their decision ? When

5:28

everybody else looks the same , when

5:31

all of the attorneys are saying here's what you need to know

5:33

about estate planning , here's how many years

5:35

of experience I have , what do you

5:37

think ? Well , how is that prospect

5:39

supposed to decide ? Well , I'll tell you the

5:41

number one way is to call and say

5:44

how much do you charge for

5:46

an estate plan ? When

5:48

we focus on spilling our candy , when

5:50

we provide this unpaid consulting

5:53

, when we put the education before

5:55

the prospect , we put the education

5:57

before the needs of the prospect

6:00

and what they're wanting to accomplish , we put

6:02

the cart before the horse and

6:04

we plant a seed in the prospect's mind

6:06

of I can't make a decision yet

6:08

, and if I do make a decision

6:11

, I want to find the cheapest option . That's

6:15

the mentality that we put into our prospect's

6:17

minds when we market in that way

6:19

. So if you're seeing prospects coming

6:21

in and they're very concerned about the price , they want to know

6:23

the cost . Seeing prospects coming in and they're very concerned about the price , they want to know the cost

6:25

of the program . If they're very concerned

6:27

about being able to make a decision , they

6:29

don't have quite enough information

6:32

yet . They need to think about it a little

6:34

bit more . They need to do more research

6:36

, they need to consult another professional , they

6:38

want to get a second opinion . They

6:41

do that because they've been overwhelmed

6:43

, overloaded with

6:45

education and information . And

6:47

if they have any conception that maybe

6:49

they've missed something or they misunderstood

6:52

something or they dazed off a

6:54

little bit while you were talking and providing

6:56

this very important information

7:00

information if they feel like they didn't

7:02

accumulate an A in that

7:04

professor-student frame , if they

7:06

feel like they aren't able

7:08

to pass the test , they

7:10

are not going to make a decision . Listen

7:13

, folks know a lot about themselves

7:15

and very little about estate planning . You

7:22

need to get them talking about themselves . You need to speak on the issues in your marketing

7:24

that speaks to those issues of personal impact so it grabs their attention . They

7:26

can see a way out . They can see the solution

7:29

is available to the problem

7:31

that they're dealing with on the day-to-day . This

7:34

is where power comes into your

7:36

marketing . Listen at Integrity Marketing

7:38

Solutions . We understand these issues

7:41

. We understand what causes fee

7:43

pushback . We understand what causes

7:45

people to want to think it over . What commoditizes

7:47

a service like estate planning ? And

7:50

we avoid those things . We focus

7:52

our attention on solving problems for prospects

7:54

and presenting our clients as

7:57

the solution . Listen

7:59

, at the end of the day , all

8:01

the other estate planning attorneys out there are talking

8:03

about what they do and how

8:05

long they've been doing it . What are their credentials

8:08

? That's what they do for their marketing

8:10

. Our clients are different . Our

8:12

clients say , hey , here's what you're probably

8:14

going through , here's what

8:16

you're going to be facing in the future , here's what you're going to be facing in the future and

8:19

here's how you can solve it and find resolution

8:21

and meet your goals and avoid all

8:23

the bad stuff . We position

8:25

the firm as the problem solver

8:27

, more as

8:29

the doctor instead of the

8:32

professor . So if you think about

8:34

the frame of the conversation , if we're focused

8:36

on education and our

8:38

marketing and our sales opportunities , then

8:41

we're setting the frame of hey , I'm the professor

8:43

, you're the student , you pay

8:45

attention , I'm going to educate you . Well

8:48

, what's the transaction in

8:50

that relationship ? What's the next step that the

8:52

student is supposed to do ? Well

8:55

, it's not make a decision , it's

8:57

to just retain the information that was

8:59

presented by the professor

9:01

. That's the goal . So when

9:03

you set that frame and you reinforce that

9:05

frame in your marketing and your sales opportunities

9:07

, when you're done providing

9:10

the education , the prospect

9:12

got what they came for , they

9:14

got what they needed , they got the candy , they

9:17

got the free consulting , they got the free

9:19

information in the education and as a student

9:21

, all you want to do is retain that

9:23

. Now , on the flip side of that , if

9:25

we set the doctor frame where you're

9:27

the physician and they

9:30

are the patient , the

9:32

natural progression of that , the natural

9:34

order of that , is to for the doctor to

9:37

diagnose by

9:39

asking questions , poking around , does it hurt

9:41

here , does it hurt there ? How long has it been

9:43

hurting there ? What else is going on

9:45

? Diagnose and

9:47

then prescribe some

9:49

sort of remedy , some

9:52

sort of solution . The natural

9:54

progression after that is for the prospect

9:56

to take the medication or schedule

9:58

the surgery or whatever the case may be . There's

10:01

something for the patient to do beyond

10:03

just retain the information . There's

10:06

a prognosis , right

10:08

. There's a prescription , there's action

10:11

that needs to be followed , and it's just known

10:13

and embedded into the psyche of every human

10:15

. So make

10:17

that change . Recognize that you can't

10:19

just give away all of your free information . Hold

10:21

on to that . That stuff is valuable . But when

10:24

you provide that information , when you provide the

10:26

education , connect it to exactly

10:28

what the prospect was talking about . Lead

10:31

with those things in your marketing and you'll

10:33

see the lead flow continue to come in consistently

10:36

. Better reviews the people that

10:38

talk about how you solve this issue for them

10:40

, not just that they had decent

10:43

documents at a fair price . That's

10:45

not the review we want . We want the review of

10:47

Mr Smith . Attorney Smith

10:50

took great care of me and my family

10:52

made sure that I didn't have anything else to worry

10:54

about . I have 100% confidence in the future

10:56

of my legacy . That's

10:59

the type of review that we

11:01

want and that's what you'll get . When you leave the

11:03

candy in the bucket , don't

11:05

spill it all over the table . Hold on

11:07

to it until the end . Stop providing

11:09

unpaid consulting , whether it be in your marketing

11:12

or in your sales opportunities . Focus

11:14

more on the prospect in front of you , what

11:17

their issues are , what they're hoping to

11:19

accomplish and what the consequences are

11:21

of not moving forward with

11:23

that plan . What happens if they

11:25

don't ? What happens if they do

11:27

? Get your clients and your prospects clarity

11:30

on that , both in your marketing and your sales opportunities

11:32

, and you're on the road to success and winning

11:34

. Hope you enjoyed this episode

11:36

. If you haven't already like

11:38

, subscribe and follow for more

11:40

tips on how to grow your estate planning practice profitably

11:43

leveraging the internet . We'll see you later

11:45

.