We have established a working process for lead conversion that is being used successfully by thousands of attorneys across the country.  It begins with understanding the five stages of lead conversion:

Stage 1: The number of leads that come into your firm.

Stage 2: The number of leads that make appointments.

Stage 3: The number of appointments who actually show up for a consultation.

Stage 4: The number of appointments who sign up for your legal services at the initial consultation.

Stage 5: The number of appointments who sign up at some later time after the initial consultation.

To be effective at lead conversion requires intervention and follow-up at every stage.  The way you follow up during each stage will determine how quickly and effectively you are able to move someone along from becoming a lead to a paying client.

The disconnect for many law firms comes during the attempt to turn leads into appointments. The reason many firms fail at this stage of the game is simply lack of follow-up and persistence in pursuing a lead. Your intake person makes a call or two and then gives up if they don’t book an appointment.

In fact, research shows that:

• 44% of salespeople give up after just one follow-up

• 80% of sales require a minimum of five follow-ups

• 50% of sales go to the first responder

• If you follow up with a lead within five minutes, you are 9x more likely to convert them

We have honed in on 7 tips that will triple the number of appointments you will be able to generate from your current lead flow:

1. Institute a “5 Minute Follow-up Rule.”

2. Never make an attorney responsible for follow up!

3. Train a staff person at first. When you get over 30-50 leads per month, hire a dedicated intake specialist.

4. Give staff person a performance bonus to set appointments who show up.

5. Call a minimum of 5-7 times before giving up.

6. Script every voicemail, test results and verify calls are being made.

7. Send 4-5 educational emails via autoresponder, in addition to the calls.

Of course, to be truly effective at lead conversion, you need a system that actually helps you track and convert more of those leads into retained or paying clients. We have developed a software-generated approach that includes training and consulting with a firm’s staff on best practices, but at the heart of it is a software-driven system that tracks where all your leads are coming from.

This system tracks what your conversion rate is by office location if you have multiple offices, by attorney, how many of those appointments actually show up, how many convert to retained clients, and more. After the initial consultation, it sends out autoresponder emails that follow up and track every single lead. It has a series of action-trigger sequences. It’s a very, very comprehensive system, and if you want to run an effective lead conversion program, you can’t just use Excel.