Sales-Free Selling: How to Win Clients Without Feeling Like a Used Car Salesman | Steve Fretzin

If there is something that a client needs to see her experience , maybe we say , out of everything we've been through , what else Is there anything you need to see her experience to say we want to move forward and get started . And they say , yeah , just if you could just walk us through X , y and Z , that would be great .

Now you're presenting to what they actually need to get over the hump to move forward and that's not selling either . They asked you for that and you're just basically like solving for X , y and Z . So there's just not a lot of selling that needs to be done anymore if you have a good model to follow .

Think about it how many times have you felt like you're just throwing time and energy at potential clients , hoping something sticks ? Well , steve's here to show us why that approach is outdated and how the most successful lawyers are building empire-sized practices without feeling like sleazy salespeople .

In this episode , we'll dive deep into a game-changing shift in how legal services are delivered . Forget the old-school selling tactics . It's all about building genuine relationships and trust with your clients . We'll explore why understanding client needs can save you time and resources , and how a mindset shift could be the key to unlocking your full potential .

Plus , steve's sharing his proven blueprint for transforming your practice into a client attraction machine , all while working less and living more . But that's not all . Steve will also share insights on how coaching and accountability can revolutionize your practice and why collaboration among lawyers is more crucial than ever .

So if you're ready to ditch the I'm busy mantra and thrive in a new era of law . Buckle up , let's jump into this enlightening conversation with Steve Fretzen and discover how to truly serve your clients and yourself beyond the briefs .

So , steve , you are , in addition to being the host of the podcast , a multi-time author , and your most recent book is Sales-Free Selling the Death of sales and why , and the rise of a new methodology . So why do you think that sales are dead ?

We want to look at it from a perspective of how do we walk a buyer through a buying decision , and so the idea of sales-free selling is let's stop pitching , convincing and selling and talking and let's start asking and listening and demonstrating empathy and better jobs of qualifying and really again walking that buyer through a buying decision is a way of getting to

a mutual win-win outcome .

Because for many of us and there's a lot of firms that are running like mass auto accident right or mass traffic ticket defense kind of practices for whom the buyer is a buyer and so a lot of us don't go through that relationship building of making sure that I'm the best lawyer for you and you're the best client for me and as a result , lawyers end up pissed

off and clients hate their lawyers and so walk us through in as concise a way as possible of how long that relationship building takes or should take , and then how we get better at having those conversations with prospective clients before we let them sign our retainers .

There's other lawyers who are sitting down with general counsels and CEOs and they may take five , 10 , 15 minutes to build a relationship and , again , relationships take time .

But what we're talking about is how do we build likability and trust in a short amount of time , right ? So if you and I are talking and I bring up a client I just interviewed someone on my podcast who's a client of yours and we start talking about how great this lawyer is and how interesting he is , and we both appreciate him and what he does .

Now we're talking about something we have in common and what we spend maybe a minute or two just talking about this individual and that was a great intro to the conversation versus let's get down to business or what do you have for me ? What do you charge an hour ?

What we're trying to do is we're trying to build that trust and that likability in a short amount of time the best thing I can advise people on is to try to move away from the more observational things like my Michael Jordan jersey behind me , and move into things that are more like .

Hey , steve , I happen to read a recent article that you wrote about comparing the show the Bear that takes place in Chicago to lawyers and how they need to deal with client satisfaction and client loyalty . It was a really great article . Yeah , where do I sign ?

You've now got me because you demonstrated that you read something that I wrote you complimenting me on it , and I'm like I already like you and trust you just from that little bit of time that you spent ahead of us meeting for the first time .

The amount of effort that it takes if I have an intake person , do a phone call and then I get on with somebody , maybe a little bit later that day or maybe the next day , the amount of effort that it takes to learn a little bit about that person or about that crash and act like I've done some work before I've gotten on the call with them is really low ,

and so that can be a huge differentiator between not getting cases or getting the case right .

Then we're able to then also control better control the buyer , because I don't know if you've experienced this and lawyers are experiencing this all the time buyers like to take control . I know , like I have somebody come out to look at my driveway and I'm gonna replace my driveway . I'm asking all the questions . I'm the one telling him what I want .

I'm the one dictating the negotiation on the price . I'm dealing with three or four vendors , compare , work in them overall to give me the best pricing . That's the buyer model . That's how buyers make decisions these days , not always when .

Again , when you're talking to the personal injury and an attorney and they're in front of you and they just sign , that's okay , especially if they came highly recommended .

But for a lot of lawyers there's a lot of steps involved in getting someone to be a client and you don't want to mess it up and allow the buyer to run you through the ringer to get your pricing , to get your solutions , to actually give you free advice and then go and take it and run away with it .

And the other half of that , steve , is you don't want to be the person who's always bringing up the issues that might come up in the case , because then a client thinks either you don't believe in my case or , like all lawyers , all you're doing is finding the negative .

And so where's that balance between communicating knowledge and holding back like the actual legal answer ?

It's not that I'm gonna not allow you to answer a question or not allow you to solve a problem . It's really more about when and the easiest analogy I can give you , brian I walk into the doctor's office and he takes one look at me and says what's wrong ? I go , my arm hurts .

He goes here , take these pills , or let's cut off your arm or let's go into surgery . Right now . I don't know that I necessarily like that prescription , all right . So what should have happened really prior to that prescription should have been a more thorough diagnosis .

And that's where lawyers really miss the boat , because when you ask questions , when you listen , when you're empathetic , not only do you prove and demonstrate your expertise , but you do it without having to solve anything .

They just believe that you're an expert because you're asking such unbelievable questions and getting down to the root of not only what the problem is but how deep that rabbit hole may go as far as what the cost and impact might be to that client who , by the way , is losing work , maybe missing work , maybe the injury is costing them money they don't have .

They're now having to take money from family . There's a lot of pain beyond just the injury itself , but if we don't get that out on the table then there may not be as much urgency to change . So sometimes when we talk too much up front and when we give away too much upfront , it actually hurt the opportunity to work together versus help .

And so how much time are you finding that lawyers are spending deselecting clients and saying this is really the 20% of cases that I want to spend all my time on , versus taking everybody who's coming through the door ?

And we're not just talking about personal injury , right , we're talking about lawyers as a whole . That they have to qualify the person , they have to qualify the case , they have to qualify if this is someone that they actually want to work with .

Rule number one of business is try to stay away from crazy , and that's hard to do in divorce and some other areas where crazy is at a premium . But , generally speaking , what I'm trying to help lawyers do is through relationship , through setting game plans and agendas and actually walking the buyer through a buying decision .

As I mentioned earlier , it's understanding their problems , how deep the rabbit hole goes , what's the cost and impact . And then I have four separate qualifiers . Now maybe , if it's okay , brian , I'll just walk you through what those four qualifiers are . So number one is is the problem significant ?

If the problem is I've got a splinter in my thumb , versus I lost my thumb right , what's the real urgency to change . Okay , what's it ? Did you ? Were you able to find , for example , compelling reasons to change Cause ?

If somebody isn't really going to engage in litigation , if somebody isn't going to really engage in wanting to go and hire a lawyer and go through that , maybe they're not a good fit . Number one is we need to know are there compelling reasons to change ? Let's say that there are . The second qualifier is are they committed to change ?

If they're not committed to take action and they're just kicking tires and they're just working you over for free advice , I'd like to know that .

I'd like to know that , because that could be a potential disqualifier that I don't want to solve this person's problem because I don't want to spend more time with someone who's not committed to taking action after I've just unveiled all these issues . So now we have two qualifiers . If those two qualifiers don't take , you don't have to go any further .

You can very nicely say I don't think this is a fit and maybe we should go our separate ways and again I'm happy to refer you to someone else or whatever it might be . The third qualifier is missed by most attorneys and it's really understanding who the decision makers are . So , while you have the CEO of the company in front of you .

That's clearly the decision maker , so you don't bother asking some good qualifying questions and you end up getting burned . So one qualifying question might be other than yourself , brian , as the CEO of the company , is there anyone else involved in making this decision ?

And the wording and the language is really important , because I'm not saying you're not important , who is ? I'm saying you're obviously the most important person . By the way , is there anyone else ?

And you would say , yeah , this is my dad is involved in the company and I like to make sure that he and I both agree on things before we take action and make a big investment or whatever . So now I know I have to get your dad involved , or I have to get your board involved , or I have to get your CFO involved , whatever it might be .

The other thing is , let's say you answer the question , you say no , it's my business , it's my company , or it's my injury , my decision . I would also say so take me through the process that you're going to go through to ultimately make a decision to engage with me or a lawyer or whatever , and then listen for what might change .

Because they answered that I'm the decision maker . But when you ask about the process , they say you're the first of five meetings with five different law firms that I have got , but you didn't know that right , so now you have more information .

Or yeah , just send me your proposal , I'll run up the ladder to the CEO and the board and see what they say and I'll get back to you . Now I know that you think you're the decision maker but actually you're not . So these are like simple things , but things that are continually missed . And then the last qualifier is financial .

So again , contingency is a little different . But if it's an actual fee , knowing that they have a budget , knowing if they've used lawyers before , what kind of numbers , if they've only used a country bumpkin lawyer at $225 an hour and I'm $600 an hour , don't you think they're going to have a little sticker shock ?

So it's good to know what someone's paid , what their budget is , what they're thinking this might be , prior to just charging into talking rates .

Again , the question I would pose to the audience and to you , brian , is would you rather present solutions and a presentation and spend time on a proposal whatever for someone who has no reason to change , isn't committed to change , isn't the decision maker and doesn't have the money or the interest in paying you ?

Or would you rather go in and present to someone who has all that ?

If that client doesn't right , because if your marketing and your systems aren't driving other clients to your door , then it's really scary to say to somebody the rate is $600 an hour , right , because the rate's going to be $0 an hour if that person doesn't sign up with you .

And so how do you , steve , clear that mental hurdle with the clients that you work with ?

Okay , so the gap between five and 10 is five points . And tell me why you're a five , what's the gap between a five and a 10 ? Why do you think you're a five and what do you think needs to happen or change for you to get to that 10 ? And what would happen at a 10 ? How much more business would you bring in ?

How many more relationships would you have that could refer you , and what ultimately would that turn into

as far as business ? If we could look at the other people or hypothetically look at that and that's only one of maybe a half a dozen different things that I might qualify them on or ask them about to understand what their prowess is as a business developer , as a marketer , as a brander of their business . How's LinkedIn ? One to 10 .

So the idea here is that I'm trying to understand where the gaps are . And when I understand where the gaps are , I can ask further questions . Understand where the money is hidden ?

Okay , and so let's say that the difference between someone crushing it on networking LinkedIn and getting in front of more decision makers and locking up $50,000 , $100,000 matters is a half a million dollars a year . Okay , so how long has that been a problem ? It's been going on for since I started . That's three years . So now we're at a million five .

That's how much this problem has cost this lawyer , and if you don't change it , where is it going to be ? But it's another $1.5 million , so it's a $3 million problem . And while my fees aren't $3 million , they're not a dollar . Their lawyers for fees are significant . My fees are significant , especially for providing great value .

So , if I can get someone to understand the cost and the impact , and if nothing changes , are you ever going to realize that real money ? Right , it's like you have a table of money piled up and you're walking around it all day , every day , for years , not walking into it .

Is it worth taking the time and the effort and a little bit of an investment to change that ? And again , if the answer is yes , we keep talking . The answer is no . What am I going to do ?

It should be expensive , right , but the job of a good coach is to make their price irrelevant , because the upside for the lawyer in terms of increased work , increased hourly fee and then scale of the firm is really unlimited , right , once you have a good coach who can unlock for you the rest of that earning potential .

What do you think keeps lawyers from being good at this stuff , naturally , and how come they don't just learn it through the course of their career .

The reason is everyone's been sold to , everyone's been convinced and bought something that you didn't want to buy and you felt bad about it . The salesperson really took advantage of you . You paid more for a car than you showed up . Whatever the case might be , that's an awful experience .

So the idea in a lawyer's head is that I have to now go out and do that to someone else , and that's completely false . However , they're in many cases not learning an effective model or way of doing it . That is more about understanding the prospect and walking that prospect through to see if it's a fit .

It's more hey , every lawyer has heard I went on a pitch meeting . Just that sentence alone has a similar connotation to selling and sales and being sold to . So I think between the lack of support internally at law firms , even when they have a full staff of BD people , nobody's getting into their heads about what an actual process is .

How do you actually do this in a sophisticated and very comfortable nurturing way ? And so they all just have to figure it out for themselves . Many of them do even more don't , and so I'm looking at the ones that do great and the ones that we know , and then the ones that haven't figured out .

They're the ones that just keep their heads down and bill hours because it's an investment of time , money and energy to learn a new skill and Alex Ramosi is a great example of you got to invest in something that's important to you , and for many attorneys they're just not in pain enough for it to be important to them .

They have to really come to me when they've changed firms and there's pressure . When they're not , they got turned off or they got turned away from being equity . They're . They went out on their own a year or two ago and it's not going the way they thought . They're not bringing in the business .

That's when someone's going to call me , someone that's just billing 2000 hours a year and going home to their kids . They're just . They're on a hamster wheel , and it's going to take someone like shoving them off of it for them to realize that they've waited 10 years longer than they should have to figure this stuff out .

But I would say selling our services to a client with the understanding that I really am the best place for your case to be handled , because it starts from the point where you have to be a good lawyer and you have to believe that you are the best place for the client to be . Otherwise , like you , you should shut your shop down and go do something else .

Right , there's plenty of jobs where you won't be disservicing somebody by taking them away from a place that would be better for them . But if you are the best for them , then it's your job to persuade them to hire you , isn't it ?

So I would rather ask great questions , get someone to come up with the million dollars a year that they're not making because they haven't taken action to resolve how they're dealing with business development and marketing , than me telling them these are your problems and this is why you need me , and convincing them of that .

So I'm trying to flip the script on the whole thing and say , look , you're going to be the perception so you're right about . You have to be a great lawyer . That's the baseline , no question about it .

I would rather have someone perceive that I'm the best coach around , based on observing my podcast , listening , reading my book , whatever it might be , and then the way that they felt being in a meeting with me where they never felt sold , where they felt listened to , they felt understood .

The questions I asked identified all the things that they're missing out on all the money and all the time and all the great stuff that happens when you're a Rainmaker , without me saying this is what you're missing and this is what I do and this is why I'm so great , and let them believe it .

The belief is a stronger power than actual knowledge or actual the truth , right . I think we see that in religion and politics and things we won't get into today . But that's how powerful believers so I'd rather someone believe that I'm great and want to work with me than me have to show them and prove to them why I'm so great .

You're using words and they're hearing them for the first time Contributory negligence my clients don't have any . I use that in a conversation with the client to tell them why their case isn't maybe as good as they think it is , without ever asking the client what kind of problems do you have ?

What kind of financial stresses is that injury creating in your house between your co-pays and your inability to drive your kids to daycare and you can't go to work and maybe your family is down a car ?

Without understanding at all what the client is going through , we want to say I'm the best lawyer , super lawyers and all of our own accolades , and really without ever getting to the meat of what is it that the client actually wants out of this relationship ?

I'll get you an engagement letter and we'll get started and they're off to the races . They didn't have to talk about their awards , their best lawyer awards . They didn't have to talk about their firm's prestige and prowess in the courtroom . They didn't have to get in .

If there is something that a client needs to see her experience , maybe we say what out of everything we've been through , what else Is there anything you need to see her experience to say we want to move forward and get started ? And they say , yeah , just if you could just walk us through X , y and Z , that would be great .

Now you're presenting to what they actually need to get over the hump to move forward , and that's not selling either . They asked you for that .

So there's there's just not a lot of selling that needs to be done anymore If you have a good model to follow , yeah , no , that's really high level overcoming objections by discovering all the objections that are lurking beneath the surface , that the client isn't even telling you about , like I'm not actually the decision maker , or you haven't addressed my concern

about price , which I'm not going to tell you . Come out and tell you . I'm just going to tell you , oh , I have to make a decision or oh , I have to think about it , which really is just code , for I'm going to let the universe decide for me at some later point .

I want to ask you you have this line on your website with frets and lawyers have their best year every year , and so I want to ask , ask you a mindset question that bothers me all the time If you're having your best year every year , how do you keep the goalposts from moving and this Dan Sullivan concept of staying in the gain and not being in the gap and

fighting against your ideal year and outcome , like if every year is better than the last , how do you keep the goalposts from moving and how do you stay contented with the progress that you've made ?

He had to put in a lot of hours to figure that out right . Or it happened in the 60s , 70s , 80s , when just the golf course did its job . Today it's a different sort . So it's the classroom , it's the one-on-one coaching , it's the being on retainer to take calls at any hour of the day .

The goal of the program that I'm running is to help lawyers actually internalize how to do business development . They own it , they own it in their body and their blood and so that's how they're able to say all right , so this year is a million , next year my goal is 125 . And then they work to that goal . Then the next year is oh , I got to 17 .

I got to 25 , whatever it might be . They want to continually challenge themselves and do better and better , and they're figuring out also how to delegate more , how to do less and become more of a rainmaker and less of a worker . Be and get out of their own way in that , and so we talk about all these things and work on all those skillsets .

Just becoming an expert at time management how many lawyers are experts at time management , like actually knowing how to like as a process ?

It's very few , but we're working , we're teaching that and working on that and making sure that they understand what's coming in and what am I going to do with this , and is it something that is really the best use of my time or not ? So we are moving the goalposts .

A lot of what I'm teaching , too , is how to develop positive habits , and when you have lawyers that are understanding that a positive habit of meeting with three prospective clients or three strategic partners , three people that can actually send me work every week and they become that becomes a habit , they're going to do a lot better every year than someone who's

not doing any of that . That's just hit or miss haphazard . So there's a lot of things going on that are leading to that statement of best year every year .

It's a whole different mindset when you're meeting with three people a week and you need them to hire you in order for you to put food on the table than it is when you're doing it in advance of those crises coming up .

So there's a lot of accountability that they know they've got to achieve and get into those habits . The other thing I set up for many of my clients is what I called and I'd recommend anybody do this an accountability buddy . So I did Pilates this morning .

If I had a reformer , which is a device used in Pilates at home , it would be the most expensive coat hanger I have , because I'm not going to do it by myself , but if I know that I've got a class waiting for me , I've reserved a spot , it's , I've got a short drive to get there and I'm there like clockwork three days a week . That's how I do it .

So the idea that lawyers can buddy up with another highly motivated person to ensure that the business development , the marketing , gets done every single week , that also is another , again habit building exercise that really works .

But having somebody else in the world that knows what your goal is and knows what actions you've dedicated to achieving those goals and it knows whether or not you're doing them Right . So I have a group of friends . We're in a workout accountability group and we text each other . It's a little bit different depending on who it is .

It might be an Apple watch confirmation or it might be a Garmin run screenshot or something .

But having that group that's out there where there's something negative that's going to happen to you , either like a finance we have a financial contribution to the kitty for the next time that we all get together if you miss a day but having that as such an important and powerful piece .

And so I know that you're running these peer accountability groups for your clients , who I assume , have been with you and graduated a little bit , so that they can then begin to hold each other accountable . So talk to me about , like how often do they meet and what does that process look like ?

So they roll into my peer advisory roundtables where they're in a group of like eight to 12 lawyers that are all motivated , same mindset , going after the goal .

They want to stop the hamster wheel , as you said earlier , and so they're meeting once a month in a 90-minute session where they can be held accountable to what they did in the last month and their numbers . They have an opportunity to workshop on problems they're having .

We do something called the spotlight , where one person has a big problem , wants to get everyone to come together and help them solve that , and then they're accountable the next month to come back and say what they did .

As it relates to making good use of all the information that was provided , I bring in great guest speakers , leadership folks and health and wellness and stress reduction all the different experts that I get to interview on my podcast to come in and be speakers , and then they also do the accountability buddies and I'm on retainer .

So there's a lot that goes into those round tables that , make sure that . But the most important thing is , if it's out of sight , out of mind the idea that they're with me and they're together every month , regular correspondence with me weekly that they're going to keep their foot on the pedal and keep it pressed down .

Otherwise people fall , as we know , fall into bad habits . They get into the billable no , it's a big lawsuit and I got absorbed into this thing Okay . But then you let everything else slide and we don't want that to happen . I don't care if you go from 90 down to 20 for a little while on the business development stuff .

I just don't want you to ever stop because I don't want you to lose that momentum and that traction .

Because to yourself and there's no external accountability and it sucks being the guy who's showing up for the three months in a row to your call and you haven't done the thing for three months in a row that you said you were going to do . Like those people are usually because we run a group that's very similar to that .

Those people are short lived for the group , right , because the group gets frustrated with them and they start to get embarrassed and then they stop showing up . And so the path to success really is those singles and doubles and consistently getting on base .

It's not necessarily hitting the home run every time , but it's showing up and doing the work and making a little bit of progress month in and month out .

We're trying to figure out ways to do less of the lawyering and more of the growth , because that's what they've now figured out is their path .

What are the behind and what they've got to do to catch up ? And if they're ahead , great , they're going to keep on that , on that path as well .

They're not competing with each other , because the best client for you is not the best client for me , and vice versa , and so how can people find out more about your group as they fit in ? Who's the best coach ? What's the best mastermind for me to be

a part of ?

Everything on my website other than that is free content free books , free articles , free videos , free podcasts , like all the stuff that I like to give away as a way of getting people acclimated with me , because my , ultimately , I'm only working with about for the business development coaching , only about 20 lawyers a year .

I have a capacity issue because I'm only one person . I'm not looking to scale and I'm not looking to delegate off to the junior coach or whatever , and so it's really important that I find the right , most motivated , ambitious lawyers for either of my programs , because that's those are the only people I want to really invest time in myself .

Thank you so much , brian , I appreciate it .