In regards to your practice, the expertise you have gained over the years is completely worthless... until someone gives you money for it. Your law degree is a bunch of student loans until you have clients, and get paid for your knowledge.
From your potential client's perspective, John C. Maxwell said, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." They don't care how great you are until they know you understand the situation and the problem they are experiencing. Your opinion here is worthless to the prospect, mostly because you are just another person trying to sell them.
What does this mean for you and your practice?
The most common problem associated with this concept is called "Un-Paid Consulting." This happens when you tell the potential client everything about how you are going to solve their problem, and they return the favor by shopping out your solution.
They don't trust you, yet. You have no commitment from them, so they are free to look around. Also, they know they have a solution to the problem, so all of their stress is gone and the immediate pain fades away. If all else fails, they can call you back.
What do people love to talk about more than anything else? Themselves. If you are talking about yourself, then the potential client is not getting a chance to do what they love best. Legal knowledge can be very intimidating. If you use buzz words, you make the potential client feel dumb, bored, or at the very least uninterested, triggering them to mentally check out of the conversation.
What is the solution?
Wait until you get paid to solve the problem. The goal is to gain a client and to make money, not to prove how much you know. You might be asking yourself, how am I supposed to get anyone interested enough to hire me without telling them how great or credible we are?
Does a doctor tell you everything he knows about medicine and the types of viruses you might have, and then let you decide which medicine you think will make you better? Or does he ask you some very smart, intuitive questions to narrow down the diagnosis first and then prescribe you the solution?
Your job as a legal professional is to find people with the type of problems you solve, build trust with expert questions while you diagnose the problem, get a commitment, and then prescribe the solution.
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