The Road Not Taken: Coffee Is For Closers

When we think about closing as a time-management tool instead of a sales motivator, workload becomes manageable and our customers, get what they want and will come back for more.

Closing is the concept of making the sale. Lawyers, especially lawyers who aren’t rainmakers or in the transactional field, may not see the benefits in thinking of closing as part of our daily lexicon; it’s probably because we see practicing law as too cerebral to be thought of in the language of the sales paradigm.

Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers only. — Blake, Glengarry Glen Ross

But, in the end, we are all a type of salesperson. If we aren’t literally selling to potential or existing clients, how do we close? The real question isn’t “how” do we close, but “what” do we close? When we think about closing as a time-management tool instead of a sales motivator, a voluminous workload becomes manageable and our customers, whether they are outside clients or internal business teams, get what they want and will come back for more.

Lawyers provide services. And the services we provide can always be improved. We can always add one more cite, edit one more time, add in another hypothetical fact to articulate the possible outcomes. Legal work, by its nature, lends itself to  perpetual revisions and thus, there is rarely a sense of completion analogous to closing a sale. Add to this the inevitable distractions of emails, phone calls, texts, and necessary human interactions, and it is a wonder we ever get anything done. Of course lawyers feel overwhelmed, stressed, and like many other professionals, despair over their work-life balance. The work looms over us and lurks in our psyches with the insult of a potential oversight or embarrassing mistake. To do our jobs well and to maintain our sanity, we need tools to manage the stress of the work itself as well as the mental games our brain plays on us about the work. “Closing” is one of those tools.  

To close effectively, you have to devise ways to minimize anything that doesn’t bring you closer to closing. If you bill your time, this means you are not wasting time transitioning from task to task (which is a real time-suck) and are more likely to capture all the time you spend working on a project. If you don’t bill your time, you will still save time by staying on one task to the extent possible.

I also find it helpful to set up a work mise en place before I start a new project. Mise en place is a term used in cooking to “put in place.” In other words, get what you are going to need to do the task set and ready at hand before you do it.  This could be a file, background case law, previous notes, etc. Or, more simply: prepare yourself. Again, this works to minimize distractions so you can maximize the productive work you do in a day. When you put away the elements of the previous project before you start the next one, you have visual and tangible action of “closing” that can help you mentally move on to your next assignment.

A lawyer’s value is not determined solely by the quality of her work. We are all acutely aware that for most of us, the quantity of our work is almost as important as quality. In some situations, quantity may be more important than work of impeccable quality. In those situations, the concept of “closing” becomes even more beneficial. When work has to be churned out and your schedule does not allow for the luxury of breaks, separating assignments into discrete, actionable tasks that can be accomplished in single settings can help you regain control over your workload and schedule.

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Celeste Harrison Forst has practiced in small and mid-sized firms and is now in-house at a large manufacturing and technology company where she receives daily hugs from her colleagues. You can reach Celeste directly at C.harrisonforst@gmail.com.

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