Small Law Firms

How To Manage A Sales Pipeline

Most entrepreneurial lawyers are unsure of how to manage clients with a sales pipeline.

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It’s been forever since your last client, and you are racking your brain on how to bring in the next one.

Payday is fast approaching, and you are wondering how you will meet your monetary obligations without more sales.

It’s the wee hours of the night, and you are lying wide awake contemplating the financial burden of running a small firm.

If you can relate to any of these fears, you may have a sales pipeline problem. A pipeline is an essential tool for a law firm because it significantly affects your bottom line. A sales pipeline helps you picture your sales process and shows you where your leads are in the sales process, including which leads are most profitable and which leads are stuck. By adequately tracking your leads, you can keep an account of future business and achieve your goals in small, trackable steps.

If you aren’t using a sales pipeline, you are probably throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping that it sticks when it comes to finding new leads. Honestly, I built my business this way, and it can work until it doesn’t. Unless you start to track your leads somehow, you will lack insight into how effective your sales and marketing efforts are and what future deals are coming down your pipeline.

Most entrepreneurial lawyers are unsure of how to manage clients with a sales pipeline. Many sales CRMs provide a robust way to manage your pipeline, but today I am presenting a basic spreadsheet method that anyone can adopt.

Determine Your Revenue Goal And How Many Clients It Will Take To Reach That Goal

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Before your start, it is helpful to figure out where you are trying to go. If you have a revenue goal of $40,000 a month and your service costs on average $5,000, you will need eight new clients each month to get to that goal. But beware, you will have to speak to many more than eight clients to reach that number.

Outline Your Sales Pipeline

Your sales pipeline is simply a list of your sales process and may go something like this:

  1. Identifying new leads
  2. Qualifying leads
  3. Showing value
  4. Selling service
  5. Delivering and asking for referrals

List All Of Your Prospective Clients

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You may have to go back and list all the people who have inquired for services but have yet to convert to clients. Go back three to six months and start there. Determine who was a potentially good fit to follow up with, even if they ghosted you in the past or you dropped the ball in the follow-up process.

Make A List Of Professionals To Contact For Networking

This list may include other professionals with complementary practices who could serve as great referral sources for your businesses. For example, an estate planning attorney can contact divorce attorneys or financial planners because they have clients who need estate planning services. You have clients who need prenups, postnups, divorces, and financial planning.

Track Your Leads For Follow-Up, Follow-Up, Follow-Up!

80% of sales require five follow-up calls, but 92% of salespeople give up before that. You will have to get on the phone a heck of a lot more and tracking is the only way to progress through your sales pipeline with any efficiency or structure. Your list can be as easy as identifying the name, source of the lead, nature of the inquiry, date of contact, the value of the deal, notes, next steps, and where they reside in your pipeline. Your tracking sheet can also indicate if your closed the deal or if the deal is dead.

I make it a goal to complete and track five active sales tasks every workday with this system, which takes about 30 minutes. And yes, I pick up the phone and call a prospective client or a professional — not email, which is passive and often less effective than speaking to someone on the phone. Let them hear what you do and how you can serve in your powerful voice. Prospective clients and professionals are far more responsive when you get them on the phone.

If you are nervous or hesitant, I get it. I have been there. Just start with one call and build momentum from there. Your sales are waiting. Are you ready to go prospecting? Reach out to me at [email protected] and tell me whether or not you found this article actionable and beneficial.

Iffy Ibekwe is the principal attorney and founder of Ibekwe Law, PLLC. She is an estate planning attorney evangelist for intergenerational wealth transfer with effective wills and trusts. Iffy is writing her first book on culturally competent estate planning, available in 2022 (prayers up!). She graduated from The University of Texas School of Law and has practiced law for over 14 years. Iffy can be reached by email at [email protected], on her website, and on Instagram @thejustincaselawyer.

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