Has your assistant ever received the dreaded call from a client, “Do you know when your office will send me that information I discussed with the attorney last week?”  Having no idea what the client (let’s call him Mr. Smith) is referring to, she asks you about it.   You gasp!  No one ever sent Mr. Smith the information on asset protection you discussed with them?  This is a potentially HUGE plan for one of our best clients?  How can this be?

Remembering back to when you met with Mr. Smith, you begin to recall the blur of that week.   Your meeting was late in the day, squeezed in between the normal work day and an evening workshop you were teaching.  The next morning you hit the ground running at a breakfast meeting with a Power Partner and proceeded into one of “those” days full of back to back meetings.  Somewhere in the grind, you never relayed to your assistant the conversation you had with your best client about asset protection and the information you promised to send him.

So much effort is put into marketing and meeting with clients.  It’s amazing to think you can increase the results of those meetings tenfold with one simple, but powerful question.
What if the morning after you met with Mr. Smith, you did hit the ground running with a breakfast meeting…You still had a back to back day of meetings…BUT, on your drive to the office after breakfast, you and your assistant have your pre-scheduled “5 Minute drive Huddle”.  During this intentional, predetermined, proactive time she asks you “Is there anything you promised Mr. Smith?”  What a simple, but powerful (and lucrative) question! 

You would be present to your discussion about asset protection. You would have replied “Yes, please send Mr. Smith our asset protection questionnaire and the article I wrote about asset protection trusts and then please schedule time on my calendar to call him in a week to discuss further.”  Envision this as an alternative to Mr. Smith calling a few weeks later (or going somewhere else) to inquire about the missing materials from a place of frustration and anger.  He may still hire you, but he most likely will have lost confidence in your firm and always waiting for you to drop the ball, again.  Not to mention the danger of lost revenue, missed client expectations, lost future client referrals and damaged reputation in the marketplace.

Avoid this predicament completely by providing your assistant this technique:
Assistant:  After EVERY meeting or teleconference your attorney has, ask them “What did you promise? And by when?”  This will allow the attorney to focus for a quick moment and download the follow up needed to avoid the ball being dropped.  Yes, it is one more thing for you to do.  However, you’re going to be doing it anyways, just in a reactive, disempowering way. The “work” will come in the form of disturbing calls from people asking you for things that you promised and never delivered. And then the vicious cycle of he said, you said begins.  Or you can create a scenario where you have a complete list of action items with the who, what and by when. This in all honesty, CAN be done in half the time.  And what’s in it for the assistant is his/her day will be more organized with control of your follow up actions versus you popping up unexpectedly and blowing up your assistants day and getting resistance, and possibly attitude.

Actually, there are five quick, simple questions that if asked, can fully maximize the results of your client and Power Partner meetings while creating a pipeline of pre-qualified referrals.  To request a complimentary copy of “The 5 Questions to Avoid Anything Falling through the Cracks™”, email us.

Champions of your continued success,

Molly and Laney

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