Does this sound familiar?
You are talking to a prospective client and everything is going great. You are starting to talk about next steps. And then… they disappear.
They don’t respond to your emails or voicemails. They ignore your calls. It’s as if they completely dropped off the Earth!
What happened??
You’ve been ghosted by your prospect!
But why?
There could be many many reasons, but one that I see often when I work with lawyers on growing their books of business is that they fail to uncover their prospective client’s decision-making process, and specifically the relevant decision makers.
Why is that important?
The bigger the client, the more likely it is that there will be multiple decision makers. The sooner you can figure out the identities of all decision makers, the more effective you will be in helping your prospect make a decision to hire you!
Don’t know how to phrase it?
Here are some examples that work for my clients:
- “In addition to you and X (name of the known decision maker), who else is involved in making this important decision? Who else can influence the decision?”
- “Who else would want to know that we had this conversation?”
- “If someone has a major concern, or could shoot down a decision at the last minute, who would that be?”
Bottom line: Never be afraid to ask questions! The more you know, the more effective your BD conversations will be.
