Are you a business collaborator with clients?

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In a recent coaching session, an attorney spoke to me about his frustration when he and several colleagues paid a visit to a prospective client.

The lawyers were prepared to make a full presentation about the services that the two individuals representing the prospect company had said they were interested in. However, the lawyer recounted, the prospects spent 80 percent of the time talking about themselves and their company.

“It was useful information,” my coaching subject admitted, “but it was a difficult meeting because we could hardly get a word in edgewise about what we thought they wanted to hear and weren’t invited back to make our pitch.”

I reminded the lawyer that being knocked down was not the same as being knocked out.

In response, he said that one of the prospect representatives had more say than the other in the decision to choose a law firm.

I advised the attorney to contact this person and make the following pitch: “I appreciated the information you gave us about your company and would like to know more. Can we meet at your office to do that? When I come, I’ll bring our latest white paper about the concerns that you raised, along with some research that gives a different perspective about industry issues you said your company faces.”

Such an approach stands at least a chance of winning the business. Effective lawyers find out not only what clients need, but also what they want. That requires communication with clients at their level of understanding, finding out how they best receive information and then providing it to them in a way they find useful.

The real challenge for the law firm will come if they actually do turn the prospect into a client, because it’s obvious that what the prospect wants isn’t just a lawyer. It’s a business collaborator.

Collaboration is the culmination of a process in which the client’s needs are met and exceeded, an accomplishment that, over time, earns the client’s loyalty. In a collaborative relationship, lawyer and client work together to assess needs and develop a proactive, interactive business/law approach, making recommendations to each other about actions and decisions that are mutually beneficial.

A collaborative, enduring lawyer-client relationship is the direct opposite of the one-way street that so often exists, where the attorney tells the client what to do (we call it “counseling”) and submits the bill.

My experience from years ago in the food industry illustrates the collaborative dynamic. A buyer called me and said his company had lined up competing products and sampled their quality. My company’s products fared well on the quality side, but a competing company was offering a drastic price discount.

The buyer told me, “I’m not demanding that you meet this price. I will keep your products on the shelf, but I need you to do something — a modest price cut, a promotional offer — so that I can show my management that you’ve responded.”

My customer’s collaboration benefited us both and defined the kind of loyalty that makes any professional relationship worthwhile and meaningful.