A lead is a record of a potential new client's (PNC) journey from first learning of your firm until they sign up (or not) for your services.
Sales Milestones
The sales process starts the moment the PNC learns of your firm, either from a referrer or by seeing one of your marketing campaigns. We then follow the PNC through a set of predefined sales milestones (also called stages):
Contact Info Received: the PNC has made an attempt to contact you, either through phone, email or some other means like a chat box on your website.
Contact Made: the PNC speaks to someone at your firm, who has asked them for information about themselves and the case. This is the sales milestone where we do conflict checks, ensure that the PNC needs the services you provide, and provide all intake forms. At this point you may decide that this client is not a good fit, and may refer them out or simply decline to provide services.
Appointment Made: the PNC has scheduled an appointment to meet with a member of the firm. This is usually an initial consult or a case strategy meeting, depending on how your firm handles initial meetings.
Initial Consult: the PNC has had an initial consultation with a member of the firm. A discussion of their needs has taken place, and a discussion of the services provided by the firm has been made. Initial consults can either be free or paid, we provide support for both.
Retainer Signed: if the initial consult went well, the next step is to provide a retainer for the PNC to sign.
Retainer Funded: the PNC has fully funded the retainer. At this point the Lead is considered "won", the Lead will be converted to a Case, and billable client work can begin.
There are several ways that a Lead can result in something other than a "win".
You can Refuse the PNC. You may do this based on red flags from the conversation, or something as simple as the client not being in your service area.
You can mark the Lead as Lost, if the PNC decides not to retain your services.
You can mark the Lead as Waiting On, for example if there is a mandatory waiting period before you can start working on the case, or if the client wants to retain you but does not have sufficient funds.
By tracking information related to the sales milestones, we can start analyzing our sales pipeline:
Red Flags
Throughout the sales process, you will be looking for reasons not to take the case. A bad client is not worth having: they will waste your time and likely not pay their bills. It is essential to weed out bad clients before you offer your services!
You can make as many red flags as you want, and associate them with particular case types (or make them generic, applicable to all cases). These can be anything you like, e.g. "Client contacts you right before a deadline", or "Client fired his last attorney".
Intake
Outlaw Practice provides the ability to create custom intake questions, specialized by case type. These can be anything you want. We support all types of data, including dates, yes/no questions, multiple choice, open-ended questions, names, etc. We can also encrypt sensitive data like SSN or DOB.