From Awkward Sales Pitches to Natural Client Conversations
How becoming indispensable through exceptional client experience eliminates the need to feel salesy or manipulative.
As a first generation business owner, selling has never come easy for me.
Truth be told, I find the high-energy, always-be-closing persona of many sales trainers exhausting and completely misaligned with who I am.
But I also knew hoping "good work speaks for itself" wasn't a business strategy.
Godin and the Lizard Brain
Then I read Linchpin by Seth Godin and everything clicked.
Godin writes about the "lizard brain"—that primitive fear of standing out that keeps us playing it safe. He explains why so many professionals stick to traditional approaches instead of finding their unique voice.
They're scared of seeming different.
But here's what hit me: He wasn't talking about becoming a better salesperson.
He was talking about becoming indispensable.
What if I was solving the wrong problem entirely?
Instead of learning to be better at selling, what if I became someone so valuable and confidence-inspiring that clients naturally wanted to work with me?
This wasn't about becoming a better salesperson. This was about becoming truly indispensable to the right people.
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Service Design
This insight led me to service design—the practice of intentionally designing experiences that serve people better.
Service designers ask three fundamental questions about any business:
How do they find you?
How do they use you?
How do they remember you?
With these questions (that yes, I covered last week), I now strive to examine my entire practice through my clients' eyes.
I know potential clients can't evaluate my legal skills during a consultation, but they could absolutely judge how I made them feel.
That's why I look at ways to make every touchpoint - from the first phone call to final case meetings - more reassuring and valuable.
If you hate "selling" your legal services, you're not alone.
Your discomfort means you need to rethink what a solution aligned with your personality and values could look like.