Parenting and Bankruptcy Clients: Two essential questions to ask?
I often talk with lawyers about their marketing strategies and client materials, and it occurred to me (amidst my new state of parenthood) that there’s a good parallel between effective parenting and effective client communications.
Lest you think I’m inclined to speak from my own one-week’s worth of parenting experience, I should mention that I have the benefit of wisdom and experience of my own mom, who is a social worker with a specialty in child therapy. She often likes to point out that everything children say and do can essentially be boiled down to two questions they are perpetually asking:
1. “Do you love me?” and
2. “Who’s in charge here?”
I was recently contemplating this idea following a conversation with a bankruptcy lawyer who had asked me to review some of his client info materials. I realized he was falling into the classic lawyer trap of trying to explain too much, and I was trying to figure out a framework for helping him review his materials through a new lens. That’s when this idea popped into my head:
Potential bankruptcy clients are essentially asking two questions:
1. “What can I keep?” and
2. “Can I trust you?”
I therefore propose that bankruptcy lawyers should gear their pre-retention client communications to answering these two questions in various ways. Anything more detailed and in-depth can be discussed in person. But you need to respond to these two questions to get someone comfortable enough to retain you and avoid the pitfall of overwhelming them with legal information and jargon.
This is, of course, just my theory. So if you agree, disagree or have another take on bankruptcy clients and/or parenting theory, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section of this post.
And if you want to discuss off-line or would like assistance with your own marketing materials, feel free to contact me at: steven [at] bankruptcybill.us.