Do you tell potential new clients what your law firm’s prices are before they come in for a consultation? Do you list your prices on your website? Should you do this? Well, in this video, I’m going to answer that exact question.
My name is Andy Stickel and I’m the author of “How to Get More Law Firm Clients Without Losing Time & Money or Getting Screwed by a Marking Company”. Now, lawyers ask me all the time, “Should I reveal my prices before somebody actually comes in for a consultation?” The first thing I typically ask them is, “Well, what are your prices?
The difference in what you say and what people hear
What do you charge to represent a client?” The answer nine out of ten times is, “Well, it depends.“ It’s never just, “I charge $5000 for a case.” Every once in a while, you get a flat fee. But typically, they’ll tell me something like, “Well, it really depends.” It could range anywhere on the high-end to $8500 and maybe the low-end is $2500. What a lot of lawyers want to do is they want to tell clients this, that their prices range. The client says, “How much do your services cost?” And you say, “Well, it all kind of depends on your circumstance. It could be anywhere from $2500 to $8500.” Now, the problem with this right here is that you say to the client, “It could be anywhere from $2500 to $8500.” What the client hears is $2500. They heard $2500. They did not consider the fact that it could be $8500 because they want to hear the best-case scenario. No one wants to spend money. The reality is that your prices are probably going to fall around here. They’re probably going to fall in the mid-range. What you now have to do is you now have to take a client who is price framed expecting to pay $2500 and you now have to convince them that the same service that they thought they were going to spend $2500, you have to bring them up here. You gotta get them to spend $3500 or $4500 depending on what the actual price is for their circumstance. And this is very, very, very difficult to do. Now, conversely, if you are going to price frame, you can price frame on the high-end because it’s super easy to have someone who thinks they’re going to spend $8500 and it’s really, really easy to bring them down to $3500 or $4500 because they assume that they’re getting a discount. The problem is that a lot of times, lawyers will reveal that price and they’ll give a range. They won’t actually tell an actual price.
The wise way to handle your pricing
First of all, I don’t think that you should reveal your prices. But if you are going to reveal your prices, you want to always make sure that you’re revealing the higher price and you’re not saying it’s a range. And then when you actually talk to the client, then they will be price framed positively where you can actually lower them from the higher price to the lower price. It actually feels like they’re getting a discount. And if you think about major retail stores, that’s exactly what they’re doing. For example, everything at Kohl’s is always on sale. Everything is always on sale. It’s always marked at $10 and then 60% off. “This pair of socks normally retails for $10 but you’re getting it for $6.” What they’re doing is they’re price framing you. That pair of socks was always $6. It was never $10. But now they’ve assigned it a higher value so, in your head, you look at it and you say, “Oh, wow. I’m getting 40% off. That’s great.” Now, if the sign said, “This pair of socks is $6” and then it rang up at $10, there’s no way in hell you’d ever buy it because you’re price framed the wrong way. This is a mistake that I see lawyers make all the time.
Get those prices off your website!
The first thing I would do is I would remove your prices from your website. I would tell your staff. When someone asks what the price is, I would say, instead of giving a range – which will shoot you on the foot nine out of ten times – what you should do is you say, “Well, our prices are very custom and they depend on the exact circumstances of your situation.” Rather than just giving everyone a blanket price and have people paying for things that they don’t necessarily need or things that they don’t use, say, “What we like to do is we like to actually listen to your circumstance, learn about what you need, and then come up with a price that actually fits the circumstance. We’ll be able to give you a more accurate price once you actually come in and meet with the attorney.” That’s a much better way to set the expectation rather than saying, “Oh, our prices are anywhere from $2500 to $8500” or whatever the actual range that you tell people because you’re shooting yourself in the foot and you’re price framing people. I hope this helps. I hope this gives you some clarity as to why you shouldn’t reveal your prices. And if you are going to reveal your price, always reveal the top price. Never reveal the lower price because it’s much easier to get sales when you’re bringing people down rather than trying to have them have a thought in their head that service is worth one point and now you’ve gotta convince them that it’s worth potentially thousands of dollars more than they had already mentally prepared themselves for. If you use that and then you tell them that you’re going to give them a custom price when they actually come in, then not only will they come in a better frame of mind but they’ll also be much more receptive to your pricing just because of the fact that you’re telling them that this is a custom price that’s just for them. Hopefully, this helps. If you have any questions about this or you want to learn more about getting more clients for your law firm, then be sure to pick up my book How to Get More Law Firm Clients Without Losing Time and Money or Getting Screwed by a Marketing Company. This book is completely free. All you have to do is go to freebookforlawyers.com and just pay for a teeny tiny shipping charge. It’s $7.95. And we will send you the book, completely free, right to your door. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments. And let me know in the comments if you tell your prices beforehand or if you make people come in to actually reveal the price. Hope you guys have a good day. I’ll talk to you soon.
