Sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness when I talk about the importance of lead conversion. Just about every lawyer I come into contact with wants to know how to get more leads. Very, very few (counting on one hand here) inquire about how they can do a better job of converting their leads into paying clients.

The fact of the matter is that you can get a million leads but if your lead conversion rate stinks, you are still not going to be able to pay the bills.

Here are 5 steps you can take right away that will help you convert leads into clients:

1. Tell your prospect what’s in it for them. If you remember just one thing, let it be this: clients only want to know what you can do for them. You can’t leave it to the prospect to guess; you have to tell them right out what you can do for them personally when it comes to their legal matter.

2. Tell your prospect why they should hire you. Consumers today have lots of choices for legal services — not just other lawyers, but online solutions as well. So you have to be very specific about what makes you different and why they should hire you.

3. Don’t be afraid of emotion. I can’t tell you how many times law firms have been secretly shopped (at their request) and found their intake person totally lacking in empathy. You need to listen to the person’s problem and truly empathize instead of treating them like just another number. While they may be the 14^th person you’ve talked to this week about a car accident, to them, their problem is totally unique. Be sympathetic to their pain.

4. Focus on benefits, not features. Features are what your service does. Benefits are why your client needs your service. For every feature you have, you must tell your client what the benefit is.

5. Make it easy to hire you. Solos and small firms can offer benefits that the bigger firms can’t, including a more personalized approach and flexibility. Use your size to your advantage and tell them exactly why smaller is better.