#123 How to use your legals to convert prospects to clients
If you’re a longtime listener of this podcast, you will have heard me talk a number of times about the reasons you need to have your legal documents tailored properly for your business. In this episode, I’m talking about one strategy in particular that I believe is key in successfully converting prospects to clients.
It’s my belief that the first place to start when setting yourself up for success in your business is managing clients’ expectations. From the first touchpoint and onboarding through to off-boarding, it’s crucial to be really strategic about how your clients experience you and your service. This includes being clear on your messaging when it comes to how you show up on things like social media, on your website and in your marketing.
And while those are more obvious areas in which you can create a positive impression on your audience, putting the same amount of time and energy into our legal documents often gets overlooked. Today I discuss how your legals underpin the integrity and authenticity of what you do and how, when aligned with your branding, they create the consistency that will support potential clients’ trust in you.
You may be surprised at how much people pay attention to what they’re signing up to. Whether it’s a program, course or mastermind, prospective clients look for assurance that they’re safe to sign up or hit subscribe. Being clear that you prioritise your legal obligations and comply with consumer law will show that you’re a professional and someone who can be trusted. One way to communicate this is by tailoring your terms and conditions to be consistent with your language and branding.
Legal documents do not have to be dull and boring, and in fact can enhance your overall messaging when you put more of yourself into them. My hope for this episode is that you find a new perspective on your legals, and how empowering they can be when you give them the attention that they deserve.
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[00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Rise Up in Business Podcast. Thank you for joining me. If you're a longtime listener, you will have heard me say several times throughout the podcast episodes that there are three main reasons you need to have your legal documents tailored properly for your business, and they are to comply with your legal obligations as a business owner, to protect yourself and your business legally, hence giving you that peace of mind that I talk about, and the third is to set yourself up for success with your clients. I'm going to talk about the third in today's episode. I've spent much time [00:01:00] on previous episodes talking about the different legal obligations you have as a business owner, depending on the nature of your business and the type of business that you are running, I've talked about the pitfalls in terms of not having that legal protection and what can go wrong.
But today I really wanna focus on setting yourself up for success with your clients and what that really means from the first touchpoint and onboarding all the way through to off-boarding. So let's dive in. When I talk about setting yourself up for success with your clients, the very first place that we need to start is managing your client expectations. So if you think about clients experiencing you or being introduced to you online, on social media via your website, that's their first touchpoint. So whether they've just come across your page or somebody's referred them, or they've seen that somebody else engages you, or they're just doing a search because they're after a particular service or product that you happen to offer, they land on your [00:02:00] website or they land on your social media. That's their first touchpoint.
So they have an experience. Your tone, your brand, your colour palette, even the type of language you use, how you are showing up, so how you're showing up on your social media, how you're showing up in your Facebook ads, how you're showing up on your website. That's their first impression. And from there, usually there's some type of lead magnet that they can subscribe to or download.
There's an email list or there's something else that you've got in place in your business to continue that customer journey, as marketers call it. Then they start receiving your emails, perhaps, or then they're following your page, they're seeing your lives, they're seeing your posts, whatever it is, but they're continuing to be exposed to you and they're continuing to experience you and your brand.
Then they reach out at some point, whether they're reaching out to make an inquiry, whether they're reaching out to [00:03:00] explore what offerings you have. Can they work with you? Should they work with you? How do you work? Whatever it might be, they reach out at some point, ideally, hopefully, we want them to. But this is the part where they've started to get an understanding or an impression of you and what you are about and what you stand for.
And your legal documents are underpinning the integrity and the authenticity of that. So for example, if you have online offerings and somebody clicks through your offerings, they look at the inclusions, they're thinking about buying, and then they land on the page where they can sign up, they're still thinking, they haven't decided, they're not converted, they're still thinking, and they land on the page.
If you have your course or your program or your membership terms and conditions at this point, usually in that click box or a click wrap type arrangement where they get to read or they get to see what it is they're signing up to. If you have [00:04:00] something substandard, not tailored, not on brand, you could have just lost a potential client because your documents aren't authentic, they're not consistent and on brand with you, there's no integrity in it, and they have an objection and they've moved on. That could be what happens, and this is something I talk to my clients about often when we're talking about overcoming consumer or client objections, documents play a vital part in helping overcome those objections.
Should I buy or not buy? Should I hit subscribe or not? One classic example is when consumers reach the point of sale on your website or the sign up here or buy now, whether it's a low ticket or a high ticket offering, whether it's a program, a course, a mastermind, whatever it might be, and they reach the payment page and you have terms and conditions that say something like, no refunds.
That's it. No refunds. That [00:05:00] screams from the rooftops that you either don't know what you're doing or you haven't prioritised your legal obligations because that right there doesn't comply with the consumer law. It sits squarely outside what you need to be doing and what you're legally obliged to be doing under the consumer law.
And you've just told the consumer that. Now if they're informed and they know this consumer objection, bang, they leave the website. If they don't know, it can be a little unnerving. No refunds. What's that mean? Why is she telling me or why is he telling me there's no refunds? Are they worried about refunds? Do they get refund requests? They've just shone a light on no refunds. What does that mean? That's an example. Worse is when you have nothing. You have no terms, no nothing, and you're just expecting people to sign up, or the hope is that they'll sign up and pay without actually agreeing to any terms. That's actually worse. I've had this debate with colleagues and other business [00:06:00] owners. What's worse? ineffective, non-compliant, poorly drafted terms or no terms? The jury's out. On the other hand though, if somebody's worked their way through and they've gotten to this point and they land on this page and they've got some beautifully tailored and drafted and branded terms and conditions, in your language. It looks like you. It sounds like you, it is you. There's authenticity, there's integrity.
All of a sudden that consumer objection falls away, and you've got someone who's really excited to work with you, who wants to buy from you. That's my view on the difference between utilising your legal documents to set you up for success with your clients right from the very beginning or not. And you'll be surprised if you ask around and do some workshops or some case studies, just how much attention consumers pay to what it is they are signing up [00:07:00] to.
That's the first thing I say in relation to those touch points and those legal documents and how you can be using them to convert prospects to clients. You can use them if done well to overcome objections for consumers or clients buying. Now, let's just say we are not on the website. Let's just say that we are a service-based business and we are sending out a proposal to a prospect. We've had a touch point, we've had a conversation even, and we're now going to send out a proposal and it's a beautifully designed and developed proposal. Let's say you're an interior designer, a coach, a web designer, whatever it might be, you're sending out a proposal and it is on brand and it looks like you, and it feels like you and it's you because it's authentic and it has integrity, and your client wants to accept your proposal and if you have some beautifully tailored, equally as on brand looks like you, sounds like you terms and conditions that are attached to that [00:08:00] beautiful proposal, and you say in your email or whatever forum you're sending this to your prospecting, if you're happy with the proposal, please read our terms and conditions attached.
If you accept the proposal, you'll be agreeing to the terms and conditions and what if that prospect reads through your proposal, reads through your terms and conditions, and the reaction is, I cannot wait to work with this person. This is simple and clear and easy to understand. I know what I'm signing up to.
This is a professional. I'm in. What if? And that ,friends, is what I focus on when I'm developing tailored terms and conditions for my clients, because that's the reaction we want from our prospects. The alternative, of course, is having something that's not tailored. It's not on brand. It doesn't look like you, it doesn't sound like you, it's clunky. It's legal speak. It's a 40 something page document from a lawyer that you don't really know what it means. You're not quite sure how to apply it. You're hoping there's no questions that are gonna come at you [00:09:00] because you dunno how to answer them. And the client reads through their beautiful proposal and then they land on these and they get that sinking stomach feeling and they think, Ugh.
Okay. There's no incitement. There's no enthusiasm. You haven't overcome any objections. They might just park it and sit there and who knows what can happen from there. We don't want to leave it there. The documents, if used well, can elicit that excitement and that enthusiasm and help make someone want to work with you and want to buy from you.
I absolutely wholeheartedly believe it. I've seen it. It's what I stand for. It's what I do. Let's think of another example, which is when you don't issue a proposal, but you've had conversations, your business doesn't lend itself to the proposal process, but you do have a consulting agreement or you do have a coaching agreement or a mastermind agreement.
Let's say you've gone through an application process or, or something similar and you've reached a point where somebody has said yes, and you now need to issue your legal document or your agreement. So that they can sign it and work with you, and whether [00:10:00] that's done via email through Dubsado or some other CRM, let's just say, so you've tailored the document, you've got the client details in there, you've tailored it and tweaked it to make sure it applies to the services that you'll be offering, and you send it out.
Now, let's say again, it's on brand, the colour palette, the font, the language, the way the clauses are drafted, the nature of what it is that you are saying to your clients and it looks like you and it sounds like you, and they read it, and they can't wait to sign and pay their deposit. That's very different to getting it and thinking, Ugh, what is this?
This is way too long. I'm never going to read it. I don't understand it. This, no, just, no. And I hear that. A lot, just no. And you've just lost a prospect, but you can flip it around and use it so that that agreement in fact helps you make that conversion. So this is what I say to new clients or clients who have come to me after operating for a few [00:11:00] years and they're ready to up level.
We can use your legal documents to empower you and your business moving forward and to use them in such a way that they are on brand, they are consistent with you and your language so that the customer journey is consistent at every touch point, including when they see your legal documents for the very first time.
We elicit that enthusiasm. You've demonstrated professionalism. You've told your prospect, I'm a professional. I know what I'm doing. I'm across these obligations. I take this seriously. I'm someone you wanna work with. And that's the reaction we want, and we want the next step to be, hell yes, from those prospects.
And you can achieve that if you pay your legal documents the due respect that they deserve and give them the time and attention that they need to get you the outcome that your business deserves. It doesn't have to be onerous. It doesn't have to be dull and dry and boring. That is not what the legal [00:12:00] process is about, and that's what I stand for in my business.
I invite you to go and have a look at your legal documents. Have a look and what's your reaction and what's your feeling when you read them. Are you excited? Are you clear? Do you feel empowered? If the answer's no to those things, then it might just be time to think about upleveling. Have a review, uplevel, implement the new documents so that the answer is hell yes to each of those questions.
This is something you only need to do once. This is not something that you need to continue doing and spending time on. Once you've got your documents set up and tailored to you and your business, from there, it's maintenance. It's checking in whenever something changes in your business or annually to update them and make sure that the offerings and the terms are aligned with how you are operating your business. I think [00:13:00] packages, services, pricing, cancellation policies, things like that are the most common things that I see that change over time. And that's okay because if done properly, your documents are designed to evolve with you and your business as the business evolves and grows.
So you've got a fabulous, solid foundation to work from, and you've got some incredible legal documents that you are using in your business to help convert prospects to clients because they're so tailored and they're so on brand that people can't help but want to work with you when they experience your legals.
I have loved delivering this episode for you. I love sharing my view on just how magical and empowering your legal documents can be if you give them the attention that they deserve. If you've got questions, if you'd like to get a second opinion on the impact that your documents are having, feel free to reach out.
Jump over to the website, book in a time for a free chat. We can talk about what you're thinking, where you're at, and we can put a plan together to move [00:14:00] forward. I hope you've enjoyed, thanks so much for listening. I'll catch you next time.
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