Reception is not Sales

I started my career as the 10th employee at a company called Hootsuite. At the time Hootsuite had no revenue and only offered a free product. Eventually we launched paid plans for users to access more functionality with an Enterprise version starting at $18,000 / year.

People (leads) contacted us all the time to inquire about the Enterprise plan - if these leads were handled the same way 98% of law firms handle their leads, Hootsuite might be out of business today, or at least a fraction of its size.

Instead Hootsuite went from $0 to over $40 million in annual recurring revenue while I was there, and now earns many hundreds of millions in annual revenue.

Why is this relevant to law firms?

Because for law firms to create predictable growth, they need to treat leads the same way the world’s best inbound sales companies treat leads.

At Hootsuite we knew only 5% of leads would be a fit for the enterprise product, so our first job was to connect with and qualify these leads - in or out out - as quickly as possible to avoid wasting anyone’s time. Then out of the qualified leads, we needed to run a well defined sales process to convert at least 20% of them to paying customers.

We established a sales process that required our team to contact each new lead within five minutes. The team consistently followed up over multiple weeks or months to qualify leads, convert them into sales opportunities, and ultimately turn those opportunities into revenue.

This system drives growth for any company with inbound leads, which makes it surprising to see how many law firms fail to adopt it. Instead, most law firms rely on receptionists - or busy paralegals acting as receptionists - to manage their leads. It's important to understand that reception is not the same as sales; the role of reception is to take orders, not to generate new revenue. These two functions should not be conflated or confused.

Reception is most effective in situations where individuals have a clear idea of what they need and simply require assistance to achieve it. For instance, a barista taking your coffee order or an office receptionist handling phone messages, greeting visitors, checking them in, and directing them to the appropriate conference room for a meeting.

This is why I was so excited when I met James Thomas and learned about the work he and his team are doing in legal industry with BPM Media and Intake Kings.

James has a background in media sales and now helps law firms change intake from a culture of reception to a culture of sales.

James and his partners started Intake Kings after hearing so many law firms complaining about the quality of leads coming from their marketing efforts. After digging in, he realized that lead quality was not the problem - sales was the problem.

He discovered that outside the legal industry, all high-performing companies with inbound leads rely on dedicated inside sales teams. These teams are trained to respond promptly and diligently, reach out, follow up, and convert leads. In contrast, most law firms use receptionists, paralegals, or entry-level staff to simply take orders from leads without implementing a sales methodology that emphasizes speed, follow-ups, and the quality of conversations. As a result, in a culture focused on order-taking, it often seems like the leads aren’t good enough.

In this episode, James discusses how he helps law firms in transitioning from a traditional reception and order-taking culture to implementing an effective sales process.

James shares :

• The unique approach used by BPM Media and Intake Kings to maximize the ROI of marketing

• The common intake problems he sees at law firms on a regular basis

• Strategies and solutions to improve intake

• His thoughts on the importance of the right compensation structure for an intake team

• The barriers he sees to creating a high performing intake department

• His thoughts on the evolution and future of how law firms attract, convert, and retain clients

Listen to the full episode with James here:

Want to trade notes on ideas, strategies, and tactics for growth, book a call with me 👉🏼 here.