Any weak fee earner or even a rookie can recognise when a client says no and bumps off the client conveyor belt.
This of course then means that they stand a chance of learning and improving their skills….

Trouble is that prospects and clients don’t like to say NO – saying “maybe” is so much less confrontational isn’t it?
It’s so tempting for our fee earners to accept the following lines as either some form of a win or at least not our fault…
“Sounds great, send me some information through”

“Let me think about it, I will get back to you”

Amateurs and novices always kid themselves that these phrases are a win. The problem is that this means they never learn and can’t improve because they don’t believe it’s their failure.
It gets worse…

Turns out that the most difficult blockages to spot are the ones that the prospect dresses up in compliments and then implies that the door is wide open for business.
Phrases like…

“This looks really good, you’ve done a great job here, I may even do XYZ with you as well, leave it with me until…”
Of course, like me, you may have noticed over the years that the well dressed and difficult to spot “maybe blockage” pays exactly the same amount of fee income as any other type of “no thanks”.