During the deep dark days of the Great Recession of 2008 – 2009, just a decade ago, two real estate agents thrived. Their competitors were going out of business, yet they had all the work they could handle. Joseph and JoAnn Callaway share their strategies in The Two Word Miracle: Clients First, a book I just finished reading.
Clients First: The 3 Keys
The clients first philosophy is directly applicable to what we do as legal nurse consultants. Here are the 3 secrets of a successful business.
Honesty
How do you do your best for your clients? You are honest. Consider how your honesty affects just one aspect of helping attorneys with law suits.
There is a tremendous amount at stake in legal cases and it is not just about the money. We think of money first when we consider the costs of filing litigation and pursuing a claim, loss of income due to injuries, and settlement or jury awards.
Litigation is also about emotions: anxiety, nightmares, anger and conflicts. The attorneys feel emotions; the plaintiffs and defendants feel them too.
Litigation is about the time spent to investigate a claim, take depositions, create reports, file briefs, and meet with clients.
Your honesty about a non-meritorious claim can impact money, emotion and time.
In my experience, attorneys are so grateful when they can get a sound medical perspective about a claim right at the beginning.
When you have these candid conversations, you are putting clients first.
Competence
Education as a legal nurse consultant is not enough to be effective. You gain competence through experience. “But how can I get experience if no one will hire me?” I hear this from new LNCs all the time.
- You can create sample reports under the guidance of an experienced LNC, as I teach in my Report Writing Mastery course.
- You can subcontract on cases for an LNC.
- And some attorneys enjoy taking a new LNC under their wings to mentor them.
One of my clients taught me a lot about personal injury cases, which I applied in the dozens of cases I worked on for him.
You become competent as a legal nurse consultant by reading, studying, going to conferences, asking questions, being inherently inquisitive, talking to people, soaking up everything you can learn.
If you enjoy learning, legal nurse consulting is a wonderful field. If you don’t, you will be better off doing something else.
Caring
The third key to clients first is caring. You may think this would be an easy key for us as nurses. And it is, the vast majority of the time.
Caring is being involved with a case – understanding its facts and what the attorney wants and needs. It means speaking up when the attorney is about to make a decision that could be harmful. It means knowing the attorney as a person. That bond helps when you need additional time to complete your work product, or to get a bill paid, or to get a phone call returned.
When you care about your clients, they care about you. They are genuinely interested in you and your life. When my husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer, my clients asked me about how he was doing and celebrated with me when his PSA was zero after treatment.
Combining the 3 Keys to Clients First
When you are competent as an LNC, and you care about your clients, it is second nature to be honest. You don’t even have to think about whether it is the right thing to do to share your doubts about a case. You know that you need to keep detailed billing records so that if the attorney is balking at paying a large invoice, you can substantiate the work.
The combination of the three keys creates a powerful synergy that makes everything easy. You enjoy working with attorneys and they reward you with more cases and more work. You can build a business to the size you want and you can choose who you want to work with.
Putting clients first is a powerful concept.
- Would you like to know a surefire way to building even deeper relationships with attorneys so that they would not consider working with another LNC?
- Would you like to be able to pinpoint exactly how to win over and retain the clients YOU want?
- Would you like to craft an effective client reward system that will increase your income?
I’ve distilled the essential information into videos, audios, articles, and worksheets.
My Client Relationships Online course gives you the answers. Learn at your own pace, when and where you want with a computer or our mobile app.
You choose your preferred way to learn. Get immediate access today.
Pat Iyer MSN RN LNCC is an experienced LNC who built a multimillion dollar independent legal nurse consulting business. She is a past president of AALNC.