Serve First, Sell Later Marketing
Serve First, Sell Later Marketing
#38 Powerful Client-Centric Strategies with Jacinta Gallant
In this episode, Jacinta Gallant, a renowned collaborative lawyer, mediator, and conflict resolution trainer shares her journey from traditional courtroom advocacy to a more fulfilling career focused on out-of-court resolutions, emphasizing the importance of understanding clients' needs. You will learn actionable strategies to enhance your client interactions and grow your practice, such as the power of asking the right questions and creating an environment that encourages clients to open up and learn something new. You don’t want to miss this episode as Jacinta shares many marketing and business-build strategies that will get you thinking differently about your professional practice!
Resources mentioned:
Jacinta Gallant's Website
Our Family in Two Homes
Designing Our Future Together
Chapter Summaries:
(00:00) Innovative Marketing Strategies for Legal Professionals
(14:58) Enhancing Client Communication and Preparation
(20:24) Client Preparation and Marketing Success
(35:24) Building Referral Sources
(46:06) Expanding Professional Services Across Industries
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00:00 - Sylvia (Host)
I'm Sylvie Garibaldi, founder and CEO of a well-established marketing, training and done for you services company, tailored specifically for the modern legal and financial professional worldwide. While it's taken some trial and error to figure out which methods get the best results for professionals who are looking to grow their practices, fast forward to today, my team and I have nailed down and perfected a process that has helped so many of our clients consistently achieve outstanding results and create a legacy for their practices. I created the Serve First, sell Later marketing podcast to give you simple, actionable, non-salesy and results-driven marketing to grow your legal or financial practice, like so many of our clients have. If you're a lawyer, mediator, financial or divorce professional who is looking to become highly visible and wants to create a practice that makes an impact, then you're in the right place. Let's dive in.
01:58
Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 38 of the Serve First, sell Later marketing podcast, and in this episode I'm super excited to speak with Jacinta Gallant, who is a collaborative lawyer, mediator and conflict resolution trainer. She's actually recognized around the world for her insightful approach to training and her law practice. Waterstone Law Group focuses exclusively on out-of-court resolution. Jacinta has created some really innovative tools that help divorce professionals engage more meaningfully and efficiently with clients. Her client preparation tools, which is called Our Family in Two Homes, are being used in nine countries around the world, helping more families get ready for a healthy transition to two homes. I know you'll love my conversation with Jacinta as she gets real about the industry and what's working really well from a marketing perspective.
02:54
Welcome, jacinta, so excited to have you on the show today. I know as a really highly respected Canadian collaborative lawyer, educator, mediator and also internationally recognized trainer. You are super passionate about helping clients prepare for meaningful dialogues in a way that minimizes conflict, and you're also very good at it. So thank you so much for doing what you do, and I also know that you have had tremendous success in growing your own practice as well as being the founder and creator of Our Family in Two Homes, which has really changed the way divorce professionals engage with their own clients. So I'm super excited to have you here and I'd love for you to share with our audience just a little bit about your background and how you first got started in the industry.
03:48 - Jacinta (Guest)
Yeah, well, thanks for asking. It's really nice to think back on my, I guess, 30-year career as a lawyer, and I started out, like most lawyers, thinking that the courtroom was for me. I have a bit of a performing arts background, so the whole idea of going into that theater and, you know, debating and arguing and all of that seemed really attractive, you know, until it wore off right, until I decided that I really liked family law, I liked working with people there's a bit of math, there's a bit of social work, there's some psychology, there's the law, but mostly like there's people. And after a a while, it became pretty clear that court was not the place to actually help families, and so my dissatisfaction with a system that was doing its very best to help separating couples, you know, not destroy their lives was actually set up, though, in many ways to be destructive. And so I trained to be a mediator. Oh, I was probably five years into my law practice. So once I trained to be a mediator, I'm like oh, I'm doing this.
04:55
So the mediation training really brought it all together for me. I thought this is a way to integrate my personal values with my work. That was around the same time as collaborative practice was taking off in Canada, and so I was one of the early adapters and became engaged, both as a collaborative lawyer and as a mediator who saw these wonderfully healthy ways to help parents, in particular, separate Well. So one of the challenges if you're a good family lawyer, you don't really have a problem getting clients. There's usually a high demand. Sadly, for the lawyer side of family law and for I'm going to say, 20 years, I never even thought of using marketing to shift my practice away from the parts that I didn't like into the parts that I did like. But at one point I was really becoming dissatisfied with even the way we were handling collaborative cases, separating couples into a room to mediate or collaborate. We have got to be able to manage the emotions, the dynamics, the fears, the worries, the threats and the defensiveness, and often the very fact of being a lawyer in that context leads people to feel that I'm somehow threatening, interesting. Yeah, it became really clear to me that I loved being in neutral. I loved being the one in the room that would facilitate the dialogue, would help that even in a collaborative case, help the collaborative lawyers work with their clients to open up to possibilities for what the future might hold, and that over time, I decided I didn't really love being an advocate anymore.
06:48
So, outside of the collaborative process, I was developing a very active mediation practice and feeling very satisfied with it. But I knew there was a missing piece, and so, over time, I had become an educator, a trainer in mediation and interest-based negotiation, in working with collaborative professionals lawyers and mediators to develop the skills that we need in order to deliver a process that will work for families. But I was thinking it's still not enough, we're still missing something, and so, in 2017, I made it my mission to figure out what is the thing that I think is missing in my experience of so many families in mediation, collaboration and litigation, and that's what I found Insight Mediation and began to be mentored by the founder of Insight Mediation, cheryl Picard. Now that's profoundly changed the way I see conflict, the way I engage with it, both personally and professionally, and led me onto this whole other creative, entrepreneurial pursuit. So that's sort of that's 30 years in a nutshell, but it's been the last seven that have been profoundly satisfying and challenging.
08:08 - Sylvia (Host)
So our listeners are. You know we love bringing successful professionals on the show so that our guests can share with our listeners. What is it that's worked for you to grow a practice to find new clients, because that really is a main concern for a lot of you know professional mediators, collaborative law professionals, divorce financial analysts, you name it. They're all looking for the same thing and that's like how do you build this successful, sustainable practice? I'd love if you could share with us what are some of your top practices that you've used to actually find new clients and grow your business.
08:47 - Jacinta (Guest)
It might be most interesting to your listeners to consider both the why and the what. So, honestly, in 2016, I was burned out. Even my collaborative cases weren't all satisfying. I mean, I was really struggling to say what are we promising our clients and then, what are we delivering?
09:19
Yes, they decide process and if I'm being honest and I was lucky as a trainer around the world to also hear from colleagues who were also if they were being honest, it was really hard work and we didn't always get past our default the lawyer role, the coach role, the financial role we often weren't delivering the kind of dialogue, the kind of process that facilitates the client's decision making, that facilitates their discovery of what the future could hold. That it kind of still left us in an advisory capacity when conflict arose. It was sort of like some problem that needed to be solved, some problem that needed to be solved, and so I thought after one particular case I'm not doing that again. You can't make me and I don't think I speak alone when I say that every once in a while, you realize that some people are not equipped to make that paradigm shift and mindset shift to truly collaborate, and when that happens, we can do harm to families.
10:32
I'm sorry to say that that no process a process that's intended to help families have a healthy approach to their decision making. That ends up leading one or both spouses to feel that you know, someone on the team was cross-examining them or was challenging them or judging them means that we're not working with human beings who are holistically capable of making good decisions for themselves. So then we slap ourselves back into protective mode telling, advising, educating, guiding and my 2016 case I mean I tell this story a lot led me to say, okay, it can't all be his fault or her fault, right? It's easy to blame the other profession. What part did you play, jacinta, in either perpetuating the dysfunctional dialogue or in at least not making it better? I had to look hard at how my own behavior, in reaction, in defensiveness to the I'll just say it, it was the other lawyer on the file and my client constantly felt threatened and berated and judged and challenged. So, in reaction, I was then defending right. I was then becoming protective and we had a really great professional team and it was hard for the coach and the financial neutral to make a big difference. Coming out of that case led me to go okay, there's got to be a way to explain this and improve the circumstances, both from a professional standpoint how can we do things differently but also from a client standpoint how can they participate more effectively?
12:18
So I took Tuesdays off and I studied insight. Took Tuesdays off and I studied insight. Cheryl Picard retired from Carleton University in Ottawa and she moved back to Prince Edward Island, where she is from, and she agreed to mentor me. And then I took Fridays off because I'm like there's got to be a better way for my practice to feel satisfying, to be consistent with the values that I want to bring. So, fyi, listeners, I know everyone can't do that Like in the middle of a busy practice, go. Tuesdays are studying, fridays are creative. So I do appreciate that I had a husband who could support me in that year. Basically to not make much profit, right, when you're practicing, you work five days a week and your revenue is based on maybe two and a half or three of those.
13:08
So I took two days out of my practice because I just wasn't gonna do that anymore. I was not gonna promise something and under deliver. So Fridays became this curiosity. I'm like I wonder what clients real experience has been. So I asked my clients what was it like to work with me? And I learned a lot. So I asked the clients that I liked the most, the ones that I don't mean it was an easy case or they were easy clients, but I asked clients that I really felt we had a connection, we had an ability to work together. They, even in really difficult times, were able to be responsive to the things that I was trying to do to help. So I really did think why don't I ask the clients who are my favorite clients what was it really like to work with me? Mediation, litigation because I was still doing a bit of litigation then and collaboration. So I learned a lot. Do you want me to say what I learned?
14:12 - Sylvia (Host)
I actually am just curious what the questions were and what came out of that.
14:17 - Jacinta (Guest)
It was pretty open. It started with like an email to some of my favorites hey, would you? I really really want to make sure that my practice is delivering what I promise and I want to know what did you experience when you worked with me? And then some of them said let's get on the phone. Some of them were happy to answer by email. So the questions were like what was it like when you first arrived at my office? What did you imagine we were going to talk about in that first meeting and, overall, what could I have done differently that would have really met your needs. Now that you have the hindsight to look back and go, that's maybe what I needed.
14:58
So I learned that clients generally liked me, which which isn't a because, honestly, most people do like me, and if they don't, that's okay. I don't like everybody either, but they appreciated that I asked really good questions that made them really ponder. But they said this is sort of generalizing. I had better answers after I left your office. It turns out that the drive home or the next morning in the shower, your question would pop into my head and I'd have a more discerning or more comprehensive response. So that told me that pressure in the moment to respond to my great questions wasn't necessarily the best thing for clients. They said they were sometimes watching the clock when we were having conversations that went beyond facts and figures and the law. They appreciated an approach that was like about them and their whole life and their and their whole say, whole family, but that sometimes they're watching the clock Like how much is this costing me to have this great conversation with this person that I, that I like?
16:07
And then I heard that some clients felt kind of pushed or nudged to be like at their higher selves, that they kind of felt judged if they weren't really feeling emotionally ready to do the, the so-called I'm holding my fingers up right thing, and that their positive emotions tended to get a better reception than their negative emotions and they would share that. That happened on collaborative teams as well, that that when they were like feeling it and they were like moving forward in this positive way, they felt supported and when they were like angry, frustrated, discouraged, sadness was mostly supported but they kind of felt judged and they felt that they weren't really supposed to be behaving that way. I mean, I had one client that said I didn't know that I could be me until I'd had a couple of meetings with you and realized that you really want to know me, not the me that I think you should see so that you'll be a better advocate. And for people who have an educational role, this is important to hear clients who were even really highly capable Clients, who were used to running a show, told me that they found it hard to understand and absorb the information I was giving them.
17:30
When they were stressed, they were like. I remember this one, like one of my really still favorite clients because I see her now and then because it was a hard litigation case. So there's still things that have to be done. Once in a while she said, jacinta, I could have been way better prepared for my meetings with you. And there were times and she would say, there were times where you were explaining stuff and it was clear to me that you knew what you were talking about and I could not understand any of it.
17:56
All I could see was the headlights.
18:00 - Sylvia (Host)
Right right, I think we forget what happens to the brain when we are stressed. You know it's hard to understand concepts, so I love how this kind of enlightened you to. Okay, I've got to really break this down. The brain is stressed right now with my clients, so how do I break this down into simple terms, in bite sizes, so that they get it? So, based on this conversation and what you've had with the feedback from these clients, what are the key things that stood out for you that needed to change to help you find more of these ideal clients, like from a marketing or business development perspective?
18:40 - Jacinta (Guest)
Okay, Well, interestingly, the business development perspective included the creation of client preparation tool. So I took to heart that feedback from this favorite client. I could have been way better prepared. Right, we had that kind of relationship, so she could be, she could be sharp with me. You know, I could have been way better prepared, and when I wasn't absorbing what you were saying, I felt dumb, so I didn't ask you to explain it again. Whoa, that hurt so, honestly.
19:09
I started studying insight, which is a whole approach to communication and conflict. That was Tuesday, Friday. I'm like gathering this data from these wonderful people who went through a challenging time and we went through it together, and I'm like I'm going to create a client preparation tool. So I did that for my own practice, for my own clients, Like that was my goal. And because I'm also a trainer, I was thinking to myself well, the divorce professionals we train in how to facilitate a process that will help people get to agreement, but no one's training the clients Right. So I'm like what? So I brought my what I know as an educator and trainer and what I was learning about insight, which is all about the power of discovery. You talked about the brain. How can we ask questions or create an environment that will enhance a client's ability to open up and learn something new. Right To get beyond threat and defensiveness into opening up, so that they can either learn something for themselves or they can absorb the information that we need to convey. Well, I'm like I'm not making it up. It all came together. I studied insight, I created the first workbook and I called it Our Family in Two Homes for my own practice, and it was based on providing exercises that would help clients reflect on who they are, how they show up, what they're worried about, where they're at with trust, what are their values, how do they make decisions? Simple things like introvert, extrovert ways of of expressing in in the moment, conflict style, and so all of those things that I know are really vital for me to know as a conflict resolution professional. I'm like what if I created exercises that would help the clients come to understand themselves?
21:06
Then the second part of the workbook, to use parenting as an example. There's so much information out there about what to put in a parenting plan, but there tend to be formulaic right? There's a lot of what about this, what about that, what about this in terms of what are the terms that should go into your parenting plan. So I thought, well, that's already been done, done. And I find a lot of clients tell me they feel like they're being told all the time that we have to do it this way, are we? So I'm like what if I just did a whole section on parenting that just asks a bunch of questions?
21:42
So there's a section asking questions like hey, if your co-parent wants to change the schedule on occasion, do you want to know the reason which gets at a whole bunch of things like? Some people are like hell, no, that's not even a thing. Other people are like wow, that's a good question, Makes me think about privacy. So any question that's engaging, that leads clients to ponder, helps them open up to learning and looking at possibilities. So the parenting section does that. Then there's a section on child support, which, for those of us that are lawyers and financial professionals or people who are doing work sort of financial therapy, there is some information in there because clients need it. So it's all set out, but it's set out in an elicited way. So when when I started out, it was the law for Prince Abraham, but now we've customized the workbook for like nine different countries. So fabulous. Some information so that the clients remember the client that said I wasn't absorbing.
22:45 - Sylvia (Host)
I wasn't absorbing.
22:46 - Jacinta (Guest)
I'm like hey, it's on page 34 to 35, review it over the weekend and, if you still have questions, call me on Monday so that they're leaving my office with something that provides both the invitation to reflect and discover which is powerful and some information that they need Minnesota and they land on some website in British Columbia or right in Australia and suddenly they end up on this website that's Canadian, so it's really intended to be very specific to the person that's doing the work.
23:19
And then the rest of it is a mix of information and asking, so it's quite quite powerful.
23:24 - Sylvia (Host)
I love that. Yeah, so you created this, this client preparation tool, which is called Our Family in Two Homes, and so a fabulous concept and idea to not only prepare clients your own clients but to then I know that you kind of forayed into training professionals in this methodology as well. So when we look at how we attract clients to our practice and so for you it would be in two places One is your own private practice and then the other is your training of professionals what have you used from a marketing perspective that's really helped you communicate and start attracting those ideal clients to those two businesses that you have?
24:08 - Jacinta (Guest)
Yeah, oh, I love this because I didn't even think of marketing before 2017. Right, I mean, that's the challenge. If you're a busy divorce professional already, you're so damn busy you don't get the chance to pull back and go. But I don't want to do that anymore, or that's, that's draining my, that's killing the buzz, Like I'm not happy doing this.
24:30
So, because of that 2017 retreat time, I worked with a marketing firm to help develop the graphics for Our Family in Two Homes. It was a really beautiful looking book that would be a place for clients to write and reflect and doodle and spill coffee on and like spend some time with over a period of time. And so I took the direction from my marketing team to say, well, you need to get the message to the clients. Of course, you know this, but not all of us in the expert knowledge field, like law especially know how to speak to the potential customer, especially know how to speak to the potential customer. So many of us are telling what we can do for them. Like, honestly, the traditional lawyering marketing is I'm sorry, it's kind of ridiculous. It's all about the lawyer and I don't know about you, but I've never been compelled to retain someone's services who talks only about themselves.
25:27 - Sylvia (Host)
Absolutely yeah, no one cares.
25:29 - Jacinta (Guest)
No one wants to hear about you.
25:31 - Sylvia (Host)
What can you do for them?
25:33 - Jacinta (Guest)
Exactly so. This great marketing team had me record. I think we recorded 12 different videos that were short segments, helpful tips, like free tips to the public how to tell your kids you know what to do when your parenting styles are driving each other crazy. How to talk about trust. How to build values into your decision making. So these short like 45 second to 1 and 15 second videos they all were launched in January 2018. So we were building this in 2017.
26:06
2018, I'm only doing this for my practice in Charlottetown, prince Edward Island, where I'm already a known entity with a big practice, but I don't want to do the stuff I don't want to do anymore. What a difference. Suddenly we're on Facebook and Instagram and, I think, linkedin. Not so much for that, for law practice, because it's more business to business, but the minute we started launching these videos. And then the graphics that talk about our family in two homes speaking directly to potential customers who are going to be my clients, about healthy ways to separate tips.
26:45
Tips on how to have a conversation with the parent who's driving you crazy. Tips on how to have a conversation with the parent who's driving you crazy, right, or how to imagine going through this time and coming out the other end stronger and happier. Well, as it showed up on social media, a bunch of our as you know, you know, our collaborative global community, a bunch of my colleagues and friends around the world were saying what are you doing? That looks so cool. I'm like it's really cool and suddenly we're telling clients who want just a fighter or a warrior we don't do that anymore. They don't leave. They say well, what are?
27:22
you doing Well, and then we can refer them to our website that describes here's what we're doing. Here's how we will help you. Here's how we want to know more about you so that we can help you. Here's how we can leave you in the driver's seat of your future.
27:36
Anyway, by the end of 2018, it was clear that collaborative professionals and mediators around the world wanted to do our family in two homes. So that led to this whole other business. So I want to say people here are looking to get more work doing the work they really want to do. That really helps Well, not just families, but that helps with conflict. So what I want to really convey to our listeners because this is right up your field is the power of the message. Clients get it.
28:11
I stopped saying anything about me or my amazing talents and spoke directly to what are you going through now? And even like the messaging is more like elicitive, like asking is this happening for you? And then here's how we can help. So always followed by something that says and we want you to be the designer of your own future. So we're like asking something. There must be something to this asking and then offering some way that we might help, while also reassuring that our way of helping is by knowing you the best, so that we can make sure that whatever we're doing is for you.
28:53 - Sylvia (Host)
Anyway, so marketing worked.
28:54 - Jacinta (Guest)
I didn't have any idea, never bothered with marketing before that.
28:58 - Sylvia (Host)
Yeah, I love that, and so let's break that down a little bit, because I think it's so, so valuable.
29:04
So you worked on educating your market, which means you used videos, you got out there, you leveraged social media, and then you also paid attention to the language and the messaging, and so anytime we talk to prospective clients in a way that resonates with them meaning using their language, distilling it into really simple, plain terms and then speaking to that to which they raise so when a prospective client comes to see you, they talk about certain elements that are important to them, and it's that language that has to be reflected in our marketing so that the audience gets it. And that's exactly what you did, and I and I think it's absolutely brilliant because you know it's created this need for your training service on our family in two homes and and it you know, I think you did that brilliantly just by by having the discussions with clients and understanding what their pain points were and then developing something to support them. So I love that and it worked. It worked, which is fantastic.
30:17 - Jacinta (Guest)
That I would say to colleagues and friends who said how did you do it?
30:21
Honestly, it was to find marketing people who understand us, and it isn't easy because especially okay, I'm speaking as a lawyer, someone who's a lawyer and a mediator means that there's a certain perception in the public about what a lawyer is, how we will show up, and so too often I find that some marketing teams they're still using scales of justice, I mean my God like, or a gavel or a frigging courtroom picture, as if that's where we all spend our time.
30:53
Even litigation lawyers spend far less time in court than they do in their offices managing you know other stuff. And so I think key for me was asking those clients what it was like to work with me. So hearing what they loved about it, hearing what they found challenging, allowed me then to not only create the first workbook that really met those challenges and needs, but on the messaging kind of like we don't want to be told, or in response to so many clients who say to me we don't want to get lawyers involved, right, and I say, fyi, I'm a lawyer, but they're like, yeah, but you're different. So it's about asking what do you word will happen if you get lawyers involved. Like, don't assume, oh, you don't want to get lawyers involved, because who would Like, who would ever want that? Because I think we make assumptions about what it is that people are looking for when they're looking for a lawyer.
31:51
So when people share, with me something they're worried about. I want to ask more questions about it, like, don't let me filter your statement through my lens. I want to know what are you worried will happen? And yes, there's a five or six common answers to that question, but they are different.
32:09
People are afraid of different things when they're going through separation and divorce, and so part of what I developed as a creator of the product was to ask more questions about hopes and fears and threats. Right, but that's insight. That's learning how to work as an insight practitioner is that you're understanding that the barriers to being productive, to being able to have dialogue, are the threats that lead me to being productive, to being able to have dialogue, are the threats that lead me to be defensive. So everything that I've been building is to help clients be more comfortable being themselves, so that we can learn more about what they need and what they hope for and what they're worried about, and then work with that person, who's not the same person that we met last week. Right, it's so much more interesting to meet clients now because I'm not assuming that they're the same as the ones I saw last year or 10 years ago or last week.
33:04 - Sylvia (Host)
Right, oh, I love that. I love how you are so dedicated to finding out more about your ideal client, which is unusual because a lot of professionals are just like, what do I need to do, how do I do this? But don't really take the time to understand who are their best clients. What do they look like, what do they need, what do they talk about, what do they worry about, and then tailor their marketing for that persona right, and so that's exactly what you've done here, is you keep listening, you keep adjusting your marketing to reflect who is this ideal client that I'm working with this year? What are they going to look like next year? Right, and just by continuing to do that research I think is so important. Another key area I think that can really lead to a lot of success in any practice is the power of referral partnerships. That's really the lifeblood of this industry. Do you have any advice for people listening, like if they're really keen on building referral partnerships, anything that's worked for you that you would recommend?
34:07 - Jacinta (Guest)
All right. Well, I feel like I can safely say I just want to be frank. You're not going to get referrals from lawyers who are not interested in family dispute resolution, like they just don't refer. I'm going to be honest. I would say that's pretty much around the world and I'm sorry to say, but traditional law practice and business model is you get a client, you keep it. So there will be cases where collaborative lawyers are going to obviously build a team and that I'm not counting them. But generally speaking, my referrals come from therapists, teachers, doctors oh my gosh, like hardly ever from another lawyer and I feel like and I know they respect me like they're these are good people who want to do good work, but there's something in our business model as lawyers that we don't share. So so I would say don't waste your time trying to get lawyers to refer mediation to you especially.
35:14
That may sound controversial, but I think that's the case. If you can find the referral sources so that the clients find you first, how do you do that? What would you do to do that? Okay, well, I meet with them, I take them to lunch.
35:33
There's that collaborative communities are going to be full of. If it's an interdisciplinary practice group, you'll be. It'll be full of therapists like coaches, mediators, lawyers, financial people, and so I do find that within that club, we can count on mutual referrals because we're all we've got, we've got each other. And so, even if you're not a trained collaborative professional yet, I would say join a collaborative practice group, if there's one in your community, and get to know people. I'd love to hear what you think. I think there's a difference between public education and marketing. And so there's this piece around. Like I can remember years when I used to go and I'd speak to the Rotary Club, right, like I'd speak to a group my gosh, I've done this many times about different ways that families can resolve conflict and I would just be their guest speaker. That leads to referrals.
36:28 - Sylvia (Host)
I love that you say that, because that's always a question I ask is like speaking on stages. Does that work for you? Is that? Is that a great way to find new business? And you know, this concept has not changed for years, and I mean to this day. Our clients are continually finding new clients through speaking engagements. I've built my practice my own just through speaking engagements period, especially in the initial stages.
36:55
It is such a powerful tool. So I'm glad that you mentioned it, because you know some people are hesitant to get on that stage and speak. But it can happen, just like we're doing right now, like virtually on, you know, online. It can happen in person, but taking those opportunities to spread the message about how you can help and what and what people are struggling with, or businesses, and what are the solutions. I think there is a huge audience that needs to learn and wants to learn and if they're there listening, they're there for a reason. It's not because somebody you know handcuffed them there and said you have to be here. They're there because they want to learn and that becomes a great way to find ideal prospects. So I love that you mentioned that. So your speaking engagements is another way to find good referrals.
37:45 - Jacinta (Guest)
I want to be really careful, too, though. Some people are not comfortable on a stage, so it would not be an effective way to promote yourself right Like not comfortable on a stage, so it would not be an effective way to promote yourself Right Like. So find your. If you're a good writer or if you're a quiet person who's got really great ways of articulating something and you need to rehearse, then find particularly with all the online options now find a way to do it where people will see you. I'll tell you, when we were first launching the new firm the new out of court firm really basically that was the big transition was to being an out of court lawyer.
38:20
So in 2018, I had stopped litigating completely, except for the ones that I had left over. So we were messaging don't go to Jacinta anymore to be your warrior. She's not doing that anymore. So all of our messaging went to that, and until I'll say, once we put some videos up of me talking, then we got clicks, we got inquiries before we had the video up there. They're like oh, what's that? What could that possibly be?
38:46
So if you're comfortable visually with being out there visually, I do think that putting something of you on your website can really help Because people are nervous, we forget they're so nervous coming to see a lawyer, they're in the car they're like and we forget because it's our day job and even if we've built comfortable looking offices, it's still fairly intimidating to most people. So if they can get a glimpse of you or your space or your staff beforehand, I think that that also goes to fill that need. I'm not sure how that works for people in the other professions, but certainly for lawyers. There's so much of a stereotype about us that we love when people come here and say this is a law office.
39:30 - Sylvia (Host)
Right.
39:30 - Jacinta (Guest)
Right yeah.
39:33 - Sylvia (Host)
Yeah, no, that's. I love that because videos are a great way for ideal prospects to get to know, like and trust you, and so you know, if you're afraid of speaking on a stage or afraid of doing a live online webinar or whatnot, you can always record yourself right and then record again if you don't like it and just get it out there. So that is a really valuable tool for many professionals to use. Video is obviously very, very powerful.
39:59 - Jacinta (Guest)
And talk about what the client needs, Don't talk about yourself. Obviously we have to go back to that.
40:05 - Sylvia (Host)
Absolutely. Yeah, that's an excellent point. So what do you have up and coming in terms of programs out there that you think our audience would be interested in? So we'll definitely put a link to our our family in two homes, because I know that that's going to be of interest to many people. Anything else in up and coming that you'd like to share?
40:26 - Jacinta (Guest)
A few. So, on the training beat one of the things that I guess I was kind of lucky as an early adapter who's also got a bit of a performer in her right, so I became a trainer within our community earlier in my career and so that reputation has really helped me get more training gigs. So so that seems to be very word of mouth, like the idea of people wanting to learn from you or with you. I like to say learn with me is a tricky one if you're looking to develop your role as a trainer until you've kind of proven that you can be engaging. Interesting. And when someone said I can learn from you, I'm like, okay with me. So there's that piece. So I've got a bunch of training that I offer around taking our skill and theoretical approach to managing communication dynamics in businesses and workplaces, in organizations and in divorcing couples and even with couples who are planning their future together, and that's around how to manage conflict, how to manage those moments where I mean so many of us are uncomfortable when you get this thing coming at you that makes you defensive, and so insight helps us unpack what's going on in that moment where everybody's losing their heads. And if you're the professional responsible to like manage it. How often we can get defensive and lose our balance. So insights about harnessing the power of curiosity, of asking, of engaging in a really responsive way with people who are struggling right to either absorb or express themselves, without having to go to grad school and become clearly a communication expert or a therapist, insight is so effective because it teaches me to notice certain behaviors and to respond in a way that is different from the way we were all trained. So the Curious Mediator is my sort of my comprehensive program. We have a new cohort starting in September September 18th in the Americas, september 19th down under. So Australia and New Zealand will be in the mornings on Thursday starting September 19th. In the Americas it's going to be late afternoon or early evening on Wednesdays, but we've had people from around the world Malaysia and Hong Kong show up at five in the morning for them because they want to learn a methodology and an approach that just makes sense for the human dynamics that we see all the time. So that's called the Curious Mediator.
43:13
And then in the spring I'm pulling together insight mediation with conscious contract. So a lot of lawyers and now increasingly people in other professions are looking at the conscious contracts movement as a way to really ensure that all this great work we do to facilitate dialogue and help people reach agreement gets turned into something in writing that reflects these people, not just this boilerplate jargon that is based on what the lawyer thinks should be there, and so that is going to start in April. But in the meantime, the thing that I'm perhaps most excited about is the global community that we've built around our family in two homes, because most people who study insight realize quickly how our workbooks help them use insight. Because it helps the client. It primes the client for conversations on their own time, on their own dime.
44:16
Client for conversations on their own time, on their own dime, and I could tell you 15 different examples of my first meeting with clients. Now that is so much more meaningful and effective and engaging because they've done the first 13 pages of the Our Family in Two Homes workbook, which is all about self-reflection, and so we've created an entire training program on how to use the resources. Because we have three workbooks our family in two homes if you're still raising kids. Our family in a few homes if your kids are adults and designing our future together if you're being consulted for financial planning, prenups, relationship agreements, even couples therapy. Some people are using that workbook.
44:53 - Sylvia (Host)
Fabulous, fabulous.
44:55 - Jacinta (Guest)
What I love about it is that it became clear from our growing members around that we call our two homeless people members because they really join a community of innovators. What we learned in our early years was that people needed training and how to do it. It was a blind spot for me. I'm like, oh well, just give it to the clients and they're like, yeah, but, and then what? So we created an entire training program that's basically, once you sign on, you get it forever and we meet every couple of months to learn how to integrate the workbooks into your practice, how to make money using them, because I feel most successful as an entrepreneur when I've created a product that I can sell to colleagues who can then make money using them, build up their practice and their messaging.
45:41
So the intohomescom you'll see the empower pack, which is the real. It's really our training and engaged community. But you know you'll be interested to know that over time we developed an entire marketing pack to go with our family in two homes so you can buy our boost your business pack and use it on your website in your social media, and we offer new things every couple of months because we've really learned about messaging. Yeah, and then the amazing to say that we're I'm now teaching insights, skills and training and approach to people in the estates world, in businesses, with therapists, because of course it just makes sense it does.
46:24 - Sylvia (Host)
I love that. I just love that you have taken this and you've adapted it to other industries that you know need it, and that it works. We're going to put all the links in the show notes to this so that people can access it and learn more. But, jacinda, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your knowledge with our listeners, and I know that they're going to find this episode so valuable and inspirational.
46:50 - Jacinta (Guest)
You know, I want to thank you for specializing in this field, because we need more people who believe that professionals can make a difference in people's lives in a really positive way, and so thank you for for focusing there.
47:05 - Sylvia (Host)
It's really important. Thank you, Jacinda.