Leadership In Law Podcast

S03E103 Succeed Without Selling with Diane Helbig

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 3 • Episode 103

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What if selling less could help your firm grow more? We sit down with business advisor and author Diane Helbig to rethink how lawyers win clients without scripts, pressure, or jargon. Instead of forcing a pitch, we break down a discovery-first approach that uncovers why timing matters, what impact the client expects, and whether a budget exists, before a proposal is ever written.

Diane shares the exact questions that turn awkward sales calls into useful conversations: do you have a budget for this, why now, what’s the impact if you move forward, and what happens if you don’t. We talk through when to disqualify, how to spot red flags early, and why a single clear offer beats a maze of options. You’ll hear why confused prospects say no, how to price to outcomes, and when a referral out is the smartest move for your reputation and pipeline.

Inside the firm, leadership makes or breaks client experience. We draw a clean line between leading people and managing systems, then show how to co-create goals, build feedback loops, and create psychological safety so your team speaks up with better ways to serve clients. Trustability becomes your competitive edge: do what you say, own mistakes, communicate early and often. Replace the stale elevator pitch with a plain, 30-second introduction that states your value and who it helps in real words your clients understand.

If you want fewer stalled proposals, better-fit matters, and clients who stay and refer, this conversation gives you a simple, repeatable path. 

Reach Diane here:
Succeed Without Selling Book: https://amzn.to/464sj7s
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhelbig
https://www.facebook.com/seizethisgrowth
https://www.instagram.com/seizethisgrowth

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SPEAKER_00:

Whether you're a states and leaders are just starting your journey as a law firm owner. The Leadership in Law Podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. I'm your host, Marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, Diane Hellbig, to the show today. Diane is the business advisor and trainer, award-winning author and speaker, and a podcast host. As the president of Hellbig Enterprises, Diane helps businesses and organizations operate more constructively and profitably. Diane is the author of Succeed Without Selling, Liminate Stand Selling, and Expert Insights, and is the host of Accelerate Your Business Growth Podcast. She's also a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners, NEO Board of Directors. I'm excited to have you here, Diane. Welcome. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Awesome. So fantastic. I love the your thoughts, processes, and what you're writing. Tell us a bit about your leadership journey. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02:

So I've always worked in small business my entire life from, I don't know, 14 on. And I've been in leadership, moved into sales reluctantly, but did it because I had no choice. I figured out how to do it in a good way. And then in late 2005, life-changing moment, my father passed away, and it was just a turning point for me. And I thought, you know what? I watch small business owners struggle with selling, leading, all sorts of things. And I think from my experience, I can help them. So I launched my advising practice and from there have grown it, doing training, writing the books, doing the podcast, whatnot. And really with a goal of helping people do things that actually get them to goal as opposed to because this is what you're we're told to do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. And again, you were speak of the year one year, corporate speaker of the year. So we you know what you're talking about. There you go. Love it. What I love is I love about your book, the the succeed without selling. Because I find that I'm in a couple of masterminds and some new people that come in, they're really stuck on getting their deck right. And it's, I think that's the different direction. So your tagline is the more you think about selling, the set less you'll sell. Let's dig into that.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. So you are so right that people are so focused on making sure they have their scripting and their pitch, right? And all of these things. And that's a focus on themselves. I need to make the sale, I have rent to pay, I've got employees to pay, I've got whatever, fill in the blank. And so their lens is totally on themselves. But it's not on the person they're talking to. And they're not thinking about what does this person need, what does this person want, or company fill in slash. And because of that, they're not connecting and they're not selling, right? Because the other person sees it and they know and they don't yeah, exactly. They're not being heard, they're not, you're not helping them solve a problem, you're helping yourself solve a problem for you.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think too, you're not finding out where the where the problem lies. Or if there's a problem. And there's that. Absolutely. I find it having a framework of thoughts of where you want to go. But to me, it's and the other thing is like how to make discovery to maximize sales. Discovery is the key, at least in my business. So let's talk a little bit about that. How do you help people implement that?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So what I say is your mantra should be I don't know. Because if your mantra is I don't know, then you're going to enter every conversation with curiosity. Your goal is going to be to learn as much as you can about the individual, the business, the situation, so that so that then you can make an informed determination whether you can help them, whether you want to help them. There's all those aspects of it that we ignore if we're solely focused on if I can just convince them. You can't convince anybody of anything. Right. So the other thing I say is you can't sell anything to anyone. People will buy from you when they need it and they trust you. And the way you build trust is by learning about them, being interested in them.

SPEAKER_01:

Good point. And the thing is, people want to know that you care. If you don't care to find out if they have a need or a desire, or it all comes down to like, I have a basic 15 discovery questions, and their answers dictate the next, or if I even ask. But your discovery should be qualified and most importantly, disqualified. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

And there's so many aspects of that. And one of the things I think you've probably seen this too is people will ask a question and they won't necessarily get an answer. And so they'll move on. But they really needed that answer because there are certain things that are made up of the decision, can I actually help them with budget? Is one of those things, right?

SPEAKER_01:

And that's a hard question to ask, but it's a need question to ask. It also, people are like, I don't like to get my pricing out in the beginning. Well, it's technically not giving your pricing. You're just saying, do you have a budget for this? Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Which actually, see, I love that question. So you're not say asking, because that matters too, right? You're not saying, what is your budget? You said, do you have a budget for this? Yeah. Because that's a yes or no question. And if they say no, another question you can ask is, have you ever worked with a company like mine before, with an organization like mine before? What was it like? Why aren't you working with them now? Or if they are working with them now, why are you searching? Why are we talking? It's all, and if people don't want to give their budget because they're afraid you're going to price to the budget, if they're resistant, we have to ask why they're resistant. Because we need that information. And if your listeners, if any of your listeners have ever gone through what they think was a good discovery process, and then they've quoted, and then the prospect has either totally ghosted them or said, wow, that is way out of my budget or way out of my league. They didn't get all the information they needed in order to be able to identify, can I help them? Money's part of that. It's okay. So we have to get over. I think it might be the feeling that we're not entitled to that information if they don't want to give it to us. Of course we are.

SPEAKER_01:

Right? Well, then also the question that I had an if issue asking for the longest time was why now?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's an incredibly important question.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01:

You've made the decision to to book with me. Why is this important right now? Yeah. And I miss that. I just didn't ask that question for the longest time. And I found that's been a very groundbreaking. It just opens the conversation up.

SPEAKER_02:

Because you are trying to get to what is really going on, right? Like I have two other questions that I suggest everyone ask, not at the beginning, but as you're going through the conversation. And the first one is, what will the impact be when you move forward, whether it's with me or someone else? Because there's an impact, right? Positive, whatever that is. And it's getting them thinking and talking about that. Then the second question is, what will the impact be if you don't? Because if there isn't a big enough impact, it doesn't, you could it could cost nothing and they're not going to do it. There has to be, and that also gives you insight into okay, that impact has dollars attached to it. And if the impact is$500, but my starting point's a thousand, I'm just using small numbers for ease. It doesn't make sense for them to move forward. So let's not try and shoehorn it in. Let's not try and just so that helps get them to that, okay, what is really happening here? And what will it do for me? And therefore, okay, if it's gonna make me, if it's gonna let me grow and add$500,000 to my bottom line, then$10,000 is worth it. It's a great investment because the return is good. It's okay to have these conversations.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I've had answers simply it'll allow me to add a team member, or it'll allow me to add a team member and be home for dinner with my kids. It's you when you ask the question, you get real answers. And I think a green a red flag is if you don't get a real answer, you might not want that client.

SPEAKER_02:

That's exactly right. If they aren't willing to really have that conversation with you, do they really want to do business with you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And this is the other thing about discovery is that when you are not in sales mode, you are not talking, you're asking questions, and you're really in the I don't know, you are totally open to all those signals. You see them, you feel them, your body says to you, something is not computing here. And that's really valuable information.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think it, like I said, a discovery call, I think, is to qualify both sides. Yeah. Do I want to work with this person? Are they treating me with respect and they have never paid me a dime? If that's the case, they're never going to treat me with respect. So do you want that as a client, especially your team working with them? Right. I'd say no.

SPEAKER_02:

I say no. First of all, it's not profitable business and it puts you in the worst. We were talking about this yesterday at a meeting, and it was like, then you're negative and you're sending out negative vibes because you don't like your clients.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

How are you going to be on a week? How is your team going to be on a weekly check-in call or something like that? Just anxious they'll actually answer the phone.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly right. It's avoiding at all costs. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. So that would be like using the discovery to maximize sales. I think going with we those of us in sales, I think of it as a consultative sale.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, and just but not being 20 questions, being natural about what you're asking. I have a spreadsheet, and I know that sounds geeky. I have a spreadsheet in chronological order that I feel like if I get this information, I can move to here, and it's a natural progression of the conversation. And I gather what I need that I know that I can help them. Because also the other thing is never offer them three different price points. Pick something. I had a I was following a podcast coach that was always about only offer one number, one number, never offer more than one number. And I'm I decide what would work before I do that. So I had a meeting with this person in the close. I was offered a price and three payment plans. So that's technically four prices. You made me do math three times. And I'm thinking, you've been preaching against that as long as I've listened to your podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

That's really interesting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, so having your price point and only offering a confused person will always say no.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. That is exactly right. And you're I think it's hard to trust someone who is just throwing all sorts of things out there. From the customer's point of view, from the client's point of view, it's okay, do you really know what your value is? Like or what I need. Exactly. So you have to be willing to walk away. And part of that whole discovery, and you I think you've probably noticed this, is that when you're asking your questions and they're natural, both of you are walking down the same road. So you're both getting to the same endpoint. It's not contentious, it's not uncomfortable, it's not, oh, now, okay, I'll throw this proposal out there and I'll hope and pray. It's the both of you get it because you're asking the questions, and then when you're responding to what they told you, it's a natural conversation. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's so much easier, and so it's natural, it's comfortable. And again, you do find out there's something people, okay. With that, I can't, I can't, but I can refer you to somebody who can. Wow. And that's always a good place to be. If you can't help, you can find somebody who can help them. You've now built a referral source.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Absolutely. You may never do business with them, but they will refer people to you because you're honest.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Exactly. So what in your book you talk about making an impact in 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_02:

What's your take on that? That I don't, I wish we would stop calling it a pitch and a commercial being cuff. Your elevator pitch. Yeah, it's so ridiculous. It's that's 40 years old and is just ridiculous, and has set us up to craft these pitches that are unnatural, that no one listens to, that don't really hit the point. So what I say is this first of all, when you're networking, because that's usually when you're giving this whatever, that it should be an introduction. And the first thing you should do is be asking about the other person. And so then if it's your time, when it's your time, what you in my opinion, you should be talking about the value you bring and who you bring it to, not the mechanics of what you do, not how many years you've been doing it, not whatever value for whom, and you should be saying it like you're talking to a 16-year-old. Okay, because you'll be more natural, you'll use real words, not jargon.

SPEAKER_01:

Because I hate that corporate jargon.

SPEAKER_02:

Everyone hates what is so funny to me about what we do, everyone hates these behaviors, and yet everyone does them. And they don't work, and we do them. Blows my mind, right? There's just but if you think about okay, this person is an old family member who I have not seen in years. How am I going to tell them about what I'm up to? Hopefully I'm gonna say it's gonna be short, it's gonna be less than 30 seconds, it's just gonna be. I spend most of my time working with small business owners just trying to help them get boulders out of their way and create strategies that work for them. English. Yeah, right, and hopefully that leads to questions like, wow, really? What kind of small business owners are telling boulders about that?

SPEAKER_01:

Whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. My viewpoint.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, I hate the corporate jargon that you're like, what are you talking about? Yeah, is that a new one? I don't know. Something coming down the transom was one I heard one about I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, shows himself what a transom is.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that was in Seattle in the early 2000s, and everybody was like, transom, transom? Did we just make a new word? That's hilarious. But a person of authority said it, so everybody's like, How can I get transom in my elevator? Oh then everyone's saying it, and it loses even more value. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. One of the things you talk about in your book is is the conver the difference between leadership and management. And we talk a lot about leadership here, and a lot of people equate them as equally, and they are not the same.

SPEAKER_02:

They are not. No. There's an old saying, you lead people and you manage systems or you manage tasks.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I feel like when people think that they're managing, what that puts in their head is I have to tell people what to do, I have to monitor their behavior, I have to make sure that they're clocking in and clocking out. There's this whole managing is a and really, in my opinion, what we should be doing is collaborating with people. You hire people for a reason. You think they can do the job, they fit with your culture. Hopefully, those are two reasons why you're hiring people. Okay. Then you can co-create a strategy for whatever it is that they're doing, you co-create the monitoring system, and then you trust them to do their job. Leaders, in my opinion, it's not the leader's job to have all the answers. It's their job to convene the resources to find the answers. And so if we're the last to speak, if we pull people together and say, this is the situation, let's together come up with how we're going to deal with this, then you have buy-in from them because they're it's their solution, right? It's their and it's so much easier to grow a business when everyone feels like they have a say and they have a stake. Because you we have other people to have different opinions, different perspectives as well. Which is good. We don't want everyone coming from the same mindset we have, because in those ideas is innovation. There are other ways of getting the same thing done. Let's hear about it. And the people with boots on the ground, the people who are doing the work, know best how to do it, how to improve on it, and if there's a tough situation, know what to do to modify to still be able to meet the need.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think having making sure that your team knows there's open communication as far as if you have an idea to make this simpler, better delivery for the clients, people are going to be more more apt to or more eager to speak up and say, I've got an opinion. Because I've got a coach that says you can't see the whole picture when you're in the frame.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. The other one I heard is you can't read the label from the inside of the jar.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I like that.

SPEAKER_02:

I know, me too. I like both of those. And it's really true.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And so you have to have feedback loops, right? You have to, when you ask people for feedback, you have to follow up with them so they know you really mean it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And we do a lot of that with our weekly team meeting. So it's it is more of a let's talk about our wins for the week, business and personal, and let's talk about how what we can do better there for our clients.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I think that makes it, it gets buy-on everybody's opinion, is valuable. Yeah. And it's not that.

SPEAKER_02:

So this is one thing I do when I do trainings. I have like rules of engagement. And one of them is there are no bad ideas. There's only ideas we can't implement right now. Because what I hear from some leaders is okay, if John's going to have an idea and he's going to hang on to it and he's going to think that we have to do it. And if we don't do it, he's going to get all angry and whatever. And it's okay, if you start with, let's we want the ideas. It's not that we're going to be able to do all of them. And we'll talk about the why not's where we can't. But it's from having all the ideas where we find the ones that we can't implement.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's like whenever you say, okay, let's have a brainstorming session. So toss me out your good ideas. People immediately start judging their ideas. That's not brainstorming, but I think that's hilarious. I've had leadership that was like that. And you're like, so I'm going to judge every idea I have before I put it out there.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't think I'm going to put it out there. I'm going to think I'm going to wait. Let someone else go first. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. That's let's talk about being uh trustability. And is there a way? So when you're talking about trustability, are we talking about you're communicating it through your branding, your social media, your or is it on the call, that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_02:

And I feel like it's everywhere. And I feel like trustability comes from integrity. Doing what you say you're going to do, being honest, not treating people with respect, showing up when you say you're going to show up, apologizing when something goes wrong, owning what do they say? The leader takes the blame. Yeah. Extreme ownership is the, yeah. Yeah, it's really true. And I think the way organizations and people individually become trusted is they say what they mean, that they're on it, they say what they can do and what they can't do. And if something falls down, they immediately address it. They don't hide, they don't blame. We're human, stuff happens, whatever, but they really stand behind what they believe. And so people learn that no matter what, I know I can go to this person. I know I can ask them a question. I know I can share a complaint. I know, you know, that they care. And the last piece of trustability is being more interested in others than you are in yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

Very good. Yeah. And I find a big part of that as far as working with clients is more or less overcommunication. So I had a client one time that when they came to me, they the reason they came to me is they had not spoken to a human in their previous service industry in six months. I'm like, really? We have weekly check-in calls and emails. If you have an issue, we want to know head on. If we have an issue, you're going to know head on. Yeah. So I think over-communication is something that's under-appreciated or underdone. People need to know what's going on, especially if they're spending spending a good amount of money with you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And you don't want to assume that they know what's going on. I always say if you think you're communicating enough, you're undercommunicating. If you think you're overcommunicating, you're probably communicating enough. And don't assume that everyone knows. This is internally and externally. Don't assume that everyone knows what you know about any situation, right? And you can say, listen, if I'm telling you something you already know, just tell me and I'll stop. But we want to make sure people have all of the information so they know the why, they know the process, they know what to expect. Setting the expectations huge.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. Customer expectations are absolutely imperative too, knowing where you stand on both sides of the deal. And speaking of deal, we hear deal so much in the news. I don't believe a deal is one side wins. If it can't be a win-win for everyone involved, that's not a deal.

SPEAKER_02:

I totally agree with that. I absolutely agree with that. And that should be the goal, right? The goal isn't to make a sale. The goal is to have a conversation to see if there is value, if it makes sense for us to engage in this relationship. I always equate it to getting married. So you may meet someone and know on your first date, you're going to marry them. That's how I felt about my husband. But we still dated just to make sure there's no skeletons in the closet and crazy nuts or whatnot. Same values, same morals, whatever it is. When you get into a relationship with a client, it's a long-term engagement, right? So it's basically like being married. So you want you both want to know that this is a good decision.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. And being open to that communication, I love that. So tell us a little bit about Succeed Without Selling, is your main book that you had. Was lemonade stand selling like a step before that? I wrote lemonade stand selling.

SPEAKER_02:

I used to say selling today is like selling when you had a lemonade stand when you were a kid, because so many small business owners are afraid of selling. They're afraid of the no, they're afraid to ask for the business, whatever. And so I like to take people back to think about when you had a lemonade stand or whatever car washing, whatever it was. You weren't afraid of no. You stand on the street and yell at cars as they drove by. Right. And why did people buy the lemonade? It wasn't because it was good, because it usually wasn't. So it wasn't like it was a quality product, right? It was because they were supporting you. They were your neighbors. Who bought from you? It was the people who knew you and whatnot. Then somewhere along the line, as we grow up, we get taught certain things that change our perspective that make us think that no is a bad answer, which it's not. And when we're kids, we don't care. So that whole book was really around let it go. It's a lot of the same information. Have the conversation, build relationships, don't be salesy, don't do any of these things, but also with a taste of and don't get all hung up in your head about it. It's not that.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. So let's just kind of be respectful for of your time. Thinking about succeed without selling, what would you want our listeners to say, take away two or three points to take away about easing into not being salesy and still growing their company?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, okay. Okay. The first one is when you go networking, assume no one needs what you have to sell. So that you walk into the room just totally in discovery mode. Okay. Walk up to someone and say, so tell me your story or tell me about you and let the conversation go from there. The second thing is when you are in the sales meeting, don't talk. Just ask questions, learn, don't do a hole. No one's listening to you. No one cares. Just and the third one is after you've made the sale, that's not the end of it. You have to continue to build that relationship with that client because they are ever changing and their needs are ever changing. And so what they needed today, they might need something else a year from now. But they also need things you can't give them. And the more you build that relationship with them and the more you're connecting them to resources, the more value you are giving it, a differentiator from everyone else in your space.

SPEAKER_01:

Very true, very true. And as you grow and they grow, you can also add additional services. And that, yeah, absolutely. I love that. I love that. So, everybody, if you want to make sure that you get her book, there's going to be a link to succeed without selling in the show notes. And I know my listeners are going to want to connect with you and maybe reach out to you for a speaking engagement. What how can they connect with you?

SPEAKER_02:

They can go to my website, helbigenterprises.com. There's a speaking tab on there. There's all the information is there.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. All right, perfect. That'll be in the show notes as well. This has been fun. This has been a great conversation. I love talking about sales and want to be salesy. So thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you being here. Oh, thank you. I've really enjoyed it. Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to Law MarketingZone.com to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law Podcast, and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for joining. Us on another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at LawMarketingZone.com. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources, and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep bleeding with vision and keep growing your firm.

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Marilyn Jenkins

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