Create Napa-Style Estate Experiences for Your Attorney-Clients

I’m still celebrating my birthday thanks to Tom. And the celebration includes lots of great wine.

Ever since my director of education stopped us from serving wine at our breaks at the CLNC^® Certification Seminars (darn), Tom and I have looked for every opportunity to go wine tasting and usually get that chance around the New Year’s holiday.

I already told you that Tom and I are bicoastal at Christmas. After leaving my family in San Diego, we head up north to one of our favorite places in the world, the Napa Valley. This is a secret I shouldn’t tell you, but New Years is one of the best times to visit Napa – there are no tourists, no traffic, a stark beauty to the empty vines and GREAT WINE. Now, I’m sure I’ll see all of you there next year.

Driving to Napa from the Oakland airport, Tom and I had the top down on the mini-van and some great show tunes playing when my BlackBerry^® pinged with an incoming text message.

Wine Tasting Crew Tom and Vickie with Tamara and Steve

It turned out to be Tamara, one of our faculty members and a CLNC^® Mentor. She was visiting San Francisco and, remembering my secret escape, wondered if I’d be open to some wine tasting. What do you think? Did I go for it or reject it outright? I was all in! Without even asking Tom, I texted her back and we set up a time to start and I got on the phone to my favorite wine contact to set up some tasting experiences.

In wine there are two types of tastings, the first is the over-the-counter tasting available at just about every winery in their public space. You walk (or stagger) in, plop your money on the counter and toss back some grape juice and, if you like it, buy some wine and head to the next tasting. The less common tasting is the “estate” tasting. This is usually by appointment only, and, if you have the right networking contact, it’s free. But better than free, you get to taste the best wines offered by that winery and it often ends in referrals by the winemaker to one of his or her friends and the next tasting. Over the years Tom and I’ve done a lot of both types of tastings but there’s nothing that compares to sitting in a wine cave exploring the complexities of a great wine with the actual winemaker. Tasting in the cellar, the whole experience is different. I know in my head that you should never buy wine after drinking in the cellar, but because of my heart, I’m the sucker that always does. Why? Whether it’s in France, Hungary, Italy or Napa, you are exposed to new tastes and you create new memories while experiencing something extraordinary (did I mention the wine?).

When we finally got together with Tamara and compared our lists, we abandoned her list of Mogen-David, Boone’s Farm and 2-Buck Chuck in favor of some small and fairly exclusive places from my list. (Yes, it’s true I’m a wine snob, but it’s also true that life is too short to drink bad wine – big sis take note.) We started our first tasting just after 11:00am (hey – it was past noon back home) and the day just kept getting better and better.

Now, I’m not recommending that you serve wine to your attorney-clients and prospects (unless it’s after 12 noon local time). But what I am recommending is that you go beyond the same old tasting that every legal nurse consultant can offer. Use your Certified Legal Nurse Consultant skills to create the CLNC^®-equivalent of an estate tasting. Instead of offering attorney-prospects a brochure and business card, offer a free case screening and maybe a follow-up. For existing attorney-clients, offer them a new CLNC^® service you’ve never offered before (be careful here to make them select from your “wine” list, not theirs). Give them a set of interrogatories or requests for production for free, and before you know it they’ll be buying that CLNC^® service by the barrel, not the bottle.

Assume the role of the CLNC^® winemaker and try to create that same “tasting-wine-in-the-cellar” experience for your attorney-clients – but without the wine. When you’re tasting wine in the cellar you fall in love with the wines you try and before you know it, you’re not only buying the library of wines, you’ve also joined the wine club to get automatic shipments. You have a library of 30 CLNC^® services that a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant can provide to attorney-clients. Attorneys will always have cases so you want to create a CLNC^® club that makes them automatically think of you and your CLNC^® services as their cases come in. Don’t create a pedestrian, over-the-counter offering for an attorney-client or prospect when you have the ability, with your training and experience, to create something spectacular that will capture more of their business.

At the end of two days of wine tasting, Tom and I came home and hung our livers on the backyard clothesline to dry out. Now at home, Tom limits me to 2.5 ounces of wine so I don’t vasodilate and crater getting out of the Jacuzzi. It’s a good thing we don’t have cellars in Houston or else I’d move my office down there.

See you in the tasting cellar!

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Please comment and tell me how you create estate experiences for your attorney-clients.