RESOURCE OF THE MONTH
Secret Shop Your Firm (Yes, Really) One of the most valuable pieces of advice I can share is this: there is tremendous value in “spying” on yourself.
So often, firms come to us saying, “We’re not getting the results we want.” And the assumption is almost always that their marketing is broken. But very often, marketing isn’t the biggest problem.
What’s usually happening is you’re getting leads, and they’re leaking out of your intake system. Sometimes in multiple areas. Secret shopping allows you to identify the actual breakdown and provides clarity on how to rectify it.
But a warning from experience: It can be tough to swallow the truth. If you secret shop your firm, you’re almost always going to find something that needs to change. That might require uncomfortable conversations and/or a change in your processes and/or taking personal responsibility.
After all, if you never look, you never have to act. I want to be clear: This is not about “catching” your team. You’re trying to answer one question: “What is it actually like to try to hire my firm?”
That means looking at everything, not just one piece. 1. How someone finds you 2. What your website communicates 3. How the phone is answered
4. What information is taken 5. Whether anyone follows up 6. How objections are handled
7. Whether legal advice is being given when it shouldn’t be 8. Etc.
When we secret shop, we’re looking soup-to-nuts: marketing, intake, reception, consultation, etc. The full experience. Here’s how to get started:
Choose the right person. You want someone you can trust to be straight with you. And ideally, someone your team doesn’t recognize.
Don’t let them improvise! They have to have a believable story that includes a real problem and an outcome they’re looking for. You should define objections ahead of time, especially those that are challenging or emotional, so you can see how your team responds under pressure. The goal is to keep it as realistic as possible. If it doesn’t feel real, the data won’t be useful. Don’t overdo it. If you only get a few calls a week, sending five mystery shoppers in a row will be obvious. Don’t do that. Pick a cadence that will seem natural to your team.
“But we listen to call recordings … ”
That’s fine. You should. But no recording can help you know how the call felt, or how many rings it took to get someone on the line. And it can’t experience the silence after you submit a form. You can’t feel whether the interaction aligned with your brand promise. Secret shopping fills that gap.
On average, we can usually identify $50,000–$60,000 a month in missed opportunity just by shining a light on what’s already happening. Once, I even found a firm missing $300,000 a month.
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JANUARY 2026 MEMBER BULLETIN
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