Hey everyone!

Hope you had a great Easter holiday.

Last week, I was selected to be on a jury trial for the first time ever in my 45 years of living.

It was a civil trial centered around the Plaintiff suing a City and their Police Department for a car pursuit that ended in a fatality and unfortunately, an expectant mother lost her life. Thankfully the baby survived. This took place back in 2016 and the trial centered around recovery of lost lifetime wages of the deceased.

Both the plaintiffs and defense presented their cases and rested. The judge dismissed us for the day but instructed us to return the next day at 9:30 am to deliberate. (The case was settled before deliberations.)

Here are 5 takeaways that I noted while sitting in the jury box:

1. Appearances, NOT looks matter.  You can’t control your looks, but you can control how you dress. When in doubt dress up and step up your wardrobe appropriately for the situation. I’m not suggesting you wear a suit and tie or dress, but dress accordingly to the situation.
2. Make eye contact when communicating with people. One side barely made eye contact with the jury. Maybe it was done intentionally or because they were nervous. The other side hardly looked at the person asking questions and mainly looked at us jurors and answered the questions. Look people in the eye!
3. When the Plaintiffs questioned the economics professor who was giving his analysis of what the lifetime value of lost wages were, he was pretty specific in his number. He could have easily rounded up a number to say, $1,000,000, which we are all familiar with. Nope, he used some figure like $983,753.00. It sounded more believable. When presenting pricing to prospective clients, perhaps use not so slick numbers but round up or down a bit? When sharing with prospects on how much you saved a client or helped generate some revenue figure, use some non-rounded off numbers that are more believable and increase your credibility.
4. Both sides seemed prepared and thorough. When meeting with a client, do the same. Don’t be sloppy or lazy. Come prepared. Enough said.
5. Whoever communicates the best, usually wins. The Plaintiffs and Defense were engaged in a sales contest. Money was involved. It was a sales contest. They were selling each side of the story. Thankfully us jurors didn’t have to declare a winner or loser. Communicate well, be concise, and ask good questions!

I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000 and proudly performed my civic duty!