06. Scrappy Marketing Strategies for Small Law Firms w/ Expert Ben Glass

[00:00:00] Ben Glass:
So the biggest mistake there is not doing everything you can, I think, to try to track, um, where are my clients actually for real coming from.

[00:00:13] Bobby Steinbach:
Welcome to Hot Docket, the show where we talk about winning marketing strategies that have built the most successful law firms.

[00:00:19] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Join us every two weeks for the latest trends and tactics to grow your law firm.

[00:00:25] Bobby Steinbach:
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Hot Docket podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about scrappy marketing.

[00:00:33] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah, the legal space is super fragmented, so you have a lot of small firms that are wondering how they can compete with huge firms that have near infinite budgets. And kind of where they fit in to the equation.

[00:00:00] Ben Glass:
So the biggest mistake there is not doing everything you can, I think, to try to track, um, where are my clients actually for real coming from.

[00:00:13] Bobby Steinbach:
Welcome to Hot Docket, the show where we talk about winning marketing strategies that have built the most successful law firms.

[00:00:19] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Join us every two weeks for the latest trends and tactics to grow your law firm.

[00:00:25] Bobby Steinbach:
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Hot Docket podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about scrappy marketing.

[00:00:33] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah, the legal space is super fragmented, so you have a lot of small firms that are wondering how they can compete with huge firms that have near infinite budgets. And kind of where they fit in to the equation.

[00:00:45] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah. Not all strategies are going to work. Obviously your small firm, you’re not running TV, you’re not running radio. What are some things like that you think a small law firm should focus on?

[00:00:54] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah, I think small firms, it really depends on the case type you’re practicing, but small firms can really rely on referrals because they could be great trial lawyers and they can really focus on every single client.

[00:01:07] Andrew Nasrinpay:
They can rely on SEO. So the Google business listings. Uh, one of the most important things for how you rank is going to be your proximity to a client. So even if you’re practicing a very competitive type of law like personal injury, you can still compete on a very local level. Um, and I think today’s guest for the show, uh, is really an expert in this.

[00:01:29] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Today on our show we have attorney Ben Glass from Ben Glass Law and Great Legal Marketing. And he’s also the author of several books on how to help, uh, small firms. Compete

[00:01:47] Ben Glass:
on the podcast. Yeah, this is, this would be fun because what you have just described runs through the minds of every solo and small firm attorney in the country. And, and they are, we are the backbone of the legal industry. Um, and, and, uh, you know, unfortunately they get through law school and they get through training in the profession with no business skills whatsoever, usually.

[00:02:10] Ben Glass:
Um, and so that’s, they start. And so the good lawyers, good people. That’s who we help. And then we talked about things like what we’re talking about today, which is real grassroots marketing, scrap, scrapple marketing. How do you compete against 800 pound gorillas?

[00:02:23] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah, no, that’s a, that’s a great intro.

[00:02:25] Bobby Steinbach:
Thanks, Ben. And, um, you know, I think you’re probably at this point, most known for your work in legal marketing and kind of bringing that business aspect to lawyers who don’t necessarily have that skill set. But I’d love for, for us to just take a step back and you to tell us a little bit more about, you know, why you became a lawyer and the journey that that got you there.

[00:02:46] Ben Glass:
40 years of practice. Um, and I was one of those lucky ones. I was 16. I was watching Perry Mason and reading F. Lee Bailey books in high school. And that just sounded really cool to me. Um, and, and, you know, it’s kind of be able to, uh, figure out problems and sort things out. So I was a very logical thinker.

[00:03:06] Ben Glass:
My dad was an engineer. I didn’t really get any of those genes. I tried to teach me electronics and we learned math on a slide rule in my house. Uh, some of my brothers got that skill and interest that I did not. Yeah. Um, and so, but I was, uh, when I was 18, I was, I was totally devoted to playing soccer. So I went to, played on a national championship team when I was 18, went to college on a scholarship in the seventies, played at William Mary.

[00:03:31] Ben Glass:
And that was like, I went to William Mary to play soccer. Uh, I still have the law school thing in mind and, um, got out and went to George Mason University. And, you know, as to, to a point that I talked to a lot of young, Want to be lawyers about George Mason just had its ABA accreditation like three months before I entered so it was a no name school It’s a big name school now But I don’t think that where you go to law school matters at all like for especially for Like what’s gonna run for president or something or you want to be on the Supreme Court United States?

[00:04:01] Ben Glass:
Maybe but it really doesn’t matter where you go. So that’s a little side note Um, started in a firm, um, that, that was doing a lot of insurance defense work and worked there for 12 years and as the partners were transitioning to plaintiff’s work. So I, so I was very fortunate, guys, because I got to be lead counsel in many, many trials early on, auto trials, med mal defense in District of Columbia at times, um, but usually because there are multiple defendants, so I got to run around the country with a lot of lawyers who are very experienced, watch them take depositions.

[00:04:33] Ben Glass:
I got to take some depositions. And so I, things just broke really well for me, uh, about 12 years in, uh, I was coaching three of my kids soccer teams all at the same season and the commute was kind of hard. So I said, let’s go start a law firm. How hard could that be?

[00:04:51] Bobby Steinbach:
And what do you think is like the most important, um, part of that experience at like being a trial lawyer on the circuit and doing.

[00:04:58] Bobby Steinbach:
All of these trials in person and gaining that experience. Like, what did you take away from that? Most important

[00:05:02] Ben Glass:
repetitions, repetition. So the most important thing, and it’s a thing that today is we’re recording this in 2024, there just aren’t as many trials as it used to be. And every trial, it seems to me in the personal injury and certainly in the medical malpractice space, It’s, it’s expensive.

[00:05:16] Ben Glass:
It’s far more expensive to do in terms of experts and stuff like that. So the most important part from that experience was I got lots of reps in front of judges, in front of juries, on my feet, getting my butt kicked and winning, right? And so, uh, you know, it’s, it is harder, I think today for a young lawyer to get that unless you’re going into prosecutor’s office.

[00:05:41] Ben Glass:
Uh, and or you’re going into an insurance defense firm for your first couple years and just getting a lot of tries

[00:05:46] Andrew Nasrinpay:
That makes sense. What’s the biggest mistake most firms make in legal advertising legal marketing or just running their firm in general?

[00:05:55] Ben Glass:
Well, that’s a big question So running their firm in general the biggest mistake is not applying sound business principles to it not going out and learning the finance, learning HR, learning how to create systems, learning how to hire all of those.

[00:06:11] Ben Glass:
And I had a lot of reps at that too. And at Batson was horrible at it. Right. So that’s, that’s the biggest mistake is you have got good lawyers who are good people who are, who are skilled. Right. And, and yet they don’t know business fundamentals. So that’s the biggest, the biggest mistake. I forgot really what your other, I guess your question was about marketing.

[00:06:29] Ben Glass:
It’s, it’s like, all right. So the biggest mistake there. Is not doing everything you can, I think, to try to track, um, where are my clients actually for real coming from, um, made more difficult today by the fact that the internet is all over. A lot of clients will eventually find their way through your website to you and your marketing agency is like, yeah, look, you got another internet, uh, lead, but it might not be true.

[00:07:00] Ben Glass:
Like you have to ask the question, like, Thinking back, Bobby, how did you first hear my name? Is it because of you saw me speak? You saw a book, um, is because you’re, uh, you get my newsletter, you saw, you know, or maybe you saw some of our branding, like in gyms or you saw me on a soccer field or something, and you know that I’m a lawyer.

[00:07:22] Ben Glass:
And so trying as best we can to, to have good attribution, we can’t be perfect, but have good attribution. Um, where is my, where are my clients coming from? Um, because even though they’re coming through a web portal, often we can’t give the web and the internet marketers. Full credit for that. And I’ll tell you something interesting, like, right at the beginning is that when we’ve, in the last year and a half, I mean, we’ve gotten better.

[00:07:47] Ben Glass:
Like, there’s great technology. We use software like, you know, LeadDoc. It integrates with everything. And as we got better at this, we found that we’re a pure contingent fee firm. 63 percent of our new cases come from human beings. Over 82 percent of our money comes from human beings. Now, again, they may first make themselves known to us through our website.

[00:08:10] Ben Glass:
But when we ask the right questions, we find, Oh, I heard about you from a human, or I saw your banner, or we’ve got people in our office. Um, we have a eye doctor here who puts like 250 people through the, through the building a day. And of course, we kind of take over the lobby a little bit, and we’ve got some of our branding and stuff in the lobby.

[00:08:31] Ben Glass:
So we get people from that. They saw our branding. Maybe they went home and reached out on the website. So that’s an important thing for people to think about is how can I get better. At tracking. It’s not perfect, but most lawyers track zero actually, or they rely on the web marketer to tell the agency to tell them, Oh, this is all because of us.

[00:08:51] Andrew Nasrinpay:
And I, I think that’s one of those things too, that actually becomes more difficult, the larger you are because you’re spending money on traditional media, like TV, radio billboards, and you have multi touch attribution, where it’s someone who’s seeing your stuff all over the place and you have to kind of split up the attribution to multiple sources.

[00:09:11] Andrew Nasrinpay:
So totally agree with that. And when they come through digital,

[00:09:15] Ben Glass:
yeah, but I think, but, but, but my teaching point would be, you have to have a culture that asks the question and not just that quote, unquote intake. But so, you know, we’ll, people come through our intake system and there may be an attribution and now lead docket, but I get on the phone with them and I’m having a longer conversation.

[00:09:32] Ben Glass:
And I’ll ask again, thinking back, like, how did you actually get, how did you actually know about me? Sometimes it is, I did a Google search. Yeah. Sometimes it is, Oh, uh, you know, Susie down at the, uh, the, uh, you know, the gym mentioned you, and somehow we’ve missed that on our initial intake. So it’s developing a culture that continually asks the question so that we can reduce the problem of.

[00:09:58] Ben Glass:
Multi attribution. Yeah. Okay. Maybe they saw some billboards. That’s not my problem because we don’t have billboards. Um, but I would just, so my point would be development culture and, and, and then enforce the culture that continually asks that question.

[00:10:13] Bobby Steinbach:
I think where it’s really interesting and it got like muddy was like in our time at Morgan where you’ve got huge teams on the traditional media side and big teams on the digital media side, both teams want to claim credit for a conversion.

[00:10:25] Bobby Steinbach:
Um, What happens? Right? And it’s like that old first touch, last touch attribution. Yeah. Where does it come into play?

[00:10:31] Andrew Nasrinpay:
I, I, I think the easiest way to look at this from a really simplistic point of view is we would split things up into two consumer journey types. One would be called a branded consumer journey.

[00:10:43] Andrew Nasrinpay:
So that would be someone googling an attorney’s name or the law firm name. You know, that person didn’t just think that up, right? So they got hit by a lot of branding activities. And you would split, split them in two. So when you do your napkin math, just to look at where clients are coming from and the cost to obtain clients through advertising and marketing, you would look at those two consumer journeys separately, as opposed to a non branded client that may Google something like car accident lawyer.

[00:11:13] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Or whatever practice area, uh, you’re practicing where there is, they are less likely to be influenced by brand, but it doesn’t mean they weren’t influenced by brand too. Because if you’re a known firm in your geographic region, you’re going to have a higher click through rate. So your PPC ads are going to do better.

[00:11:32] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Your SEO is going to do better because you’re known and you are more likely to get clicked on then. So it’s very difficult to do that math. And some of the biggest firms that are spending tons of money will also do media mix modeling. So just because you’re going through branded consumer journey, how much should you put towards TV versus radio and billboards and all of these things?

[00:11:53] Andrew Nasrinpay:
It’s a very math heavy exercise that also, I think, If you take a step back is almost better served by your gut feeling in a lot of those instances.

[00:12:05] Bobby Steinbach:
I’d love to tack on to that for a question for you, Ben. Like, how do you incorporate the feedback loop of attribution into marketing? So you see that you’re generating more referrals or you’re generating more web traffic from a given campaign.

[00:12:18] Bobby Steinbach:
How does that work into your overall strategy?

[00:12:21] Ben Glass:
Yeah, it’s a great question because it’s a question that came up for us last year and we we talked a lot about it. So we every year we do a two day annual offsite retreat. We run E. O. S. Entrepreneur operating system, um, in the firm. And so we said to ourselves, we’re driving ourselves crazy, working, wondering and fussing about perfection with our digital marketing.

[00:12:44] Ben Glass:
Right. Why is this so hard? And, you know, it’s so easy to go on a website, anybody’s website, but people who went around and go, that’s a mistake. That’s an error. Oh, when I click on this button, it doesn’t really work. And we’re driving ourselves crazy. And then we said, Oh, but actually that’s only 20 percent of our money as, as we attribute, like, like our systems show us this and we believe it to be accurate enough.

[00:13:09] Ben Glass:
80, 20, it’s pretty big difference. Oh, why aren’t we spending 80 percent of our time and 80 percent of our money The thing that we’re really good at. So, for example, we have a Director of Happiness. We have a Dream 100 program, where, you know, modeled after Russell Brunson’s Dream 100, where, where we actively identify human beings Usually lawyers, but also health care providers who should be referring to us and actively creating mail campaigns.

[00:13:42] Ben Glass:
Uh, and some digital reach out, but mail campaigns to them to say, Hey, would you like to be part of our team? Like you have some of our future clients, we think, and we’d like to pay you referral fees. So that’s how it, so that’s how it directs because the digital thing is so easy. You know, you work on it, you can see where the website is fixed or not.

[00:14:03] Ben Glass:
Yeah. Um, and it’s so easy, I think, particularly for Ben, like, to get frustrated by, uh, what I call unforced errors, unforced digital errors. But in the big picture, as you step back, it’s only 20 percent of our money.

[00:14:17] Bobby Steinbach:
I love that dream. 100 that dream 100 concept is amazing. It’s a really smart way, I think, to kind of break down a problem and triage it and figure out where to spend your time.

[00:14:28] Bobby Steinbach:
So no, that’s a great, great little tip. Um, I’d like to ask you a question now about. Um, legal marketing and guides. Um, you know, you’ve created a bunch of these for clients as they go through tough times. Yeah. We’ve got a couple of them here. I know for people listening, this is probably like kind of a garbage thing that I’m doing, but I’m showing the book.

[00:14:48] Bobby Steinbach:
Um, so the first year is play left fullback and the second one, Andrew’s holding up there. Um, so Andrew, if you want to,

[00:14:58] Andrew Nasrinpay:
yeah, so can you tell us a little bit about why you ended up writing books and also the guides for like potential plaintiffs when they’re going through those times? And was that an activity that you saw as fruitful?

[00:15:11] Ben Glass:
Oh, sure. I mean, look, So being an author in America is still viewed as something special, right? I remember the first time I saw a lawyer had a book on Amazon. I’m like, holy cow, like you must be really special. Okay. Now there’s lots of lawyers with books on Amazon, but there’s, but there’s two different things to be clear.

[00:15:28] Ben Glass:
There’s the, the kind of lead generation, uh, practice law practice specific, um, material that we have, including books and, and the, the theme or the philosophy or the principle there is. And, and I think your listeners will find this interesting is that, uh, David Ogilvy talked about the moving creative interest.

[00:15:48] Ben Glass:
Uh, if you don’t know him, like Google him and go get a book about his life. Um, very famous advertiser. And people will just, and just take the automobile space, automobile accent space. People will come to us or, or start a conversation with us at different paths of the journey. They may have just been accident and they want research.

[00:16:06] Ben Glass:
Like, what is this all about? Boom. Having a book originally, the five deadly sins about your Virginia accident case, um, that kind of satisfied that research need. for them. Uh, someone else might come in and say, you know what? Um, I, I am sure now that my problem is a problem that legal can help me solve, but I really don’t know how to go and buy a lawyer because I haven’t had to buy any lawyers in the past before.

[00:16:32] Ben Glass:
And so we created a book, The Truth About Lawyer Advertising, that really now spoke to that person, who was on that part of the path. I’ve got another book in the arsenal, which is like, I want to fire my lawyer, because there are some people who have hired a lawyer, they’re not happy for whatever reason.

[00:16:48] Ben Glass:
And now they’re thinking about can I discharge them and come over to a different law firm? By the way, the answer is usually that’s not a good idea Like the answer is go talk to the lawyer you have because it’s usually a communication problem Um, and then you know, there’s there’s books that and and that we have more general books that have nothing to do with the practice here.

[00:17:09] Ben Glass:
So I’ve written a couple books about about mindset and philosophy and play that fullback is kind of sits in the space. It’s my biography. It’s for the, it’s for the lawyers. It’s a marketing book, but it’s also a book I give to clients because it talks about my personal backstory. But the principle is having something.

[00:17:27] Ben Glass:
at each stage of the journey for someone who can be, who is now entering into our world someplace. Um, and most lawyers, even though I’ve been teaching this strategy for 20 years, most lawyers still, you know, writ large still think, well, writing a book is really hard. I don’t wouldn’t know what to write. Um, and so they just don’t do it, which is good for, which is good for us.

[00:17:49] Ben Glass:
The other thing those books serve is back in the early days, they served as someone who would call the office. And the my folks answering the phone go. Hey, did you know mr Glass wrote the book on automobile accident case in virginia now, there’s lots of them out there because we’ve taught the model and Um, uh a lot of people use it but back then did you know mr Glass wrote the book.

[00:18:11] Ben Glass:
Would you like us to send you a copy? So even if they didn’t sign then or even if they were making an appointment to come in later We’d get them a copy of the book in advance. So it’s a it’s a lead generation tool You that shows up differently from any other lawyers who were just saying that come in next Wednesday at noon.

[00:18:30] Ben Glass:
And those other lawyers weren’t able to say, Oh, did you know we wrote the book on this thing? So we use it both in automobile space and in the ERISA long term disability. So we don’t do social security, but we do this weird niche of ERISA long term disability where we’re the number one in our region.

[00:18:44] Ben Glass:
Like you can add up two, three, four, and five, and they don’t add up to 20 percent of the work that we’re doing. And we know that because we can, we track the filed cases on PACER. Um, but we’ve got, we’ve got books there like, you know, don’t do your, don’t make this mistake and do your appeal at home and things you need to know about your long term disability insurance policy.

[00:19:03] Ben Glass:
So that’s one set over there. Again, I would encourage lawyers to think of something that they can give away in exchange for name email address or name physical mailing address um, uh as a way to start the relationship show up differently the other books, um, Renegade lawyer marketing great legal marketing and to a newer extent play left fullback Are really for the books for the solo and small firm market Like, they’re the books that start someone on their journey to us, to Great Legal Marketing, to start thinking more smartly, I think, about how do I build my practice?

[00:19:39] Ben Glass:
How do I market? How do I avoid mistakes? And so, you know, book writing is, um, I write a lot because I write a journal. I write weekly faxes and, and, you know, there’s, there’s a whole nother podcast to do on how to write a book, but it’s not as hard as you think, especially now in 2024, it was, I had to go find publishers.

[00:19:59] Ben Glass:
In the past. Now you can, Amazon will print on demand. Um, and I wrote a book for teen soccer referees a couple of years ago, and now I find out that selling well in England too, not because we shipped any books to England, but because you can print on demand in England, I was on a podcast over there. So books will make you famous, can make you famous.

[00:20:17] Ben Glass:
Um, and most people would rather just whip out their credit card and buy another paper, click out because it’s easy.

[00:20:24] Bobby Steinbach:
And for a lawyer that wants to start writing, like what’s the first step that you’d recommend?

[00:20:29] Ben Glass:
I think you think about the conversation that you’re having in initial consults with clients.

[00:20:33] Ben Glass:
So, so knowing what is actually running through their head. For example, in the automobile space, you know, three things happen when you’re in an accident. Claims adjusters call you, uh, your doctors are asking you what insurance do you have, um, and people are thrusting forms in front of you. So knowing what that journey is, whether it’s family law, Like, what happens when you find out your spouse is cheating on you?

[00:20:57] Ben Glass:
You know, if you’re in that practice area, what is running through that, that spouse’s, the other spouse’s head. So writing to that, to talk to that singular person, that avatar client, which is why now you have multiple books if you’re in the family law space, because the problem that the, the, uh, parent may be having is a child support or child custody problem.

[00:21:20] Ben Glass:
So having a book just about that, And, and, and knowing what it is that, um, uh, runs through their head. And then what, you know, artfully written, these books lead the client to conclude that you are the obvious choice without you saying, Oh, I’m the obvious choice. Here’s everything I’ve done. I’m great. Like, cause bars regulators don’t like that anyway, but you can write these books in such a way that they’re shaped.

[00:21:50] Ben Glass:
So that the person draws the conclusion their own mind that you are the answer to their, uh, to their problem. And then, you know, a long ago, I had a mastermind member, Charlie Hoffheimer, his whole practice was divorce for women only. And so all of his books, which ended up in. A marriage therapist and counselor’s offices, right?

[00:22:09] Ben Glass:
We’re all directed to his primary client, avatar woman. Um, and in the Virginia Beach area, a lot of military spouses. So he had a separate book for military spouses. Um, and he did fabulously well with this.

[00:22:24] Andrew Nasrinpay:
That’s super, super interesting. And I, I love the concept of having different books for different intent stages.

[00:22:31] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Where in digital you see similar things too, where you may capture that informational intent with a blog post that is like the definitive guide to whatever that problem or search query is that someone is searching, where they don’t know they need an attorney yet. As opposed to your practice area pages, where the potential client knows they need an attorney.

[00:22:55] Andrew Nasrinpay:
So marketing at each of those intent stages is super important.

[00:22:58] Ben Glass:
And by the way, I’ve, I’ve given this lecture that I’m giving us here to big firms, like in Virginia Trial Lawyers Association. None of the big firms will do this stuff. Like they’re like newsletters books. That’s way too hard. Yeah, I think it doesn’t work They say what you said is important to

[00:23:13] Andrew Nasrinpay:
where they’d rather allocate capital than their time Where a lot of the things that you’re describing of building referral Relationships that takes actual time Which is harder to allocate than an extra couple thousand dollars into a PPC campaign where they don’t have to think about it or devote their own time.

[00:23:32] Ben Glass:
A hundred percent. I agree with that. And that’s, that’s the advantage that sole and small firm marketers have because, because you know, I think you said this in the intro, like we can’t compete on money. Someone else can buy more billboards than Ben. Right. And so we have to think how, like, how can I compete in this market?

[00:23:52] Ben Glass:
The good news is around every, you know, giant, uh, or, you know, even though Amazon is here, there are still hardware stores, right? Uh, that do well, right? So looking in other industries and seeing how the non 800 pound gorilla is marketing and winning at the game is another sort of teaching point in philosophy.

[00:24:14] Ben Glass:
We’ve, we’ve talked about for years, the great little marketing, which is, What do I see other small biz owners who are killing it do? Great. Let’s be curious about how they think. Great. Now, how can we import that into legal?

[00:24:31] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yep. So, that, that’s a good segue into the next question where different areas of law have very, very different marketing techniques that work well.

[00:24:42] Andrew Nasrinpay:
And I think part of it is some areas are really well known to clients, maybe that’s family law like divorce, they know they may need an attorney, car accidents, they’ve been bombarded with TV ads for a long time, they know it’s a thing, asbestos litigation, all of those are areas that people know about.

[00:25:02] Andrew Nasrinpay:
But for example, your ERISA claims, that’s an area that consumers don’t know that well, and it may lean heavier towards referrals. Or areas that, uh, it takes, there’s almost no amount of marketing that will get you that claim, uh, through digital ads or TV, where the pool of people is too small to do some sort of traditional media campaign.

[00:25:28] Andrew Nasrinpay:
So can you tell us a little bit about the differences between, uh, two sides of your practice, ERISA claims and personal injury?

[00:25:36] Ben Glass:
Sure. So I kind of disagree with your premise a little bit. I think I think in these uber niches, because now there are fewer lawyers in them, that a lot of the digital strategies can work even better because there is far less money spent in ERISA long term disability litigation than there is in blue car hits red car, uh, cases, right?

[00:25:58] Ben Glass:
So there’s that now for the niches. So here, here’s the play there is. For someone who might have that problem but doesn’t yet know that it’s a legal issue or that there are even lawyers like me who handled this and who specialize in this, I’m asking who else is serving them. So getting in front of the neurologist, the uber specialists and the medical side, um, is, is a play that anybody can do.

[00:26:29] Ben Glass:
Like you start to think about this. If you’re in estate planning and maybe you have a niche in estate planning, so maybe you’re estate planning for wealthy people who built and own three businesses. What other professionals are serving that individual or their companies? Now getting in front of them and saying, hey look, You serve my next client.

[00:26:52] Ben Glass:
They probably have questions. I can a we always ask. How can I help you first, right? That’s the proper way I think to start a referral relationship. How can I help you? Let me tell me a little bit about your business But then letting these other servants know that you’re the one that can solve this very narrow niche.

[00:27:10] Ben Glass:

Uh, and then the other play in the ERISA long term disability is that these, my future clients oftentimes are being served by social security disability attorneys, most of whom do not do the ERISA litigation. Um, but there’s a ton of overlap. And so we have made a very deliberate effort at Ben Glass law of identifying both social security disability and also workers compensation attorneys.

[00:27:34] Ben Glass:
claimant’s attorneys. Um, uh, because again, there’s overlaps with someone who’s, who’s hurt on the job. There’s a worker’s comp claim may also, and usually does have some coverage from their employer under, um, you know, their, the employer’s, um, employee benefit plan. Right. And so just being in front of them and by being in front of them, I mean, things like a special newsletter for that.

[00:27:59] Ben Glass:
Hey, here’s case of the month, right? Being in front of them means, Hey, here’s the ways a worker’s comp lawyer can avoid malpractice in settling the worker’s comp case when the client also may have one of my cases and your settlement and the wording and your settlement agreement could actually diminish what my, what your client gets over here in the disability case.

[00:28:19] Ben Glass:
But I can, I can help you avoid that, right? So we do a ton of consults with workers, comp lawyers who are getting ready to settle cases. Because there’s certain ways oftentimes if you understand these policies Certain ways you can you can word the workers comp settlement releases So that the client is maximizing the individual consumers maximizing the dollars in their pocket, which is what we all want to do um, so again I think there’s there’s huge opportunity if you have a niche And what you want to do is be proactive and thinking like who else is already serving This person and how could I be a resource to that other referral?

[00:28:58] Ben Glass:
Person firstly, how can I help you first? So in our space again And because we’re, I guess, pretty good at marketing and teaching marketing, a lot of that reach out can be, Hey, I can help you market your, you have any, ever, ever have any questions about your CPA practice, right? Or you’re a neurologist who’s not a giant practice.

[00:29:17] Ben Glass:
You ever have any questions about how to get in front of more people? We’ve got stuff over here. Like we, let’s have lunch. I’ll show you something.

[00:29:23] Bobby Steinbach:
And to find those people that are serving those niches. Are you. Relying on third party data lists. Are you kind of just like word of mouth, you know, people in the industry, is there like a data feed or a source that you’ve built up?

[00:29:37] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah, right. Well, that’s the biggest data source.

[00:29:41] Ben Glass:
We just switch and we kind of, you can tell when you search somebody like how good is their marketing? Um, you know, uh, so it, it, that is, again, it’s something that the small firm has the advantage because we can, we can sick somebody on that problem. And for us today, that somebody might be one of our out of country, uh, VAs, virtual assistants, and say, Hey, give me a list of all the social security disability lawyers who are running pay per click ads and have what seems like a semi robust website in Virginia and Maryland and North Carolina and go find out everything you can find out about them.

[00:30:18] Ben Glass:
Give me a database. So that’s, that’s how we do it. So human capital working on it, uh, primarily I’ve, I’ve tried to buy lists, but. You know, when you buy lists from list brokers, at least in this space, the lists aren’t there. Dirty.

[00:30:33] Bobby Steinbach:
Always dirty.

[00:30:34] Ben Glass:
A lot of waste.

[00:30:35] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah. Yep. Always dirty.

[00:30:37] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah. That makes sense.

[00:30:39] Andrew Nasrinpay:
When did you decide to expand into serving multiple practice areas? And by expanding into, let’s say Arisa or expanding into personal injury, did it help you make your other practice better? Are there things you learned from that that kind of carried over into another case type?

[00:30:56] Ben Glass:
Yeah, sure. So, I’ve always been a personal injury lawyer and like many lawyers who are in a, who are in a niche, I kind of discovered it about 22 years ago because I got a case and it looks like a, just a general, uh, insurance case.

[00:31:11] Ben Glass:
And then you find out that it’s not, it’s this weird stuff called ERISA and it’s in federal court. So you get your butt kicked for a few years, um, learning everything I learned from defense lawyers. Um, and so what it does is it, uh, uh, it’s our practice today. So my son, Brian, uh, runs the PI side. Pretty much.

[00:31:32] Ben Glass:
I I’m, I’m involved, but I’m not handling personal injury cases. Um, he oversees the risk of disability, you know, ask me questions, but, but my team and I are running those cases. Uh, that practice area provides us because of the way we structure the relationship with a client and the fees. It provides us with about 600, 000 a year in recurring, you know, monthly revenue.

[00:31:55] Ben Glass:
That’s, uh, you know, guaranteed because we get paid every month that they’re on claim. Uh, and we actively approximately keep them on claim work to keep them on claim. So it provides a great financial base that, you know, is coming in every single month. The other thing it does is Now we’re viewed as uber specialists, right?

[00:32:16] Ben Glass:
Because we don’t do divorce, family law, estate planning. We don’t do a lot of slip and fall. You don’t do a lot of PI, a lot of things that warriors lift on websites as they do for personal injury. Like we don’t do, we do automobile work. We do dog bite work and pretty much anything else is not something that we’re going to take.

[00:32:34] Ben Glass:
We’re really good at our lane and we’re really good at saying no to things that aren’t in our lane, which is another thing. I think that was a, that was a watershed moment for me when, because the marketing got better, as I learned is being able to say no to stuff that, okay, this might make me some money, but it’s also going to cost me a ton of hours and a ton of grief because I’m not really an uber expert in, you know, slip and fall in Virginia is a hundred percent contributory negligent state.

[00:33:00] Ben Glass:
So what might be a good case in a different comparative negligent state? is a disaster often in Virginia. So learning how to say no. And then what happens is clients perceive you as expert because we’re not all over the place. We’re not doing social security. We’re not doing workers compensation. We are Uber experts in ERISA, long term disability and life insurance claims.

[00:33:24] Ben Glass:
And we are, we’ve got a very, very strong brand in the auto market, even in the Washington DC area. Like, as you can imagine, that’s a highly competitive space.

[00:33:32] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah. Then

[00:33:33] Ben Glass:
with anybody. I mean, cause cause 80 percent of our money comes to people we know. And so no one else is like in their pockets trying to get their attention because they’re running, you know, TV ads and stuff.

[00:33:44] Ben Glass:
Well, our people aren’t even looking at TV ads because they know us. And here’s the other thing. They don’t know us just as lawyers. They know us as dads, as soccer referees, as a Brian ultra marathoner. They know us as a family member, you know, family, um, uh, that, you know, again, dads, lots of kids running out.

[00:34:03] Ben Glass: 
They know us as CrossFit athletes. So we’re really open and part of our branding is, here’s who we are in the community. We are, uh, we have our own podcasts. We have our own social media feeds that show all the goofy stuff that we are involved in. And cause we want people to know that we’re regular, like we’re, we’re unlawyers.

[00:34:25] Ben Glass:
Like. We are not the stiffy lawyers that you, you dream of when you think about, I got to go talk to a lawyer, people come into our office and they go, what is this place really? Because it doesn’t, doesn’t have the vibe of a law. So anybody can do that too. Everyone has their own story, their own kind of ethos and DNA.

[00:34:43] Ben Glass:
And that’s what we teach lawyers to do is to, that’s how you can be special. It’s like your, your combination of gifts, interests, and talents is unique. Nobody else in the history of the world has what you are exactly interested in and good at. So go tell that to the market, right? Because there’s enough cases out there for everybody.

[00:35:01] Andrew Nasrinpay:
That’s super interesting. You know, I’ve talked to some law firms where they’re the exact opposite, where most of their cases come from advertising. And oftentimes, their story starts with that they were receiving a lot of their cases from referrals. And they had one or two big referral partners that made up 50%, 80 percent of their business.

[00:35:25] Andrew Nasrinpay:
And then one day, that relationship deteriorated. And they were kind of forced into running TV or whatever advertising medium they found success in. Uh, are there any common scenarios for like why firms would lose a referral source? And how to deal with that if you’re a firm and your biggest referral source dried up or something along those lines.

[00:35:49] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Are there any sort of like mistakes earlier in your career or mistakes you’ve seen made that you want future firms to avoid?

[00:35:58] Ben Glass:
A hundred percent. So you ask, you ask anyone who’s a referral source, whether they’re a lawyer or in our case, you know, a healthcare practitioner. Like, what is it you hate about your referral sources, or the people you refer to?

[00:36:12] Ben Glass:
They’ll all have something, and usually it’s something like, they don’t keep me updated on the case, they don’t pay me money, right? The chiropractors will tell you they’re always calling me to ask us to cut the bill, even if the lawyer’s not cutting the bill. So, so the point would be, the principle would be, having these conversations with, with your referral sources, and your new referral source, and saying, what do you, what do you hate about?

[00:36:36] Ben Glass:
a relationship you’ve had in the past. And now if it fits with your DNA saying, all right, you want, you want to, you know, have a monthly report. Great. It goes into our process and into our system. You’re gonna have a monthly report on where the case is in the litigation. You don’t want to hear a monthly report, but you want to make sure you get paid.

[00:36:54] Ben Glass:
Yeah, you’re getting paid first out of anything. Like when that case closes, you’re getting paid first. We don’t screw around. And so our referral sources, so they know that we’re good at what we do. They know that, that we’re not going to embarrass them by, by giving bad customer service to someone who they have referred here.

[00:37:10] Ben Glass:
Again, it’s a place that the solo and small firm market can excel. Like it’s not a high bar to give good client service. This is a big problem in legal industry, but it ain’t that high a bar. Um, uh, it’s part of our, it’s part of our culture, our training, um, our monthly meetings, everything like how can we.

[00:37:31] Ben Glass:
How can we be better than anybody? We believe that we’re better than anybody. So let’s just start there in customer service, in client service. So those, those are the, those are the things I think it’s finding out and now keeping a database, like, like our director of happiness, part of her job is understanding, Oh, Bobby’s a referral.

[00:37:48] Ben Glass:
So it’s great. Who’s Bobby married to? How many kids does he have? What’s his dog’s name? When’s his birthday? When’s the anniversary? Uh, what does he like? What does he not like? And then we have, so we know that, and then we have programs where quarterly we’re sending out nice, nice stuff. So we’ve sent out, you know, curated.

[00:38:07] Ben Glass:
So not with our logo on it, but your logo on it, right? So does that cost more money? Does that, does that require work? It does. Are there people who will do that for you? There are, uh, you know, I get stuff, God bless them. Like people send us stuff at all. It’s all as their names on it. Well, you really cool.

[00:38:25] Ben Glass:
So Mike Mogul, I did it on his podcast and he sent me some t shirts and had my stuff on it. That’s pretty cool. And that’s memorable. Um, so those are little things to think about. Again, yeah. It’s the huge advantage that you have when you’re dealing in relatively smaller numbers compared to a hair pound gorilla down the street.

[00:38:44] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah. So we’re talking about, I want to, I know this is like a little bit round about, but I want to circle back to something you said a little earlier, which was around being able to say no. Right. And this reminds me of that because you’re talking about things you can do when you’re smaller and you can’t necessarily do when you’re bigger.

[00:38:59] Bobby Steinbach:
Um, But I think something that’s like hard to do as a small law firm, same way as it is to do as a smaller agency is You’re small, you’re trying to grow, and now you’re turning down business, or it feels like you’re turning down business, right? Money in the door, you’re saying no. Um, you know, we did it earlier today, actually, as a matter of fact, we had a retail person come in and said, uh, Hey, I have like this ad budget, I want to choose somebody today, can you guys help?

[00:39:25] Bobby Steinbach:
And we had to say no, because it’s not what we do, and we’re trying to be specialists in something, but what advice could you give to small law firms? And why they should say no. Like how, how does that play out and is there anything you can kind of impart on that?

[00:39:40] Ben Glass:
Yeah. So, so, so I understand the problem, right?

[00:39:45] Ben Glass:
I don’t know when the next case is going to come through the door and I got to make payroll and all of that. All right. I get it because I was there when we have all been there. If you, if you have built a firm from being a solo onto something bigger, like everyone has been there. So not no criticism of that.

[00:40:02] Ben Glass:
When my life started to change is when. I said, all right, well, I could take this case that I can tell that either the client is a pain in the butt or the case is really not in my lane or it’s complicated or it’s risky or I could go to another conference and learn about marketing or I could read another book because I always have a stack of books here or I could set up a little mastermind group of other business owners locally and just talk on improving that because if I can solve for that, if I can get this flow of clients to come in who come in pre sold who respect us.

[00:40:34] Ben Glass:
Now I don’t have to worry about cash flow anymore. And so it takes some courage and I truly understand it. But, but I would also say this, like When you, when you fail to say no, and the, and you should have said no because the client is not respectful of you, the client is going to be double not respectful of your team, and if you like your team, you dishonor your team by letting these people in the door, uh, because it’s not fair.

[00:41:03] Ben Glass:
Driving your team members happiness. And now that’s what drives team members away. So folks who come here to work here know that we a hundred percent have our team members backs that we have a hundred percent, no jerk rule. Um, and we, we don’t break that rule. Like you might get a, a strike and a lecture.

[00:41:26] Ben Glass:
That lecture is going to take place. I’m pointing to my phone on speaker phone with my team in here. They’re going to hear how I talk respectfully, but firmly, the Like Bobby, you cannot act that way and send these type of emails anymore. All right, you get one strike, boom. Um, and so that’s, that’s, you know, at the end of the day, you want to do work that you like doing with people you like working with.

[00:41:50] Ben Glass:
And if you’re dishonoring the team that you have by letting either bad cases that are going to keep them working on the weekends or whatever, it’s always going to be a fire, you know, a fire going off five o’clock, uh, or, or bad people that just disrespects the team. That’s not going to help you build something that’s worth building.

[00:42:08] Bobby Steinbach:
That’s great advice. I think that everyone could learn something from, uh, from those words. So we’re gonna wrap up with like a little fun game. We always have a game at the end of these. It’s become a tradition. So for you, I know you’ve been refereeing soccer for 50 years now. Um, so we figured we’d put together a little game called foul or no foul.

[00:42:28] Bobby Steinbach:
All right. So there’s going to be three scenarios and I want you to tell us if each is, uh, we’ll call it like fair play. Okay?

[00:42:35] Ben Glass:
Okay.

[00:42:36] Bobby Steinbach:
All right. First one, uh, AdWords conquesting when firms bid on other firms brands. So just as a refresher, that’s like if somebody bids on the name Morgan Morgan. In AdWords, right?

[00:42:47] Bobby Steinbach:
So they’re running ads on another firm’s name.

[00:42:51] Ben Glass:
That’s no foul. Like if that happened to us, we would, and we found out about it. We would put it up on our bulletin board and just be proud that we made somebody go bid on our name.

[00:43:00] Bobby Steinbach:
All right. No foul.

[00:43:01] Ben Glass:
And from an ethics standpoint, like, you know, there’s decisions all over the place on that.

[00:43:05] Ben Glass:
So we just don’t, we don’t worry about it. I don’t know. I, and you know what, I know that you want to play a simple game, but it’s actually hard to tell these days because the Google pay per click algorithm. Might show somebody else’s name when they search for you just because Google thinks they’re a better solution

[00:43:23] Bobby Steinbach:
These games always break down with lawyers.

[00:43:25] Bobby Steinbach:
Believe me. I don’t know We’ve had a single game with a lawyer is like a straightforward answer. So I’m not

[00:43:30] Ben Glass:
Okay,

[00:43:32] Andrew Nasrinpay:
So the second one is Obviously a lawyer can’t use quote things like guaranteed or best in their legal marketing. It’s against ethics But a lot of times now you’re seeing sponsorships. So a common example is on radio where the show host will say something like, Oh, this firm is the best.

[00:43:52] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Uh, I’m friends with them. I know them. Where does that fall on the spectrum for you?

[00:43:56] Ben Glass:
I’m a First Amendment guy. No foul.

[00:43:59] Bobby Steinbach:
Oh, wow. Lenient and rough. Okay, I wish I had you in soccer. And I’m

[00:44:03] Ben Glass:
not in Florida, so, you know.

[00:44:06] Bobby Steinbach:
Um, okay. Our final, uh, question here. Arizona ABS. The whole, like, non lawyer ownership of law firms.

[00:44:13] Bobby Steinbach:
Foul or no foul?

[00:44:15] Ben Glass:
No foul. No foul. It’s going to make, it says it’s going to help America when we, when we are, when we can get in good CEOs, COOs, CFOs who are non lawyers and give them an equity stake in the game. Wow. And anybody who thinks that lawyers are like, would be ill affected by that. They’ve never lived inside a plaintiff’s personal injury practice where they’re under settling cases to make payroll.

[00:44:36] Ben Glass:
Like that should happen. That happens all the time right now. So just because we have non lawyer ownership does not mean. Uh, that the quality of lawyering is going to go down. In fact, I think that the public is going to be better served when we have law firms running real businesses backed, you know, non bootstrapped money.

[00:44:56] Ben Glass:
Let’s do it.

[00:44:58] Bobby Steinbach:
I don’t know if we’re playing rugby or soccer. It’s a, uh, no foul across the board. Um, so thanks for joining us, Ben. This was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Um, anything that, you know, is coming up that you want our listeners to know you’re going to be present at or anything like that.

[00:45:13] Ben Glass:
Yeah. So I would say, look, we run a conference every year. Uh, our last, our October conference in 2023, we produced 186 pages of edited notes and PowerPoints from the event. We’ve given relay those for free. If you go to gm summit notes.com, GM summit notes.com, name, email address, hey, you’ll be in our marketing funnel.

[00:45:36] Ben Glass:
So you get to see good marketing, I think. Uh, but 186 pages of notes from some of the best speakers from around the country with a ton of actionable tips. But from the mindset side, the personal development side, and of course, in the marketing and law firm building side, uh, from our really great speakers.

[00:45:51] Bobby Steinbach:
Cool. Awesome. We’ll link that down below in the, um, at least on the YouTube video, we’ll have it around. And, uh, definitely link to your books too, because those are pretty much a must have, I think for any small law firm. To pick up

[00:46:02] Ben Glass:
the real quick, anyone out there who’s listening to this, who has a teenage soccer referee, reach out to me, I’ll send you the book.

[00:46:09] Ben Glass:
I’ll send you a flip coin that goes with the book. And if your kiddo ever wants to get on zoom to, you know, to just talk about the mindset side, that’s my offer to the world.

[00:46:17] Bobby Steinbach:
Love it. All right. Thanks for joining us, Ben.

[00:46:19] Ben Glass:
Oh guys. Yeah, that’s fine.

[00:46:21] Bobby Steinbach:
All right. Thank you. So what an episode.

[00:46:25] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah. Super interesting.

[00:46:27] Bobby Steinbach:
I, um, to me, the biggest takeaway dream 100. I love that idea. I think we might have to do it for us.

[00:46:33] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Yeah. I, I think the firms that have focused on referrals and doing good work. Uh, you see that as a common like stepping stone that almost all firms take to see success. Even those that become large advertising firms or go a different route, I feel like a vast majority of majority of them have at least started out by doing good work in getting a ton of referral.

[00:46:57] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah, and I also wanna look into like EOSA little bit more. I’ve heard it come up a lot. I see it around, you know, who I see on, uh, LinkedIn is, um, Jennifer Gore Cuthbert. Maybe we’ll try and get her on the show, too. She, she always talks about EOS, I feel. I think I’ve seen her go to conferences and stuff. Um,

[00:47:12] Andrew Nasrinpay:
I, I think it’s also the core of Mike Morris’s, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of different, um, courses all revolve around that as like the core operating system for the firms.

[00:47:26] Bobby Steinbach:
Yeah. I’m seeing a Rockley futz with the camera, it’s making me nervous. All right, with that, I think it’s probably like a good time to wrap up the episode. So, uh, thanks for joining us on Hot Docket Podcast and we’ll see you on the next one. We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Hot Docket. We’re your hosts, Bobby and Andrew, founders of Mean Pug, the marketing agency for ambitious law firms.

[00:47:46] Andrew Nasrinpay:
Have questions about marketing or anything we covered today? Email us at bark at meanpug. com. Be sure to subscribe to learn more.Yeah. Not all strategies are going to work. Obviously your small firm, you’re not running TV, you’re not running radio. What are some things like that you think a small law firm should focus on?