In this episode, Jim and Tyson interview Chris Homer, a legal marketing expert. They will go over legal marketing strategies and the main topics and concepts of his firm’s book “Online Law Practice Strategies: How to Turn Clicks Into Clients”: the importance of legal branding, referrals, networking, growing leads and more key concepts to help you grow your business!
Chris Homer is the legal marketing expert in GNGF (https://gngf.com/), a legal marketing agency. Their main focus is to educate and empower lawyers to grow their business. They deliver CLE’s, they have webinars and books, etc.
The Book: https://gngf.com/learning/our-book/
Get 50% off the book: Use the code maxlaw50
Exciting news! We have decided to have our very first Max Law Conference here in St. Louis in May, 2018. The venue: St. Louis University School of Law: Our Alma Mater. We are starting to line up speakers and it is going to be a great day and a half. Listen to the episode and get informed! We will have awesome speakers!
Hacking’s Hack: Concentrate more with noise reducing headsets and music that helps you relax! It will help you focus!
Chris’s Tip: Constantly Google yourself. Look up what people say about you and be aware of what’s out there. Focus on fast load time on mobile. Key.
Tyson’s Tip: Set up your content calendar. If you need a sample email us and we will send you a sample. If you can get organized by January 15 for the rest of the year, you are going to have a head start against all these other firms.
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Transcripts: Chris Homer: Legal Marketing and Branding
Chris Homer
You can’t just start throwing money at Google and expect to be everything, you know, at once to Google, right? You need to kind of almost niche yourself first. So think about, again, that brand I talked about, think about what kind of clients you want to go after and what you can do to communicate that to them.
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your phone. Welcome to the show.
Jim Hacking
You’re back on the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And I’m Tyson nutrix. Was on Jimmy.
Jim Hacking
Oh, Jason. I’m excited. We got a great guest today. Chris Homer. He’s a legal marketing expert out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Chris, welcome to the show.
Chris Homer
Thanks for having me, guys. Happy to be here.
Tyson Mutrux
All right, Chris. So if you can introduce yourself to the listeners and tell them what you do. Yeah,
Chris Homer
again, my name is Chris Homer, I am the legal marketing expert at G ng F or get noticed get found. We are a legal marketing agency based out of Cincinnati, Ohio, we’ve been around for seven, eight years, I’ve been there for about six of those. Our main focus is quite simply to educate and empower lawyers to grow their business. So whether that’s through education, we deliver COEs, we do webinars, we have our book, or whether it’s through services, you know, really helping lawyers understand, you know, the marketing goals and helping get them to where they need to be in terms of you know, their online marketing and even offline marketing. You know, that’s what our focus is.
Jim Hacking
Chris, talk a little bit about the webinars, what do you do on the webinars? And how do you connect with lawyers online?
Chris Homer
Yeah, so the webinars, we have a regular series that we put out, and it’s always, you know, based on the topics that you know, people want to learn about, I’m on the phone all the time, talking with attorneys, talking with lawyers, trying to understand their marketing concerns, you know, some questions they have tried to educate people on what’s coming in 2018, for example, right, what things need to be looking out for, but really, it’s a series of webinars where you can come in, learn something useful 2030 minutes, you can watch it over lunch, and, you know, keep up to date with what’s going on out there from simple topics, such as, you know, what does my website need to look like? You know, just what does a basic website look like to, you know, how do I market to millennials, in 2018? You know, our goal is just to give people the power, the education, the knowledge, to either do it themselves, or, you know, make educated decisions on their marketing?
Tyson Mutrux
I, Crystal, I’ve got a question for you. So as part of our firm, and part of Jimmy’s firm, too, we work on, you know, really fine tuning our craft and getting good at what we do. Being really good trial lawyers, for our firm, Jimmy really, really works hard at getting great results for his clients. But whenever a client potential client goes to Google looks for us, they don’t know the difference between a good attorney and a bad attorney. So what are ways that we can really get that out to them without sounding like we’re bragging about ourselves?
Chris Homer
Yeah, I mean, it’s very much understanding your brand. And I think that word brand has, you know, a kind of like a jaded meaning, or people don’t understand the full meaning of the word. Most people think it’s a logo with this cutter color scheme, right. But really, it is that intangible asset that you have, right, it’s not something that the attorney down the street has, right. So in any given, you know, agents in any given firm, any given person, right, whether it’s, you know, a lawyer, an attorney, whether it’s, you know, like a local business, you know, like, even like a plumber, you have everybody has, you know, a couple intangible, right, a couple of three uniques that set themselves apart from everybody else. And it’s being able to take a step back, and really understand what those uniques are. And then taking that and being able to communicate that online and offline, right, you can do it through your website, you know, the way your content on your site is written is one major point of your brand, right, the types of photos, you know, the types of things that you’re promoting social media, how you interact with people on social media is also your personal brand. And then being able to convey that offline, right. So if you’re pushing this whole brand of how, you know, you have great assets, and you’re going to help people with their case, because you have access to a lot of data and a lot of resources that other firms don’t have. And then they come into your firm and you’re in a strip mall with, you know, one office, right, there’s a disconnect in that brand. So but being able to tie everything together is very important. So I think that would be the first place I’d look. And you know, sometimes it’s, you know, offering hot, you know, asking hard questions to yourself or having someone challenge you on some things that you might think are unique, that that really aren’t. And it’s something that we even address in our book, you know, some sample questions and things to get you thinking about, you know, what is that brand? What is that unique that I want to push out there? I think that’s something that people need to step back and think about.
Jim Hacking
Let’s talk a little bit about the book tell our listeners about the book itself. It’s my understanding that you’re on your fifth edition. What were the big changes this year that made you want to do a new edition and what can you do about the book.
Chris Homer
Yeah, definitely. So the last edition of our book we released in 2015. So it’s been quite a while, obviously, things have changed between in over two years in just the general marketing space, not to mention all the legal specific stuff that’s going on right now. So this is the fifth edition. It’s all in law practice strategies, and the overall focus, that book was always meant to educate, right? So if you want to market yourself online, the books gonna give you the tools to do it, right, the understanding of, you know, how to set up, you know, social media profiles, what type of content to write, even, you know, talking about the ethics behind it, right? So what can you ethically do, and don’t do, you know, talking, you know, general ABA rules, but this year, we took a step back and wanted to make sure that we could educate a wider audience, right, I talked to a lot of attorneys and realize that there’s people who are trying to get started, but really just don’t know where to begin. So we kind of, you know, peel back the onion a little bit, and found basically three main concepts that we wanted to push forward in this book, protecting your referrals, growing your leads, and then kind of maximizing your yield and being able to, you know, cross the, you know, the chasm of online marketing. And I think those three categories and the structure and the flow of it, you know, there’s something in there for everybody, whether you’re a solo practitioner, whether you you know, you own your own firm, and you know, you’re trying to grow, or whether you’re still, you know, a big law and wanting to promote your own personal brand. There’s something in there for everybody. And I think that’s something that we’re very proud of to push forward.
Tyson Mutrux
So Chris, was protecting your referrals? Can you go into a little bit deeper on that as to what you mean by that, and some things that attorneys can do to protect the referral?
Chris Homer
Yeah, definitely. So when we’re talking about protecting your referrals, it’s oftentimes the most overlooked concept that we found online. We’ve often times had, you know, I’ve talked to people or even brought on clients. And in the first three months, they’re saying, Hey, we’re getting a lot of phone calls, you guys must be doing something fantastic. And reality, we’re saying, you know, we actually haven’t, we haven’t really done any, you know, SEO, or really anything major, your website’s still not live, but it’s taking the steps to, you know, make sure your directory listings are taken care of, right? So people can find you because your your name, address your phone number, online match and are correct, making sure you have just, you know, a basic website, especially if you’re just starting out with this the right basic content, and then making sure you get reviews from the clients who like you, right? This is the primary source of business for almost every attorney, what’s going to continue to be that right? The people who you take care of people you help, that want to spread that word, who want to refer you out to the people that, you know, that need help, they’re not going to go away, it’s just now they’re going online to find more information. You know, and it’s almost just a consumer expectation thing. You know, when’s the last time you bought a product on Amazon or book? You know, and how many times did you get referred to a product and then still read reviews? Like, it happens me all the time, like, I have friends who know exactly the type of types of books I like to read, they’ll refer to me, you know, book, you know, to pick up, I’ll go on Amazon, read reviews from strangers to validate their referral, right? They’re my friends, they know me, they know what I like. But I trust those strangers, I want that validation. So it’s that kind of concept we’re trying to push forward and make, you know, make sure people understand is your referrals are going online. And you know, if what they see when they search your name as an attorney, or the firm name, you know, that makes a difference, right? If you have bad reviews out there. And if someone’s referred to you, the person down the street has five, five star reviews, they’re not going to trust that referral as much. So it’s just very much taking care of the basics, laying the foundation of your online marketing.
Jim Hacking
Chris, and then moving into the next concept in the book that you guys discussed growing your leads, can you sort of tell us your mindset on how lawyers can grow their leads?
Chris Homer
Yes. So when we’re talking about protecting referrals, right, it’s very much taken care of the basics. Now, when you’re trying to move into Grow your leads. There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be done online. And honestly, it is unique to every attorney we talk to, right, there’s not a template that you can necessarily follow. That’s going to work for everybody, every markets, different practice areas are different, right? Whether you’re kind of like, you know, more b2b attorney more transactional, right, you’re litigator, you know, the types of clientele you’re going after a different so there’s a lot of different things that need to be thought about when trying to invest in really growing leads from the internet. But you know, there are some things that you that you really do need to focus on, you know, regardless so, the first thing that I would say if you’re looking to grow your leads, is under look at your competition, right? If you’re in a major market, chances are there’s going to be competition out there who have been you know, investing large amounts of dollars, I mean, five $7,000 a month for five, seven years. I mean, they’re up to almost half a million dollars in investing in their you know, legal marketing. So You know, trying to catch up to that, it’s going to take time, and you need to have a really set strategy and a series of goals to go after to get there. Right. And it’s that kind of crossing the, you know, the chasm, Geoffrey Moore had a book on it. And it’s a concept that I personally really enjoy. And it’s important to think about is, you can’t just start throwing money at Google and expect to be everything, you know, at once to Google, right? You need to kind of almost niche yourself first. So think about, again, that brand I talked about, think about what kind of clients you want to go after, and what you can do to communicate that to them. So what we’re seeing is, you know, pay to play is important, especially if you’re just trying to start out and start growing your leads, especially if you do have those in those large firms in your area who’ve been investing, you know, throwing money into Google ads, or although ads are working very well, or even Facebook. But there’s that kind of pay to play element that I think is very important that people are kind of neglecting right now. It’s just it’s guaranteed visibility, which can help generate clients in the short term that can help fund your long term SEO effort. And I think that’s something that you really need to be thinking of, you know, the second thing is really understanding, like I said, the type of content that people want to read, and also the content that Google wants to show. If we start thinking about the search patterns and the habits of people in 2018, we’re seeing a lot more voice search, right, we’re seeing more people asking questions, you have the Amazon, Alexa, those that are always listening to you wanting to answer every question you can throw at it. You know, that could be a legal question. So thinking of content to write to match that search intent to match that search query, right, so frequently asked questions, what we tell people, it’s the easiest content you could ever write, because I’m sure you get asked, you know, 20 questions a day, that, you know, you could just answer on your website might help cut back your intake time, right, but also might help, you know, produce a more educated client coming forward. And Google loves to rank that. So that’s one thing I would love to do, or that push people to do, you know, a couple 100 words per FAQ, and make sure you answer that question, right in the bill right at the beginning, right, don’t try to bury that answer, you know, deep down within the FAQ, the faster and more precise, you answer that question, the higher chance you have of having that question show up in like the answer cards, if you are familiar with the answer cards. So that’s something that we see a lot of things happening right now, in terms of growing your leads. It really, it’s a bigger strategy of leveraging content. And backlinks are still king, right. So creating content that people want to read, creating content, people want to share, and gaining backlinks to that content is still your number one ranking signal. So if you’re really wanting to grow leads, that should be your primary focus. The only problem is you just can’t go in day one and start doing that it takes time to build up, you got to build up that reputation, that authority, you know, to get to that point,
Tyson Mutrux
Chris, so you talked a little bit about pay to play, I guess some of the issues that I have with that is that some of the new attorneys just don’t have the money to do the pay to play, especially if you’re a personal injury attorney, you’re just starting out, you’re spending the three to 6000 a month to pay to play. And so some of the listeners may have an issue with that. So are there some other ways that some new attorneys can get their name out there can be seen by Google, so they can actually have a presence on the Internet?
Chris Homer
Yeah, if you don’t have the funds upfront to invest in that, again, you know, if you’re strapped on funds, Google’s probably not your best bet, you know, especially if your PII right, when you’re dropping $50 for a quick, you know, you need to make sure you have everything honed in, you know, Facebook’s a little cheaper done, right. And so as although, but if I were starting out and trying to invest in long term SEO, organic growth, I would start out and focus on what can I do for my community to get my name out there, right, organically and naturally? Not on the web? But then how can I leverage that, when I you know, transition that to a you know, website, or web content, it’s one of the things that worked very well. And again, it’s a little bit cheaper to do is something like, you know, run a scholarship program for a local student, you know, in your area, right. $1,000 minimum, I would say, it’s one time you, you know, pay it out, or 2500 works very well. But you create a scholarship and you, you know, genuinely promote, you know, giving back. And you know, there’s a lot of websites out there and high schools that are looking for these to give to their students. So put that on your website, you gain a lot of backlinks to your site, natural backlinks through these scholarships, and, you know, our URL, all of our data shows that the you know, a one year effort into promoting and running a scholarship, the backlinks that you get from there have continued growth, right. So if you’re looking to really step it up and start ranking, that’s your focus, right. So you need to get backlinks and good quality ones. So that’s one way to start right and then you can leverage social media with that as well. So promoting that scholarship on Facebook when you pick a winner. get one of those big checks, right and write their name on it and bring them to your office, take a picture, you know that they’re going to share it on Facebook, and then their parents and their aunts, and uncles and friends are going to share it, right? It’s like, it’s free shares, you’re leveraging their social network for your own, you know, kind of marketing and your kind of branding. So that’s, you know, one area I would look at, right, you know, writing solid content, you know, and you also can’t ignore the technical stuff, right? You know, if your website’s not mobile friendly, you know, that’s, you’re not going to be able to rank if your website doesn’t look good on mobile, you know, needs to load fast, it needs to, you know, run well beat structured well. So you can’t ignore any of that as well. But I would say, again, look back at your brand, look back at, you know, what kind of clients you want to get. And I would even, you know, argue to niche yourself first. So don’t go after the big car accident cases right away day one, right, think about some cases that are not a lot of other attorneys in your area are going after. So maybe it’s, you know, burn victims, right? Maybe it’s still an injury case, not a whole lot of other competition in your area. But how can you get Google to recognize you, in one area that where it’s easier to add on the others? What happens a lot that we see is, you know, hey, I’m just now starting to throw, you know, $3,000 a month into marketing, and in three months, why am I not ranking? You know, when you’re going after, you know, keyword that people are paying $100 per click for, you know, it’s there’s a lot of competition out there, you have to understand it. So finding those easy wins. And having a strategy to get there, you know, should be as you know, really a three, three year five year strategy to get where you want to be, and then being able to, you know, break down what you need at each point along the way.
Jim Hacking
Chris, I have a new theory that I’ve been working on, I’d like to get your thoughts on it. And even Tyson’s thoughts on it, because I think it’s a little bit unorthodox. So, you know, Chris, we have this maximum lawyer Facebook group where we are listeners sort of get together and chat about things. And lately, people have been asking about the ROI on things like networking organizations like BNI. And, and also like getting involved in the local Trial Lawyers Association. And my new theory is that in 2018, a lawyer can build an entire referral funnel, everything through the Internet. In other words, I am wondering whether someone can go completely online and do all of their marketing on the web. And my thought is that when you do that, even if you’re still going to do the other kind of networking that we that I just talked about, the sort of physical face to face networking, it’s helpful to think of it conceptually as online is online, and I need to make online work. And to think that, you know, I want to online is all that I had one if I was in a wheelchair, and I couldn’t leave the office. And all I could do is online, do you think it’s possible for an attorney, even one starting out to build an online presence enough so that they don’t have to go to networking events, they don’t, they can turn down things like that?
Chris Homer
I think so. I think you have to hustle. But I think you can definitely do it. And I think the reason why is don’t think of marketing yourself as just a law firm. You know, think about marketing yourself or as a lawyer, think about marketing yourself as a person. Right. So you mentioned like, you know, meetups, and, you know, and networking things. So, for example, you know, if you love wine, right? There’s networks, and there’s things on LinkedIn, there’s places that you can meet and connect with people who share similar passions, right? So just you as a person can build a referral network can build that, you know, that the brand, outside of marketing your legal services, and I think that’s sometimes what a lot of people don’t think about, right? When they think online, they think I gotta hit the keywords I want, I got to build that, you know, that, that brand there, I got to build those searches, I got to build that organic profile. But there’s this whole other community, like you said, you know, we’re, you know, if you could leave the office, right, you could go join a, you know, a rec basketball team and a rec league, you know, and meet people and then you know, share your networking there, you could join, you know, a church, and under people know that you’re an attorney, if you need help, you know, you can offer your services there. You can do the same thing online. Because, you know, there’s people out there who live in various ecosystems, you know, this, I know, people who live strictly within, you know, inside of Facebook, that’s all they do, is people who live you know, inside of Twitter or LinkedIn, or even other websites, right. There’s like Yelp reviewers, and there’s people who are different forums and blogs, just think about your passions. Think about, you know, your clientele and think about building that brand, you know, that way as well. And I think that’s something that you know, as a marketing agency, I can’t help you with, right, you have to do that yourself. Right? You have to be your own person. I can’t go on social media and start talking about this stuff with for you, right, it needs to be you. You need to be invested in doing it. Now, I can help the strategy to do it. Right. So hey, strategically, what is your goal over the next six months? Alright, let’s start doing X, Y and Z. But you know, it’s got to be you, I think it can be done, you know, and I’ve seen people who have really built that community and built themselves up, you know, from the web. It’s just, you know, you got to be able to hustle to do it.
Tyson Mutrux
Jimmy, to answer your question, can it be done? I think yes. All you have to do is look to Mitch Jackson, because I mean, he’s done a great job of that. I’ve referred a case to Miss Jackson. I’ve never personally met him physically in person, but I’ve met him online. So I think it can be done. I think Mitch Jackson is also an example of someone who is very, very, very, very, very, very good at doing it, and you have a lot of noise online, I think it’s still gonna be much more effective to do it in person, I think you can do it, I just think it’s gonna be so difficult. I think, Jimmy, I think you do a good job of doing it, you meet a lot of your clients online. Because I mean, you have to have that presence, where you’re almost all always online, like Chris is talking about, because relationships and referrals are about relationships, and in really digging deep. And if it’s just a surface level relationship, you’re not gonna be able to really build that referral funnel. It’s funny because Jonathan barber says, the comments and entirely online referral funnel would be a godsend for introverted entrepreneurs. So I think I definitely think people would like to be able to do that. I think it’s possible. I just think you, it’d be very difficult. Joe Vitale is another good example, though, of someone who is always online. It’s a lot of referrals. But again, it’s an example of people that do it a lot. And so if you’re going to do it, you have to commit to it. It’s not something you can just sort of, Okay, I’ll do a little bit online, I’ll do a little bit with BNI. A little bit, a little bit here a little bit there. You have to totally commit to it. It’s a complete approach. But I do want to get a couple of questions. And we have, Chris. So Moore’s Lilienthal. He wants you to talk about backlinks and how firms can get more backlinks. And then Jonathan Barber, has he want to piggyback on top of that question, with regards to what local sites are the best to get mentioned on and news with regards to newspapers and other businesses as well?
Chris Homer
Yeah, I mean, the best way to build backlinks is always through a natural way. Right. One of the things we like to tell our clients and and our attorneys is, you know, work with your in your community, to, you know, give back do something good. Those are natural mentions, those are natural backlinks, whether that is sponsoring, you know, a race or an organization, or you know, hosting a meetup. By the way, you can get a ton of backlinks by like hosting a meetup, like bring people to your office, don’t be afraid to talk to people, right? We just had a question about referrals going online. And that’s a great way to build backlinks. And then there’s also the other way, which is just through really, really good content. You know, there’s, there’s a lot of like technical methods. So there’s like the skyscraper technique, where you look at, you know, the top ranking content on Google, for example, for whatever term that you want to rank for. And basically, you read that content, and then you create content that’s 10 times better than that content. Right? The hope is, you know, if the content is better than the one that’s ranking first, people will take notice, and you’ll start getting the backlinks to your content. So there’s right because you’re a better resource. It’s more in depth, it has more, you know, references, you know, you put a lot more time and effort into it. So, you know, there’s that way as well. But really, backlinks is about, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily look at like, how do I get on the news? You could do it? I’ve seen people, you know, who will become the trusted partner. Again, that’s just building that relationship. But I would focus on what content what makes you unique, right? What can I write, that people want to read? But more importantly, what can I write that people are looking for? Right? So there’s things like Help a Reporter Out? Okay, so these are reporters, journalists, you know, blog writers, people who are looking to write content, they’re always looking for sources, right. They’re always looking for references. And there’s a lot of people out there looking for, like attorneys and lawyers wanting to comment on whether it’s new bills coming up, whether it’s a recent case, whether it’s, you know, some new, you know, wage, gap law, whatever it is, right, they want an opinion, they want, you know, some professional, so look at help reporter out, and oftentimes they’re looking at like, write a paragraph or two sentences explaining this. And if it’s good, they’ll throw it in there and just ask for a backlink right there oftentimes give it to you. So there’s a lot of ways to do that. It really it’s determined on, you know, where you’re at, you know, in your firm, where you’re at in terms of your marketing, and you know, where you want to be. So I think that’s kind of, you know, where I would start, and this will be different for everybody. But those concepts are always going to work, they’re always going to hold true
Jim Hacking
for us. What kind of trends are you and your team seeing in 2018? As we move into the new year, what are some changes or things that people might not be thinking about or should be thinking about?
Chris Homer
Yes, so one of the biggest changes I think, that we’ve been seeing over 2017 and people you know, going into 2018 is very much The emergence of Voice Search. And not just that, but it’s the search intent is different. Right? So I think that’s mainly due to if you think about the millennial generation, right, not college kids, that’s not the millennial generation anymore. You know, myself, you know, upwards of 35 years old, you know, good income family, you know, has a house job, you know, nice cars. That’s the millennial right now, right. But they grew up with technology, they kind of helped shape all this. So it’s coupling of these core concepts, I think that people are starting to, you know, realize, Oh, it’s here already, like this was like supposed to be in the future. But it’s very much, you know, the search intent is different. People want things quicker and faster. So when they, you know, we’re seeing people go to your website less now than ever before. why? It’s because they can do a search, whether it’s for you know, PII attorney or criminal attorney, or for yourself as a, you know, an attorney name or law firm. And they see reviews, they see what people have to say, people are asking questions now on your Google My Business page, right? You should be answering those people are starting to like, not leave search anymore. If they see everything that’s supposed to them that matches their expectations, they’re just gonna call you, or they might not even call it all, we’re seeing things like live chat service, work very well. If you have over 1000 visitors a month, you should for sure have live chat. There’s a lot of them out there. Basically, you pay per excepted lead. So if it’s, you know, if you’re a PII attorney, and someone’s coming to you wanting a you know, a will, you can say it’s not a good lead. But you know, it’s a way for you to be a 24 hour law firm, right, you can be available to people whenever they need it. And you know, especially if you’re in PII or criminal, I would say, we’ve seen leads increase 20, we’ve had leads after both normal business hours. So like after five 6pm, like 20 25% of the leads, depending on your area came in after normal business hours, which you could be losing those leads to someone else, if you don’t have, you know, a system like that set up. And, you know, again, it’s very much intent. As a millennial, I don’t mind speaking on the phone, obviously. But there’s a lot of people who don’t want to do that. They’d rather text and type and chat. And they want things quickly. So catering to that, whether you love or hate, although that’s a whole nother story, their q&a Right there attorney search, and they’re even like their legal help was like $35 or $107, for like a 15 minute consultation through although it’s that idea. And it’s not just marketing anymore. It’s just expectations, right. So like people want quick legal services. And you know, as attorneys, this is a, you know, debated topic, but like unbundling legal services, like what is the future of that look like, because that has a direct impact on how you market your services. And you know, how you portray your brand. So, there’s a whole lot of things that are happening right now that you need to be aware of, I would just boil it down again, mobile, big focus there, I would take mobile first, and think about something like live chat, and think about how to match the new consumer expectation in search, whether it’s, you know, frequently asked questions or getting good reviews, but making sure that intent, that expectation is matched.
Tyson Mutrux
Chris, I’m not sure we really introduced the last topic of the book. And so I want to let you get into that a little bit. Before I do, you do have an offer for the listeners. And it looks like 50% Is it I don’t know if it’s 50% of your book or off your book. But to get it I’ll let you tell them what the actual deal is. But to get it you gotta G N G f.com, forward slash book and use the code Max law 50. D, and you get free shipping and Apparently so. But the last really concept in the book is crossing the chasm. So can you talk a little bit about that? And then also, tell them a little about the offer for the book?
Chris Homer
Yeah, so Crossing the Chasm, I like to look at it as you know, you’ve moved into that stage where you’re wanting to grow your leads, right? You’ve made that decision, you have the basics down, like you cannot be moving into this next step. Unless you have that protect your referrals down. That’s when you’re going to stop getting reviews, or stop making sure your directories are okay. But you have to get to that good point. Right. And it’s that understanding that I’m investing dollars into my digital asset, which is what it is it’s an asset. Right? And I’m just now starting or maybe I just started last year, okay. It’s understanding the expectations of where you’re going to be. So I think I mentioned earlier, if I didn’t, you know, there is law firms out there, and I’m sure you know who they are in your area, who have been spending a ton of money on TV on print, you know, spending seven $8,000 a month on digital but they’ve been doing it for five 710 years, right? So they have this, you know, all built up because they’ve invested into that asset. So expecting to come Men right away, and match that is not going to happen, right? You need to have a strategy, you need to have goals to reach. And it should be a multi year strategy you can get there. But it’s very much understanding that, you know, when they’ve invested a half million dollars into their marketing over the course of a couple of years, and you’ve invested, you know, 60 70,000, there’s a big difference in spent there. So you can even imagine translating that just to AdWords, right? The amount of reach they have, versus the amount of reach you could have with that same budget is vastly different. Right? So the whole focus of this is kind of maximizing what you have, right? So if you’re putting this effort into growing your leads, right, and you’re, you know, writing a bunch of content, you’re building backlinks, don’t forget about the conversion end of that. Right, the whole goal is to get people to call you. So give them the ability to do that I mentioned, like the live chat services, right, getting those systems in place, throwing some money into some advertising at a certain point to increase that visibility, and being able to track everything. And I mean, like everything, whatever you’re investing in online, you got to be able to track. So it’s that understanding that I need to get here and I’m here, what does it take to get to that point, right. And really laying that out, if you don’t understand it, you will never hit your target. Right? Breakout per quarter, where do you want to be and chip away at it, right now get yourself chip away, chip away, chip away, and you will get there, and you will probably spend less money to get to where they were. But you have to have a plan. And that’s I think what a lot of people don’t understand is that, you know, stepladder that nice climb up, people just kind of sometimes was gonna throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. It’s just not the way to do it, and 2018. So I think that’s, you know, a concept that we want to put across its strategy, goals, looking at the data, looking at the numbers, tracking everything, and making sure that you’re making the right decisions for your marketing. And then just to reiterate the offer code for having me on this podcast today, which I’m very grateful for, we have the book that I talked about, it covers a lot of these concepts, and more. Again, it’s good for every every attorney out there, the offer is 50% off the book, which is great. So we’re also includes free shipping, so you can go to gng f.com, Ford slash book, Max law 50 is the code ma x l Aw, 50. And that’ll get you 50% off and free shipping. Chris, thanks
Jim Hacking
so much for that very generous offer. I’m going to, as soon as we get off the call, order that book myself for my last question, because we are running up against the time and I want to respect your time. Break down for me, if you would, when you deal with attorneys, if you had to sort of categorize them as to where they are in understanding what it is that you do. Like if you had a spectrum from zero to 100? Where do most attorneys are? Like if you had chunks of groups? How would you break it down? As far as? Are you working with people that are brand new? Are they you have to explain a lot of things to or is it more people that are up and running and already get it,
Chris Homer
I would say it’s a good mix, I don’t want to necessarily say 5050. But again, our goal is to educate and empower lawyers to grow their business, whether that is strictly through education, whether they’re literally just looking for something to do it themselves. The book is something that we can offer to help with that. Or if it’s someone coming out of law school, or someone that’s leaving big law, open their own firm, you know, getting them to understand these concepts and saying, let’s just get that foundation, I think that’s a big chunk of people that we’ve been talking to right now. You know, it’s really getting that structured that structure in place and getting making sure they have a good plan of growth. And then we do have quite a bit of lawyers that have been working with us for years that we’ve been running their digital strategy, and really helping them grow their leads. And then you know, they’re to that point right now where they’re really maximizing that their yield. And we’re continuing to grow and grow and grow and set themselves apart from their competition. So, you know, we, at the end of the day, love hearing that we grew a firm, whether it’s they hired another partner, or they hired another Associate Attorney or open a new office location, or even said, Hey, can we talk next week, I’m just too busy right now. Like that is our goal. That’s what makes me proud as it makes me happy. And if we can do that, no matter what it is, you know, we succeeded as an organization.
Tyson Mutrux
Very good stuff, Chris are we do need to wrap it up. So before we get to our tips on the hacks of the week, I do want to remind everyone to go to the Facebook group. Join there, get involved in this in the discussions in the conversation. If you don’t mind, please go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and give us a five star review. We really appreciate it. Jimmy what you’re having to eat.
Jim Hacking
So in my never ending quest to pain, my self diagnosed ADHD. I have been trying to find a way to concentrate more and our office is a very loud place. So I got these noise reducing headsets and I found myself when listening to the same song over and over and over. And it really helps me focus. I’m surprised by it. But usually I just, I’m in a sort of a mood for a particular song, I listen to that song. And then I just, it really helps me focus to I don’t know if it’s the repetition, or what, but it’s really helped me focus and to sort of drown out the outside noise.
Tyson Mutrux
You know, so I shared an article on it was from Ink Magazine, I shared it on the Facebook group a few months ago, and it has the top 10 the least stressful songs ever or something like that the top 10 least stressful song. And I downloaded those from iTunes. They actually really are they really work. And I don’t know if it’s one of these things was just in my head where I think it works. But I will play that on the loop though the 10 songs. And I mean, some of them don’t get through all 10 of them. But it’s it actually really does work. So I think that’s a good tip. All right, Chris. So we ask our guests to give us a tip or a hack of the week. So you got a tip for us.
Chris Homer
My tip that I tell everybody and this is it’s not timely, this something you should always be doing is constantly google yourself. Look at what people say about you. Look at what comes up and be aware of what’s out there. If you want a specific tip right now, beginning of 2018, going into 20, you know, going into this new year, I would say really, really, really heavy, heavy focus on fast load time on mobile. I think that’s going to be a huge difference maker over the next year, making sure it’s looking loading very quickly look at a ramp. That is one trend that we’re seeing right now in terms of the top people in search. They’re quick. That’s a
Tyson Mutrux
good one also set up a Google alert for your name. So you see if your names coming up. That’s that’s a good one, too. My tip the week is it’s January 8. And my tip is to set up your content calendar, it’s not too late. Go ahead and set it up. If you need a sample, email me and I will send it to you. It’s definitely not too late to get it going. Listen, if you can get organized by January 15, for the rest of the year or the next few months, you’re gonna have a head start against all these other firms. So set up your content calendar. That is our show for this week, Chris, I Are we really appreciate you coming on. Thanks a lot. It was a lot of great content. And thanks for all the people that have watched today. So this is a good one. So Jimmy, anything else?
