Top 5 Metrics For Your Law Firm

Episode Notes

Transcript

Conrad Saam:  Gyi, I have a question for you, and this has been in the back of my mind for a long time and I want to ask you straight up. Every time I hear the intro to the jingle, I think it’s your voice. Did you record the intro to the jingle?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  You know, I didn’t but I have just been singing it to myself. So, maybe somehow I left my camera on and it got recorded.

Conrad Saam:  I can just see you like screaming, “Mad stacks of cash.”

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah, I mean next time I see you in-person I will sing it for you. You’ll have a live performance.

Conrad Saam:  That would be great. Okay. Today, we’re going to cover — speaking of money makes the world go around, we’re going to talk about 250 million dollars.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  With an M.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah. So, big money. We’re going to go over–

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Big money.

Conrad Saam:  –The top five metrics, Gyi, and I are going to compare metrics that we think are really, really important to run your firm, and we’re also going to have a quick step-in with a Legal Trends Report, brought to you by Clio. And there’s one more thing, just because you can’t get enough of, Gyi and Conrad, in your life, we’re going to double up. So, expect to hear from us, not once, but twice a month on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Here we go. Money makes the world go round.

[Music]

Intro:  Welcome to Lunch Hour Legal Marketing, teaching you how to promote, market, and make fat stacks for your legal practice, here on Legal Talk Network

[Music]

Gyi Tsakalakis:  You know, Conrad, I always thought Laurence Colletti sang the intro.

Conrad Saam:  I can hear that.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Welcome to Lunch Hour Legal Marketing. Before we get started we wanted to thank our sponsors.

Lawyaw provides end-to-end document automation for solo, small, and mid-size practices. Save time and avoid mistakes with documents that you draft over and over again. Learn more at Lawyaw.com. That’s L-A-W-Y-A-W dot com.

Conrad Saam:  And thanks to Alert Communications for sponsoring this episode. If any law firm is looking for call, intake, or retainer services available 24/7, 365, just call 866-827-5568.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  LexisNexis InterAction, the leading client-relationship management solution purpose built for the way law firms engage with their clients. Learn more at interaction.com.

Conrad Saam:  And also Clio’s cloud-based practice management software makes it easy to manage your law firm from intake to invoice. Try it for free at clio.com. That’s C-L-I-O dot com.

[Music]

All right, Gyi. We’re going to go into the news, speaking of our sponsor Clio and mad stacks of cash, Clio brought in 125 million dollars in venture capital, not a bad haul, huh?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Nice job, Clio. Really building something special over there. Kudos to all the Clions, and you know, it’s just kind of also — not in the context of Clio but in the massive VC infusion into legal texts, it’s kind of a “told you so” right? We’ve been talking about more money coming in for as long as I can remember.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah, I mean — and it’s getting bigger. So, along with that Clio round, Scorpion raises a hundred million dollars, which I find really fascinating, Gyi, because Scorpion’s kind of an agency very similar to, say, ours.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Well, I would say congratulations to Scorpion as well, and you know, look, we know that you don’t get to those kind of valuations just on services.

Conrad Saam:  Right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  So, they’re building, right? They’re building technology, platform. I know they’ve been talking a lot about AI and bid managements, and whatnot, so can imagine CRM potentially.

Conrad Saam:  CRM. I would expect to see more software coming out of a company that can raise a hundred million dollars, and I’m curious — I’m not even curious. I’ll show my hand here.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Show your hand.

Conrad Saam:  We have a proprietary website platform. I’m wondering just how open or proprietary the software that they deliver will be. And so, I would ask yourselves, are we building higher walls to our walled garden? Just throwing that out there.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  That’s interesting. I guess TBD on that and, you know. So, what does this mean for just like the regular practicing lawyer when all this money is coming into these tech platforms and, like, why do I care?

Conrad Saam:  Yeah. I mean, that’s a very fair question and it’s kind of like, “Why are Conrad and Gyi talking about — why do they keep coming back to this?” And I think what you’re going to see, Gyi, is this is a consolidation play.

(00:05:02)

If you are on one of the tertiary matter management systems, one of the smaller matter management systems, it’s probably going to go away and pretty soon, there’s a lot of money — I can tell you that there’s a lot of money in acquisition in both Clio and Scorpion’s budget, all right, and so I think you’re going to see some consolidation. The other thing that I would be worried about if I was on one of those kinds of tertiary systems is, do you just get kind of left behind and unsupported? We’ve definitely seen that in the past where VC has come in and left some dated software completely unsupported.

So, this is why if you’re running a small business why this big money does have an impact and how it will have an impact on what you’re doing.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right. And then the other side of that coin is presumably hope that with this investment, you know, they’re able to iterate a lot faster to drive innovation in the products. And so, hopefully it also turns into much better user experiences for the users, right?

Conrad Saam:  And we’ve seen that. Right? Like, the technology has made — even in the last four years, the sophistication with which you can run your law firm has just exploded through the use of easy to use technology that used to kind of really be just at the enterprise level, which you’re now seeing at even the small firm level.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Like Microsoft Excel.

Conrad Saam:  I wasn’t quite sure where to go with that.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I meant WordPerfect.

Conrad Saam:  The other thing, Mr. Tsakalakis.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yes, sir.

Conrad Saam:  We have our conference coming up, May 26th.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Your conference.

Conrad Saam:  It is our conference.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  That’s nice of you.

Conrad Saam:  It is–

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I’m a very grateful host. Is that what I am? A host?

Conrad Saam:  You are a fantastic host. So, bedlamconference.com. Join us at bedlamconference.com. It is, Gyi, Casey Meraz who is a very old friend of both of ours, and Mike Ramsey from Nifty. So, we will have four hosts and we’ve got some really smart people including Darren Shaw who’s going to go over the local ranking factors. We would love to see you there if you are a Lunch Hour Legal Marketing listener. You have a free code to get in to BEDLAM, May 26th. It’s LHLM on checkout. I’ll be seeing you there.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  But don’t tell any non-listeners.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah, don’t put this on the Twitter. Maybe we should limit this to like five free tickets.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Well, we’ve got to do more than that.

Conrad Saam:  55. Yeah. So–.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  So, it’ll be in the fine print.

Conrad Saam:  It’ll be in the fine print. So, we’d love to see you, and Gyi is going to guarantee that you’ll be blown away by the content and if you’re not–

Gyi Tsakalakis:  And if you’re going to sing.

Conrad Saam:  Money makes the world go round.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah, it’s — you know, needless to say, it’s something we’re both pretty proud of and, you know, it’s a platform for competing agencies to bring their A game. And so, you know, the feedback has been positive. So, happy that we can keep that going, and it’s virtual. Did you mention that?

Conrad Saam:  Virtual, yes.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  That’s important.

Conrad Saam:  No planes.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  People might be trying to go.

[Music]

Conrad Saam:  No planes.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  All right, I’m exhausted. Let’s take a break.

As the largest legal-only call center in the U.S. Alert Communications helps law firms and legal marketing agencies with new client intake. Alert captures and responds to all leads 24/7, 365 as an extension of your firm in both Spanish and English. Alert uses proven intake methods, customizing responses as needed, which earns the trust of clients and improves client retention. To find out how Alert can help your law office, call 866-827-5568 or visit alertcommunications.com/ltn.

Conrad Saam:  The right client-relationship management solution enables and empowers firm growth. LexisNexis InterAction is designed specifically for law firms and embeds client intelligence at the heart of every InterAction, providing valuable insights into client relationships so you can make strategic decisions about how to focus your resources to gain more business. Learn more and request your free demo at interaction.com/lunchhour.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  And we’re back, and you can’t see me because this is a podcast but I’m down on my knees and I am begging you, please, to give us some feedback. So, head over to your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review. And, look, if you can’t — if you dropped on this and you can’t stand it please let us know that too, but we do need your feedback. You can also just send us emails or direct messages to give us your feedback but we really do appreciate those reviews.

Conrad Saam:  Do we strategically ask for the reviews after we’re certain that anyone who hates us has already left?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Well, we just asked after the free tickets.

Conrad Saam:  That’s true.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  So, I thought, you know.

Conrad Saam:  Quid pro quo.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Good time, right? Moving on. And now for the Legal Trends Report minute brought to you by Clio. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

(00:10:00)

Our sound engineer is still working on the sound for this segment. Did you know, Conrad, that in 2020 over 50 percent of legal professionals worried about the success of their law firm. That seems terribly low.

Conrad Saam:  I was going to say the same thing, Gyi, that for a bunch of people who have been trained to see risk everywhere, 50 percent.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Did we read the stat right?

Conrad Saam:  I could go backwards. I’m going to say this is an optimistic stat. At least 50 percent — like we can remarket this.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah.

Conrad Saam:  At least 50 of legal professionals see success in their law firms’ future.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  It could be a hundred percent. It’s over 50 percent. It’s something between 50 and 100 percent. It’s not less than 50.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah. I mean the interesting thing there is that billable earnings are down 6 to 8 percent across the industry and, you know, we are still living in a bit of the COVID hangover hard times.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah. And you know, it’s I think also there’s – and we’ve talked about this many times but lawyers’ hands are finally forced because there is no — in many places, there’s been no in-person to undergo at least some level of digital transformation. And so, you know, there’s some growing pains in there but, you know, the lawyers that are putting this to work, they’ve managed to earn 37,000 more than others. What are they doing differently? Technology, right? Online payments, client portals, and client intake solutions, and notice what do all three of those technologies have in common? They’re about the clients.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Easier to pay, easier to interface, easier intake, better success, but it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Conrad Saam:  I mean, it’s not a surprise. Right?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right.

Conrad Saam:  Like, I think one of the potential fallacies that we have is that, you know, “Oh. Well, the nerds like technology and there’s technology for technology’s sake.”

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right.

Conrad Saam:  And in some cases that can be true at the very early adopter level, but we’re at a point now, this in the last 48 months to 36 months has become accessible to all of you small firm owners. We’re working with starting out solos with a level of marketing sophistication that you just could not have unless you were a 10-lawyer firm two years ago, right?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right.

Conrad Saam:  And it is there. It is a very real thing, and I think that, you know, this may be self-inflicted by us coming from Clio but the fact that their Legal Trends Report is showcasing that lawyers who adopt technology are making 37 grand more than those who don’t, like, there’s a reason behind that. Right? And you’re right, Gyi, it is client-centric.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah and, you know, the other thing that I think is not terribly surprising but you alluded to this, you’re starting to see the legal services consumer marketplace expect the technology, and here’s — you know where you see it play out in online reviews. Right? “This lawyer was really difficult to get a hold of. They never sent me any contact information,” that, you know, “My call goes to voicemail. There is no client portal, scheduling,” Right? That’s another big one where you can see that the expectation of the consumer has changed. It’s they need this. “I want to be able to sign documents without coming to your office. I want to be able to have a consultation in a way that doesn’t require me to expose myself to COVID,” or you know, there’s the proximity stuff. And guess what else? And this is why, some of this is just an acceleration of trends we’ve already seen, “I’m busy.”

Conrad Saam:  Right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  “I don’t want to have to get in my car and drive to see you,” or you know, “go find my checkbook that I haven’t used in two years to pay my legal bill because you’re the only business that I have to write a check to pay and mail to,” because everybody else accepts online payment.

Conrad Saam:  I think one of the nuances that I’m seeing here, Gyi, is that the attorneys who are able to showcase that their use of technology is a comforting process, that is like — I call this customer success, like you’re handled, this is the process that we go through, “Here’s the documents that you need to sign. The next thing that you’re going to see is a meeting with Bill and that’s going to happen at this time,” and it’s using technology to walk that client through their experience puts the client at a level of comfort that we used to deliver in-person, and it’s more than just, “Hey, we’re going to have a Zoom meeting.” Right? It’s that there’s this process and there’s this methodology, and we do this all the time and this is how it’s going to work, and now the client understands that they’re taken care of and they feel that level of comfort that they want to feel because you’re thinking about their entire journey, and you’re using technology across the entire journey to deliver a much better experience.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Technology-enabled expectation setting.

Conrad Saam:  Game on.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  To learn more about these technologies and much more for free, download Clio’s Legal Trends Report at clio.com/trends.

(00:15:08)

That’s Clio, spelled C-L-I-O. And I’ll even give you another tip. If you just google Clio Legal Trends Report, it comes up in the first spot too.

Conrad Saam:  So, for our next group we’re going to talk about the top five metrics. Now, Gyi, I live in this world where I know that there are nothing but metrics that marketing agencies can throw at law firms. Most law firms have no idea what those metrics are and most of them, in my opinion, are fundamentally useless. So, what I want you to think about and what I’ve already written down for myself, the top five useful metrics to think about the health of your marketing.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Fun.

Conrad Saam:  Okay.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  All right.

Conrad Saam:  That’s my challenge.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Okay.

Conrad Saam:  Give me, in reverse order. We’re going to go ping-pong back and forth.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  All right.

Conrad Saam:  Number 5 for you.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  All right. Number 5 for me, cost per qualified lead.

Conrad Saam:  Okay, how are you defining qualified lead?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Well, that’s a good question. I think, you know, every firm’s got to find that for themselves but it’s someone who’s interested in talking about how the firm can help in a way that’s relevant to the way the firm helps. So, that was a very wordy way of saying, “If you’re a criminal defense lawyer and someone is calling you, looking for criminal defense legal help, that’s a qualified lead.”

Conrad Saam:  Okay, I’m going to go and give a strum in question to your comment here.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Please. Please.

Conrad Saam:  What percentage of the legal industry do you think has a good and accurate understanding of their qualified leads?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  10 percent.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah, Okay. I would agree with that.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Is that high?

Conrad Saam:  At the — yes. I think that’s high. I think 10 percent think they do. Okay, my number 5, is the percentage of your business that comes outside of spending money with people like me, and Gyi, and Google, the percentage of your business that comes from referrals, that does two things. One it’s really great business to have because it doesn’t cost you anything. What it costs you is doing an amazing job.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  So, I say false there.

Conrad Saam:  Go.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  On it being free.

Conrad Saam:  Let’s fight about this.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Because time, your time, your time to build relationships, your time to do great work.

Conrad Saam:  Yes.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Your time to develop a reputation or community or be a leader, or speak, or — that stuff is not — your time is not free, but it is extremely valuable, and I agree that it should be the cornerstone of a healthy practice, and as always throwing the ball back to you, what percent is good?

Conrad Saam:  I’ll give you a very carefully thought through answer.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  It depends. No.

Conrad Saam:  No. I’m going to give you what percent is great.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Love it.

Conrad Saam:  If you are such a good lawyer and you do such a good job of driving clients and – sorry — of delivering an amazing experience for your clients and you are known for this, and 100 percent of your business comes from referrals and you never have to talk to me and Gyi, pat yourself on the back and have a glass of scotch.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Agreed. I’m going to give you one caveat.

Conrad Saam:  Go.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  And so, I agree with you 100 percent comes from referral, and you’re hitting your objective from a growth standpoint. Right?

Conrad Saam:  Yes, yes.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Because it’s easy to be like, “Oh, yeah. I have 100 percent of my business’s referrals and I get one client every seven years.”

Conrad Saam:  Right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  And I eat ramen. I can’t pay my subscription.

Conrad Saam:  Right, 100 percent. Totally agree. Okay, what’s your number 2?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Well, technically like two, for the way you’re saying it, number 4.

Conrad Saam:  Sorry number 4, number 4. We’re going backwards.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Backwards. Cost per client or client acquisition cost.

Conrad Saam:  Are you going to say CAC?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I’m not.

Conrad Saam:  That’s like the worst acronym ever. It sounds like something that you catch.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Well, if I say CPC, then people are going to be, “Oh, he’s saying cost per click is the most important.”

Conrad Saam:  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  So, how much money does it take to — and here, going back, not just money. How much time and money does it take to acquire a client, and you know, what’s a good number? Well, it kind of depends on a lot of your financial metrics. It depends on another metric that I’m going to name in a minute, but maybe I should just stop right there and let you say what your number 4 is.

Conrad Saam:  No, I have a question for you though.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah, please.

Conrad Saam:  I’m going to ask you the same question.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Okay.

Conrad Saam:  How many law firms do you think have an accurate understanding of cost per client?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Okay. Well, you said accurate.

Conrad Saam:  Yes. That’s the key.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I think that — So, I’m going to say this I think a higher percent are wrapping their head around this concept. I think that the cost per qualified leads is a tough one.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I think cost per client, though, I feel like a lot especially lawyers, you know — take PI lawyers aside because of contingencies, you know.

(00:20:00)

As they’ll tell you, it’s all over the map but, you know, if you’re a DUI lawyer, you have a good sense of like, “Hey, this matter’s going to be five grand,” or whatever it is, “and I can spend, you know, 500 bucks to get a client,” right? And so, I’m trying to, you know, target like 10x on my fee versus cost per client.

Conrad Saam:  Right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I think there’s a better sense of that. I still think there’s opportunity there for improvement but I think to your point, this is the — maybe your point you were making, how accurate is it, right?

Conrad Saam:  Right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  So, it’s easy to do something like ROAs, but it’s not as easy to be like, you know, “What’s the cost per client for the time that I spend building referrals?”

Conrad Saam:  Yeah. I think my gut here is that the accuracy is better in aggregate.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right.

Conrad Saam:  It’s very inaccurate when you get into any layer of granularity, and that’s very difficult.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  If only there was a way to get more granular.

Conrad Saam:  I’m not trying to tee that up but, yes, there is a way to get more granular.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  You’re always. You’re always trying to tee it up.

Conrad Saam:  But like it’s so obvious.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Listeners know. They listeners know, Conrad. They’re on you.

Conrad Saam:  All right. They’re on to us. On to just me?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Just you. Around you, yeah. Me, they haven’t figured out yet.

Conrad Saam:  It’s much too obtuse. Okay, I’m giving you my number 4 here.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Please do.

Conrad Saam:  Mine is the UCR. This is my own word, but no one’s ever really picked this up and run with it but it is the useless content ratio, and this really applies to those of you who have a large volume of content on your — mostly a large volume of content on your site. My bias has been for a very long time that — and I’ve used this phrase over and over again, but you’re barfing out blogs because someone told you to do that and so–

Gyi Tsakalakis:  It’s like buying lumber, buy blogs like lumber. Buy a lot and buy it cheap. Although lumber is really expensive right now.

Conrad Saam:  At least for a week, right?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right. I love UCR, by the way. And here’s the thing too, and you already know this because you eat and breathe this stuff.

Conrad Saam:  Telling me I’m teeing this up again?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Well, more you’re seeing a lot more messaging in the search community.

Conrad Saam:  That’s right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  About the actual — not just the neutral impact of UCR, but the actual negative impact of UCR especially in the search context. Right?

Conrad Saam:  Joy Hawkins just posted about this. I will tell you that I wrote a post called SEO Regicide, Content the King is Dead like 10 years ago, all right, and so at the risk of trying to make myself sound like I saw it coming.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  No risk. No risk there.

Conrad Saam:  Well, here’s the thing, when I was running marketing for Avvo, Avvo had a content problem because it had too much content. And so, I was early on dealing with trimming content instead of adding content, and I spent a lot more time trimming content than we worked on adding content. And so, I’m a big believer in this. I’ve also seen it work for a bunch of our clients. The other thing, and it’s not just — I want to be clear on this. It’s not just the volume of content. That’s like a very blunt way to look at this. It’s the fact that a lot of your content could be doing a lot better, looking at stuff at the page level, and understanding where you’re completely missing like this one page, “If we change the H1 from A to B or if we use this to build out three more pages that were more specific,” like you can get really deep into the analysis of your content and change how you perform from a search perspective, especially if you are in a practice area that has a longer consideration set, a longer purchase cycle, family law, immigration, et cetera. There’s that much more kind of high funnel content, and I think we’re missing it because I think we’re still looking at these things with very blunt instruments, and while the tools exist to actually take a really deep look, we’re not applying that. There’s a lack of sophistication in how we think about content that the firms who are killing it have gotten past.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  All right, listeners, we’re going to let you ruminate on that while we take a quick break.

[Music]

No one cites routine drafting as the reason they chose to become a lawyer, but that’s where a lot of time goes for solo practitioners and small firms. Lawyaw can help you transform your existing word documents into reusable templates, with no coding required. Save time and avoid errors with intuitive features like conditional logic. Use a tool that empowers your experience and expertise. Learn more at lawyaw.com. That’s L-A-W-Y-A-W dot com.

Conrad Saam:  All right. Coming back, Gyi, give me your number 3.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Number 3. And I’m going a little bit David C. Baker-y on you here.

Conrad Saam:  David Baker.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Billable efficiency is a way of talking about utilization, but it’s not utilization in the way that a lot of people think about as billable.

(00:25:02)

It’s the time that you have that you’re getting paid for based on the total, like from a financial basis based on the total money, and if you just search for ReCourses, eight gauges, it’s in David’s post, that he articulates better than I will, but it’s a measure of how well your capacity to deliver service matches you’re getting paid for it.

Conrad Saam:  So, I love David C. Baker and that post is really focused on agencies. I actually belly-flopped in showcasing to David just how poorly his own SEO was when he changed domains and had a complete SEO mess. He was very unimpressed with my analysis and he turned into a client.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Which is an amazing side story.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  But I do think it’s — you know, I don’t want to go deep on this one but I do think it’s important for folks, you know — Clio talks a lot about utilization. It’s an important metric for running a firm, period. And so, if they pose me the questions, what’s most important for running a firm, you’ve got to have your eye on utilization. What’s yours, Conrad?

Conrad Saam:  My next one, this is simplistic, and most of you guys and women will overestimate how good you are on this because I’ve asked, and then I’ve looked at the data. What percentage of time do you answer the phone?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  30 percent.

Conrad Saam:  Do you know what the average is, Gyi?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I do not.

Conrad Saam:  So, this is my clients, 91 percent.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  You’re indexing high, yeah.

Conrad Saam:  Somewhere between 90 and 91 percent answer the phone. The key here is, think about this, we have clients who answer the phone 80 percent of the time, which means — this is what I yell at them about. If they could just get to average, their marketing budget effectively increases by 10 percent.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Totally. And let me tell you something. The first thing that I look at when I have someone talking about how leads are down, “Leads are down,” I’m like, “What did you change in your intake process?” “Oh, we just hired two new intake people.”

Conrad Saam:  Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  “Oh, we just switched intake systems.” It’s always, it’s always that, because guess what? On a month over month, not a ton is changing in your campaigns.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  It’s not like it’s not — and, you know this, it’s funny because you talk to lawyers and they’ll be like, “Oh. Well, you know, we’re sending all these.” All of a sudden it’s like not qualified leads. It’s like, “Hey, guess what? Nothing has changed.” It’s the same. They go, “Here’s the keyword report. Here’s the ad copy. Here’s the landing page. Here’s the search query report. Here’s the search console’s query report.” It’s all the same stuff. What happened? “Oh, you stopped answering the phone.”

Conrad Saam:  Yeah. I mean, it happens over and over again.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right.

Conrad Saam:  And I’ll tell you this. All of you should be using a third-party answering service for when you are not available.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Who do you like?

Conrad Saam:  Well, I can tell you that there are — Alert Communications, that is a sponsor of this show, is one of those that I like, and not just because they sponsor them.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Smart to say that.

Conrad Saam:  But here’s my point on this. There are lots of third-party answering services, there are lots of bad third-party answering services.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  This problem should be solved.

Conrad Saam:  This is a solvable problem. It’s like you have one job. Let me leave it with this and then we’ll move on to the next one. If you are using a third-party answering service, don’t assume that they are answering the phone.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right.

Conrad Saam:  Because many of them are terrible at their primary function.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Keep CallRail in there or Invoca, or any of the call tracking.

Conrad Saam:  That’s going to give you the data to tell whether or not your third-party or your in-house people are answering the phone. Like, that’s a basic thing. You should know what the answer — and by the way, the bigger your firm is and the more money you spend, the closer that should be to 97, 98, or 99 percent.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Nice.

Conrad Saam:  That’s where it should be. Okay. What’s your next one, Gyi?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  2, I put LTV, lifetime value of the client.

Conrad Saam:  Really?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah, and the reason is, I kind of hedged on this one a little bit, went back and forth, but there’s such an untapped – in so many firms, there’s such an untapped resource of repeat whether it’s referrals or staying top of mind, or just repeat business, all right, you know. Some of it in certain practices, it’s — and lawyers tend to think in matters. So, they’re like, “I represent this person. The value of that representation is X,” but it’s like, well, no. If you nurture that relationship, you might find all sorts of other ways that you can help them that you never thought about. And so, you have to zoom out and take a bigger picture of like the lifetime value of the client and that, so that’s their thing too, when you talk about cost per acquisition and cost per qualified lead, you’ve got to think about that lifetime value and even the post representation value of the relationship that you’ve built.

Conrad Saam:  So, let me ask you a question on this.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Okay.

Conrad Saam:  I have an MBA, not a JD, and the MBA brain in me likes this, and yet I’ve talked to law firms. I’m thinking about family lawyers specifically, and their answer is basically like, “Listen, as soon as we’re done, my client never wants to hear from me again.” Like, this was an ugly part of their life.

(00:30:00)

They don’t want a birthday card or they don’t want an anniversary of our divorce, flowers.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Well, they definitely don’t want that.

Conrad Saam:  Listen, I’ve talked to lawyers who do that, all right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah, I think — I mean here’s the thing, you know. This is one of those classic, “It depends,” and I think that my experience is this when we campaign broad brush, but I know family attorneys who have built — they’re like, “Yeah. I was going through literally the worst thing in my life, and you were the person who helped me navigate that.”

Conrad Saam:  Right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  “We’re best friends.” And so, it just depends on your firm and your positioning and, you know, the service that you’re providing, and frankly like how much empathy and relationship you’re actually trying to develop. And I’ll tell you this, this is one of those things that is a huge competitive advantage for the lawyers who get it right.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  So, if you’re going to be the historical monolithic family lawyer where it’s like, “Oh, this is the lawyer that’s just like the pit bull who you want in your corner during the divorce,” and they fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. Well, that is appealing to some people, but there’s a lot of people that that’s not appealing to and so, for that group, worst time in their life, making a very emotional decision, huge competitive advantage for those that can actually build a deeper relationship than just, “Fought really hard for my divorce. Never want to hear from you again.” My personal take.

Conrad Saam:  I’m going to go touchy-feely on this, but you brought the word up, and you said how much empathy you show. Right? And I actually think it’s — I agree. It is a huge competitive advantage. It is missing in many law firms, and I think it’s due to the lack of empathy, genuine empathy, not just what you demonstrate, but actual genuine empathy, and that, it seems so strange to have empathy being a competitive advantage but I think it is.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I mean, all the studies show the same thing. People make these kinds of hiring decisions based on emotions. They’re not making it based on them, sure. Do they want to know that you’re a competent lawyer? Yes. Do they want to know that you have experience dealing with the issues that they’re dealing with? Of course. But guess what? Everybody — you know I’m going to say this (00:32:12) that’s just not true. Everybody, from what you can communicate about your practice, has those things. Right? They all, you know. Everybody’s got 100 positive reviews — you know, not everybody does but you look at a competitive search result, everything’s there for you to see.

You see the lawyers have hundreds of reviews, the top three have hundreds of reviews. They’re all fours and fives mostly, the couple occasional problems. And so, then you know, people are seeing that stuff and you think that everybody’s choosing on logic, but they’re not. It’s the emotion. It’s like when they get to know you and whether that’s they see a video or they read your page about why you practice, or they read a testimonial that says something like, “They were just there for me when I needed them in the worst time of my life. Thank you so much. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate. This is the firm you want on your side,” like that is an emotional thing. It’s not a, you know, “They got me my fair share in my divorce.”

Conrad Saam:  Right. Yeah, yeah. It’s–

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Anyway, sorry of my rant. We’re probably over time.

Conrad Saam:  No, no. It’s a good rant. I’m sure we’re way over time but like, that, it’s — we’ll summarize and then move on. Empathy is a competitive advantage. It shouldn’t be but it is, and Gyi’s right. And so, approach that client not with how big is this matter but like how much does this matter to the client. Wow, that was cute.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right. And the other thing, just the other quick point that I’ve got to make just for those, the people that are just disagreeing with this like pounding on their — whatever they’re listening to this podcast on.

Conrad Saam:  They’ve already turned us off, and they’re leaving a negative review.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I can’t wait to see it. You can’t paint a broad brush, and so to your point, if you’re sending out a mass email that’s saying, “Hey, it’s national divorce day and, you know, remember when you got divorced?” Like, that stinks. Nobody wants that, but if you have the relationship and you have people that have opted in to get that kind of messaging from you in terms of like follow-up and staying in touch, and just checking in, it’s so powerful. I mean, again, it’s so silly like you see some of these email campaigns, that’s like firm newsletter versus like wave hand emoji in the subject. Guess what gets opened more, the firm newsletter or wave hand emoji subject? I’ll let the listeners decide for themselves. What’s your number 2?

Conrad Saam:  My number 2 is it’s a negative. It’s the thing to not look at.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  It’s a not something.

Conrad Saam:  It’s a not something. Do not look at your return on investment.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Wow.

Conrad Saam:  Heresy.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  There it is. There it is. What have you got against ROI?

Conrad Saam:  And here’s why. – Actually, I already told you why.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  You have told me.

Conrad Saam:  You asked me, Gyi, what percent of your business should be referral-based, and I said in a perfect world, all of it is referral business. Right? And because, take the time aspect out of it, you are investing cash dollars zero in that.

(00:35:03)

You’re investing being amazing, being empathetic, all these things that we’ve talked about, but you’re — so, if you are 100 driven by referrals, your ROI is infinite, because you’re not putting out any cash.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  It’s asymptotic. That’s for your MBA mind.

Conrad Saam:  And so, ROI basically says strip out everything other than that one thing that delivered — to maximize your ROI, tells you to strip out everything other than that one thing that delivers the client at zero cost, and most of you do not live in a world where you can do that. Most of you live in a world where you have to compete on pay-per-click, you have to compete on local service ads. You may choose to compete in Avvo or you may choose to compete in the SEO wars, whatever it may be, and that costs time and money, and money specifically is what we’re talking about here.

So, the ROI argument — I’ll leave it at this and then we’ll move to number 1. Ask the next marketing agency that tells you that they’re going to maximize your ROI what the formula for ROI is, and watch the dumb blank stare that comes back at you.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  This sounds very reminiscent of GaryVee and his, “What’s the ROI of your mom?”

Conrad Saam:  I don’t know that quote. I thought you were going with an off-color joke really quickly but–

Gyi Tsakalakis:  No. No. Well, he has — you can look. YouTube, GaryVee, on ROI of Your Mom. It’s a famous GaryVee thing. All right. Let’s make some noise. Drum roll, please.

Conrad Saam:  Gyi, number 1, what is it?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Profit. Profit. You can’t — if you are breaking even or losing money over a long enough period of time, it’s over.

Conrad Saam:  Profit, that’s fair. I like it.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Profit. Keep your eye on the profit dial. It’s all you’ve got.

Conrad Saam:  All right.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  What’s a good profit, that’s what everybody’s asking. “What’s good profitability?” Can’t tell you. I mean, what do you think?

Conrad Saam:  What’s good profitability for a law — I mean, that is so disparate depending on practice area.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Overhead, number of lawyers.

Conrad Saam:  Here. I’ll give you a philosophical answer to that.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I’ll give you mine too.

Conrad Saam:  A good profit is when you are making enough money to be very comfortable and turn away the shitty work.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  So, I’m going to — that’s a great way to look at it but I’m going to add one thing. It’s not how much money you’re making to be comfortable. It’s, profit should be after you pay yourself dollars. So, you should have whatever you’re paying yourself to be comfortable and then profit.

Conrad Saam:  Like that. Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Okay.

Conrad Saam:  You want my number 1? You already kind of stole my number 1.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Well, you’re — no. Well, you tell us what it is first?

Conrad Saam:  You said cost per qualified lead as your number 5, and I asked you the leading question.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah.

Conrad Saam:  The percentage of people, of law firms that can calculate that accurately.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right.

Conrad Saam:  And so, my answer to the number 1 thing is what I will call an intake qualified lead by marketing channel. And what do I mean by intake? — And by the way, this is a very, very pragmatic answer that you can all do right now and most of you don’t.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  This is the IQLMC.

Conrad Saam:  IQLMC.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  You should put this in your reports.

Conrad Saam:  The intake qualified leads by marketing channel. To me, an intake qualified lead is someone who you will have that initial consultation with. So, you know that that initial consultation gets booked. You also should be able to know where that lead came from, if you have a good reporting infrastructure, and a good reporting infrastructure is not, “Hi, Mary. How did you hear about us?”  That is a bad, unsophisticated reporting infrastructure. You need an automated process that tags Mary with where she came from, from a lead source perspective, pay-per-click, LSAs, SEO, Avvo, carrier pigeon, referral, whatever it might be, don’t care, but then once Mary gets booked to have that initial consultation, she is an intake qualified lead and you need to know where your intake qualified leads are coming from, and most of you are running blind, or you think you know but the data is garbage-in, garbage-out.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right. And so, you know, you said I stole it but this is a much more sophisticated metric than what I was just alluding to in my number 5. I think it’s extremely important and, you know, needless to say,  it resonates with me because we see so many times that it’s just missing. Right? Especially when you add it in by channel. Right? The by-channel makes all the difference.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I mean, you know, if you’re going to spend money on it, you’re competing in the ad auction on Google for competitive queries, that’s a totally different qualified lead. There’s intent versus, you know, if you’re just bouncing off of something you post on Facebook. So, it’s very important to understand that qualified lead by channel.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Can’t agree with that enough.

(00:40:00)

Conrad Saam:  And here’s the thing, I’m going to come back to the very beginning of the show, the technology exists for you to answer that question without a huge level of difficulty.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  It’s called a survey. — I know.

Conrad Saam:  Please check the box.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I know.

Conrad Saam:  Yes. By the way, if SurveyMonkey is your primary resource for business intelligence, you are going out of business.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  No. I love the — you know what I love? You know, we asked, we segment by channel, “Where do you do? Where are the answers?” The internet.

Conrad Saam:  The internet, Google. Thanks.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  “Oh, really? Was it Google?

Conrad Saam:  Thanks.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Actually, according to analytics it wasn’t Google actually. So, they actually didn’t corroborate their own journey.

Conrad Saam:  We’re going to end this with a nasty-gram. There’s an agency of which you and I are both familiar. You’re going to know who I’m talking about, but I won’t name names, just because.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Nope. I don’t know what it is.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah, you do.  You know exactly who it is. In their marketing material they said, “When clients asked their clients where they came from, they all said Google, and that’s how we know we’re winning for them.” No. If you’re an agency telling your clients to ask your clients how they found you, you’re not really a marketing agency. Let’s leave it with that negative thought.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  So, then now you have a reason to give us a review.

Conrad Saam:  Yeah, yeah. So, we’ll hope to see you at BEDLAM.

[Music]

Don’t forget. We are coming back, twice a month instead of once a month. Thank you very much for your time. I hope we didn’t offend you too much, and we’ll catch you on the flip side.

Outro:  Thank you for listening to Lunch Hour Legal Marketing. If you’d like more information about what you heard today, please visit legaltalknetwork.com. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts and RSS. Follow Legal Talk Network on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and/or download the free app from Legal Talk Network in Google Play and iTunes. The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of, nor are they endorsed by Legal Talk Network, its officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders, or subsidiaries. None of the content should be considered legal advice. As always, consult a lawyer

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Is ruminate an appropriate word there?

Conrad Saam:  Yeah, absolutely an appropriate word.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Ruminate. Okay, just came into my head.

(00:42:46)

 

Podcast transcription by Tech-Synergy.com

Continue Reading