Legal Marketing MADNESS: The Sweet 16 of Marketing Tactics

Episode Notes

Transcript

[Music]

Gyi Tsakalakis: Before we get started, we want to thank our sponsors.  Lawmatics, Nota and Lawyaw.  Conrad, as nice as it is to see you on this Zoom call, it was so nice to see you in Chicago at Techshow.

Conrad Saam: I have been in a little bubble for so long.  It was really nice to get out.  I even enjoyed the hotel.  I hate hotels.  I hate flying.  Back at it, and it was great to see you.  I’ve said this at Techshow, I will say this again, I will say this repeatedly.  That was the best Techshow.  I’ve been to eight.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Well done.  You deserve the plaudits, and I know you will humbly deflect to the people you work with and I appreciate that.  But, well played, dude.  Well, thank you and thank you again to the planning board, to my co-chair who did all the work and all of our faculty.  Really, the feedbacks have been very positive and just grateful to be a part of it.  I have no doubt that Sophia and Cindy will continue this momentum next year.  So, make sure you get your Tech Show tickets.

Conrad Saam: Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis: What are we talking about today, Conrad?

Conrad Saam: All right, we have as always, an exciting program.  Usually, we’re going to start with the news.  We’ve got some news items to cover and then what you’ve all been waiting for, what you’re all watching on a second screen while you’re pretending to work, March madness, we are doing Legal Marketing Madness: The Sweet 16 Marketing Tactics, head-to-head matchup ending with the champion as adjudicated by your good hosts, Conrad and Gyi.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Marketing bracketology, baby!

Conrad Saam: Wow, well done.  Like it.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Lockwood, hit it.

[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.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Welcome to Lunch Hour Legal Marketing.  Conrad and I are fresh off of the trip to Chicago at Tech show, and are ready for some LHLM action.  But first, let’s hit that news.  Breaking, ChatGPT-4 launched yesterday.  Conrad, have you had a chance to play with version 4?

Conrad Saam: Yeah, much fancier.  The thing that I think is the most salient point out of this is ChatGPT-4 doing better than most LSAT takers, and other standardized tests for that matter typically coming in at a 90% in taking standardized tests.

Gyi Tsakalakis: And the other thing too, just to contextualize this, you know, four months ago when 3 came out, I think it was like four months ago, it’s kind of middling in passing some of these tests.  So —

Conrad Saam: Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis: And then in four months, it’s become the top 10%.  So, you know, folks, get on this.  It’s not going the opposite direction.  It’s only getting better at what it does.  So, check it out.  Well, I’m sure we’ll have more about this.  The question is, what number of ChatGPT do we no longer have to do Lunch Hour Legal Marketing?

Conrad Saam: Wow!

Gyi Tsakalakis: It’s done for us.

Conrad Saam: Interesting.  We could have re-recorded our intro with ChatGPT-4 and see if there was an improvement from the last one that was frankly pretty banal.

Gyi Tsakalakis: More breaking news — well, it won’t be breaking by the time you hear this, but breaking as of right now, the March Google core algo update is rolling out.  So by the time you’re hearing this, my hunch is it will just be finishing up.  So if you’re listening to this and watching your rankings drop, you’ll know why, because you heard it here, probably not first, but at least you heard it here again.  TikTok ban.  What’s going on with TikTok?  Can we use TikTok?

Conrad Saam: Well, so the ties to China are problematic.  Trump tried to ban it and there was a big push against that, counter-push against that, but it’s very much a conversation.  I mean, it’s an interesting collision of international politics and legal and kind of cutting-edge digital marketing.  It would be fascinating to see what comes out of TikTok.  I’m watching this fairly closely because I do see it as a bit of a vanguard of aggressive marketers and I don’t know.  I don’t know where we’re going to go with TikTok.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Finally, Conrad, you had the opportunity to be not a co-host, but a guest on another excellent legal podcast, not of course as good as Lunch Hour Legal Marketing, but one of the top podcasts, the Crisp Game Changing Attorney Podcast.  Tell us about that experience.

Conrad Saam: Yeah, I was great.  You know, I went down and hung out at the Crisp offices and spent an hour talking with Michael.  Here is my feedback as a guest as opposed to a host of the podcast.

(00:04:59)

One of the things that I struggled with — and I don’t know if you work with this, but when you spend a lot of time working with multiple cameras, multiple mics, et cetera, you learn to do things like look towards the camera or something.  What I’ve learned is so psychosomatic.  My performance and my comfort level changed when I ignored the camera and just — this is going to start very browy(ph), but when I just made eye contact with Michael, the whole feel of the podcast changed.  So if you are ever a podcast guest, I would encourage you to throw away your notes, ignore the cameras and work on eye contact.  Even if you’re running this over Zoom, this is why I like I have you right here, Gyi, in front of me as opposed to off to the side, right?

Gyi Tsakalakis: I regularly receive feedback that I’m looking at all sorts of other stuff while I’m doing this podcast, so that’s a good note for me.  Make sure you check out Conrad’s episode.  We’ll make sure it’s in the show notes on Game Changing Attorney.

Conrad Saam: Awesome!

Gyi Tsakalakis: Let’s take a quick break.

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Conrad Saam: For all of you who are sitting, listening to the podcast pretending to work and also on your third monitor watching March Madness, which I’m probably guilty of as you are listening to this, as I’m assuming Gyi is, although you know what?  Michigan’s not in it.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Michigan’s not in it.  I’ll be watching the NIT.

Conrad Saam: I thought my basketball bracket was already broken.  I thought there was an error.  I couldn’t believe it.  Anyway.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Actually, it’s beneficial when Michigan’s not in it because then, you don’t have to actually be a homer and pick them to go way further than they’re actually going to go.

Conrad Saam: Yeah.  Well, I always do that. I bet with my heart, not with my mind, and now I can’t even bet with my heart.  So okay, we have sweet 16.  We have 16 finalists in Legal March Madness bracketology.  These are all marketing tactics and we’re going to go head-to-head competition until we crown the winner starting with the number one seat, SEO, coming in with a Cinderella story of TikTok, Gyi, argue with me over who should move on SEO or TikTok?  You are picking a marketing channel.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Yeah, and I think it’s important to frame for listeners.  They’re going to be like, “How can these people pick between one of those two?”  So we’re going to make our cases, but ultimately it’s the head-to-head matchup, got to pick one, which one are you picking.  I’m picking SEO.  I mean, search has intent.  I know some people are using TikTok as search engines.  I know folks are over there watching lawyers dance their tails off to great success.  But you talk about intent, intent is what changes the game.  You’re in front of your target audience — if you’re doing it right, you’re in front of your target audience at the time that they’re looking for information, and if you can create a page that motivates them to contact and hire you and demonstrate that you’re the expert, you can’t beat SEO.

Conrad Saam: SEO comes through with an easy win.  Google, the Mike Krzyzewski of Legal Marketing Madness, SEO moves on, TikTok doesn’t.

Gyi Tsakalakis: I thought you were going to fight me on that.  I thought it was going to be you’re a big upset.

Conrad Saam: Absolutely, not, because I’m working on, like, hey, if I’m growing my law firm relying on TikTok, there is no upset.  SEO, hands down, no question.  All right, game two.  We have Yelp coming in against email.  Email marketing versus Yelp.  Gyi, what’s the game look like?

Gyi Tsakalakis: Well, we’ve got tried-and-true email and again I think you got to qualify it here.  What are we talking about?  We’re talking about email newsletters, we’re talking about nurture campaigns, we’re talking about just like emailing people in your professional network, and then we’ve got Yelp.

(00:10:00)

You know, it’s got a long track record of history with the internet, does pretty well in Google results.  I’m going with an upset special here, and I’m picking email to take down Yelp.

Conrad Saam: Email to take down Yelp.  Interestingly, Yelp plays very well when they’re playing at home in California.  However, this is a nationwide competition.  This event is actually being held in Cincinnati.  Yelp gets trounced by email because outside of their main market, they are mostly forgotten, especially in the legal marketing sphere.  Email, big win over Yelp.  All right.  Now, a surprising head-to-head matchup.  We have coming in at number five, and I believe their competitor, Google Ads has not done well recently because of concerns around cost-effectiveness.  So Google Ads, a long-time repeat presence in the Legal March Madness, but really dropping in where they have historically been.  Gyi, referrals coming up against Google Ads, who do you got?

Gyi Tsakalakis: I’m taking referrals.  I think this is an interesting one, especially since the 5-12 matchup because I’m thinking like, this is like two traditional stalwarts that are kind of middle-range seeds now.  5-12 is usually an opportunity for an upset, but referrals are just — you know, referrals is duke, right?  They might have a new coach maybe, maybe they’re not —

Conrad Saam: When are you going to use the Mike Krzyzewski reference?  You’ve got to come up —

Gyi Tsakalakis: Well, it’s the only the one I have.  Okay, they’re Kentucky, because Kentucky I think actually is a five-seed, right?  So they’re Kentucky, the Wildcats, referrals.  They’ve been there.  They come to the dance every single year.  Maybe people have shiny object syndrome, but you can — I don’t know how you can take referrals in this matchup.

Conrad Saam: Okay, 100% agree on referrals.  So we have just kicked out.  This is a surprising fall from grace for Google Ads which has always made it to the final four since it’s been in the game.  But referrals come out on top.  By the way, referrals have been in this game for a much longer time.  They’ve been playing ball for a much longer time than Google Ads.  Google Ads really was a major player, but the concerns across the board about the cost of Google Ads has kicked them out of the elite eight.

Gyi Tsakalakis: The picked a bad draw though too.  I mean, they had a bad draw going up against referrals and sweet 16.

Conrad Saam: That’s a fair point.  These are two heavy-hitters with long-standing programs.  All right, next game.  All right, we’ve got another legacy player.  Legal directories, which goes all the way back to printed directories of lawyers coming up in against Facebook.  Facebook in at number 10, legal directories at number 7.  Gyi, legal directories versus Facebook?

Gyi Tsakalakis: Super-duper upset special, baby.  We got Facebook at the 10 seat coming in to legal directory’s home court and taking them out in the sweet 16.  I love it.  That’s why we love March Madness.  But you just can’t deny Facebook with the brand positioning, staying on top-of-mind awareness, affinity.  We talked a lot about the private Facebook groups, a lot of lawyer-to-lawyer referrals going on.  I’m taking Facebook over legal directories all day, baby.

Conrad Saam: Facebook, baby.  All right.  So the concern the people have had with Facebook is that it’s aging out.  It is no longer relevant to a major portion of the population.  So the older team still staying in the game.  Facebook over legal directories which have been struggling, struggling for years now, and it’s not looking better for them.  It looks like they are not going to go into the elite eight.  Facebook, baby.  All right, next match.  It’s a good one.  New player, surprise Cinderella story.  We have Instagram coming up against LinkedIn.  Instagram versus LinkedIn.  Gyi, tell me about the matchup.

Gyi Tsakalakis: This is a tough matchup, could go either way.  I think we come down to a buzzer-beater final shot on this one.  Push comes to shove though, I’m taking the boys in blue at LinkedIn because they’ve got business intent.  People are there to talk about networking and professional relationships, and people are looking for social proof on LinkedIn, whereas maybe it might not be the case with Instagram.  So close one, tough call.  I think LinkedIn squeezes it out.

Conrad Saam: LinkedIn by two points mainly due to their superior targeting opportunities.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Great targeting opportunities.  Amazing targeting.  Great point.

Conrad Saam: All right, we’ve got three games left.  Coming in at number three.  Ranking at number six offline versus again, a newcomer to the dance, the big dance, local service ads.  How are you putting offline up against local service ads, Gyi?

Gyi Tsakalakis: So, we’ve got a 6-11 matchup here, offline advertising being a 6.

(00:14:59)

You know, they’re in the dance ever year, radio, TV.  Maybe you could talk of some of their new players with over-the-top, but at the end of the day, LSA is having 10.  I’m still taking LSAs.  You’re not going to do the brand building in the long-term play with LSAs, but if you can get those ads a spend, if their three-point shooters can hit their threes, you’re going to see that they’re going to pull ahead because again, intent, top of the fold, reviews, it’s the new ad product from Google, I think they’re going to shine.

Conrad Saam: All right, LSAs squeaks a win.  It is a surprise story with LSAs knocking off offline and the reason for this really, if they can get in the game, they usually go far.  But if they can’t, they frequently don’t make the tournament.  It is hard to get them to show up.  But when they do show up, boy, do they show up big.  So LSAs over offline.  All right, coming in at number four, local search up against surprisingly poorly ranked intake at 13.  Local search versus intake, 4 versus 13.

Gyi Tsakalakis: This one’s great matchup, local search at the 4 seat versus intake at a 13.  Now, I don’t know who seated these teams, Conrad, but how is intake — they must have had a tough regular —

Conrad Saam: No, no, no, this is why.  No, no, this is easy.  This is why intake was coming in so poorly, so frequently overlooked.  A great program that absolutely gets overlooked.  Most of you don’t ever think about intake and that’s why it’s coming in.  It is — I agree, it is unfairly, poorly seated, but it is widely overlooked as a player in this game.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Well, this is an easy upset for me.  You know, maybe this is like a smaller conference who’s been undefeated throughout the season playing against local search.  Local search is solid, strong, right? They’ve got intent.  They got all the things we talked about with LSAs, except you don’t have to actually pay Google for them.  Personally, I’m a huge fan of local search, so this one kind of hurts to see them fall in the sweet 16 level, but really, folks, intake might be my favorite to take the prize this season.  We’ll see how things shake out.

Conrad Saam: So the key with the local search versus intake matchup, don’t forget, two of local search’s best three players were kicked out of the tournament for actually being fake players.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Great point.

Conrad Saam: So local search loses because of the fake players on their roster.  Intake over local search.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Really good point.

Conrad Saam: Last matchup.  We have hanging on by a thread, frequently in the dance, but really, it’s been a while since they’ve been here, we have Bing coming in at number 15 verses number 2, a surprisingly strong number 2, local events.  Local events versus Bing.  An old-school program that most people used to swear by, but surprisingly showing up at number 2.  Bing versus local events. Gyi.

Gyi Tsakalakis: This is an exciting matchup.  It’s a 2 versus a 15.  Historically, I think folks would think easy path to victory for local events.  But Bing’s got the super hotness with their star shooter, ChatGPT, and open AI integration and you know, they’re getting a lot of the press, stealing Google’s market share and all those stuff.  But I’ve got to tell you, and I’m reminded of our Tech Show talk, which hopefully we’re going to do, I think in an episode or two, we’re going to start talking about that.  But so many of the really strong players in the league are on this local events team.  I mean, getting out into the local community, local schools, local journalists, you know, if you’re in a community that does a state fair or rallies around some of these local events, this is the place to be seen, and these are blue chip players.  They’re a reliable foundation for any great program.  I’m taking local events to win this one.

Conrad Saam: All right, unfortunately you were incorrect.  You made your first poor choice.  Bing beats local events, because unfortunately, with local events, most lawyers are just slapping logos and doing nothing with the actual local events.  Most lawyers, you can just buy that logo on the back of the turkey trot and you do nothing with the turkey trot.  So, the local events came in with a strong game, but executed extremely poorly.  Bing, however, being very efficient, very cost-effective with the few players that they do have, able to sink those shots.  So, Bing pulls it out over local events mainly because local events had a really bad game, because not coached well, really, really poor execution.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Bing has intent, baby.

Conrad Saam: All right.  When we come back, we’ve got the elite eight, final four, and we will crown a winner in the finals.

[Music]

Gyi Tsakalakis: If you’re like a lot of lawyers that we talk to, you’re trying to grow your firm but you’re having trouble doing more in a day than just managing your systems.

Conrad Saam: So what you really need is a simple system that can easily identify where your profit leads are coming from, analyze practice performance and easily sync up matters.

(00:20:03)

Gyi Tsakalakis: Now, I’ve got to admit, I’m both an investor and advisor to Lawmatics, and the reason is I’m super excited what Matt’s building over there.

Conrad Saam: So you don’t have to change your entire system.  Lawmatics easily integrates with MyCase, Clio, Smokeball, Rocket Matter and lots of others.

Gyi Tsakalakis: So, take a test drive today with Lawmatics to make client intake easier, lawmatics.com.

[Music]

Laurence Colletti: Join us on the road from Legal Talk Network for special conference coverage at ABA Techshow 2023.  I’m your host, Laurence Colletti recording live from Techshow’s expo hall floor where we’ll be talking about the future of the legal industry with keynote speakers like Clio’s Jack Newton, tech innovator Jazz Hampton, legal tech disruptor Erin Levine and of course, our good friend, Kimberly Bennett.  Our pre-show talk with Techshow’s co-chair, Gyi Tsakalakis is already live and every day during the conference, we’ll be releasing new episodes of insider details you’ll want to hear more about.  So just go to legaltalknetwork.com and search Techshow 2023 to hear all the episodes or listen on the road with your favorite podcasting app.  We’ll see you out there on the road at ABA Techshow 2023.

Gyi Tsakalakis: As we periodically do for our Lunch Hour Legal Marketing fans, we’d like to highlight some very kind words from Tim Semelroth, a friend of ours that we got to see at ABA Techshow.  Now, I’m going to paraphrase for Tim because I’ve got to make it a little bit more exciting, and I want Tim to have plausible deniability.  But as we saw Tim in person in Chicago, Tim said, “Talking to you with my clothes on is new for me.”  Conrad?

Conrad Saam: All good.  We need photo evidence.  I’m not sure where you’re going to go with that.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Now, in fairness, we record with only our tops on, so —

Conrad Saam: Wow.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Who knows?

Conrad Saam: This is the newest version of the podcast.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Tim, regardless of how you are dressed, thank you so much for listening.  It was great to see you.  To all of the other listeners, including Tim’s, I don’t know if Tim’s actually left an Apple review.  He’s probably not going to listen anymore now with — I don’t even know what we’ve done to poor Tim, but in any event, we got 29 ratings and reviews on Apple podcast right now and we would like to issue our listeners a challenge.  Can we get it up to 50?  Go give us a review, write something nice.  It really helps us.  It helps people like you find the show, and we love hearing what you like, what you don’t like and general reviews we’d like to hear from you.  So put down your phone, or pick up your phone or whatever your device of choice is —

Conrad Saam: Unless you’re in the shower like Tim.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Go leave us a review on Apple, and of course you can always rate us on Spotify also or hit us up at the #LHLM, and to those others that have reached out on the hashtag, thank you so much, we really do appreciate it and we look forward to hearing from you.

Conrad Saam: And we’re back with the elite eight.  Okay, elite eight, game one.  We have stalwarts SEO coming against Cinderella story, email.  Now, these are two programs, Gyi, one of which is hanging on by a thread from a budget perspective, the other puts more money into its program than any others.  Who comes out on top here, Gyi?

Gyi Tsakalakis: I’m taking email.  If you twist my arm — if you twist my arm and you take an inclusive look at all the things that you can do with email in terms of staying in touch with former clients, networking, referral sources, nurtured campaigns, I think email — you know, that’s the core.  I mean I think a good practice, good program is founded off of good use of email.  It’s tough because you know how we feel about SEO, I’m taking email in this one.

Conrad Saam: Email, coming through strong, a surprise upset to SEO due to the flexibility and the many different tactics from which you can deploy email, for example uploading your list, feeding those lists back into Google Ads to make sure that Google knows not just when you are getting those clicks but that you’re actually getting the conversions.  There is so much more that email can do, your email database, a huge asset.  Email comes up with a huge upset over perennial favorite, SEO because of the ubiquity with which you can deploy your email list.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Custom audiences from downtown.

Conrad Saam: Hits a three.  All right.  Game two of the elite eight.  We have referrals coming up against Facebook.  Referrals versus Facebook, Gyi, who comes out?

Gyi Tsakalakis: This is a tough one.  You know, this is another one too.  In some ways, these programs share some similar characteristics, right, because Facebook can be a great place to get lawyer-to-lawyer referrals or other types of referrals.

(00:25:00)

A lot of consumers are actually going to Facebook to seek referrals, but if you twisted my arm and said, “Hey, look, it’s referrals or Facebook,” I’m taking referrals.  They might not be as reliable.  You know, they might be a little more streaky, depending on if your referral sources have referrals to send you, but at the end of the day, I think a strong program is really built around building a reputation or relationships to generate those referrals.  So, I’m taking referrals over Facebook.

Conrad Saam: Facebook falls on its face against referrals due primarily to the absolutely shitty interface that require expensive coaches and consultants to navigate.  A team that has so much promise and yet is such a disaster to work with.  Keep it simple, baby.  They lose, referrals trounces Facebook in —

Gyi Tsakalakis: Yeah, and you can’t even get rid of spam reviews on your Facebook page.  I mean, come on, come on, Facebook.  This madness.

Conrad Saam: It This is madness.  All right, we’ve got the double-L matchup for the next game, LinkedIn versus local service ads.  Gyi, LinkedIn versus local service ads, who comes out on top?

Gyi Tsakalakis: Man, you tell me what you think on this one.  This is a tough one.  I don’t know.  I’d have to reflect on it.  What have you got?

Conrad Saam: So, at the game, what we found is that local service ads didn’t show up.  No one knows why they missed the bus.  They weren’t there.  They were there yesterday.  They didn’t even make it into the game.  We’ve sent emails out, we’ve called the people who know people, no one figures out why local service ads didn’t show up, but they’re gone.  They were so strong yesterday.  They failed today because they just didn’t show up.  LinkedIn over LSAs.

Gyi Tsakalakis: It’s probably those fake players.

Conrad Saam: No, that was the local search players, man.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Oh, well, it applies to a lot of these.  So I have actually another breaking news item.  You can actually report for the first time fake reviews on the local services ad platform now as well.  So if you see competitors who’ve got fake reviews on LSAs, pick up the phone or the mouse to contact Google.

Conrad Saam: Wow!  Gyi recommends reporting them to the NCAA for recruiting infractions.  Are we taking these metaphors or buzzwords too far?

Gyi Tsakalakis: Taking a lot of liberty, a lot of liberties here.

Conrad Saam: A lot of liberty.  I can’t wait to hear from the NCAA, but please do not use our trademarks in your next podcast.  All right, last game of the elite eight.  We have intake up against old stalwart and trying to stay relevant, Bing.  Is Bing still relevant or does intake take the day?

Gyi Tsakalakis: This is an easy one for me, again.  You know, intake is just so important.  If intake goes down, it’s like, why are we even bothering to play the game anymore?  All of these other teams just pale in comparison to the value of the solid intake team.

Conrad Saam: Intake coming on strong, Bing just cannot compete.  Just can’t stay with intake.  Getting intake right means everything else works better and unfortunately, Bing is just contributing such a small portion and frequently, negligible, a zero-portion of business to law firms that it is becoming increasingly irrelevant.  I suspect, we will not see their program last and show up again next year.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Down to the final four.  Now, it gets interesting, folks.

Conrad Saam: Now it gets interesting.  We have remaining, a 14 seat email up against 5 seat referrals, LinkedIn and 8 seat and intake at 13.  We’ve got upsets all over the place.  Mathematically, almost impossible, will never happen, but that’s what you get when you listen to Lunch Hour Legal Marketing.  Okay, final four, game one. Mr. Tsakalakis, email versus number 5, referrals.  Who takes the day?

Gyi Tsakalakis: I just can’t get past referrals.  Referrals come in many different forms.  They’re the cornerstone, they always have been.  We’ve known the importance of referrals.  They might not be the most showy of the teams, they might not be the most shiny, but when you’ve got a nice team of referrals coming in, they’re just so hard to beat.  Reputation and relationships all day, I’m taking referrals into the final.

Conrad Saam: Referral’s game has been strengthened dramatically with the deployment, widespread deployment of sophisticated intake management software.  So referrals, although it is an oldie, is really polishing their game with new technology that is now extremely widespread which is giving referrals the edge over email.  Referrals, hands down over email.  Next game.  LinkedIn over intake.  This game went into overtime.  Gyi, what happened in overtime?

Gyi Tsakalakis: So it’s close, went back and forth.

(00:29:59)

LinkedIn, social proof, short video content, top-of-mind awareness, brand affinity, but at the end of the day, all of those leads that came in through LinkedIn, they just don’t matter when intake shows up, because intake is the team that takes you from leads to fees.

Conrad Saam: Leads to fees.  That sounds like we should trademark that for team intake.  Intake takes a day, beats referrals.  Interestingly, in our finals, we have two non-digital players.  Really don’t rely heavily on technology.  It is a surprise in this tournament.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Well, we say that but you know, let’s make a note here.  You know, referrals happen online, referrals happen via email and referrals happen on social media.  Intake, yes, you could do it with the pen and paper, but you can also do it with forms and CRM solutions and virtual receptionist, so yeah, they’re more conceptual and you know, like I said when we laid this out here, it felt like we were kind of cheating with these two in particular.  But nonetheless, eventually in the tournament, the cream rises to the top and now, we’ve got a tough finals matchup.  Conrad, what are you taking, referrals or intake?

Conrad Saam: Referrals over intake.  Interestingly, during the game, what we found increasingly is that when the referral game is strong, nothing else matters.  Intake doesn’t matter because referrals can just outperform intake over and over again.  Intake can be the crux when everything is going wrong.  But if referrals are playing a strong game, hitting the threes over and over again, passing, it’s a team effort.  Referrals has a deep bench, right?  They don’t have five players on the field, they’ve got a bench of 150 different people contributing to that game and referrals won hands down because intake didn’t matter when referrals were strong.

Gyi Tsakalakis: That’s right.  I mean, you know, the one thing we’ve kind of joked about in the past, but like the one context that people might actually leave you a voice message or not be onto the next lawyer after a search is with a strong referral, because you’ve got the qualified referral, it’s from a trusted source.  They’re going to give you some time.  They’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt to get back to him, and because your pre-vetted by the referral, you know, they’re seeking you out.  You’re the attorney they’re looking for and so, that wins the day.  Even if you screw up the intake process, you’re still going to get the benefit of the doubt.

Conrad Saam: All right.  So with that, if we have not lost you due to our overuse of basketball metaphors and puns, thank you for listening to Lunch Hour Legal Marketing.  We will be back and see you soon. Thank you so much for joining us.  Legal March Madness.

[Music]

Outro:  Thank you for listening to Lunch Hour Legal Marketing.  If you’d like more information about what you learned today, please visit legaltalknetwork.com.  Subscribe via Apple podcasts and RSS, follow Legal Talk Network on Twitter, Facebook, linkedIn and Instagram.

Gyi Tsakalakis: It’s a Cinderella story.

Conrad Saam: Our first upset.

Gyi Tsakalakis: We’ve actually already had — we’ve had three upsets, three upsets by the way so far.

Conrad Saam: Oh, we have had three upsets.

Gyi Tsakalakis: But who cares?  This is fine.

Conrad Saam: All right.  Who cares?  The good thing is we have production who can correct my mistake there.

Gyi Tsakalakis: Let’s go dancing, baby.

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