CPM Learning Objectives | Spotlight Branding Marketing Report

Okay, so welcome everybody to today's learning objectives webinar. We have John Henson with us today from Spotlight Branding, and they did a, a legal marketing trends report. And so John's gonna talk to us a little bit about what they found and some ways to be more intentional about your marketing. So with that, John, you are welcome to go ahead and get started.

Awesome. Yeah, thank you. So yeah, I appreciate that. Like Katherine said, we put out a legal marketing trends report this year. We're actually in the process right now of collecting responses for the next edition of the trends report and hope to have that collected and released here in the next few weeks. But, you know, there's still a ton of valuable information in this report that I wanted to share with all of you, whether you're in here live or you're watching this recording later. And yeah, you know, I think it just gives a really good overview of what other law firms are doing around the country, their attitudes towards marketing, and just kind of how they're handling it all together. Let's see here. There we go. So yeah, a little bit about me. I am John Henson. I am the editorial director here for Spotlight Branding, which basically means I do things like this. I do a lot of podcasting and I handle a lot of our messaging and the content creation. So kind of Any blog post or anything like that that you see on our website probably came from me at some point in some way. I write books as a hobby, usually about history and stuff like that. And that's how I choose to spend my free time rather than doing, you know, I guess normal things like socializing or whatever. Also, I guess big into waterfalls. If you know, if you ever want to go out to the mountains, I can tell you all the great spots there. And if you ever want to come down to our offices in Cornelius, just outside of Charlotte, I will dominate you in ping pong. So a little bit about this survey here. There were two main problems that I kind of picked up on pretty quickly when we would look through all of this data. The first one was that, and this shouldn't come as a surprise, that lawyers, especially those in private practice running their own firm, they don't have enough time to do anything outside of the casework that they're hired to do. And so whether that's marketing, bookkeeping, or, you know, even a lot of like extra next-level customer service. There's just not enough hours in the day to do that to the level that they really want to get that executed. The other thing that I saw was that lawyers often either they don't understand or they don't see the value in various marketing strategies. And a lot of that, you know, that was really more for our own industry and just how we position marketing. You know, I think a lot of legal marketing companies, they position law firm marketing as, hey, just get on Google and then that's it. There's not much focus on building up expert status. There's not a lot of focus on referrals. You know, it's all about trying to get on page 1 of Google. And then that is kind of permeated with, you know, the legal audience at large. And so a lot of other strategies, whether it's email marketing, social media, blogging, a lot of that now, you know, the value of that has kind of fallen and a lot of people just aren't aware of those sorts of things. So why do I— this is really— okay. So the— just a little bit of demographic information about the survey. The majority of survey respondents anywhere from 30 to 59 years old. Generally, you know, that's going to be where the majority of, you know, practicing lawyers are in there. The one difference though with our survey versus what the actual national ratio is, 63% female respondents to our survey. 37% male. And I think at least the last time I looked, that ratio is actually flipped compared to the actual national average. So actually more male lawyers practicing, but majority female respondents responded for us. And then this is just a quick breakdown of the practice areas that responded. Again, not super surprising. 13% business, 13% personal injury, 12% family were the biggest breakdown. Of respondents there, but also had, you know, quite a few criminal, real estate, elder law, employment, and some other, other practice areas there as well. So I'm going to kind of break down just some of the questions that we found in this report. One of the things that we asked was what they thought their biggest marketing challenge was. And as you can see there, 41% said that they needed more time to devote to their marketing. Actually, only 11% indicated that they didn't know how to market as being their biggest challenge. 27%, though, needing help standing out from their competitors was interesting to me just because I think, you know, if you need more time to market, you probably also need more time and more help standing out. And I think that those two kind of go hand in hand together a little bit. The other aspect of it was just how law firms are handling their marketing in general. And this is where we started to see just a very interesting solution come to this. So 56% of respondents said that they handle their marketing in-house, they're doing it themselves. 21% work with a local company. And then I broke it down with the other quarter, I think it was, no, 23%, sorry, that work with a national company, national marketing company. Either legal industry specific, so someone like us at Spotlight Branding, or maybe some of the other big ones that you've heard of, maybe like Scorpion, FindLaw, stuff like that, or maybe it's a national company that just serves all industries, more of a generic marketing company. However, in general, what we found was that of the 56% of law firms that are handling their marketing in-house, 61% of it, you know, of those law firms, the lawyer themselves is handling the marketing. And for us, you know, when we talk about, you know, expertise, when we talk about a lack of time, if you are trying to handle your marketing yourself, obviously that's going to eat into extra hours of the day, and it's probably going to take a little bit longer because you probably don't have that marketing background. You didn't go to school to learn how to market your business, and that, that can just, you know, start to compound a lot of issues, frustration, whatever the case may be when it comes to actually getting, you know, good results from your marketing. So yeah, like I said, you know, breaking it down to how, you know, they handle it and how 61%, the lawyer themselves that runs the firm, said that they handled it themselves. The other 39%, you know, said that they have a dedicated staff person that handles it. And the reason that, You know, I talk about why that's an issue. You know, you handle it yourself. Okay, cool. You probably do it out of necessity. You know, you need, you need influx of clients, influx of cash flow, and maybe you run some marketing campaigns and you get some leads, you get some clients, everything's going great, you're getting really busy. All of a sudden you start running out of time. Why? Because you have a lot of casework that you have to do. And so typically what we see is that marketing becomes one of the first things that a lot of lawyers put on the back burner. And that's fine when you're busy, but then once you get through with that casework, you haven't had any marketing going on in the background, leads stop coming in, you're running out of clients. All of a sudden now you don't have a lot of cash flow coming in, and now you start to panic, and then you restart that cycle all over again. You start another marketing campaign back up, and it just turns into this, you know, these peaks and valleys of cash flow that just add to a bunch of stress, a lot of sleepless nights. A lot of long hours and, you know, it's to me, I think is a big contributor to a lot of the sort of negative stereotypes that we hear about in the legal industry where lawyers experience a really high rate of burnout. A lot of lawyers, you know, are depressed and then it gets into substance abuse and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, it comes from trying to do everything yourself. At least in my opinion. You know, there are probably some other factors as well, but this is a big contributor to it. You don't have enough time, but you're trying to do everything yourself. Some things have to get sacrificed or set aside for a little bit, and then, you know, it's a, it's a ripple effect, it's a domino effect where, you know, things just can start to spiral out of control. So going towards the, the lawyers and the law firms that outsource their marketing. Uh, 71% of lawyers indicated that they worked with a one-stop shop. Now, what do I mean by that? I'm talking about a marketing company that does like every kind of marketing. You know, maybe they handle your SEO, your Google Ads, uh, maybe they help print out your direct mail campaigns, uh, maybe they coordinate your social media marketing, maybe they write some blogs for you. They're doing everything across the board. The ones that work with those kind of marketing agencies, two-thirds of them are not satisfied with the result that they're getting from that marketing company. And it goes back to a pretty fundamental, you know, sort of business principle. And a lot of law firms do this already, especially in private practice, where you're trying to niche down. You're trying to find one, maybe two areas, you know, two practice areas to focus on. Rather than being a door lawyer, taking any case that comes in, you focus in on one practice area. The same principle applies to the marketing companies and the vendors that you work with. A marketing company that handles everything is going to be a jack of all trades. They're going to do everything, but they're not going to do one thing particularly well, right? So just like we recommend that solo small firm lawyers, or even as they grow into midsize, they focus on one practice area. Person, you know, focus on just personal injury, focus on just business or just estate planning, whatever it is, you know, do the same thing with the vendors that you work with, especially in the marketing world. You have, you know, marketing companies who just focus on content. You have marketing companies that just focus on SEO or just focus on paid ads. And while it might take a little extra communication to make sure that you're on the same page with different people, different vendors, you will all, you know, most likely see better results by working with select experts rather than, you know, that jack of all trades. Another interesting thing that we found was we asked why law firms felt as though they'd lost business to other firms. 46%, though, said that they believed it was because the competitor charged lower rates, and only 38%, you know, believed that it was because the competitor had better marketing. The thing The thing is though, this was kind of a trick question. You know, that 46% almost certainly is also because that competitor had better marketing. You know, law firms, they're not openly displaying their rates online. You know, people have to reach out. If it's not better marketing, it's just faster customer service, right? You know, it's getting back quicker, being able to book that consultation. And look, at the end of the day, if someone, goes to a competitor who charges less than you do, that's fine. That's probably not someone you wanted to work with anyway. You know, we believe that, you know, good marketing will attract the right kinds of clients to you. A lot of marketing, especially, you know, especially, you know, SEO marketing is designed to get that low-hanging fruit and people who are price shopping and they're looking for the lowest, cheapest lawyer out there. They're not gonna be the best to work with. They're probably not going to be be a good candidate for referrals or repeat business down the road. And so, you know, it's fine if a competitor charges lower rates and you lose business to them. What you should be focusing on is your messaging and attracting the kinds of people who are not going to be price shopping, who are not going to be trying to find the cheapest lawyer in town. And you're going to be looking for the people who are already sold on you, already believe that you're the expert and, and the right person for the job. So getting into some of the different marketing strategies and talking about email marketing, we believe, I believe certainly that your contact list, every email in your case management system or in your, you know, Outlook address book, whatever the case is, that is the most valuable marketing asset that your firm has. And a lot of law firms aren't utilizing this. I mean, only, you know, 43% of law firms are not sending an email newsletter. Another 15, they send emails but very sporadically. So I mean, over half of law firms all around the country aren't using this to its full potential, right? And there's just, there's so much value there. I mean, I can tell you anecdotally, you know, we provide email marketing for our clients. We've had several come back to us and be like, hey, every time I send out an email, I get repeat business. I get referrals from it and it's super cost effective and it's not, it's not something that takes a ton of time for you to set up if you wanted to do it yourself. You know, we're talking about how lawyers don't have enough time for everything, but like if you still want to try to handle your marketing yourself, sending a regular email newsletter to your list is a very, very easy way to generate some referrals and some repeat business that you might otherwise not have gotten. So yeah, moving on over to social media here. You know, as we are kind of progressing and getting deeper into this digital age, you know, like social media is where your future clients are gonna be hanging out. It's where your current clients are gonna be hanging out, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago, Fine, you put up a billboard somewhere, you put an ad on a bus or a park bench or in the Yellow Pages or whatever the case is, and you could ostensibly get out in front of your audience assuming that they went by that one static place every single day or they looked, you know, thumbed through all the pages in the phone book. Now with social media, not only are you able to constantly shift and get out in front of your audience, but you can control, you have way more control over who you actually get in front of. And so, you know, as you're looking towards the overall state of your firm over the next year, 5 years, 10 years, social media is where your current and future clients are going to be found. Now, Here's the thing. I'm not one of those people who is going to tell you that you are going to generate a lot of business directly from social media. I think the legal industry is going to be one of those industries where social media isn't going to be a direct generator of clients, but you can start planting those seeds and start getting out in front of people, creating that top-of-mind awareness. Where people will start to gravitate towards you. I mean, one of our clients, you know, told us that, you know, he signed a client one time and it was just— and he made a passing comment, was just like, yeah, I see your stuff all over Facebook. I see your stuff all over my LinkedIn feed. And so, you know, Facebook or LinkedIn didn't directly, you know, cause that person to reach out, but it's seeing that content pop up all over the place that starts planting that seed. I will say we actually just had a client tell us, uh, Monday that his social media content was responsible for 10 clients this year, and that's fantastic. I'm not going to say that's how it's going to work for everybody, but it's still a good sign to know that, you know, posting consistently, uh, posting content that's educational and relevant to your practice area is going to get people's attention. People are going to look at it, they're going to engage with it, And it will build up your firm's reputation and, and build that top-of-mind awareness so that people think of you first. And so this chart, just kind of a breakdown of where most law firms have a social media presence. Facebook, obviously the biggest one, 85%. LinkedIn at 71%. If you and your firm are not on LinkedIn right now, you're missing a big opportunity. LinkedIn has had a really big resurgence A lot of people are using it. It's a great way to, you know, foster and nurture referral relationships, especially after the pandemic. You know, people got used to networking online. It's a great way to build connections and, and, you know, create a lot of good content there. You know, make genuine connections. Don't just throw out a blank sales pitch. Create good connections. You know, be a resource for other people just as much as you're hoping that they become a resource for you. Google Business, Twitter— Twitter's dying, at least as of right now. I could resurgence. I don't know. Instagram also growing. Instagram can be a good presence for law firms to really humanize you, show a lot of, you know, behind-the-scenes sort of stuff. It's a good video platform. Video, we'll talk about here in a second, becoming more and more expected as a viewing medium, a consummation medium or consuming medium. And then the last one, 9% of law firms on TikTok. This is your biggest opportunity. And don't roll your eyes when I say that. Like, I know, like, 2 years ago I would have said TikTok is not the place you need to be right now, and that's absolutely changed. Um, there are, you know, I follow several law firms on TikTok, and they're not dancing, they're not lip-syncing, they're not doing anything ridiculous. They are just giving good information. They are educating their audience. And that's all you have to do. You know, you can, you can just pull out your phone, shoot a quick video saying, hey, this is what, you know, if you got in a car accident, this is the thing, 3 things that you need to do immediately. That's great content. People actually want to know that whether they, you know, are actively thinking it or not. You know, why does someone need a will? Hey, 20-something-year-old scrolling at 11 o'clock at night trying to go to bed. Do you have a will? Here's what happens if you don't. You know, it's simple stuff like that. Like, of course, you know it, you're probably bored to death with it, you know it like the back of your hand, but it's stuff that your audience doesn't know and it's stuff that they need to know. And so when you're creating content like that, it really does a great job of positioning you as the expert and it makes people think of you first when they do decide to move forward with that sort of thing. So in talking about video, 86% of businesses across all industries are using video as their marketing strategy. However, only about a third of law firms are using it on an ongoing basis. You know, maybe you shot some videos 3 or 4 or 5 years ago and you have a video library on your page, but you haven't done anything with it since. That's not what I'm talking about here. You know, ongoing, I mean like a video shoot maybe every year, every 18 months, something like that. You know, where you're answering questions. You know, you could have spent $10,000, $15,000 on a, you know, a really cinematic brand video that goes on your homepage with, you know, really dramatic music and a lot of slow motion and it's client testimonials and all that. And that's great. Absolutely do that. But the real value for video marketing is, you know, having a library of content where you're answering questions and then that content can be repurposed on your social media channels. Use it for Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts or your TikTok presence. It all works. You can repurpose it. You don't have to create special content for certain platforms. You can use it across all areas of, you know, the digital landscape. But only 33% are doing this right now. So it's a big opportunity for you because there's a good chance your competitors aren't doing it. 59% of the law firms that aren't doing videos said they don't see the value in it. Only 26% said they weren't comfortable in front of a camera, which I thought that number would be higher. But yeah, you know, the value there for me is one, like I said, it gives you a ton of content that you can use everywhere, but it also really does a good job of humanizing you and your law firm because people still You know, they don't trust law firms. Trust is one of the biggest barriers that the legal industry still faces on a regular basis. But also just people are kind of intimidated by you guys, you know, and I know from working with lawyers for going on 8 years now, you're not, you're just normal people. You have personalities, you have lives like you're a human being. But the general public thinks that you're just like this different breed and you're this scary kind of money-hungry, just, you know, awful person. And, you know, I think 99% of you, probably not. I won't say 100%. There are some bad apples out there, but that's the way it is for everybody. But video does a great job of eliminating that barrier and tearing down those, you know, stereotypes and preconceived notions that a lot of people have about lawyers. And so, You know, you don't have to spend a ton of money to hire a video crew to come out and shoot a bunch of videos. That option is available. But like I said, you can set up your phone. I mean, these phones now, the camera quality and the microphone quality is so good that you buy like a little $10 tripod for it, set it up in front of your desk and just shoot some quick videos, answer some questions, and just, you know, connect with your audience on that kind of semi-intimate level where they can see your mannerisms, hear your voice, but also educated and see your passion and your expertise shine through. When we talk about blogging, you know, blogging is, I think, one of those marketing things that has just been kind of standard since the internet came around. What we're seeing now is a lot of SEO companies offering a lot of blogs, big bulk blogs, you know, probably give you like 10, 20 blogs a week. Week. Unfortunately, those blogs are typically just really short, current event related. They're stuffed with keywords and backlinks. They don't actually provide any valuable information. Those are not the blogs I'm talking about here. This blogging is like, you don't have to write like a 1,500-word legal brief on a subject. You can still convey a lot of information in 400 to 600 words. On just like surface-level topic, you know, 3 things that you want to make sure are included in your will or 5 steps to starting your own business in North Carolina, whatever it is. It's simple stuff like that that people are going to be searching for, but it's also going to be answering the surface-level questions that they have because they're going to realize pretty quickly that whatever legal situation that they're trying to address, is going to be way too complicated for them and they're going to need to rely on an expert to help get them through it. And that's what this kind of content does. It positions you as the expert. So they say, oh, okay, this person knows what they're talking about. I should just trust them and let them do it. So 43% though still do not have a blog. They don't blog regularly. You know, 23% do it, you know, infrequently. The 14% and on, who do it monthly or more frequently, they're doing it right. I think they're doing a good job. They're, you know, it's just a steady stream of content, steady stream of educating their audience. But yeah, I mean, almost half of law firms around the country not blogging, it still creates a good opportunity for you to stand out if you're not doing it. Of that, we'll call it 66% who either don't blog or don't do it frequently. 77% said they didn't do it because they didn't have time and they also didn't want to pay someone to do it. But again, there's that time element of it, and I get it. Like writing a blog, it can take some time, you know, especially for lawyers. You want to talk about every single if-then scenario. You want to get down into the weeds, and then you want to make sure that every single sentence is perfect. And it's all grammatic and it impresses your lawyer friends who obviously are going to hire you for that. That's why you're writing the blog in the first place. No, of course not. But you want to just keep it surface level. It doesn't have to cover every single situation. It's just addressing the common problems that come. So if you're not doing it, highly recommend that you, you know, you have a blog in place. And the nice thing about it, Going back to talking about email newsletters, your blog is the perfect piece of content that you can put in feature in an email newsletter, right? Because all of your email contacts, they're not coming to your website every single day, every single month to see what the latest updates are. They're just not, right? Everyone has a lot going on. But if you can put it in front of them, have it in their inbox, even if they don't open it. Just seeing your firm's name in the subject line, seeing the subject of the blog or whatever the case is, it plants that an additional seed. It reminds them, hey, this law firm's out there, this is what they do, and it just stays there. And so that's why that consistency and that sort of thing is so important. And the blog or even a video is a great thing to feature in your firm's email. So when it comes to the, the law firms that are blogging, 63% are outsourcing it, 37% are writing their own. And then talking about websites, uh, hopefully those of you watching this have a website for your law firm. 11% of our respondents did not have a website, and that blows my mind how in 2022, 2023, you don't have a website for your law firm. I, I, you just, it's so important. It is your digital office space. It's your digital business card. It's the first impression that your law firm is going to make. So even if you do have a website, making sure that it's updated and, and that it provides a good user experience is very key towards building your expert status and, and making sure that it's obvious what it is that you do and all the ways that you help people. And so 56% have updated or redesigned their website in the last year, 33%, it's been more than 2 years. I personally, my personal recommendation is to not go more than 3 years without updating your website in some way, whether it's, you know, slight design changes, making sure that all of the copy on your practice area pages or whatever the case is, is revised. Your messaging is clear, all of that. And so, you know, cannot stress enough how important, you know, your website is. One thing that will make your website a lot better is offering some sort of free download. And by free, I mean, I kind of have an asterisk on it. Free in the sense that like you're not charging for it, right? Free download. And it doesn't have to be some huge thing. You can take a blog post maybe extend it out a little bit, get to, you know, 1,000, 1,200 words. So it's a little bit more like a white paper or a guide or an ebook or, you know, small ebook, something like that. But offer that as a free download prominently displayed on your homepage. You know, a great couple of great things is like, you know, for personal injury lawyers is like, you know, an auto accident checklist, list of things that people need to make sure they do. Estate planners, you know, you know, a checklist of things that they need to make sure are accounted for in their estate plan. You know, tax lawyers, you know, a list of red flags that will trigger IRS audits, you know, all kinds of different things. You know, it doesn't have to be something super specific, but just something related to your practice area. And you offer this in exchange for someone's email. So you get them in your practice management system. And now you have, you know, if you have ongoing marketing, they can get communications from you on an ongoing basis. Your marketing team or your front desk team can follow up with them, you know, a couple of days later. Hey, did you read the report? What did you think? Did you have any questions? Would you like to schedule a consultation? Whatever the case is. And right now, over half of law firms around the country do not have this on their website. So there's a good chance for you to provide a little bit of extra value to your audience by adding just a simple download. And really, you know, 25% offer the download in exchange for contact information and another 20% just do it without, you know, with no strings attached. But, you know, it's a great way to just make your website be a little lead generator for you, you know, especially if you're driving traffic to your website in other ways, people are searching for you, whatever the case is, it's just a good simple tool that you can use. Uh, another big thing, uh, just talking about networking, uh, for us, I think the basis of your entire marketing strategy and business development starts with networking. Um, obviously before the pandemic, I think a lot of people did this a lot more often. Now that we're coming back out of it, things are going back to normal, we're getting back into it. But, uh, 58% of people indicated that they attend some sort of large-scale networking thing. So maybe it's like a bar event, maybe you're with your Chamber of Commerce, maybe you're part of BNI, whatever the case is, doing that at least on some sort of quarterly basis, maybe a little bit more like monthly or weekly, whatever the case is. 29%, though, said that they either didn't network at all or that they did, but they stopped during the pandemic. And, you know, networking You know, yeah, there's some networking events that are painful and, you know, some people when they network, it's very, you know, disingenuous and they're just trying to hand out as many business cards as they can. But networking, if you do it right and you can have a couple of really good genuine conversations and create a couple of really good relationships, that's where a good source of your referrals are going to come from. I'm sure you know this. On the other hand, talking about intimate networking, one-on-one type stuff, you know, going to get coffee or lunch with someone, uh, 73% of respondents engage in, you know, kind of one-on-one meetings with referral sources at least quarterly. So that's really encouraging. Um, you know, the 12% and the 15% who rarely or infrequently do it, those are the people who are probably going to be struggling with their referrals. And so speaking of referrals, and this is probably my favorite stat out of all of this, um, we asked our law firms, you know, what percentage of their business comes from referrals. It was pretty even across the board, you know, you know, kind of around that 20% margin. Um, but what was really great about this, and this is a study— if you've heard me talk before, I've probably cited this study— um, there was a study done by Texas Tech a few years ago that said 80% of people are willing to give your business a referral, but only about 30% actually do. And I'm not a numbers guy, but I do know that that means everyone, every single firm owner can double the number of referrals that they're getting. And not only are they still not maxing out and getting the full number of referrals that they could be getting, but For the firms that are 100% referral-based, you can double your firm size in terms of caseload and all of that just on referrals alone because you're not getting all of the referrals that you could be getting. And so regardless of where your firm is on that chart, there's a huge, huge opportunity there and a lot of referrals out there, you know, to be had. And at least for us, You know, and especially in my background, a lot of that can be obtained through the email marketing, through the blogging, the video, the social media stuff. I will, you know, and maybe you weren't thinking this or not, I haven't, I don't have any slides about SEO or pay-per-click marketing because that's not our area of expertise. Remember going back to talking about niching down, our area of expertise is on the content side, on the referral generating side. You know, we leave the SEO and the pay-per-click ads to the experts. But in our opinion, we think that this is where you can make the most ground and have the most growth and the least amount of frustration with your marketing. And I'm happy to talk, you know, off air just about, you know, all the reasons for that as well. But some final takeaways here, and then I'll be happy to answer any questions if you want to throw them into the chat. 41% of lawyers all around the country indicated that they needed more time in general to handle their marketing the way they wanted to do it. However, 61% of those lawyers were trying to handle their marketing themselves. And so when you're trying to do all of these things and wear all of these different hats on top of marketing, on top of being a bookkeeper, on top of being a receptionist, on top of being a paralegal, You're only going to be able to— you're only going to have so much time. You're only going to be able to do so much, and you're not going to be able to do all of those things well or to the extent that you really want them to be executed. 42% of lawyers don't send email newsletters because they don't have time. 26% of lawyers don't have a social media presence for their firm because they don't have time. And 65% of lawyers aren't blogging because they don't have time. And like I said, I'm not saying you have to hire us, but you do need to go hire a virtual assistant, hire some other marketing company to handle these things for you. It's going to be more cost-effective. It's going to allow you to free up that time, right? Uh, one of the things I like to do, and I know that a lot of law firms don't necessarily operate this way, but figure out what your hourly rate is. You know, if you— even if you're on contingency, flat fee, whatever it is, take your revenue, divide it by the number of hours worked, and drill down until you get the hourly rate. And then take all of the hours that you spend marketing and even doing bookkeeping and other administrative work and add up that money to see how much revenue you're leaving on the table. Just by trying to do it yourself, and then compare that to how much these vendors charge, you're going to find that, you know, you're going to be, you know, you're going to be adding a fraction of the expenses to the overall cost of what you're leaving on the table. And so I cannot recommend enough, you know, farming out bookkeeping and receptionist work and marketing and all of it, you know, because it's still, it's going to free up all of that time to either do better work for your clients or take on more clients, whatever the case is. Or maybe you just want some free time to do things that you like to do outside of work. That's gonna be available for you too. So, you know, regardless of whatever path you take, that's kind of the message that I like to preach is like, you know, I get why you wanna do everything yourself. This is your baby. This is what you've built. You want to make sure everything is done to your specifications. But being able to pass that off to other people who have that specialized knowledge and that expertise that maybe you don't quite have, they're going to be able to do a better job for you. And you can still have open doors of communication to make sure that your expectations are met. But you're also going to be giving back a lot of really valuable time that you otherwise have been losing trying to handle everything yourself. The other ones, you know, 43% of law firms aren't sending out an email newsletter. 23% aren't on social media. Over half are not using video regularly. 43% are not blogging. These are all big opportunities. So if you aren't doing these things regularly or at all, you have an opportunity to get ahead of your competitors and stand out more and do some things that they're not doing to be able to provide a better experience for people, not just currently in your contact list, but outside in your community to help elevate your expert status, to help you see that you are the first and logical choice to do business with. So I think I appreciate the opportunity to share all of that with you. You can actually download the full report at spotlightbranding.com/trends22. And if you're watching the recording of this a few weeks, months down the road, and the 2023 report is available. You can still use this link. I can use the power of the internet to just redirect that link to the new report. So, but yeah, I encourage you to, you know, check out that full report. And for those of you here live, if you would like to participate in next year's report, you can go to spotlightbranding.com/survey to fill out. That should only take you about 10, 15 minutes to do that. But I'm gonna keep the survey open here for a couple more days. Before we start writing up and designing the next version of this. So you can go to spotlightbrain.com/survey. And yeah, if anyone has any final questions, happy to chat.

So, Jon, thank you so much. I'm going to actually stop the recording. I usually do that so people feel comfortable asking any questions that they want to and they're not recorded for perpetuity. So again, thank you. I'll open it up to questions when I stop the recording, and I've got a lot in the chat, so don't go away.

Awesome.