Legal Marketing Strategies with Matt Plavnick

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Linda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Steven Libhart.

Hello everybody, and welcome back to the podcast. And I can't tell you how excited we are today that this is the beginning of our 3rd year. Today is our anniversary of the launch of the podcast, and we're starting our 3rd year. And look at us go. This is just exciting. And Thank you to everybody out there who has made this happen because we couldn't have done it without you. And to segue into what we're talking about today, our special guest, Matt Plavnik, who's the principal of Axis Marketing Strategies. If you folks who've been following our podcast for quite a while, uh, remember Miranda Vieira of Denver Legal Marketing, she introduced Matt and I a few months ago and we hit it off right away. And I was like, Matt, you've got to be on our podcast. So welcome to you, Matt. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

You bet. Before we jump in, I just wanted to share a few of the, the taglines that I pulled off of Matt's website that really excited me when I— when we first met. And that is that Matt has this special, unique way of supporting lawyers to learn the business of law. That was one of the major things that struck me about him, is beyond marketing, he, he dives deep into the business of law. And that really is exciting to me. And He develops— helps lawyers develop empathy for their teams and wanting to work with experts and things like that. And this is his second decade of supporting service firms. He really is very well respected out there in the community. And Matt, welcome. Just, we're so excited that you're here.

Yeah, thank you. Glad to be here. And Linda and Sarah, thanks for welcoming me and for the banter. Before we got started. It's already, it's already been fun.

That's what it's supposed to be, is fun and have good conversation. I have to say, Steve, I happened to just look up the website really quick just right before you said that. I was like, wow, this is a pretty—

Oh, he's, he's amazing.

Yeah. And prove steps by proven steps access. And then it's got all these. Yeah. So it's remarkable and I like it.

Well, Matt, can you, can you start off by telling us what inspired you to work with attorneys and how you started your company and where you've brought it. That would be really helpful.

Yeah, I think the most important thing to know about me is that most of my career is an accident. And if we just, if we just get that out of the way, then I will have shared something really revealing about legal marketing, which is that very few of us grew up thinking we were going to help lawyers sell legal services. And so at the end of the day, most of us end up in law firms, or law firm adjacent because we've got a skill set. We discover that lawyers appreciate it. We discover, Sarah, as you were saying a few minutes ago, that we get the communication style, we get the problem-solving style, we get the chemistry and understand how to flow in a sometimes very gray environment working with lawyers and partnerships. And so that's really the happy accident for me was I had been a freelance writer and editor, needed to find a job with benefits so that my wife could leave a toxic job that she wasn't because we had a kid. And I started looking around, well, where can I do what I'm doing? And a law firm, Holland and Hart, was hiring a proposal writer. And I thought, well, I've got experience with that. Why don't I go do that? Here's a writer Mm-hmm. And I got into law firms with a lot of trepidation and discovered that it's really a great big playground for somebody who loves to read and write and think critically and be quick on their feet and adjust to changes and understand that the first draft is never what's going to see the light of day. And, and when you're writing, it's lonely work, right? And so you've got, whether you want it or not, you step into a law firm and you've got a house full of collaborators. And for me, that was always really gratifying because we would take what I could do and make it even better. And I was constantly learning. I was becoming a subject matter expert about different topics every day by virtue of having to sell for a full-service law firm. So I couldn't I couldn't understand how to reach our audience or what our audience was interested in if I didn't really understand the lawyer's work.

Mm-hmm.

And all that worked great. So fast forward about 14 years, and I was looking for the next challenge. I spent time in 2 law firms. I think I could have stayed. I could have been comfortable, but I didn't feel like I was growing in the ways that I really wanted to. And when I left my second firm, Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell, it was really with the understanding that if I want to be happy inside a law firm, I stay right here. And what I'm craving next is a new set of challenges and growth and maybe time to go eat the cooking I've been selling and telling lawyers to follow.

I like that.

And now I got to go do it myself.

It's what you have on the site too is is obvious. I mean, it's like strategy plans, business development, marketing operations, retreats and workshops. So you've expanded even further from what you've just said. Client experience and value adds and brand awareness. And I can tell you, just your little recap of my words, I'm like, you are an amazing wordsmith.

I was like, thank you.

That was awesome. I mean, when you said the accidental, we always joke about Linda being our accidental marketer in our firm. And it is quite by accident, but it's almost the appreciation for that, the love that you clearly love what you're doing. I see that she loves when she gets to do it. She like 90 miles an hour and I think of a few ideas. She's like, oh, that's great. I'm like, I didn't even know I said what I said.

Like, just—

Yeah. So it's a gifted skill that you have. But the fact that you're doing it in law, where I think it's just most needed, like you're like the brand awareness, the client, the client experience, It's easy to churn, but then what's the, what's the end result? How is the customer experience all the way through? Yeah, especially when you get bigger. I feel like when you're smaller, you can control a bit of it, but the reality is, can you? Is that a good thing? Um, so I don't know how much you want to delegate, Sarah. Exactly. Yeah, how much do you talk about not just how to market, but how to how to facilitate things internally, like from the moment you walk in the door? How does that, what does that look like for, for your clients working with you? Is it starting off with Plan A and then moving into Plan B and C, or how do you, how do you navigate this big beast of a—

Yeah, I, one of the things, it's interesting you ask about Plan A, B, C, because it's easy to have ideas and frameworks in mind, but there's not a formula for lawyers or firms. One of the biggest challenges And I think one of the things that I have to share early in new engagements with lawyers and firms is really trying to understand what they're after. Law firms and lawyers seldom come to me and tell me, hey, this is what I picture success looks like. Can you help me get there in the next, you know, 18 months or 36 months? Usually, it's like, hey, Matt, we need help with our mailing list. Matt, we need help with a business development plan. Matt, we've got lawyers who need coaching. And I'm like, okay, you know, I hear all of that. I accept all of that. Let's back up a little bit and tell me what your firm is about. Tell me what your plan is. You know, what's—

Well, they're so driven. They're so driven to be results-oriented. I can see why they, you know, they give that first approach to you?

Well, one of the things I just— I was in Houston last week running an accelerator training. This is a program I do for law firm marketing and business development professionals. So the, the marketing staff inside larger law firms typically. Um, yeah. Um, and because a lot of them struggle with understanding how to serve lawyers, so client service is part of the training I do. Uh, And when they're thinking about it, it's easy. And they asked me for this, right? And it's easy to think, okay, if I just, if I'm responsive, if I'm thorough, if I do a good job, if I give them back exactly what they asked for, they're gonna be happy. And in my experience, that's not really true. They're gonna be a little disappointed that they didn't get the marketing expertise. So a lot of times it's about really unpacking, wait, you asked us for X.

Enough.

But you really wanted Y. And if we didn't ask what you were trying to achieve, we won't spot that why is what you needed and wanted. And, and so we end up in this disappointment trap.

That sounds so much like what we do.

I was just gonna say that.

We just get with the client and you ask them what their goals are and they just like, oh, no one's ever asked me that question before. But if you ask them about their personal life and what their goal is in their personal life that will lead into their business life, which will lead into their goal setting, you kind of have to guide them through. But then once you guide them through, then the ideas start to flow. But you want to know what is, what is their vision of the end result, because it might be completely different than yours. So you kind of have to start to extrapolate all that information from them. And it's a fine craft, really, it is. I mean, a lot of it's listening. It's a lot of just sitting and listening to what they have to say. Because a lot of times they really don't know what it looks like. They just We'll just say, I want to double my revenue. It's like, okay, okay. And then sometimes we find with attorneys is they, they'll put aside a lot of money for marketing. That's usually the first area that gets cut when the economy starts to slow. But if they have the money and they put it aside, like a personal injury firm, they put a lot of money aside for it, and then nobody's tracking the leads. So they just threw the spaghetti at the wall. No one's following up to finish where it's going.

Yeah.

You know.

Well, it's funny because, um, I think it's— I was thinking as you were talking about instances where we've had lawyers who have wanted to host an event, right? And I think if I just throw a really great party, work is naturally going to follow.

Yeah.

And sometimes it will. Sometimes by creating the conditions for the right people to come together and showing them the right type of experience, you will, you will Do the business development, you'll have the, you know, you'll get the lead generation, you'll have the follow-up. It will just flow to you. A lot of times it doesn't. It's like we had that great party and nobody called us. And now we're already looking at the calendar for next year and we got to decide if we're going to pay for the party again. And it didn't do anything. And I'm like, well, what'd you do after the party? Who was responsible?

Probably nothing.

Who made sure you guys put so much effort into getting certain clients to attend, who was responsible for the client experience at the party?

Yeah.

Who talked about who you were going to make sure the client got to meet? We spend a lot of time looking at these guest lists, whether we're hosting the party or attending, thinking, who do we want to meet? Who do we need to introduce on our team to— I take a step back and I think, boy, who at this party would be really well served? Which client of ours would be really well served if they could meet this other client of ours. And how are they going to enjoy it? And what are they going to have as a sticky experience? You know, some traction that they develop.

Yeah.

As a result of meeting each other. And we become— we're seen as the goodwill connector and everybody wins. But it's really— it's asking the next level of questions and then making sure that people are following up afterwards. Otherwise, you've got that spaghetti at the wall, Linda. That nobody's following up on.

You know what's fascinating what you said, and I think this is the big thing.

We're—

we provide a service to your firm. We're, we're not in— and, and I think this is true for attorneys. It's not about you. It's about what they need. Like you're saying, it's about the facilitation. It's less about, yeah, I can check all these boxes and make sure things are reconciled and make sure that— it's not about what we can do. It's about what do you need? Where are your— and it's hard when you're throwing events like this. Like, I think about it in the past, pre-COVID, right? I would remember seeing often estate planning teams hosting events for clients to come in, a free workshop, but it was to get them thinking. And it was, these are the things we can offer. What are— where do your needs Do you have an aging parent? Do you have a will to satisfy your family? It's not about the piece that, this is what I can do for you.

Right.

My big billboard. You're in an accident. I can do this for you. It's what are the needs and what is the surface? What's below that surface moment to help them? And it's interesting because when you do, like you're saying, throw the events and think about these things, you have to take the I out of it. For sure. It's not an easy thing to do in this market.

Lawyers have given the feedback over the years, and I experience it myself. When I make it about me, I don't get the opportunities that I get when I make it about you, right? Or when I make it about you and you and you and getting all of you together and letting you just run and benefiting from that.

Yeah, exactly. It is part of the craft of networking in the right way, not networking in the selfish way of always felt like I love being known in my, my original business as the connector. And I don't see it that way. I just genuinely care, like, oh, you have this problem? Oh, okay, I could, I could lend this individual your way that I know, or here's a list. And I think of people, I reciprocate that way too. I ask others for that same help. But it's interesting because that if you look at the networking referral business in law firms, Which is what I love about what Linda's asking when she asks these questions. Yeah, sure, we could do the accounting, but how does a client walk in the door? How are they serviced? What does that look like? Tell me. Like, it sounds like I'm encroaching on a space that you would never expect. I'm only doing it because it helps me understand the numbers better.

Well, and you're going to prescribe different approaches based on what you learn about the processes in place. Bingo.

Yeah.

This is why there is so little that's truly proprietary about what any of us are doing in the legal industry. You know, everybody's out to try and help their lawyers make, make high-quality connections with high-quality clients.

Precisely.

But the systems that are in place around them that they have to work with, the culture in place, the incentives that are in place, the obstacles that they face, that's different from firm to firm.

Yeah.

And so I can share anything. You know, in my law firm days, I could tell you anything and everything I was doing to help my law firm earn business, and you could take it step by step and maybe implement it in your firm. And if you could, great. Chances are you have to take it and amend it for your firm significantly to make it work with the systems, the structures, the people, the culture, the incentives. And once you've done that work, it's so different than from what I'm doing that I haven't spilled any trade secrets by sharing it with you. If we can all share in this way and help the industry improve, I mean, it is baffling when you think about it on the service side in the legal industry that we're serving all of these really sophisticated revenue-driving, profit-making businesses that don't run like any other business in the country, right? Because of the unique nature, uh, not just of partnerships, but of law firm partnerships.

Yeah, exactly.

The rules around ownership, which are starting to change, but it is— yeah, the ownership of law firms has created the unique environment that we're now in.

There's so many flavors of that.

Yes.

Don't you feel relief that he said that, Stephen, Linda? Because it's so true. I mean, we always say that you might look the same on the outside because you offer the same services. We know you're entirely different, and we want to honor that tailored space.

Right, right. And, and I want to help you articulate that difference, right? Because so much of it ends up sounding beige. Yeah, from firm to firm. But let's really peel back and understand the DNA. And understand what's your unique claim here or your unique goal here and help you articulate that in a way that's going to resonate with audiences that you want it to.

So kind of going back to a little bit, Linda, I'm going to bring you into this part because I'm thinking about this is when, you know, you mentioned, Linda, about marketing gets cut. So when we're looking at from your lens, Matt, of like recommending budgets and so forth and kind of what is the formula or what is the sweet spot? for maybe what we call boutique, and then we go up from there. Um, what is that?

Also, wouldn't that be specific to the practice area too?

It might, probably. But like, in general, for marketing, what is a good— in your experience, what have you seen, or what do you find that you recommend that seems like maybe a couple tips that we could offer the audience of?

Yeah, yeah. I think as a simple— I'll give you the simple answer and then we can get into some of the nuances. I think as a general rule of thumb, if you're spending, if you're investing 2 to 3% of revenue in your marketing function independent of salaries, so that does not include staff salaries and benefits for your marketing investment, 2 to 3% of revenue. is typically a very effective marketing budget for a firm of almost any size, in my experience. And I've served in a 500-lawyer firm with 15 offices, and I've served in a 100-lawyer firm with basically one office. I've never— I'll put it out there— I've never served in an AMLAW 100 firm. So I don't have an appreciation for that scale of budgeting.

Mm-hmm.

I think now we can get into some of the caveats. 2 to 3% is very respectable in most instances. You can certainly justify more depending on what you're trying to do. If you're a CMO or a marketing director coming into an environment that has maybe been neglected and you need to ramp up and get up to speed, you might want to allocate more than that. You might say, hey, let's go for 4 to 5%. In the first year or 2, right?

And that— Right.

Some people will hear that and think that that's shocking, right? Other people will hear that and think that's still too low. I think that the big challenge for a marketing director is to figure out which investments are likely to succeed, because you can earmark a lot of money and you can even get a lot of budget approved. to start throwing at things, but there's— you've really got to be honest and self-aware. And you've got to know your firm. What am I capable of leading and how is my team equipped to implement and support it? What are the lawyers ready to accept and what— how much of what we're talking about depends on their input and use?

Mm-hmm.

Who else do I need in the environment? You know, is this something where I need paralegals to be able to do it? Do I need IT or IS to be heavily involved? Do I need legal secretaries? You know, a CRM system is a great example of a huge investment that can be worth it if it's done right. All too often, firms invest very heavily in CRM and they use a very small percent of what the software can deliver. You know, people are unsatisfied, right? And so there's a real, there's a real, um, you know, honesty that's got to happen.

And you know what you made me think of right here is at this juncture of putting this in place in a law firm is where we come into the, um, examples or the situations where the partners don't agree on certain things.

Oh my gosh.

And those things, I think this is the stage where they start to bubble up as you're developing this, this Percentage of what they're going to fork out for marketing.

Oh my God!

Well, you know, but it's it's the elephant in the room.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, well, Steve, I tell I tell marketing director. I tell any new first chair marketer in a law firm if you could in your first year if you can avoid doing a CRM deployment or a new website.

Oh.

Oh, even in the first year.

Wow.

Yeah.

Don't do it in the first year if you don't have to. And the reason is. You need that first year to really understand the power play, you know, the political dynamics. You need to know who the squeaky wheels are. You need to know who the hidden champions are, the ones that will emerge as—

Oh, I like this.

As your cheerleaders. But you don't know in your first quarter in a law firm who those cheerleaders are going to be. And so those are two. But to your point, Steve, everyone's got an opinion about the website. No, people know what it takes. But everyone's got an opinion about what it should include. And that's— those are just examples of these very expensive, very visible, you know, endeavors that if you can be savvy enough— sometimes marketers are going to walk into a firm and they need it right away. And you look at it and you're like, oh my gosh, they need it. It's unavoidable. And that's your mandate. That's what you're there to do. But if you can push that one down the road and really understand— there's another caveat I want to get to.

Sure.

I've served in environments where we may do very well with less than the 2 to 3% of revenue that I started with.

Oh.

And the way that works is if your marketing team only has to work on stuff that matters. If you're in a firm that is savvy about marketing and business development and they support what the group is doing, And you don't have partners coming to you asking you to do stuff that doesn't support the firm, doesn't fit in with the bigger strategy, might drive revenue but doesn't drive profit, right? There's a big— you guys know this is a big deal with law firms. Like, yeah, I know lots of rainmakers who have like revenue, you know, impressive revenue numbers until you unpack that a little bit and understand what it costs to serve that client.

Yes.

And, and it's super deceptive. So depending on what your marketing team is expected to do and who they're expected to serve, you can actually get away very respectably with less if you spend that less on only the stuff that matters. But if you're spending 20 to 50% of your budget and effort on stuff that doesn't help drive Profit for the firm, then you're gonna you're gonna need more to get it done.

Wow.

You know, Sarah Sarah and I've seen some websites because we obviously get a lead and we look at the website and I'll pull up. I'll go, Sarah, you gotta see this website. And sometimes it's like I had to go all the way down three quarters down the page to see that they're a law firm. Sometimes it's that vanilla law firm template that you see over and over.

Professional services template from Squarespace.

It's almost like the lawyer that gets on a Zoom call and they get that. fake book background. It's like, come on, you want to be a little bit more—

Feels like back in the '50s, all of us got chain-link fences. All of us got—

Oh, very well put.

It's honestly like— Can I have the wood paneling, please?

I'll have that. Yes, the wood paneling with the books, all the books, the law firm.

And it's so fancy.

The scales of justice.

Yeah. Yeah.

But then, okay, so the client acquisition piece is interesting to me, but what about the— like, one of the questions we have is the unknowing loss. Like, How, if maybe you market so well, the people come through the door and then you're not, to Linda's point, you're not tracking. I know Steve and I have thought about these weirdo moments where like, how do you financially get all this stuff in the right order and how do you map it out and track it well? But then how do you know what you're losing and why you're losing it if you're not tracking it? Like you just, it just look at the call volume on a, like most of them.

They don't track like, because you could have multiple marketing things happening. You could be doing something on LinkedIn. You could be doing a billboard, you could be doing whatever. But then if you don't know where it's coming— that's one thing Sarah and I do with our firm. It's one of the questions that's on our thing, and how did you find us? Was it a YouTube video? Did you know Sarah at a bar association meeting, you know, heard her speak?

Or—

A bar bar.

No, did you see the podcast? You know, these are the things, because we have all these things that we're doing. That's why we call ourselves our accidental, accidental marketers. Like, where did it come from? And once in a while I'll be doing blog posts and then I'll say to Sarah, oh crap, I don't know what I did, but we're getting like Solo firm, solo firm, solo firm. We don't want them.

That's— I totally get that. And I've had several people— I'm in my first year, right? I left— I launched Access in July of 2024. I've had several people suggest that I should be doing BD trainings at bar events. And I'm like, okay, I'll get a lot of solos, you know, and I could— but I'd rather be doing cohort Based trainings in at least slightly larger firms. It doesn't have to be AMLA 200, right? I'm, I'm working with a 35-lawyer firm right now. It's excellent. It's great, you know.

Right.

But you want, you want, it depends on what you like doing and who that target audience is for you.

Yeah.

Because you're exactly right. You can, you can do a lot of marketing that feels effective.

But yeah, and then it's like the right type of business to— I see it coming, and then I'm like, oh, it's like call after call. I said, what did I say? Now I got to go back and figure out what just went out because it starts getting these calls. And I mean, we love solo law firms, they're great, but for us, we like that small mid-market, that $35,000 to $50,000. That's a good place for us because of the services we provide. The solo can't afford those services, so we like to sit in that place. However, I mean, we, we have some— so we had one of our best, best, bestest clients was like 4 people when they started with us, and now they're— I don't even know what the number is now. They're like 50 or something or more.

So when you can be the service provider that grows with them and can—

that's fine, right?

And even as— so one thing I like to share with lawyers is even as you're serving your clients, you're not done marketing. Right. You're constantly planting the seeds without leading them somewhere they're not ready to go or they don't want to go.

Yeah.

But how— one of my favorite things, one of my favorite types of clients to work with is the one that's already invested in marketing and business development.

Yeah.

Um, they've seen the proof, they know it works, and they've achieved a certain, you know, uh, uh, success threshold, and they want to take the next leap, but they don't know what that involves.

Yeah.

And they don't know if they've got— do we have the right people in place? Are we investing the right money? Are we, are we, are we putting our lawyers out there into the right environments? Like, what do we need to do? Because watching them put these plans in place and act on them and succeed with them and grow with them, that's very, very gratifying.

Very.

It feels like your own, like you're part of the family.

Your own baby.

You're just like, I don't know how to describe it, but we've, we've, we know we're in an honored space with it for sure. We realize that. And we, um, for us, the biggest change, and I said this from the day I opened my doors, I will never be transactional. The moment it becomes transactional, I start to change. I don't like it. I like relationships. I'm part of your team. I know that's how the 3 of us work. Um, yes, we have to feed our own lives and do what we need to do, but I'm not saying every person that walks in the door or leaves us is the wrong or right person. That's not the case. It's just, I think it's always being open to growing and to changing. And I feel like that's true of like when you're looking at law firms that are trying, like you said, Linda, throwing everything out there. It's like, I want to track all these KPIs.

Mm-hmm.

Hold up. How do you know what's going to work if you've got like a— in a conversation I've had recently, it's like, I've got all these systems. You got systems on systems on systems. Okay, would you like me to spend the time kind of reevaluating the systems What are you doing as a whole? Like, what, what's coming your way? Um, we can honestly say immigration right now is a hot, hot button everywhere, and it's hard to know that— that funnel is hard. It's kind of— I feel like it models itself.

It's fluid.

It's fluid, but it models itself a little bit as us. Like, there's only so many accounting firms to support you. There's only so many immigration firms that can support you at this funnel moment. And similar, I feel like sometimes with, um, when we see this, we have this broad perspective, which I'm sure you have, Matt. You see all of these firms and you see fine-tuning over here, what works, what doesn't work. And then you've got this perspective. You're not like copycatting one over the other, but you're, hey, I'm finding this works. But if that person isn't open to it, it's never going to work.

You bring that experience with you from— and that's what's the beauty about working with all the firms that we do.

Yes.

Can I add something to the fine-tuning, Sarah, which is that I think the fine-tuning is a 2-way thing. Because when you think of it externally, you're tracking what works and you're fine-tuning for what seems to be getting you the responses you want from the clients. But you're also— there's a second part which should be like you should be figuring out what is okay not to do. And it might be working, you know, and, and to Linda's point about the blog post resulting in—

Yeah.

Getting, getting new interest, but, but it's okay if you let those types of posts go because they don't— they're not in the sweet spot. They're not in the place your heart loves to work and where you love the energy. Uh, and so one of the things I really Lawyers ask a lot about, just tell me what, especially as they're coming up in the ranks before they make partner, right? Or, oh my gosh, junior partner, that's a lonely position in a law firm.

Yeah.

You make partner, so you make partner and now you feel like you've got this sort of expectation around you that you're going to feed people. And if you're a service partner, an income partner, not an equity partner as many are, You're still trying to prove yourself on that count. Um, but the systems that helped you get to that partner title now start to go away. So all the support law firms have been throwing at you as an associate to help you succeed, now those start to disappear.

Oh yeah.

Because you've arrived.

Yeah.

And yet you've got— now is the moment where I finally got the title that makes me feel like I can go out there and generate business. And I've had some of the training, but now I don't have the reinforcement around me to help get it done.

Wow.

And that's just, that's just a very challenging spot. It's to those lawyers who want to say, Matt, just tell me what I can do now to make it. And I'm like, there are a lot of things you could do, right? What do you enjoy doing? Because I don't want to send you out there to work a room if you would rather be behind your desk. Right? Let's, let's draft some articles together, or let's find a stage to get you on if you're comfortable with that, uh, and, and do the things you like doing. Those are the things that will make a difference. That's part of the fine-tuning too, and figuring out where do I need to do it internally to be most effective and successful and to be happiest, frankly.

I like that you're walking down the road with them instead of giving them the map.

Oh, well, you're right about that. I want them to be able to walk confidently on their own, but I don't want to sit from the comfort of my perch.

Exactly.

And point that way and say, just over that hill.

Right, right.

You're right. And it's beautiful to hear you say it, Steve. You're walking down the road with them.

With them.

To get them started. You know, nobody, you know, I don't, I always, it's funny because I feel really strongly about even selling what could be open-ended services in a packet. Like I want there to be a clear endpoint or a breaking, a breakpoint, you know, where it's like, we all know we've achieved certain things.

Yeah.

Maybe it's time to take a breath and pause and see and let people go try some things on their own and figure out what they want next and whether they still want this next. It's maybe you guys could tell me it's not the, It's not the best model to set them up and send them out there without me, but you never know the revenue.

We see it. Um, sometimes people feel like they need to try something different. We, we don't like serial jumpers of, of apps. We— that's horrible to your business. Please jump, jump, jump. That's a cost that you can't— I mean, it's so costly, it's like equivalent to an employee sometimes, uh, as an employee, a bunch of them leaving.

That's the quick fix. And why are they, why are they attracted to that quick fix?

Yeah.

But I feel like with Matt, it's, it's probably a great balance to be like, okay, could be a pause. But then maybe when they resurface back, it's more intentional in a new way that could allow you to dive deeper. Because I'm curious when you're, depending on the services you offer, how you come in and how you It's like coaching sometimes I see with clients. They, they have a coach, they pause, and then they bring— maybe the coach was good, they bring it back, right? But we've had some coaches who are like, please just let them go. Like, we— this isn't working.

Yeah.

So I, I don't see anything wrong with— obviously, for me, I've always been a bit of a rare bird in this accounting world. I approach things so uniquely. In my brain, it has to work for my brain to, you know, and I'm, and a lot of clients say this, it feels like a true partnership. And that's the biggest honor. And some have to, Linda and I've had this, we've had a lot of movement. It's hard to see a client have to close their business or decide, you know what, I can't do this anymore. I'm just going to go ahead and retire. This is just turning into too hard of a thing right now.

Yeah.

And that's hard. And we've, we've seen them boomerang back. Uh, Linda just had one, uh, not within the legal, but somebody boomerang back. And she was like, yeah, why did you sell your business? Now you're inheriting all the madness of it. Because they needed to bring the business back because it wasn't handled right, kind of thing. So, um, the— I don't think anything wrong with what you've got going on. I think you just gotta try it.

There, there. So I would be remiss if I didn't take the marketing moment here. And, um, and, and say like, listen, when I take a break with a client, uh, as soon as we get off our last call or finish our last meeting where I've implemented the last step and turned everything over to them, I schedule a reminder for about 4 months down the road. Right. That's— I'm not waiting for them to come check back in with me. I'm going to check in with them and ask how it's going.

Yeah.

Um, and that's what I want. That's how I want lawyers thinking about Repeat business. And, and, and some, some lawyers have the types of clients that have constant work. If you're a product liability attorney for an automaker or a chainsaw manufacturer or fill in the blank, you're gonna have repeat business, you know.

Yeah.

If you're solving one-off commercial disputes, Uh, you might not worry, you might go years before your client needs you again, but that doesn't mean you let that go cold until they call you by any stretch.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we, we talk about, uh, we'll have services where we migrate, support you. You have an in-house firm, right? We'll train you. But then our biggest thing is we take so much pride in how we've migrated it over It's up to you if you want to engage us further where you feel supported, because sometimes, and it's no dig to software, there's only so much a software can support you. They don't have the full business mentality in mind. They're not looking at it. And the beauty, I think, of Linda, Steve, and I is that we're business owners first. And we have a service. And you're the same way, Matt. You're a business owner first and you have a service. And And so I think you've hit it just right with how you do the follow-up, how you check in. These are just some examples of things. But marketing, you have like enlightened me a bit more on marketing in the sense of like a whole perspective of way to do it versus you get—

He's so unique in how he's doing it. I love that.

Because, you know, Steve, you get that market like, oh, you got to market. So hire this marketing firm. What you think is Marketing firm, right? And you're the new age style to me. You're the new modern moment in my mind of probably how it— you could do it and do it differently and do it well.

Well, go back to where we started. Um, my accidental entry into law. I was not looking for law. I became, by the way, I became a freelancer by accident. A friend called me and said, said, my boss invited me to help hire some new people onto my team. Um, we got some budget to hire some new writers. Do you want to come work with us? I thought I was applying for a full-time job with salary and benefits. And when the hiring manager called me to offer me the job and I started, you know, talking about benefits, she stopped me to say, you do understand this is a contract position, right? Which I didn't. We can offer you 40 hours a week, but that's all we're offering you, right? So I accepted the job. I got off the phone. I turned to my wife. I said, I think I just went into business for myself.

You did.

I better go find some more clients, which despite not knowing anything about business development, I I was successful in doing. I cringe now.

Yes.

When I think about some of the things I did and the mistakes I made then.

Yeah.

I, I am sure in 5 years I will cringe at the mistakes I'm making now as a new business owner. Um, it really makes a huge difference for me as far as what I think about when I think about providing a marketing service to lawyers because I understand that. I came in understanding that, and I came in and was frankly surprised at some of the lack of anticipation and lack of ownership and lack of client service that I saw inside a large law firm marketing department at times.

Yeah.

So that's informed a lot of what I do and how I do it, both inside a firm and outside a firm.

I reframe those words, not mistakes.

I've just had stepping stones through my business Oh yeah, and you didn't charge the same rate. You charged as you have the expertise. Exactly. That's the kicker. And I think, you know, one of the things we see with law firms when we work with law firms, we get into the marketing discussion, we'll work with the, with the staff and we'll say, how's it, how's it going? You know, I see you hired a new marketing firm. And the person will go, yeah, and I have to do all the work. We're paying them all the money and I have to do all the work.

Oh my gosh, I am, I am right now, right this moment, I serve on a board and we have hired Not a marketing firm, but another agency to do some support. And I was like, hey, we got to have those hard conversations now. Otherwise, we're going to be 4 months down the road. We're going to feel like we still have to have our hands in everything and we're not going to want to. You have to train the agencies how you want them— Like to do the work. You hire them for their expertise, but train them on how you expect them to deliver it to you. Otherwise, You have inherited more, you have hired more headache than help.

Yeah, I know that just from doing, when I did a website one time, I hired somebody and I was like, I might as well just do this myself. What do you want on this page? What do you want on that page? Like, aren't you here to guide me?

You don't, aren't there consultancies that exist to help businesses bridge that gap? It's like, I've done this, I know how to implement, I speak both languages. It's like you, now I need a consultant for my consultants. What have I done, right?

It's so funny though. How do you work with a firm? Like, I'm thinking, when you think of marketing with attorneys, you always think of the PI firm with the, the, those terrible ads with their role standing in their suits and they all have the same blue suit on. And how do you stand out? Like, how do you make your marketing stand out from other people?

It's funny, I have never worked with a plaintiff's firm. However, I have mentored a plaintiff's firm marketer. One time. And I've since worked with more plaintiff firm marketers. I understand, I'm learning more about that. But you're talking about plaintiffs' personal injury firms.

Yeah.

You know, I think about much more a business-to-business marketing environment. And you have the same problem. You know, lawyers are so funny. Lawyers are so funny. Remember, law firms are run by lawyers, not business people. The lawyers are like, well, let's hire a marketer. Let's get them to tell us what we should be doing. And then let's show them the firm they want to make us look like.

Yeah.

And that's, it's like, make us look like them. They seem to be doing well. So I do have to, it goes back to that idea of really understanding, we were talking about this earlier, what does success look like? Who does your ideal client look like? What are your structures and incentives and obstacles? What are you particularly proud of? Let's tap into all of that and let's really find the voice in a way What can we say that no one else can say? And it's really about finding that and finding the unique expression of that, and then figuring out how do you interweave that across not just the website, not just the pitch books, not just the ads, but across the ethos of the firm so that your marketer— so that your lawyers are out there talking about those things because they only want to talk about their Their piece of it, right? But if they can really learn to talk about the platform that the firm has provided them with and what it does that's different. And I think this is true for plaintiffs' firms as well. You know, I want to be strong for you and stand up for you.

Yeah.

But if, but if I can show you how we are stronger together, then you really have some unique opportunity there.

To your point, involving everybody in the process and understanding it, because even in the large firms, you know, they'll bring in the junior associates and say, you're going to bill $2,000 hours a year, and they have no idea how they're going to get there. And then, you know, they've got a 40% productivity going on, and what's happening in that other 60%?

And you want that uniformity. When we have that discussion, when a client picks up the software, and a lot of them have ways to make the language uniform, so some of the language in their, in their billing. So it sounds like, otherwise it sounds like there's, you know, 10 lawyers in the 10 different firms and you really want that uniformity and the same thing in the messaging, I would imagine.

Yep. Yeah, exactly right. But I think, I think that's where larger firms miss an opportunity to, to do some inter— to really professionalize the internal communications and use the marketing department internally wisely. Um, and an example I'll give you is like, I've seen HR roll things out that don't really match what we're saying outside the firm. And if your personnel, if the people you rely on for the day-to-day work are out there telling a different story than what your marketing team is telling—

What does that say?

You've got a huge disconnect right there. You've got a huge challenge right there. So I'll give you an example. In-house teams for corporate clients, right, work with— so the general counsel's office and the corporate counsel at a Fortune 500 client, work with the legal secretaries. They work with the paralegals. They work with the IT services. Sometimes they even work with the marketers. And if those people are sharing things that are not consistent with what we've been telling the client, it's like you have this huge problem right there. And so why not use your marketing department? Now, your marketing department is not your internal comms department. And, and firms have to be real careful about that scope creep. But boy, your marketing team can sure advise on internal comms in a helpful way, in a productive way.

So yeah, yeah.

I can tell you so much of what you're saying is so much of what we do. It's almost so parallel. It's amazing how parallel it is because we have the same conversations when we get involved in talking to staff and, okay, this is the accounts receivable department. What is, you know, Mary do as opposed to John as opposed to Pete, and oh wait a minute, they're doing the same job here. There's overlap, or this one's saying this. It's a completely total message that's different than this one's message, and you kind of it's amazing to me, and I don't know if you find this. It's amazing to me when Sarah and I get to talk to people that work on the staff, what they tell us as a and they know we're going to go back to the owner. Like how did you not? They're so open with us. It's like I'll get off with Sarah. I'm like oh my god, did they just say all all of that? And then you bring it back to the owner and they're like, really? You know, Pete said that? And I'm like, yeah, Pete said that. And it's eye-opening and it's amazing because they know, and the meeting's recorded, so it's not even like they don't know the meeting is recorded.

I think it's therapy in a different way. It's— we're new to this, you know. And respectfully, I mean, if you just like the humanizing part, you can hear all the stories about the individual people, but then when you get the chance to really like understand what does this role mean or how undefined is it. That's the biggest thing I feel like you're hitting on something that is true. Even with our own, we try to do, we do our best to communicate, communicate, communicate, but you can fail at that without realizing you're failing at it. You're just innocently falling into these moments of time.

So I think especially when you have really good people, you tend to assume you don't need to say as much. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's just, it's such a management challenge. You know, you're really good. People want to know the why behind the what. They want reinforcement for the bigger picture. They want to know that their contributions matter, all that. And as business owners and as managers, it's easy to lose sight of that.

Well, and I feel very— one thing I'm definitely committed to just in our own firm, and it could be a tip to anybody, I try to randomly, not very diligently as far as like, so it's expected, I try to kind of recap or honor, you know, what somebody did for the full team to celebrate, you know, and it could be everyone as a thank you, you rolled up your sleeves, it could be a moment of time. But I hated micromanagement of myself. I knew I couldn't take it. And so I didn't— I don't want that. And so there's that double-edged sword of that you have autonomy to do what you need. But then I have to trust that I know that you're doing it.

Right.

And I have to make sure that it's being facilitated in the way that I can understand it. And so it goes, it goes back and forth, it ebbs and flows. But the biggest thing is, if you can just even, like you said, just celebrate those moments very randomly, just give somebody a high five without, you know, like gushing over it, but just in a good way. Recognizing them.

Yeah, you're really good at recognizing people when they do things. And yeah, you know, and if it's something way above and beyond, like the little gift card goes out, and it's, it's just the things you have to do.

Yeah.

It just gives that person a— it makes them understand that, yes, we're excited you did this, and yeah, we're looking for you to continue and maybe go even more. And it makes for a better cohesiveness, especially when you work remotely. And I think a lot of law firms work remotely too, so it's something else you need to kind of look at and be cognizant of. But yeah, this is a really good conversation. Great conversation. I just can't get over how parallel we are with you.

I was just gonna say, I love all the parallels that have emerged.

I mean, it's crazy. I never really think of— I always think of marketing as that thing over there, you know, that's my necessary evil.

One of the things I train— I train marketers to get to know the people in the, uh, in the billing teams. Like, that will, that will do more for you if you know If you know what the numbers say and where the numbers are and how to get the numbers you need.

Or what the goals are.

I mean, you know, really knowing like the legal assistance and the paralegals, like really knowing the people who can help get all the work done. Yeah, yeah, that goes so far. So it's not surprising to me. I, I hadn't thought of it, but now that we've had the conversation, I'm surprised by the parallels.

It is pretty remarkable. Well, thank you so much, Steve. Thank you for bringing on such a wonderful guest.

Yeah.

Oh, this guy's amazing. Thank you for being here, Matt. We appreciate it so much.

It's been my pleasure. Thank you for the conversation. Thank you for sharing your audience with me.

Yeah, of course. Definitely.

All right, Yara, take us away.

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Well, thank you again so much for being here today, and, and everybody have a great week.

Enjoy, everybody.

Bye-bye.