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Your Reputation Is a Business Development Tool with Casey Boggs · UnF*ck Your Legal Marketing

• Gary Johnson: Welcome to Unfuck Your Legal Marketing, the show. Where we get brutally honest about marketing, business, and the messy middle of making it all work. I'm Gary Johnson, marketing coach, strategist, and professional BS detector for attorneys and business owners who are tired of doing what everyone else does. Around here, we skip the fluff. We have real conversations, real insights, and maybe a few F-bombs along the way. So let's get into it. You can be great at what you do. But if your reputation doesn't reflect it, how much business are you leaving on the table? My guest today is Casey Boggs. Casey is a global communications and reputation, reputation management expert. And he's also the founder of Reputation Us. He spent his entire career helping organizations manage their reputations, navigate crises. And communicate when the stakes are high. Today, we're talking about something every attorney should be thinking about, which is how your reputation affects your business that you bring in or that you don't bring in. So Casey, welcome to Unfuck Your Legal Marketing. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I'm so glad you're Yes, yes. Everybody gets that same sort of reaction. They're like, ⁓ what a name. So let's start with the big picture. How much does an attorney's reputation actually in influence their ability to bring in business? It's huge, Gary. No, it's it's pretty important, right? I think it's everything. And I hate to say that we're it's everything, but it really is everything. And it really has an enormous influence because the legal services industry really are is really built on trust, right? Yeah. Most people don't really have experience in evaluating whether an attorney is technically better than another one, right? When they're hiring them. Or so their signals go into, you know, who recommended you? You know, what do other people say about you? Do they seem credible? Do the attorney seem credible? Do they have a understanding of my problem or the problem at hand? And do I do I trust this person or this attorney with something that really is meaningful and important to me? And so I like to say, Gary, that ⁓ your reputation walks into the room before you do. And I'll r I'll repeat that. Your reputation walks into the room before you do, right? Yeah. ⁓ it's that whole reputation precedes you. But if you if you if you can open that door to a conversation, ⁓ i i it can quietly close behind you, right? And you really didn't necessarily know when that door is open and ⁓ and closing, but it's important to know that you do have a reputation. Is it isn't just about ⁓ avoiding the negative. Right. It's about strong reputation that creates the presence of the attorney. So that's really kind of the the genesis here. But the idea here is that some the person who's this person representing me, I think, is a question that most clients is going to be asking before they go all in on a on a on an attorney. Yeah. I I think you're right on because they're going to be spending a lot of money on legal services. They wanna know and be confident. That they're the attorney that they pick is gonna represent them in the best way. Whether it's transactional or litigation, it doesn't make a difference. You know, a lot of people are like, well, because this person's not a litigator, they don't need to have a reputation. You're like, absolutely, because the transactional attorney is making it so that you don't have to use a litigator, you know, so that you're not getting sued. Right? So, and if they don't have a reputation. It just it it makes it so much more difficult, you know. And it's it's I agree with you. It's such an important thing. And when we're talking about reputation in your head, what are we really talking about? I mean, is it like what comes up on Google, what people are saying about us, how we're communicating it. Yeah. All of it, something else. All that good stuff. What what ex-girlfriends say? Exactly. You'd be screwed. Not me, because I've only had one. I might be. Do not do that. I I'm I'm I'm clear. I think the I think the level set a little bit. Sometimes I tell people that brand and reputation are two different things. And so I I for your listeners, I'm going to juxtapose brand and reputation just for the second here. So brand is what you say about yourself. So Brand is your DNA, who you're all about, what you're all about from your your practice, you know, your legal practice, you as your background probably, all the cases you want, all those wonderful things. You should spend a lot of time on your brand, right? Conversely, reputation is what other people say about you, right? And or not about you, as you mentioned, or what they might say about the competition. So part of this is rault reputation is ultimately what ⁓ people believe you ⁓ based on everything they see, hear, and experience. So those kind of the totality of your reputation. Now, is Google a part of it? Absolutely. Are reviews, you know, five star readings? For sure. But your website and your LinkedIn presence are just a part of it. But ultimately if I know I'm gonna hire an attorney, I'm doing some calls, right? I'm gonna ask some questions. And this is probably goes into your world, Gary, but things, the intangibles, ⁓ do they return calls? Right? And do they seem accessible? Do they communicate well or clearly? Do they treat people well? These intangibles are really just the microcosm of what reputation is all about. You know, do they respect others? Do they people trust their judgment? But, you know, it's that that's really important here because reputation is what everyone is saying about you, but it's doesn't necessarily match all the time what's on online. So it's kind of this juxtaposition between what's just finding online and what people are saying about them. Yeah, I couldn't agree. I mean, Casey, this is like gold right here because Yeah. Most people don't think of because I treated this person poorly, I'm gonna have a bad reputation. They're like, I was in the moment or whatever. They were pissing me off. I don't care. Okay. But that means that you kind of don't care about your reputation at the time. Like it really, you know. And the biggest complaint that clients have for attorneys. Is a callback, is the communication or lack of communication. Right. And and I think that also goes over to business development. Because if I refer you over to an attorney that I think can help you out, and that attorney doesn't return the email for three days, that's telling you a ton person doesn't want to take my business, person is too busy to take my business. Person doesn't give a shit. The person isn't organized. They're not professional. There's so much stuff in our brains. That's right. Right. That go in. But that's all negative. As opposed to the person that's like Casey, ⁓ my gosh. I would love to have a conversation to see if this could be a good fit right now. That's right. I am in the middle of one of my biggest cases. However, though, would it be okay if one of my attorneys called you just to see if we can help you out? What does that tell somebody? That takes all of 30 seconds to do. That's right. But that pulls them in as opposed to sorry, I'm not going to answer because I'm too busy or sorry, I don't have any time for you. Can we meet in a month? No, there's an alternative to this. But if you're not thinking about your reputation, it'll never come to your mind. It just won't. That's right. You know? And that's That's a beautiful thing. I mean, it could happen, right? I mean, you know, boy, they're they don't think about you as one part of the attorney, but then they think even worse about you because you didn't do anything. Yeah. Yeah. Three strikes on a battery and you're out. Totally. Now, can somebody have a strong professional relationship or ⁓ not relationship, reputation? They have a strong professional and still have a weak reputation f from I would say a business development standpoint? Yeah, I think I think the answer is absolutely. Right. I mean it's just it's about as big as a big g it's you you can understand you can be an understanding attorney and still be almost invisible with people who who could hire or refer you. But maybe everyone who works with you might be thinking differently. But it's only the the fifty people who know that. Yeah. So that's That's the reputation asset that's being really leveraged here, right? Now business development requires that you make ⁓ your reputation visible and transferable to other folks. And this is probably something in your world, Gary. You know, you can speak better into this than I can on the repute on the ⁓ business development side. What what are those things? But other people need to understand what you're good at, who you help, why your difference differentiating between other attorneys or law firms. But being able to you know being a great at what you do. is really a foundation. But if no one knows who you are, that's that's the troubles too, and that doesn't generate many, many opportunities. Yeah. Why do you think that so many people are afraid of that? Like I'm afraid of being visible out there. Yeah, I I think it's maybe because ⁓ they don't want to or ⁓ they don't feel they have to or they it's a a skill set that they've never been taught. And I know this is really knowing you long as I have this is something you're teaching and you're advocating probably you're blue in the face. But yeah there might be just at some apprehension. Now I think there's might be apprehension on I don't know what to do, so I'm just not gonna do it. Hopefully I can just get clients based on but off my merit. Or they don't necessarily know what to do because the s the skill sets or the tools that are now afforded to them through you know connecting, speaking, LinkedIn, those types of things, you know ⁓ that that might be limiting to them. So they make you know, it's it's costly because if they don't know or they they're presumptuous on their things this people is gonna con contact them because of their reputation, they're leaving lots of business on the table. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love using the example of, you know, so many attorneys think, well, because there's J D or ESQ after my name, people will call me. And and I'm like, okay. ⁓ might be true, but more than likely it's not, because a great analogy of that is if you're trying to find your life mate and you're like, I wanna go and find, you know, I wanna find a spouse. would your strategy be to go into your bedroom, close your door, close all your blinds, turn off all your electronics and go? She's gonna come through that door. I know she is because I exist. Therefore she's gonna come through. You know? And it's like maybe, maybe there's something bigger and better in the serendipity and ⁓ the stars and moon collide, but I don't know. I've seen that really like not really realized. I don't think so. I don't think that that's gonna happen, you know. But what it but I love what you were saying is like if you're not visible, how do people know? Right? How do people even know that you exist and You don't have to be obnoxious. You don't have to be like, hey, I'm selling myself like you shouldn't, in fact. You know, that is that is very repulsive. You want to be more attractional than repulsive. So, but that goes back to what is our reputation, right? And what are we doing, you know, with it. So on that end, are there any big mistakes that you typically see people making in regards to their reputation that precludes them? From building. I like this question. You know, and I don't I'm not gonna pretend I know the legal world all that well, but in in general, what we do work with attorney, you know, the biggest one is probably neglect. Yeah, people assume I do good work, my reputation will take care of itself, right? And that that's dangerous. That's dangerous because reputation is being formed whether you're managing that or not. Right. So and then ⁓ you know, some other guess mistakes here is ⁓ including being inconsistent, you know. you're you're saying one thing over here and then something over there and you're and you're failing to communicate, all these different aspects really can lead to a muddied message. And it's it's not good. Or you're ignoring your digital footprint when you think you're just picking up the phone's all you need to do. But you know, treating relationships as transactions, not really responding appropriately, all these things really set you up that ⁓ could be big, big mistakes. While they s may seem small in an attorney's mind because of ego or hey, we got we got business, so something must be going right here. But the idea is they're overlooked. And you know, not giving people anything memorable to associate you with, I think is another big mistake. Yeah. I I'm a big fan of something niche or something that's that's the attorney who does that, as opposed to just he's a litigator or she's a labor employment attorney. Maybe something that you can chew just a little bit further. So like from For instance, for me, I'm in the world of really public relations at its core. But if someone just said PR, I'm like, well, that doesn't say a whole lot. People are a lot of ⁓ you know, things in their mind, right? So when I start hitting reputation, while it's still a nebulous term, it gets a little more deeper, right? But the more you I drill down, that would be something that a little more memorable. So those are things you can do or mistakes that people, attorneys might might be I love that. I love that. Yeah. And they don't realize how that can actually enhance their reputation. Enhances in people to remember them, to be go that they're not just the expert, they are the expert in regards to fill in the blank. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And it's like, ⁓ but but you know, in for legal marketing, it's all about how do you make yourself more memorable? And if you're focusing in on your reputation, If you're clear about the reputation that you want and you're working towards that. That's right. So do you ever like when you're working with clients, do you ever say, Okay, we need to one have a goal. What do you want your reputation to be? And then here's let's develop a plan to get you there. Yeah, I think this goes back to the juxtaposition between brand and reputation. So I think it's important to know what your brand is, you know, what your DNA is, what you're all about, what's your North Star, what's your mission, what's your deliverable, what kind of attorney you are. Spend a crap ton of time on that, right? So that part I don't specialize in per se. I can help on the the messaging to that end. But where I can help. is that other piece ⁓ is the reputation. So I'm putting both hands up here to kind of give you visual. But Yep. I love it. I love it. Brand who watches what yeah. Brand is what you say about yourself and reputation is what other people say, right? And sometimes you have to look into the ugly mirror, right? You have to say, you know, I do that every morning. Here's what I look like, right? And then and then it's our job to say, okay, let's test that. Let's prove that. And so to look in the ugly mirror all due respect to someone who's not attractive, but you know, sometimes you're like me. Ha thank you. Fuck you. Fuck you. But the but the idea though is just to, you know, to to take a moment to say, all right, I look good, but sometimes you have to look in the mirror or look and ⁓ what other people might see of you. And that's really what reputation is. What are other people seeing or saying about you and asking those questions, either online or offline, doing surveys, focus groups, having someone else contact you who've been past clients or you know who have encounters, state bar associations, anything that's you've touched before, asking them who you are, sometimes put that ugly mirror in in there and saying, Hey, yeah, you are who you say you are. Yeah. Yeah. When you get feedback or when you want to get feedback from your from your clients' clients, do they ever push back? There we go. I don't want you to contact any of my my clients. Yeah, I think so. I I think there's some times that they're they're only gonna give you the good ones, right? Yeah. Yeah. And and it's it's like like going for a job interview, I'd imagine. You know, you're not gonna say, ⁓ boy, I got canned over here. L let me give you my managing, you know, director who fired me. No. Yeah. You're only likely going to give the the good ones. But I know ⁓ through the HR side of things and you know give me some lineings here on the analogy. But if I am an HR person, I'm looking underneath the a lot of the hoods, right? I'm not just gonna give ⁓ if you give me a referral career I'm gonna contact you maybe I might have to ask the hard questions, but ⁓ hey, it looks like there's a gap in between your resume here or hey you actually did work on this. I might contact them to find out a little bit more. So you're you're you ⁓ attorney is an expensive undertaking and if I am going to be hiring you I'm gonna do my d due diligence. I'm just gonna t talk to ⁓ your your your mom and dad and to tell me that you you're a good person. I need to ask a few other people. ⁓ my God, yes. Yeah. And I love how you're going after not the just the good, you're going after the bad and the ugly and really seeing, hey, you know, this is reality, right? Whether we like it or not, I mean, if we don't like it, well at least we have the opportunity to change it. But if we put our head in the sand. We don't have any opportunity to enhance our reputation. And therefore we'll get the same results that we've always gotten, which is why hire you if I'm just gonna get the same results as opposed to I really want to grow my reputation. I really want to enhance it. And I think I know what my reputation is. Yeah. But I probably don't. You know. ⁓ probably not office level. Why not ask? That's my thing. Is why not ask? Are you are you afraid of something or are you being lazy? And that's the thing where ⁓ even with corporations that we deal with, for profit and nonprofit, we ask them what what are you afraid of? Why wouldn't you want to know that? Right. And if they are, then okay, well, good luck with that. But those who are secure themselves, they want to find out where where where are they ugly? What are those issues, right? Yeah. That's that's really gonna help growth because ⁓ it's gonna lurk at some time anyway. Yeah. I agree. Like I would never want you to talk to my my worst clients. I just wouldn't. Let's like like intellectually, I'm like, fuck no, don't be talking about them. And I will give every excuse why. Well, they didn't do this, they didn't actually implement all the stuff that we worked on, that's why they that's in my head. That could be true. That's right. But what if it isn't? What if it isn't? You know, why not get that feedback from them? Like like with my group coaching program, we do assessments. We do assessments halfway through. And at the end, because I want to make sure one, everybody is getting what they they came for. But two is I want to improve. Like I really want to improve. And and if I don't know where I'm falling down on, then I think I'm just doing a fantastic job, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But certainly if you're an athlete and before you go to the you know, field of battle, I think you wanna, you know, do some practice, right? You're gonna improve on where you are not good. If I'm a right hand dribbler and everyone knows that you can only dribble right hand and then they're gonna attack you, right? So it's important that, you know, maybe work on your left hand. Those types of things it's it ⁓ falls into play here on your reputation. If you only are providing good reputation or you're only romanticizing how good you are because of your only your best clients or your best games, then you're missing accentuating or improving and enhancing, advancing some of your issues that you might have. Yep. Yeah. I had one of my really good friends who used to be improvisers, ⁓ which is, by the way, if you're listening to this and you don't know who that is, one, You're on you gotta get under the or out of the rock that you're under. But it's a networking group. And one of the things that he told me that he felt my reputation was in provisors was a clown. And he goes, You're always cracking jokes, you know, you're you're always making fun of people. Like you're you're a fucking clown. And he's like, I did not realize. How much I thought you were a clown until we were in the same mastermind. And I was hearing you talk about what you do and how you help your clients. And he's like, why is that not your reputation? Why is and he actually called me out on it. And I was like, that's not true. And I I mean, I was defending myself like crazy because it hurt my ego. That's the God honest truth, you know? And but then I reflected on it and I was like, is there any truth? And I'm like, I don't know if there is or if there's not. But what I did was I started watching myself and I started watching what I was doing and what other people were perceiving, and he was dead on. He was totally right on. And it helped me tremendously because I'm like, I'm not adding any value other than being a co comic. That's it. And so I started to add value, still using humor, but adding value whether I was speaking. Or I was presenting or I was doing it in Troikas, but always giving value, value, value. And then I got a different reputation, you know, where still kind of a clown, kind of a reverent, says a few swear words here and there, but still is extremely close. I like it. Right. Exactly. You know, a fucking swearing clown. But but I but but your your ⁓ internal reflections are Part and partial what we're talking about here. You want to do what we call a reputation MRI, right? What are what are people saying about you or not saying about you, assessing that and seeing where you might have issues. You might not, and that's okay. But wouldn't you want to find out where that cancer reputationally is, ⁓ before you continue to start doing the same thing and you know, you're really gonna be falling your sword. And part of what we do in in our world of reputation management, we want to enhance the reputation that precedes you. before a crisis defines you. Right. And not so much. Crisis is not this lingering, holy crap, you know, apocalyptic thing. But crisis can be, you're losing money. You're losing money because people are saying, hey, go talk to XYZ attorney and ⁓ they're they're not seeing what they should be seeing or they're not hearing what they should be hearing. Right. So you will you should be enhancing and advancing that reputation because conversely this crisis for lack of a better term is really affecting your business, affecting a lot of different aspects. So you acting like a clown, you know, while y you seem to be you're acting like a clown, you know what, maybe I need to dial back a little bit. Maybe I can still be affable and you know, funny and bring some levity to the situation, but ⁓ I don't necessarily need to be, you know, bozo. Right. And I really I I was bozo. I mean I I hate to admit it, but I was. Luckily it was early on in my provisor ⁓ career. So Now you're now you're the face of ⁓ provisors. You're on videos and stuff. I mean ⁓ god. Gary Johnson is Provisors. Yeah. It's you know, speaking of the ugly mirror, I see the ugly mirror every time I open up Provisor. I'm like, ⁓ there's a big There's a reason why Provisors is growing right now and it has its name is Gary Johnson. See, for the audience, see how good Casey is? He makes this guy look like a model? He can work with anybody. The pretty near. Yeah. So if so if an attorney ⁓ that's listening right now has never intentionally managed their reputation, are there certain things that you would tell them to do, like first things that you would tell them to do? I think assess. You know, I think it's important ⁓ to really un assess your reputation. And when you say assess, what do you mean by that? Yeah, let me let me let me dig into that. I think I teased it, but I call it a reputation MRI, but it just kind of gives you this medical thing. But if you go in there and like, what is my reputation? If you just simply look online, that's one aspect of which I'll cover here in a second. But think of the totality of your reputation, assessing that. So that's ⁓ having either surveys, you know, going to ex clients, asking them a series of five to ten questions about you or your law firm, your practice, what they found meaningful, what was it that they didn't like, asking some of the hard questions. You as an attorney can do that or having someone like Reputation S do it. Right. That is the question to ask. You you get a a candor. You're looking for candor, right? You're looking for hey, give me the solid. We're looking to improve our reputation, our which is essentially improving our brand, but we want to improve our reputation. And then you can go either survey or you can do a focus group, or you can go one on one or people outside if Who's that good referring source, right? What are they saying? Why do I continue to get them? Why do they continue to trust that I they can pre give that baton to them and say, hey, give you know, here's a someone I highly refer. What are they saying? Or conversely, but I haven't heard from that referring attorney in a long time. Why is that? You know, maybe they've forgotten about you, which is another problem. Or they had second thoughts because of something else. Ask that question. It it's it's not fun, but if you're looking to enhance and advance your reputation, it's surveys, it's focus groups, it's one on ones, and then you can go online. There's some a lot of easy things you can do online is to, you know, essentially look up your name ⁓ right now and go to I don't know, Claude and say, Is Gary Johnson a strong legal marketer or something of that nature, right? And see what comes up. Right? Or is is Sally you know, Jones, is she a good labor employment attorney? And why? And you're gonna find a whole bunch of things online. Right? It's it's pretty free. It's pretty simple. And is that what you want to see? Or boy, I haven't really done much on the PR side, or that's what they're popping up on? That's what they're seeing online. Because think about it. If someone refers business to you, the first thing the client's gonna do is not necessarily take their word for it. They're gonna go, Go where? Online, right? They're gonna likely check you out a little bit. Your LinkedIn, your go do a an AI search. ⁓ they're going to ask a few more questions to see you if you have the chops. That might stop ⁓ in their tracks or like, ⁓ yeah, that's all I need to know. This guy's good. This person's good. So right. That's going back to your question. Those are low hanging fruit things you should do to see if you are reputable. But don't get rest on your laurels because that's all you see. I think it'd be worthwhile to do this on a a yearly basis, either your law firm or you as an attorney. Yeah. That is like so money. And so if somebody does this and they hate the reputation that they're seeing out there, is that the sort of stuff that you work on with your clients where it's like, we can take that shit and make you actually Yeah. Turn in from a turd to a model. You know, little plastic surgery here and you know. What I do wanna ⁓ clarify though is what we don't do is to bury the news, right? If they are horrible what they do, that's gonna live forever. I mean, that's that's part of who you are, right? Yeah. You can't change that vernacular, you can't change what that media report did. It's there. There are companies that try to bury your news, but that's not what we're doing here. What we need to do is go back to the fundamentals. You know, what is your brand, what you're doing, how is it that you can pontificate on you know your area of expertise to speak, to be part of the local bar associations, to do CLEs, you know, to ⁓ do podcasts, go on Gary Johnson show, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. You have to you have to do the the right things to build up that credibility and just frankly do good, better work. Right? That's always in vogue. Yeah, to just do better work. So we help clients in that capacity, you know, similar to what you do, Gary, to help ⁓ them the market themselves from a reputation side, you can improve that through doing some more block and tackling, doing some more credible things that's going to get you notarized more specifically to your craft or to your practice area. Yeah. I love this, Casey. This has been so many frickin' nuggets in this. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you. And if you're listening out here and you're like, whoa, I don't like the reputation or You're like, my reputation is is pretty good, but I want to make it better. Reach out to Casey. His all of his contact information is going to be in the in the show notes, as well as connect with him on LinkedIn, listen to his podcast. He's got a fantastic podcast, and it's all about reputation. So you can also learn free from there. But if you really want to step it up and go to that, whole nother level and being like, I want to be intentional with this shit so that my confidence can go up. Just have a conversation. You just experienced him. You know he's not one of these douchebag salespeople that's just gonna kind of grind you into something. He honestly cares about his hands what you want me to be. No. No. You couldn't even be that way. Are you fucking kidding me? Come on. You're not that way. Otherwise I wouldn't have had you on here. But But Casey, you are just amazing at what you do. Thank you for spending the time here. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you. Thank you. You are unbelievable. Unbelievable. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And for anybody that is listening, if you want more information or if you want more legal marketing tips, subscribe, like our ⁓ channel because it just helps out to get to more people. Don't be those selfish assholes. Actually be giving like Casey is. So Casey again, thank you so much for being on Unfuck Your Legal Marketing. Appreciate it. All right. That's it for today's episode of Unfuck Your Legal Marketing. If you got a spark of inspiration, learn something new, or at least got a good laugh. Make sure to follow, rate, and share this with someone who needs to hear it. Thanks for hanging out with me. And remember, the best marketing is the one that actually sounds like you. See you next time.