Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / Inside the $40M Case Acquisition Engine at Angel Reyes & Associates

Transcript

Inside the $40M Case Acquisition Engine at Angel Reyes & Associates · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:00
  One of the keys to success is that I've been hanging on the
• 0:03
  monkey bar for 33 years and I'm still hanging, right?
• 0:07
  So that's the 33 year overnight sensation that everybody thinks
• 0:11
  they got there much quicker. So decades influence what we do,
• 0:16
  how we do it, and it's been super helpful.
• 0:19
  Just experience is the is the best teacher, right?
• 0:33
  We have an extremely special guest today.
• 0:36
  I'd like to welcome Angel Reyes from Dallas, TX to the John and
• 0:41
  Mark podcast. Angel is one of the law firm
• 0:44
  operators that when we talk to other law firms, they want to
• 0:48
  know what Angel is doing. So here we are today to talk to
• 0:51
  Angel about what Angel is doing. Also, my favorite part about
• 0:54
  talking to Angels. We could talk a little bit about
• 0:56
  Michigan. You're a Michigan guy.
• 0:57
  I went to law school there, so we share and almond ladder, yes.
• 1:01
  Welcome to the podcast, Angel. Glad to be here, Glad to be
• 1:04
  here. Here's probably the most
• 1:05
  important question you can ask your marketing agency.
• 1:08
  Who are they really optimizing for?
• 1:10
  Because if the answer is internal margins or shareholder
• 1:13
  expectations, that changes how strategy gets built.
• 1:17
  RR Digital stays independent, so we can optimize around one
• 1:20
  thing, law firm growth. That means cases, clients and
• 1:24
  revenue. If you're rethinking your
• 1:26
  marketing partner, visit rrdigitalmedia.com and let's
• 1:29
  start the conversation. The volume of cases that run
• 1:33
  through your firm, like a lot of the firms who watch our podcast,
• 1:36
  they want to know, how do I grow, right?
• 1:37
  What are the secrets? You were just telling us that in
• 1:40
  2018 that you guys completely stopped doing your traditional
• 1:44
  media buys. Tell us about that decision.
• 1:46
  And yeah. People always want to know like
• 1:48
  whether what are the keys to success?
• 1:50
  You know, how'd you do it? Give me the secret sauce.
• 1:51
  You know, one of the keys to success is that I've been
• 1:55
  hanging on the monkey bar for 33 years and I'm still hanging,
• 1:58
  right? So that's the 33 year overnight
• 2:01
  since that everybody thinks they, you know, got there much
• 2:05
  quicker. So decades influence what we do,
• 2:09
  how we do it and it's been super helpful.
• 2:12
  Just experience is the is the best teacher, right?
• 2:15
  And so in from 94 to 2018, I think I spent close to $200
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  million on broadcast legacy television.
• 2:25
  We did billboards, we did bus wraps.
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  We did it for almost 2 decades and that, you know, 10, almost
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  200 million over that period of time.
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  In 2012, we started moving around with the Google stuff,
• 2:40
  the paid. And in 2014, we moved real money
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  there. And at the time, my CMO said,
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  you know, these cases are like 700 bucks and I'm measuring 6000
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  on TV. And just for what it's worth, I
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  know there's people who will argue with this, but television
• 3:00
  is incredibly hard to attribute a case to.
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  And I say that with some humility, but also with some
• 3:10
  evidence. And the reason, let me give you
• 3:13
  the evidence. Every single ad, every single
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  channel for every single ad at every single time had a unique
• 3:23
  telephone number. We were measuring it and it was
• 3:27
  not holding a candle to Google. So 2014, you know, we're like,
• 3:33
  OK, well, let's everybody said don't do it.
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  Don't do it. You know, you get to walk into
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  restaurants and people know who you are.
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  You're like a pseudo celebrity. And I was like, meh, but this
• 3:42
  isn't about my ego, you know, let's, let's make sure that the
• 3:45
  the numbers work. Let's make sure the data
• 3:47
  supports our strategy. And so in 2018, I walked in and
• 3:52
  I said, we're done. No more legacy, we're going to
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  go all digital. So I think.
• 3:56
  Was that an epiphany moment or you're just like, you look at
• 3:59
  the data, You're like I looked at the.
• 4:00
  Data and my my, my CMO at the time was like, man, you know,
• 4:04
  come on, what are we going to keep doing this?
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  And I'm like, Nope, we're not never look back.
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  So at the time we were doing somewhere between 15 and 20
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  million and we moved it all to Google.
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  Paid annual marketing spend? Yeah.
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  Now we do about 40 and it's all digital.
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  So that includes YouTube, that includes TikTok, that includes
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  Meta. But it's, Oh my gosh, at least
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  at least 25,000,000 of that's Google, which includes YouTube
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  and you know, and so we've got a customer journey map that we can
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  see, you know, where do people touch us first and how they, how
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  did we end up signing them? Because that last touch
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  attribution is not important anymore.
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  You really need to know the customer journey.
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  And so we use a whole bunch of software including Power BI,
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  Looker Studio, all of it is connected with our Salesforce
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  CRM and we measure it, we study it and we make adjustments based
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  on on the data because it's really, really important when
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  you're spending that kind of money.
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  You just can't afford 100 cases that cost you 7 grand each.
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  You just can't, you know, I mean our cost per case really needs
• 5:16
  to land and we don't really measure cost per case the way a
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  lot of firms do. We measure cost per kept case.
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  And what that means for us is that we do an 18 month look back
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  and then we stop six months from now, like 6 months back, Yeah.
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  So it's a 12 month period. All right.
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  That stops six months ago. What did we spend?
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  What did we bring in? But how much do we, what do we
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  got now? And then we recalculate our cost
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  per kept case. And we need that to be under
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  3600. And you know, a lot of people
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  are like, oh, my cost per case is 2500.
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  Yeah. But if you drop 30% of those,
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  it's 3300. And if your cost per case is 3
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  grand and you drop 1/3, your cost is 4 grand.
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  And so that's how we, you know, kind of do that.
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  But honestly, we've never looked back.
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  I don't regret the decision. It was one of the key decisions
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  we made that turbocharged our firm's growth.
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  The other was building an operating system.
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  You know, we, we use some of the some of the strategies from
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  Wickman's got a good book EOS Enterprise operating a system
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  and you know, he's kind of cribbed from that and I have
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  ACEO that had scaled a couple of companies and had done a
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  phenomenal job. So his experience plus some EOS
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  stuff, a few years in, it starts to click.
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  And the last super important decision that helped was I also
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  in 2018 said not only are we not going to spend money on
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  television anymore advertising for Otto and truck wrecks, we
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  are never going to do another mass tort because we had done
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  them and we had been distracted. We'd never killed it, made some
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  money, but I'm like, let's just do what we're.
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  Good at you, probably lost a little sleep over it.
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  Not even, it was like, let's just do what we're good at, you
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  know? And so like, you know, at the
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  time we probably had 400 jury verdicts.
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  Now we have almost 600. We tried two to three cases a
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  month. And yes, we get our teeth kicked
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  in at least half of the time. But, you know, we also have
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  $1,000,000 verdict every month, you know, so you kind of take
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  the good with the bad because defense counsel's pretty good at
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  choosing the cases that they decide.
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  Let's see, Let's see what a jury thinks of this case.
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  So we win sometimes, lose just as often.
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  But because we try cases and because our strategy has always
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  been to file first, not to file last, change the profile of our
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  firm for sure. Question for you, so when you
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  stop doing TV advertising you switch majority digital?
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  How much gain did you have from being able to have a decade of
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  TV advertising and branding? They're able to kind of ride
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  into digital because you're well known into space.
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  Yeah, sure, sure. You know, never been measured.
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  I will tell you that I never thought about measuring it
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  because the number of cases almost hockey sticked.
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  So it was like, who cares? And then something that a lot of
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  people disagree with me on, or at least.
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  We love hot takes on this show. So let's see, like, I don't know
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  if it's, I don't know. I don't know if disagree is the
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  right word. A lot of people struggle when I
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  tell this story. One of the other reasons in 2018
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  that I didn't think there was a brand lift was there were so
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  many lead gens entering the space with just white label, no
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  brand, no one knows who they are, and they're picking up just
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  as many cases as the people doing legacy TV advertising.
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  And I went, oh gosh, maybe branding on the mobile phone
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  isn't as critical as it was back before.
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  And so that helped me realize that while branding can matter,
• 9:22
  I think it matters on the margins.
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  And we're OK buying from Legions as long as they can meet our
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  internal cost. Those two things made me say
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  maybe, Maybe it's a different world.
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  How do you account for so work with lead gens and then work
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  with your cost per case model where you did the look back of
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  18 months. How do you manage that with lead
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  gens? Same thing, same thing, same,
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  but you give them that long of a ramp.
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  Not all, OK, not all, not all. You could probably tell.
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  Earlier on, some of them are not the good ones.
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  Yes, yes. And then we tell them at that
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  point, like, look, if you're not going to be a good partner,
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  we're not going to stick with you anyway.
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  But if you're a good partner, you'll listen and we'll tell you
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  here's where you're at. You know what, whatever you
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  thought you were what you know, you're selling a lead for two
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  grand. But if you're dropping 50%,
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  that's 4 grand. And a lot of them have adjusted
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  and listened, but it's only about 30% of our like volume of
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  cases every month. But we're not going to just drop
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  them, not if they can meet or beat what we do internally.
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  It's that simple. I'm agnostic, like somebody's
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  going to get those cases right? Like and it's not the fucking
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  advertisers on TV or the lead gems would be out of biz so I
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  buy them. We don't have to talk specific
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  absolute numbers, but if you were to take the pie chart and
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  split it up by percentages, I want to do it two ways.
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  One is by marketing budget and one is by where your cases are
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  coming from. So let's start by by marketing
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  budget. All right, you have a pool of
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  money. How are you splitting up that
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  budget? All the money we spend is a
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  combination of paid, which includes of course you know
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  everything you're thinking. Google LSASGVPS.
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  It includes Meta, which would really Instagram TikTok to some
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  degree. It also includes lead gens.
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  I wish the CMO was here because he could speak probably more
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  eloquently about some of the other micro channels that we
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  have. That is probably 70% of our
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  spend and then another 30% of the spend.
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  We've been around a long time. We get lots of referrals, you
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  know, from out of state lawyers that are fishing in the Texas
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  pond that don't have an office or try to do a pre lit
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  settlement and realize that there's like 26 grand in meds
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  and the offers 10 and they're like shit, what do we do?
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  And people say call Angel, he'll file because we will.
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  And so some firms have just decided if they don't have a
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  presence in office, just give them the cases, we'll take the
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  referral fee, they'll file. We file 70% of the files we
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  keep, and that's somewhat different than most of the firms
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  that I'm aware of. I'm not aware of all.
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  Especially at the volume and scale that you're.
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  Working on firm referrals or just your entire entire?
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  So, for instance, in December we filed 1100 lawsuits.
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  How many total lawyers do you have working for you?
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  Right. Now we have 48 I think.
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  Yeah, without, On the other hand, we have a different model
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  with lawyers. We want the lawyers to do as
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  little as possible. We want the staff to do
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  everything really well. So the staff has, you know,
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  you're in a, you're vertically aligned with a team, a pod, if
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  you will. On the other hand, you do a
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  specific role, you learn it, it's standardized, it's a
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  process and you get really good at it.
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  You get a lot better than a lawyer who once in a while has
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  to go. How do you do that again?
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  No, no, no, we, we get it, 650 employees support those lawyers.
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  So do they have to scan something?
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  Never do they have to organize and file a petition.
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  Never do they have to worry about whether service was
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  perspected. Never.
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  We have teams of people that that's what they do.
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  And we've found that to be very effective because at first
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  lawyers were like what? You know, like some lawyers are
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  like kick ass. I don't have to do anything, but
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  they do have to do some stuff. And that is they have to mediate
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  cases. That's the top of your bar card.
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  Like why use the bottom of the bar card, right when you can
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  have people that can really do that better because they do it
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  all day every day. And so we want the lawyers using
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  what we call the top of the bar card mediate cases.
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  We want them to take depositions because you need a lawyer to do
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  that. Try cases if they want to.
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  You don't have to try a case in our firm if that's not your
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  skill set. We want them to settle cases
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  because since 70% are filed, you know, you're, you're not just
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  calling it a jester, you're, you're calling defense counsel
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  is a lawyer. You need a lawyer to do that.
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  So they settle cases, hearings, a motion to compel.
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  We have a, a more robust motion practice even on small cases
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  than a lot of firms because we believe that that'll move the
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  needle in the value. So the more you do, the more
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  likely you're going to get paid more.
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  Even on the same case, just making the other side work is
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  going to get you paid more. In the story, that's what we
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  think. How have you evolved the
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  operation at the firm over the past 6 to 12 months with all of
• 14:45
  the I'm sure you of all people are getting pitched every.
• 14:49
  AI platform in the. Automation system every piece.
• 14:51
  Absolutely, absolutely. So with respect to AI, our
• 14:56
  approach is what I would call deliberate and experimental,
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  meaning that we are not going to swallow a product that will work
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  across our org until we've found a few places where it really
• 15:16
  works. OK.
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  And then maybe because with that many employees, you've got too
• 15:22
  many processes, too many workflows and too much
• 15:26
  collateral damage if you were to implement a bolt of full on AI,
• 15:31
  like, OK, we're going to change everything with AI.
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  We're not reluctant to do it, but we're going to do it
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  deliberately. We're going to do it slow.
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  We think there's an enormous amount of what I would call
• 15:40
  excitement. Gartner Group did a study like
• 15:44
  15 years ago about technology, right?
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  And you know, there's a huge build up in learning and it's
• 15:52
  like a big spike, right? And then excitement, excitement
• 15:56
  like crazy. And then implementation and the
• 15:59
  curve just drops off the fucking face of.
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  Craters. Right now, at some point, it
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  does begin to help. I don't think we're there yet
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  and neither does my COO, and I'm going to follow his lead on
• 16:14
  this, even though there's me, I'm chomping a little bit at the
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  bit. We're going to do some very
• 16:19
  targeted experiments and just really like a place where we
• 16:24
  think it might help and if it does, great.
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  We're currently using a technology.
• 16:31
  I don't mind saying it's bland, and that's what most of the
• 16:35
  agentic voice is built on. That's kind of the platform.
• 16:40
  Some will tell you that's not true, but it's true anyway.
• 16:44
  We have that platform reaching out to about four of our trusted
• 16:53
  providers as a test. What it's doing is calling out
• 16:56
  and saying hi. I'm calling on behalf of, you
• 16:59
  know, Angel Reyes. Has he been coming to his
• 17:02
  appointments? Answer yes, no.
• 17:04
  If no, Oh well, when was the last one he missed?
• 17:06
  You know, the the agent is taking this information and
• 17:09
  putting it back into Salesforce and give it a few more months
• 17:13
  and let's get some feedback from people that will tell us the
• 17:16
  truth. Like I don't want to talk to a
• 17:18
  computer ever again. Or sure, we're happy.
• 17:21
  Good. And so maybe then we'll begin to
• 17:24
  roll it further. But until we see it work well,
• 17:27
  we're just going to be slow about it.
• 17:29
  I'm sorry. I know other people have jumped
• 17:31
  off the Cliff and and I wish them, I wish them well.
• 17:34
  We're going to do it a little different.
• 17:36
  I like that approach of trying using AI for like not a customer
• 17:39
  facing right? People try to roll it out as an
• 17:41
  intake agent. I'm like, maybe that's not the
• 17:43
  best place to test out AI. We got 100 people taking calls,
• 17:47
  and we got 30 of them that are killer salespeople.
• 17:50
  Yeah, I'd rather have them than I agree, you know, I just would.
• 17:54
  What do you keep in house and what do you outsource, whether
• 17:57
  it's to agencies or other vendors because you built your
• 18:01
  marketing all in house? Yeah.
• 18:02
  Shockingly, our marketing is 100% in house.
• 18:06
  Outside vendors are almost all technology vendors.
• 18:10
  So we use Litify, but Litify is really Salesforce for us.
• 18:15
  And so Salesforce is critical. We have 6 full stack developers
• 18:20
  that cost, you're right. Yep, millions a year.
• 18:23
  That's that's what it takes. Between the developers solidify
• 18:26
  license, that's what it's a big check.
• 18:28
  No, that's just the developer. I know, that's what I'm saying.
• 18:31
  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a lot and so, but you know, with 650
• 18:35
  licenses. There's a lot of stuff.
• 18:37
  It's kind of kind of, you know, you even it out a little bit on
• 18:40
  top of that, you know we have at least 30 AP.
• 18:43
  Is that work through Salesforce? For instance, you asked earlier
• 18:48
  about Legions. One of the ways we keep them
• 18:51
  honest and current is if they cannot do an API with us, we
• 18:54
  can't work with them. So their leads must come through
• 18:58
  that API. And when we let go of a case, it
• 19:03
  goes right back to them and tells them, so we've got a full
• 19:06
  circle attribution. Same with Google.
• 19:09
  We tell Google, hey, no, didn't like the case, or that case is
• 19:14
  worth 10 grand, or that case is worth 25 grand, or that case is
• 19:17
  worth 50 grand. It's a feedback circle, but it's
• 19:21
  kind of virtuous. Sort of.
• 19:23
  At least that's how it's sold. You have enough data to be able
• 19:26
  to do that. Smaller firm.
• 19:27
  No, no, you've got, you're right.
• 19:29
  I think the minimum I think it's 30 or 50.
• 19:32
  You must have 30 or 50 leads or it's not enough data for Google
• 19:37
  to help you. But you know, we've we've got
• 19:40
  more a lot. And so as a result, that is
• 19:44
  improved, you know, not just like P Max, we're still still
• 19:48
  doing it. You know, there's a couple new
• 19:50
  products and the names aren't coming to me that Google is
• 19:54
  doing the the the Google AI stuff.
• 19:57
  We're rewriting a lot of our content specifically for that.
• 20:01
  It's not just coming, it's here. Probably not how our clients are
• 20:05
  fighting us yet, but eventually we'll be Yep.
• 20:08
  And so, you know, we're kind of, you got to, you got to stay
• 20:11
  nimble, you got to keep. You know, moving around a little
• 20:14
  bit and you got to have a team. I can't do it by myself.
• 20:17
  So the answer is all the marketing is in house.
• 20:22
  Most of the technology, almost all of it's vendor other than
• 20:26
  just what we do internally with our full stack of developers who
• 20:28
  just do workflows and and they can do Python And they can
• 20:32
  change some stuff in Salesforce. I hope that answers the
• 20:34
  question. Intake all in house.
• 20:36
  All in house, yeah, we have. We have a lot of offshore
• 20:39
  employees, but they're direct hires.
• 20:41
  So we use a platform called deal which allows us to pay them
• 20:45
  directly as opposed to take a broker middleman and and look
• 20:49
  brokers in middle. They're they're fine.
• 20:51
  But when an employee works directly for us, they know how
• 20:55
  much we care. They spend their day.
• 20:57
  Every 8 offshore employees has a lead or a manager in the United
• 21:03
  States in my office, and they're on Zoom all day long in a Zoom
• 21:08
  room, all eight of them. And the lead is on there too.
• 21:11
  And they're communicating and talking and chatting just to
• 21:14
  help each other. And it gives more of a office
• 21:16
  culture environment, You know that you might lose if you're
• 21:20
  just sitting at home and no one's really paying attention to
• 21:23
  you. And so if you're not on camera,
• 21:25
  you don't get paid. And so, you know, it's kind of
• 21:28
  an accountability thing, but most of the people don't
• 21:31
  consider it Big Brother, you know what they think of it as
• 21:34
  helpful. They can send a quick, you know,
• 21:36
  teams message, get an answer, boom, you know something that
• 21:41
  might have taken who knows, right.
• 21:43
  And so, you know, it hasn't been an onerous for our folks.
• 21:47
  I think it's really smart that you have a onshore manager for
• 21:51
  every offshore intake person. That's like something I don't
• 21:55
  know we see. And I think it's very smart from
• 21:57
  a coaching management, quality control standard perspective.
• 22:00
  Our sales for manager, yeah, funny enough, he came from, he
• 22:04
  was the, he was the manager of the sales for for GEICO.
• 22:06
  You know, when the GEICO commercial and people call, hey,
• 22:10
  he was the manager for the GEICO call center and so he's quite
• 22:14
  good. You know, he listens and he
• 22:16
  coaches and you know, we've got the ability to whisper in
• 22:18
  people's ear. I don't remember what the name
• 22:20
  of the damn software is, but yes, that's another Bender
• 22:24
  software. It might be called Speed AI.
• 22:26
  I'm not sure. Maybe we bought it here.
• 22:29
  They are here, I did see them and that is a piece of
• 22:31
  technology. Is it?
• 22:32
  Yeah, they're here. So anyway, I'm look, I know my
• 22:37
  business, but every single little bit there are good people
• 22:42
  that handle a lot. So you know.
• 22:44
  What are the marketing challenges that you're having
• 22:47
  right now? Right, It's it's a competitive
• 22:49
  space. Like, Oh my God, you're you're
• 22:51
  kind of all in on Google. Oh yeah.
• 22:53
  Oh yeah. I think that we we get cases
• 22:56
  from Meta, but cracking that code isn't easy.
• 23:00
  And Meta really is Instagram for us, just so you know, you know
• 23:03
  what I mean? Kind of the top dog thing.
• 23:05
  And James sounds a good friend of mine and he sends us all of
• 23:09
  his Texas cases and we are grateful for it and, and we file
• 23:14
  most of them. And he's, he's glad about that
• 23:15
  because he knows we're going to get better value than if we just
• 23:18
  sold them cheap. But he's cracked the code.
• 23:21
  I mean, he gets most of his cases from Meta and he's really
• 23:25
  cracked the code, although he's diving back into the legacy and
• 23:29
  we'll see. We'll see if it works and
• 23:30
  hopefully it does. We also recognize that our case
• 23:33
  per kept cost has been rising, you know, and it rises because
• 23:38
  with more competition, Google's not dumb.
• 23:41
  They, they keep mucking around with their algorithms and, and
• 23:45
  everything else that they do, which means we have to scramble
• 23:48
  and change what we're doing to present things correctly, et
• 23:51
  cetera. And so, you know, it all costs
• 23:53
  money, right? So there's always a challenge
• 23:56
  there. We got some inside scoop from
• 23:57
  the antitrust trial of how they manipulate.
• 24:00
  Prices, Oh my God, no, it's not every three months, but it's for
• 24:05
  sure twice a year. I mean and that may not sound
• 24:08
  like much, but it comes around fast, right?
• 24:10
  Like whoa, what happened? New update and the update
• 24:15
  updates. Bullshit, right?
• 24:16
  It's really like new whole algorithm.
• 24:19
  Good luck. They might as well be, Yeah,
• 24:21
  but. Burn some money, figure out what
• 24:23
  works now. Exactly, exactly.
• 24:25
  And so, you know, those are a couple of challenges.
• 24:28
  You know, we're always looking for new avenues and and new
• 24:30
  ideas. We're not close minded about
• 24:32
  this. I mean, I hope I didn't come
• 24:33
  across like I don't care about radio, I don't care about TV.
• 24:39
  Maybe, maybe OTT will work one day.
• 24:42
  I don't know you guys. Don't do any streaming.
• 24:44
  Now we tried it and we had unique numbers on every ad just
• 24:47
  like we did on it. Just just it was too much It it
• 24:51
  didn't come close. It was it was 4 times what a
• 24:53
  Google legal cost or an or Yeah, it just was.
• 24:58
  Everyone else in the market is talking about non branded Google
• 25:00
  ads costs. I mean, you're talking about
• 25:02
  them rising, but it's become cost prohibitive for a lot of
• 25:06
  firms, no, at the volume that you're spending, right?
• 25:09
  And the amount of data that you have, maybe you're sitting at a
• 25:12
  position. I wouldn't say I wouldn't say
• 25:14
  that we're like bare bones rock bottom, but I wouldn't say it's
• 25:18
  prohibitive. No, I wish I could tell you
• 25:20
  exactly why, but well, I mean, I what one reason I know why it's
• 25:25
  not prohibitive is it? I signed the checks and I see
• 25:29
  the credit card statements and I'm like, whoa, you know, and I
• 25:32
  can kind of do the math. Like, wait, we got X leads for Y
• 25:36
  dollars? Holy shit.
• 25:37
  We haven't gotten to that point yet.
• 25:38
  We might, we might, man, we, we, we do all right.
• 25:43
  We do. And then branded stuff we do all
• 25:45
  right too. Because, you know, it's not like
• 25:47
  we don't have a brand. It's just, and I still can't
• 25:49
  help but come back to what have lead gens proven to us.
• 25:55
  Don't be stubborn. They've proven, they have proven
• 25:59
  in my opinion, that brands matter, but maybe on the margins
• 26:04
  or why else would people just hit a white label, You know,
• 26:09
  Texas Car Accident Injury Network and it's just a legion.
• 26:13
  Do you do any sort of retention marketing for the clients that
• 26:16
  you were acquiring via Legion? Did they become Reyes Lock
• 26:21
  clients? Do you get referrals from them
• 26:23
  in the future? Probably what we don't know is
• 26:25
  this, we get probably 200 what we call friends and family,
• 26:29
  meeting former clients, friends, family, whatever.
• 26:32
  But 200 a month. What we don't know and maybe it
• 26:35
  was a good idea would be to measure where did that friend,
• 26:39
  family, former client come from because we can, we can easily
• 26:43
  attribute it. And so gave me a good idea.
• 26:46
  I'll have to. Calculation.
• 26:48
  I'm going to fall back up and like.
• 26:50
  I have been thinking a lot about that, right, like lead
• 26:52
  generators inevitably if law firm marketing costs are going
• 26:56
  up, the lead generators marketing costs are also.
• 26:58
  It has to and therefore the cost per case goes up to you out
• 27:01
  downstream. Of course, how do you defray
• 27:04
  that cost? Inevitably the cost continues to
• 27:06
  rise. Well, if you can wind up getting
• 27:07
  another case or two downstream from a certain percentage.
• 27:10
  It's likely just because I can't measure it now that it's
• 27:12
  probably happening and it will never inure to the benefit of
• 27:16
  the legion. It'll only inure to the benefit
• 27:19
  of the law firm, right? Because they're going to forget
• 27:22
  that they hit car accident lawyer networkyouknow.com and
• 27:27
  talk to a really great empathetic sales agent who then
• 27:30
  said we can transfer you live to a lawyer right now.
• 27:33
  Click, we answer. Boom, they're our client.
• 27:36
  They'll remember that experience more than they will.
• 27:38
  Yeah. They'll remember how Aegis Ray's
• 27:40
  law firm treated them. Right 100.
• 27:42
  Percent their case and I I would treat them right.
• 27:44
  You'll be I. Would have did that's really
• 27:46
  hard by the way, treating every client right.
• 27:48
  I have a metaphor that I use and that is it a lot of our clients,
• 27:52
  especially when the people in the office are frustrated with
• 27:55
  how either angry or, you know, just UN ungrateful etcetera
• 28:00
  clients can be. I say, look, you know, many of
• 28:03
  the clients we have, they got a thimble full of life skills and
• 28:07
  that's it. And we all have a bushel, right?
• 28:11
  So meet them where they're at, you know?
• 28:12
  Yeah, let them. If if they're mad, let them yell
• 28:15
  and get it over with. If they're upset about how long
• 28:18
  it's taking, listen. And then blame the insurance
• 28:22
  company. Don't blame us.
• 28:25
  And so, yeah, you know, it, it's funny.
• 28:27
  Client services a key priority in our office and it will always
• 28:32
  because it's difficult, it's a service business and it's a
• 28:35
  service business that services folks that again, don't often
• 28:40
  have a lot of life skills and are completely dependent and
• 28:44
  reliant upon not just us. But when life gets difficult,
• 28:50
  and it tends to be difficult for most of our clients, you know,
• 28:53
  you got to take your frustrations out on somebody.
• 28:54
  And sometimes it's the lawyer, you know, like I don't have my
• 28:57
  money and that kind of stuff, so.
• 29:00
  We hear you're talking about Google changes, right?
• 29:01
  Like if an algorithm update hits and like a client's site gets
• 29:05
  adjusted somewhat and like we're having to deal with sort of the
• 29:08
  ramifications of that. It's like this is the nature of
• 29:11
  the industry that we work in. You got to hear people out.
• 29:14
  You have to understand and then you have to pivot appropriately.
• 29:17
  You learn a lot. Yeah, yeah.
• 29:18
  Actually talking to the clients, if if your client service people
• 29:23
  are actually getting that feedback and there are
• 29:25
  optimizations you can make in the firm.
• 29:26
  Interesting. The best?
• 29:28
  Source of feedback. Yeah, We have a client
• 29:29
  satisfaction team. It's about about 20 folks and
• 29:32
  their job is to periodically, you know, during each stage of a
• 29:36
  case, there's like 8 stages check in.
• 29:39
  How's it going? What you think?
• 29:41
  Like real human, like the phone. And yeah, we have like. 20
• 29:43
  people there called client satisfaction specialist and
• 29:46
  that's what they do. They call people at different
• 29:49
  stages of the case and so our internal rating is stays around
• 29:54
  4-5, you know which. Out of five, yeah.
• 29:58
  It's been as low as 4, three, but you know, we try to keep it
• 30:01
  4-5 or better. I hate to say good enough, but
• 30:04
  you know, let's not make, let's not make.
• 30:07
  Let's. Not make good enough.
• 30:11
  You know the enemy, You know let's not make perfect.
• 30:13
  The enemy are good enough, right?
• 30:14
  If it's perfect, people are lying to you.
• 30:15
  Yeah, right. Or you're lying to yourself.
• 30:18
  One or the other, you know. That's smart, though I haven't
• 30:21
  heard of many firms having those roles to check in on cases
• 30:25
  throughout because you can kind of get ahead of future issues
• 30:28
  and manage expectations a little better because, you know, like
• 30:30
  things fester longer than they don't hear from you guys.
• 30:33
  That is the that that's the point.
• 30:36
  And their job is, of course, if they hear an issue to
• 30:39
  immediately, you know, chatter or e-mail or connect with the
• 30:45
  person who is now handling that piece of the case at that stage.
• 30:50
  Angel, I appreciate you joining us like this has been fantastic.
• 30:54
  It was great to bump into you downstairs, man.
• 30:56
  Always a pleasure, always a pleasure to see you as well.
• 30:58
  Yeah, I love connecting. We'll have chats every once in a
• 31:01
  while on the phone and we'll talk about stuff that you guys
• 31:03
  are doing and then. Let's not stop that.
• 31:05
  No, absolutely not. Absolutely not.
• 31:08
  Thank you so much. Really do appreciate you joining
• 31:09
  us. This has been fantastic.
• 31:10
  And we'll learn from a firm that is doing things in their own way
• 31:14
  and growing at a incredibly rapid pace.
• 31:17
  Reyes Law in Texas does a fantastic job.
• 31:19
  And if you happen to come across the case in Texas and you need a
• 31:21
  home for it, an evangel. Call we we take referrals.
• 31:26
  All right, we'll see you next time in the John and Mark
• 31:28
  podcast.