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Marketing as a Profit Center: Why Your Law Firm Brand is Compounding · The Jon and Marc Podcast

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Lots of people are picking the firm they think you get the most
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money, but the second they're in the firm, they realize how
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important that client experience is.
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Because most people don't know what makes a good personal
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injury weather. Everyone knows what excellent
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customer service is. But if I was going to fight Mike
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Tyson in his prime, I'm not going to the middle of the ring
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and slugging it out with us. If I want any chance to beat
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him, I got to move. Today we have an extremely
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special guest on the John and Mark podcast.
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I'm sitting here with John Richmond of Richmond, Vona,
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Buffalo, Rochester, Western New York personal injury lawyer.
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He is the guy to follow if you want to see how to grow your law
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firm from scratch. John has done it.
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He's here to talk to you about it and very grateful if you join
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us here today, John, in Orlando. Yeah, thanks for having me.
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I appreciate it down here for work and I'm happy we could make
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this this happen. Always have a great conversation
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with you, so happy to get into it.
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Yeah, awesome. For everybody listening, like
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we've done 0 prep, I feel like I know you well enough.
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We could just have like a real conversation.
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We were talking earlier behind closed doors and you started
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giving out Nuggets of stuff and like hold it, hold it.
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We need that stuff for the podcast.
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Everybody listening, John has his own podcast.
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It's called Angles, right? When did you start that?
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Started in June 2025, so we just, I think we just filmed our
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40th episode. We're like about on par, right?
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We started recording in June and I think our first episode came
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out in August. So you're filming basically
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weekly at this point. You're doing them in clusters.
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Yeah, we kind of do them in clusters, actually.
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And it's kind of like, you know, at first, right, You're kind of
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just trying to convince people to come on.
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Then you start getting a little bit of traction and it's, you
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know, it's humbling, right? People want to come on or you
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build this network and someone has a good experience and they
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want someone who they think would be good for you to kind of
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be introduced and, and talk and talk on the podcast.
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So it's great. And but it happens in clusters.
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So you might do like right now we're on a rampage.
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Like we read in filming, we filmed like 7 in the last week
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and a half and we got like 3 or 4 more schedule.
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What kind of bank those for the next few months And way we look
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at it is look, if if we're fortunate enough that someone
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else pops in, was throwing a special edition like whatever.
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But it's nice to kind of get him going.
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I wish I could do it more regularly, but it just kind of
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doesn't end up like that. When did you join Keith and
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actually start Richmond Vona? Because your your background is
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vast for someone as young as you are right?
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I know you were we were with whites doing asbestos.
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When did you leave whites or when did you start at whites and
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then when did you leave? Yeah, sure.
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So started at whites right out of law school 2009, worked there
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until like roughly I think I think it was early 2015.
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And working there had a great experience, had a great mentor,
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traveled around the country representing people of
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Mesophilioma, which is, you know, sad, but you know, really
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like worthwhile, amazing work. But in the process of that, I
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started thinking like, OK, if I were to want to ever start my
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own law from like, what would I take from here in terms of like
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the good things And maybe now there's anything bad, like what
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are things that like I would want to like kind of change.
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And in the process of that, I've been going up to Western New
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York a lot where I'm from. And I never thought I'd move
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back, but I was like, I, there's some big players here.
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So there's, there's some good competition, but I, I really
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like that. I was like, well, why don't I
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move up there, work for another smaller meso firm there, which I
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did. That's where I met Keith,
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approached him with the idea of starting the firm and in like
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late 2018, early 2019 and then we officially launched on
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12/19/19. So we just had our sixth year
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anniversary. Right before COVID hit.
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Yeah, man, like, you know, look, I'll, I'll say this, right, this
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is going to sound weird and make me probably sound ignorant,
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maybe even stupid, but honestly, I don't care.
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But you know, we started, we started and I look back at it as
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not that anything was good about COVID, but if I'm choosing to
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look at it and say what was like the silver silver lining, it was
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look, all the big players had to pull back their marketing
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budgets. We had what is now a completely
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laughable budget. That for us was, yeah, this is
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great. We can spend this each month.
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And because of some good decisions we made about like
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office location and and kind of stuff, we're able to start
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pulling cases that we had no business getting like pretty and
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not a lot like just but getting enough to get us going.
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And and the phone never rang for the most part.
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But really what it did was it allowed us to really focus on
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building systems processes, hiring our first two people,
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like really kind of building the thing out the right way slow,
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which ended up probably being good because with at the pace
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that I like to move, I don't know, very fast.
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Yeah, it's very fast. Now I'm like more, more
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conscious about controlling it, but I still want it to be rapid.
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But I think that it kind of forces to kind of settle in,
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build the founder, start building the foundation, I'd say
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the right way. So six years, just had your six
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year anniversary, the trajectory that you guys have been on, the
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growth that you've had, the visibility that you have.
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I, I cannot scroll through LinkedIn without seeing your
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face on a crisp ad. I'm sure other people tell you
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the same. I mean, it's like, it's weird,
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right? I mean, it's to some degree it's
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humbling that people feel that they should show you and stuff.
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I try not to think about it, but it's definitely not anything I
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ever thought about getting into this.
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It's not why I do it, but I understand it's a necessary
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evil. And it's just something that
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whether it, whether it's your personal brand or your firm's
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brand, you just have to build on it one day at a time, one client
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at a time, one conversation at a time.
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And the kind of you don't see any immediate, you know,
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results, right? It's just something you got to
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stick to. That compounding branding
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factor, whether it's personal branding or law firm branding,
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has become so important as we've seen this evolution of
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transparency being a requirement, right?
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Whether it's because in the search results from an SEO
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standpoint used to be littered with exact match domains, white
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label lead generators, those have started to fall off.
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AI does not rank anyone who does not have like a real legitimate
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brand. And I think people just now kind
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of understand how the Internet works and like what's fake and
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what's not for the most part. So when you're doing all of
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these things, whether they're personal branding exercises on
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your podcast or, you know, being a promotional face for Cris or
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even doing a podcast like this, right?
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Or things for your firm when you're out in the community and
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you're just constantly ever present, how are you able to
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actually take those exercises and say, yes, these ones
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actually worked for me, These ones didn't I should lean into
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more of these things? Or is it just more of a holistic
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like be everywhere I possibly can, but there's only so much
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John Richmond to go? Yeah, right.
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I think it's a great question. I would say that at first, it's
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about the whole just kind of being everywhere, anywhere you
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can like just just just hit it like, you know, just go as hard
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as you can, have great experiences, great
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conversations. You never know where these
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things are leading. Like, for instance, like
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something with crisp, like I didn't get into crisp like to be
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featured and stuff. It's just we worked really hard.
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We followed the plan. It's worked really well for us.
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We met amazing people. We, I think we have a good
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partnership with them and they choose to do that And, and
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that's great, right? And, and I'm happy to help them
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anyway. I can't help happy to help other
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law firm owners whether they're in crisp around anyway I can.
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I think that there is a sense of like duty to that.
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You know, so many people have helped me along the way.
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People I think in this day and age are very transparent, more
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authentic than ever, which is really huge.
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So everyone's willing to help and I feel like a duty to pay it
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back now. I'm still kind of like that,
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right? Any opportunity like I get I
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like did sat for like a podcast or like an interview thing
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yesterday. Nice young woman, not a lot of
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followers on LinkedIn, but she's trying to build this branch.
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She's had some really big name Pi owners on there, Pi firm
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owners on there. I'm like, I don't care, like
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I'll do it. It's a good experience, right?
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I get to talk about what I love to do, get to brag about our
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team because really that's, you know, why we are where we are.
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But I think like, look, you just, you just got to keep, keep
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out there. Try it.
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You never know what it, what an experience is going to bring.
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You never know what a conversation is going to bring,
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you know, but again, as you get a little, as you get into a
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little bit, you have to be a little bit careful.
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I'm about your time, but I don't know, I just enjoy what I do.
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So I don't mind doing these things.
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I I love them. In addition to your podcast, in
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addition to handling cases and and running the firm, you're
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always on the cutting edge of whatever the next thing is that
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can help you out. And people who listen to this
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podcast specifically are looking for strategies and tactics to
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help grow their law firm. Whether it's you using one of
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many AI tools that we have talked about or having in house
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sales force developers and architects to build your Lidify
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instance, you're always looking for that sort of advantage.
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Can you talk about how you go through that process of I think
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that these are the things that are worth me testing in the firm
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and here's how I'm going to implement them without
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completely sidetracking the other day-to-day kind of
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assembly line that you have as cases are moving their way
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through the funnel? Yeah, for sure.
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So I mean, I'm like you, right, like an intensely curious
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person. I tribute a lot of like any type
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of success we've had so far to like just always wanting to
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learn more, almost like that anxiety of what don't I know,
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right? Thinking back like every year
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while how much I've come along like and how little I knew last
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year, like the year before or whatever.
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So being intensely curious and in this day and age, especially
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when it comes to technology is like, you know, looking at all
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of these offerings and, and I think you got to be careful,
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right? Because you know, there's a lot
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that goes into these things right there.
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You know, look, this is no knock on any tech vendor, but they're
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always going to try to make it seem like it's plug and play and
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it's not whether it's like your case management system or
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integrating anagentic or LMAI platform or, you know, whatever
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it is, like there's a lot of work behind the scenes, right,
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to really get this integrated, to make sure it works, to make
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sure your team's going to buy into it, all that kind of stuff.
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So for me, we're always thinking like, how can we make the firm
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more efficient, right? How can we enable our great
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people to do better, higher level work to streamline
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processes or streamline repeatable tasks that they
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really shouldn't be doing? Like they their value is in
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great is in better tasks. So for instance, the case
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manager, how are you eliminating like say in New York, their need
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to handle all the no fault issues, their need to order
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medical records to analyze, to summarize medical, medical
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records, all like the little light, nuanced things so that
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they can focus on forming deep relationships with the clients,
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getting the clients trust, really helping manage their
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case, navigate them through the process, and then focus on
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things like drafting demands, things like that.
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Again, helping with being helped with tools.
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So for us, we'll first recognize a problem or an inefficiency or
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a gap or something. And then I'm always like
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interviewing, whether it's me or my digital operations manager,
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we're always interviewing all the different like new tech
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platforms or whatever. And like most of the time we're
10:53
doing nothing with it. We're just like putting it off
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to the side, putting it off to the side.
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And then once you like recognize an issue and you say, hey, this
10:58
might work, you go through like this development process with
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them. And for us, we love being design
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partners, you know, with, with, with some of these people that
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we trust. And we read that because, you
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know, we're willing to give a lot of our time and energy and
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feedback back to them and they learn a lot from it.
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And then that usually opens them up to being more receptive to
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working with you to kind of modeling it based on your org.
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So, you know, we're careful as we move along.
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We're careful to make sure that like, hey, if we are going to
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try something, it's not like we're buying OK, this this
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program and just boom across the.
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Or the shelf. No, like, so we really
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subscribe, study change management a lot and we, we look
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at like whether it's like the lipid nostril model or John
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Carter, and there's ways to like, you know, get influencers
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involved in your firm, test it small, get all the feedback,
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work with the design partner to build it on how you want it, and
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then slowly start rolling it out to the other departments, other
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members of your team. And that seems to work the most
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because you get the buy in from the influencers on this, on the
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small level, on the mic, the micro level, and then you start
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moving it out and they're like, well, they're doing it and they
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love it and they're super successful within the org.
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We should start trying it and I'm less scared to try.
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And then it kind of rolls from there.
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From a an operational standpoint, you have a digital
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operations manager, yeah. Is that a role that you just
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conceptualize and said that this is something that I feel there's
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a need for, or did you see that in another firm?
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Well, probably honestly a little bit of both.
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I mean, so her name's Lizzie. She's amazing.
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Shout out to Lizzie. She's actually here down here
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with us. And she started off with us as a
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paralegal and then grew into a systems and processes lead and
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now is our digital operations manager.
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And if you think about it, especially with all these firms
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now that have these big tech stacks, like how do you not have
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somebody who's managing that? I mean her, her, she's all day
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long, you know, she is working with our sales force, architect,
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engineer on all the stuff we're we're building out in there,
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whether it's automation. Don't.
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Don't gloss over that sales force, architect, engineer.
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Yeah, in house. Well, he works only for us, but
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he's technically out of house and I'm not naming his names.
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I don't want to steal him like 'cause he's amazing, but.
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It's a dedicated role like this. When you need stuff built, you
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have a person that you go to and they build this stuff for you.
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In conjunction with Lizzie. Helping to guide like this is
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how it fits. Well, yeah.
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And so Lizzie's in the office working with him, you know,
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working through things and then say we have a new like AI
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integration. Well, then those two are working
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with the the third party. How do we integrate this
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properly? Lizzie is also the liaison to
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the legal teams because they trust her because they know,
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hey, you've sat in the seat before.
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You know what it's like to work cases to, to litigate cases, you
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know, to deal with upset clients to you understand the
13:41
inefficiency. So that there's that trust she
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sits in on, you know, the case manager monthly meetings, a
13:46
paralegal monthly meetings, like some of the attorney meetings,
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intake meetings to like kind of understand what their issues are
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to then go back, you know, kind of put everything out there and
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then start prioritizing and start integrating everything.
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Does she report directly? Up to you.
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So she she reports to our director of Operations.
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All right, so let's talk about that operations part of your
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hierarchy. You've got digital operations
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manager, you've got this head of operations.
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What are the other roles that fit within the Salesforce Admin?
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Yeah. So we have Salesforce admin,
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he's, we call him our architect, engineer, our Director of
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Operations, our digital operations manager.
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We have an operations assistant. We also have a.
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This is sort of under Operations Client Success Manager.
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OK. And then where does IT fall into
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all of this? So we outsource IT.
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Leading question I think when a lot of firm owners think about
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IT, all the things that you just spoke about all get bundled into
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well, I've got a guy that handles this right.
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The person who's managing your Office 365 licenses or the
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person who you're calling when a computer doesn't boot is not the
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person that you need to have inside your firm making
14:53
operational decisions. We've we've reached this
14:56
transitionary period in just business operations as a whole,
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where it used to be you, you have your technology and then
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you have your operations, your actual business.
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Now operations is becoming technology wrapped.
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Yeah. And it's not ITIT is the support
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that is needed to kind of keep your business alive.
15:16
Yeah. Hey, my Internet line is not
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working. My Wi-Fi is not working right.
15:19
My printer is not printing. Very, very different.
15:22
Yeah, I mean, you know, look, it's kind of like anything,
15:25
right? I mean, it take with like say
15:27
SEO work, right. I would never, ever like maybe
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someday we had an SEO person in house to work with you guys like
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maybe, right. I don't, we don't have that.
15:37
We don't feel like we need it maybe right.
15:39
But I seem like even with like it, it's like, OK, maybe someday
15:43
if you got big enough, you would have someone in house to work
15:47
with the outside organization. Because with people in house,
15:51
you know, with, with certain areas, like how could you expect
15:54
them to ever keep up? Like at the rate that like RR DS
15:57
doing things or our local tech provider is doing things like
16:00
they're just not going to be able to, right.
16:02
So sometimes when you get to a certain size, maybe you need a
16:04
liaison, especially with tackling.
16:07
You know, if you got like 200 computers in your office and
16:09
every single day three are having four having an issue,
16:12
maybe it makes sense to have that person in house, but very
16:15
separate wall. They would have nothing to do
16:17
with Salesforce or AI mean like nothing to do with it.
16:20
Basically be like, like you're saying, fixing the computers,
16:22
cybersecurity like that kind of stuff.
16:25
Managed service provider, just to kind of handle all of that.
16:28
So this is a good transition. You're talking about like
16:31
liaison with our team. You just recently brought in a
16:35
new marketing lead. Tell us about that person, where
16:38
you found them and why you think they're a good fit.
16:40
Because they do come from outside the legal industry.
16:42
They do. So yeah, it's kind of an
16:45
interesting story. So, you know, we had had a
16:47
marketing manager before, unfortunately, something she had
16:49
some serious health issues. So she left us And so that here
16:53
I am back in the saddle again and I might as pumping your
16:56
tires like thankfully because of you guys, it's as easy as it
16:59
could possibly be, right? Like Riley and Hannah and
17:02
everyone handles everything for me.
17:03
So it's great. But it's still like I feel like
17:06
I'm letting them down, like I can't get them all the things
17:08
that they need all the time because of all the other
17:10
responsibilities. So I'm like, all right, I need
17:12
somebody for serious. And I think this is, this is a
17:14
lesson like seriously for like any business owner, especially
17:18
after you get off the ground and you get yourself going and you
17:22
start having the ability to actually like hire people and
17:25
maybe hire a little bit more people.
17:27
Don't make the mistake where it's like, hey, I could get this
17:31
marketing person for this much money or go all in for someone
17:35
really skilled for this much. You'll never regret it.
17:39
Like even if it like like shocks you at first, how much money you
17:41
have more money you have to pay them.
17:43
With a players like that and people with that much knowledge
17:46
and with that type of expertise, it's just like it's such a
17:49
breath pressure. It's so relieving.
17:51
So his name is Brad. Brad Gelbert.
17:53
He was the director of marketing for the largest automotive
17:55
dealer in New York State, which happens to be headquartered in
17:58
Buffalo. And I've been following him a
18:00
lot, had a connection to him. And so I, I tell him now like he
18:03
knows what my plan was. I first was like, Hey, let's
18:05
grab coffee. Like, I really love what you're
18:07
doing. You're really involved in the
18:08
community. You're you're building the brand
18:11
I'm involved with, like the bills, the savers, but I like
18:13
the way you're doing things. It's very modern, it's smart,
18:16
it's digitally. Almost everything is digital,
18:18
right? Or at least it starts digital
18:21
before it goes out of home to traditional.
18:23
And I'm like, all right, so I started having coffee with them
18:26
and I start to sense that like, oh, wow, maybe, maybe I could
18:30
get on. He's 36 years old.
18:32
I knew, you know, it was going to be a tall task because like,
18:35
who am I compared to the biggest auto dealer in in the state?
18:39
But I think when two people are aligned and you connect and you
18:43
click and you're both have the same ideas about how a brand
18:46
should be built, and, you know, he realizes that I'm going to
18:50
trust him really once he gets going to let him run and that I
18:53
understand how valuable marketing is.
18:55
And I look at marketing as a profit center, not a cost
18:58
center. I know that it's how it, you
19:00
know, huge that is in our business.
19:02
And maybe he's something he sees some things in me like this guy,
19:06
you know, he could help me with this, he would maybe be good
19:09
with this or whatever. We kind of like found that
19:10
synergy. We then just started having a
19:12
serious conversation about it. And because of how high up he
19:15
was there, it took a little while.
19:17
We just kind of did it naturally was like having coffee, having
19:19
coffee, having coffee. And next thing you know, he's
19:22
here. He brought a team member with
19:24
him and she's unbelievable too, like unbelievable.
19:26
And they've only been with us for really like a month and
19:29
already it's like we're starting to see everything.
19:32
So, oh man, like now it's like, you know what it's doing to do
19:35
it on your own. Like, you know, you, you really
19:38
everything needs to be connected.
19:39
Everything needs to be, you need to know who you are, what you
19:42
stand for, what your UVP is like, who your target
19:45
demographic is like, and, and whether it's SEO or paid ads or
19:49
community worker brand work, like out of home, like whatever,
19:51
like everything needs to be connected.
19:53
It's very difficult to do that if you don't have the right
19:56
person in house. It's hard because things just
19:59
become disjointed. Not to mention, like, I think
20:03
like we talked about it earlier, like in this day and age, it's
20:05
like, and you're seeing more people do it.
20:06
Like we were talking about transparency.
20:08
You know, personal injury lawyers are notorious for, I'm
20:11
going to tell you what we do, but not how we do it.
20:14
Why? Like, I mean, are you afraid
20:17
that people are going to see like see under the hood and not
20:19
like what they see? I mean, if you're proud of what
20:21
you built and what you do for people, show it, talk about it.
20:26
Right, Why not? I mean, don't be scared that
20:28
someone's going to follow you. They're not, especially if
20:30
you're doing things the right way.
20:31
It's really, really hard to do it that way and everyone knows
20:33
that. And the harder something is, the
20:35
less likely someone is going to follow you.
20:37
So just do it like you know, or whatever it is.
20:40
Be authentic, right to yourself. Don't be afraid.
20:43
Like if you swear once in a while, swear like, I mean,
20:46
people like that, you know, they don't want like the lawyer.
20:48
I think that's all stuffy all the time and suits.
20:50
So finding people internally who get that and understand the
20:54
importance of building the brand of giving back to the community
20:56
of kind of the, the piece that every single component of
20:59
marketing plays and how they're all important, but also have to
21:02
work together and they can coordinate that.
21:04
And, and, and it's huge, right? That that's what it's all about.
21:08
The auto industry has been very nice to us as well.
21:11
We have. I mean, you talk about Hannah
21:13
and Riley, they both came from the auto industry.
21:15
Yeah, that's how they bonded with Brad right away.
21:17
Yeah, Yeah. I don't know what it is, but
21:19
there's some Nexus there between the auto industry and legal,
21:23
even though it's 2 completely different industries from the
21:25
outside. What would you say is like the
21:28
he's a month in, right? But what would you say is the
21:30
one thing that so far that he's brought from the auto industry
21:33
that you never thought would be applicable to legal?
21:36
Oh, man, you know, I think that the number one thing we talk
21:39
about as like drawing comparisons between the
21:41
industries and you have so much expertise in this is like, OK,
21:44
if you think about it, take personal injury firms and
21:47
everyone's saying some sort of for the most part similar
21:50
message. And at the end of the day
21:52
though, it's like say in New York City, the contingency fee
21:54
is 33%. I know it's slightly different
21:56
in different states, but everyone's 33%.
21:59
So OK, maybe the clients or the potential clients trying to
22:02
figure out who can get them the most money, but then of the day
22:04
they're not paying them any money out of their pocket.
22:06
And you know, 33 comes out of the settlement car industry,
22:10
right? Everyone's looking, say you're
22:12
looking for a new car, you want a new Chevy, whatever.
22:15
And there's 4 Chevy dealers. For the most part, the sticker
22:18
price is the same. Like maybe they're slightly
22:20
different on each one, but if you know what you're, I mean,
22:24
you just have a tough conversation with these guys.
22:26
They're basically going to get it down in the same way.
22:27
Yep. So how does the auto industry
22:29
make, why does somebody pick one dealer over another if the price
22:34
is basically the same? It's two things.
22:37
It's their understanding of the level of service they're going
22:40
to get at that dealer because that's where the dealer makes
22:43
all their money really is off the service, right?
22:46
It's what kind of service am I going to get?
22:48
How do they make me feel and what do they do in my community?
22:52
And that's how we approach it too.
22:54
Well, we feel very strong about our client experience.
22:57
Like we feel we know that in the beginning, yes, lots of people
23:02
are picking maybe for the firm, the firm they think and give
23:04
them the most money. But the second they're in the
23:06
firm, they realize how important that client experience is.
23:09
Because most people don't know what makes a good personal
23:12
injury lawyer, but everyone knows what excellent customer
23:14
service is. People know what makes a bad
23:16
personal injury lawyer. Is that?
23:18
Oh yeah, exactly right. But we've all had that feeling
23:20
when you're treated really well by someone at a restaurant or in
23:24
a hotel. It feels good, right?
23:26
So we try to do that or communicate that we do that even
23:28
before they hire us. And the second they contact us,
23:31
we, we, we, we jump in on that. But I think that's a big
23:33
parallel is we have to be excellent at service all the
23:37
time, like strive for perfection every single day.
23:40
It's like the same in both and be give back a lot in the
23:43
community and that's a big deal. Like people care a lot,
23:46
especially in a closer knit market like Western New York.
23:49
They care a lot about what you do for the community.
23:51
And I think he out the gate recognize that right away,
23:53
started drawing parallels. And I was like, wow, that makes
23:56
a lot of sense. It's all about the long game.
23:58
Yeah, that's it, right. I mean, we're talking earlier,
24:01
right? I mean, you're going to get
24:02
burned, but you could go out and spend a lot of money on lead
24:04
Gen. and maybe you'll grab some good cases.
24:06
But like you said, almost all the lead gen's white label.
24:08
So you're spending all this money and has no real impact on
24:11
your brand. I think, you know, brand is
24:13
everything, like you got to build your brand and like the
24:16
the reason why a lot of people don't do it and the most
24:18
successful guys get it is because you don't have that
24:21
immediate return on it, especially when you're new.
24:24
Like, I mean, I see you seen it. I see guys all the time.
24:27
Like you could tell, like this firm got a big settlement.
24:30
They throw billboards like there's four billboards up for
24:32
three months and they're gone. And it's like, man, like.
24:34
Billboards don't work after three months.
24:36
No, like you just let your money on fire.
24:38
It's got to be. But like they don't see the
24:39
return or they run radio for three months and like I didn't
24:43
get one case from it. It's like, yeah, you know, and
24:45
there's a problem there, like what they're being pitched and
24:48
stuff. But at the end of the day, it's,
24:49
you got to, you got to figure that.
24:51
Out. It's really hard.
24:52
It's really hard to build a brand.
24:55
Oh, yeah, It's a term that gets tossed around all the time,
24:58
right? Oh, you got to build a brand.
24:59
What does that actually mean? A brand on its surface is a
25:04
logo, its colors, it's your font.
25:06
That's not a brand. That's what people see when they
25:09
interact with the brand. But the brand itself is a
25:12
feeling that people get when they need something and you are
25:17
the service provider for it and you are the choice that they
25:20
make. Almost subconsciously, they've
25:22
had so much exposure to that brand and the alignment with
25:26
other positive things in their life, community sports teams, a
25:30
friend or a family member who may have interacted with the
25:32
brand and mentioned in the past. It's really, really difficult.
25:35
What what have you seen that has been like if someone was going
25:40
to take this way in another market, right?
25:41
Aside from just going and finding like, let me see all the
25:44
local community events are going on and see what I can sponsor.
25:47
What do you think is like the thing that they should go and do
25:49
when they're starting that exercise And like, all right, I
25:51
hear you. I want to build a brand.
25:53
I want to be involved in my community.
25:55
What's the first step that I should take to go and do that?
25:58
Yeah. I think you should first think
25:59
about who's your ideal client, number one.
26:03
And there's a 2, there's two components to this, but who's
26:05
your ideal client and why? Because if you're for, if you're
26:08
for everybody or for nobody, like pick like who you want,
26:12
right? This is who we want, this is who
26:14
we appeal to. And then simultaneously, I think
26:16
you got to think like, well, who are we?
26:19
Like who are we as a person? Like, what are our values?
26:21
Like what do we stand for? You know, why are we different?
26:24
You know, why do we believe that someone should choose us over
26:26
somebody else? So you, you're starting to build
26:28
your brand and understand, OK, this is who we, who we really,
26:31
you know, want to appeal to. This is who we really are,
26:35
right? And how can we be authentic to
26:36
that? And when you're thinking about
26:38
getting involved in the community, you know, I agree.
26:40
Like you shouldn't just, I mean, like, it's, it's one thing just
26:42
to write. You can write, anyone can write
26:43
a check, right? You know, but the way we look at
26:45
community is OK, like we strive for something what we call
26:49
internally like maximum impact, like everything we do.
26:52
So there's nothing wrong with, you know, giving writing a check
26:56
to a massive charity or a massive hospital.
27:00
And you know, you're probably going to be 1 of 50 names on a
27:03
banner like when you show up at an event.
27:04
But for us, we want to find organizations or causes that our
27:10
people care about. So even if like one of our team
27:13
members, their parents like struggled with something, maybe
27:17
it was they went through, can't they?
27:18
They survived cancer or whatever it is.
27:20
We want to rally around them, be true to who we are, like our
27:24
values and go out and find an organization, even if it's
27:27
really small and help that organization the most we can.
27:31
And you can have this maximum impact on a small organization
27:34
and build like this really personal connection with the
27:37
people involved. And that spreads like wildfire
27:40
when people know like you're actually going around doing
27:42
things you care about, like these are your values.
27:45
This is who you are, your people care about it.
27:47
And this should all align with who you want as your clients
27:52
because these should be the people that should be aligned
27:54
with who you guys are as an organization.
27:56
John, can you can you walk us through how you did that for
28:00
your firm? What are the things that your
28:01
firm believes in and how did you execute on it?
28:04
Yeah, we went through this. So what we do is so something we
28:06
do is like our HR platform is called Bamboo and everybody who
28:09
comes to our firm fills out something called the Celebration
28:12
Survey. So we know all their favorite
28:14
things, including like their favorite organizations,
28:17
charities, that type of thing. So we always know if we're kind
28:19
of baseline, you know what it is.
28:21
We're very connected as a firm, so we know if someone's going
28:25
through something hard or someone's family's going through
28:27
something hard. So we'll always keep your eyes
28:28
and ears open for that. But yeah, we started off in the
28:31
beginning kind of looking at what people cared about, what we
28:34
care about as an organization. And we kind of first big thing
28:37
we thought about is like mental health, if you think about it,
28:40
right, Like people come to us at the worst time of their lives
28:42
typically doesn't matter if it's a $20,000 case or $2,000,000
28:45
case, like obviously different impact on those types of people.
28:48
But for both of them at that time in their lives, it's the
28:50
worst time, yeah. Something bad happened.
28:52
Terrible and nothing like when something bad happens like this,
28:57
it's not like everything is going great.
28:59
Like I have nothing else to worry about.
29:01
And then this thing happens. It's like it's always something
29:03
else Like, oh, my kid wasn't doing good in school or I'm so
29:06
and so doesn't, you know, is having a tough time at work or,
29:09
or my, my father's like it's something else is going on,
29:12
right. So it's a lot, right?
29:13
And people go through a lot mentally, right.
29:15
It's it can be just as bad, if not worse than the physical
29:17
pain. On top of that, you know, our
29:20
people, you know, are going above and beyond for people
29:23
every day. And look, sometimes clients
29:26
understandably are going through a really hard time and they take
29:28
it out on, on our people. And that can really lead to, you
29:32
know, fatigue. Like there's like emotional
29:35
fatigue or they call them compassion fatigue on behalf of
29:38
your team. So there's a really amazing
29:40
local Health Organization or mental Health Organization in
29:42
our community. And we just sadly, how can we
29:46
help? Like, what do you need help
29:47
with? And so we started working with
29:49
them and, and we realized that like a lot of charities are non
29:52
for profits. One way that a law firm or any
29:55
business could really help is helping them understand how to
29:59
achieve their goals, right? They don't have big marketing
30:01
budgets. They probably, if they have a
30:03
marketing person in house, it's the college intern or somebody
30:07
who just said, Hey, I, I'll run the social media account, right?
30:10
And they can really get taken advantage of by like local TV
30:13
vendors and stuff like that. Or like, oh, you want, you want
30:15
volunteers? We'll buy this package for
30:17
$30,000 and we'll, we'll run a commercial three times a week
30:22
for six months and you'll get volunteers.
30:24
Like that's how it works, right? So when we go to these
30:26
organizations, we sit down with them like we want, we don't just
30:29
want to write you a check. Like maybe you are going to
30:32
write you a check. Maybe we are going to make all
30:34
of our people available to you. But what can we help you with?
30:36
Like what do you struggle with? What are your needs?
30:39
And like we find trying to find ways to help, whether it's our
30:41
marketing team helping or operations team helping or
30:45
whatever it is. So we started with them, We work
30:47
with them a lot of different ways.
30:48
I mean, there's some other organizations that are big for
30:50
us, like the veterans, my business partner was in the
30:52
Marines. We do a lot of stuff where the
30:54
presenting sponsor, the Buffaloes veterans race.
30:56
And then there's some other little things that we've been
30:57
working on to try to like bring more like spotlight to
31:01
organizations that are doing really, really, really good
31:03
things, but just like can't get off the ground.
31:05
That, that's really great to hear.
31:06
The mental health stuff is is just so important.
31:09
Anyone can relate to it? Yeah, Yeah.
31:11
Anyone can relate to it. But you are starting, it's like
31:15
an inverted pyramid where most people look at it as a funnel
31:17
where I'm going to capture and and broadcast my message, my
31:20
brand to as many people as possible.
31:22
And then maybe some will filter down through.
31:24
I think what you're describing is this inverted pyramid where
31:27
you're going to start it at a small, very aligned niche of an
31:31
organization or a person. You're going to do really,
31:34
really well for them, and then they're going to then amplify
31:37
your message for you. Yeah, exactly right.
31:39
Word of mouth is huge. I mean, it takes a long time,
31:41
but I mean, think about how easy.
31:43
Like there's a lot of people watching, I'm sure going to
31:45
watch this who have run much bigger firms than than than I do
31:49
that have amazing marketing teams, amazing operations teams,
31:53
you know, whatever. It's really not that hard.
31:55
If you're like, hey, here's 10 to 15 start small or even 5
31:59
whatever non for profits or charities that we really care
32:01
about and say, hey, why don't you guys come on site, We'll
32:04
give you dinner, we'll give you lunch, whatever.
32:05
And we're going to put on a presentation and show you some
32:08
some cool tricks or or tips like from running your social media
32:12
to, I don't know, like running your operations.
32:15
SO writing SO PS whatever it is, like just things that you can
32:17
help them with for free. Like that goes a long way,
32:20
right? You're just helping people and
32:22
then of course there's going to be opportunities to support them
32:24
with, with, with financial resources or send your people
32:27
out to help them and, and run events or whatever it is.
32:29
But like I think it's about forming those bonds.
32:32
And then when people, whether it's your client, a community
32:35
organization, anybody you work with in your community, when you
32:39
give them a really great experience and you don't ask for
32:41
anything in return, you they, you grow ambassadors.
32:44
They just start talking about you.
32:45
Maybe they can't help it. Like in that's pretty cool
32:48
feeling, right? Because it's everybody wins.
32:50
The little things that you may not see as impactful could be
32:54
extremely impactful for some of these organizations.
32:57
A mention in your newsletter. A social media post coming from
33:00
your brand. Link on your website, community
33:02
partners page that we build with you guys.
33:04
I mean, you know, it's crazy too.
33:05
Like I never even thought about this.
33:06
And again, like your, you know, your clients or anyone listening
33:09
to you runs like a really big firm.
33:11
Like I know like most of the plaintiffs, personal injury guy,
33:15
men and women who run these firms are amazing people.
33:16
Super down to earth, like, right.
33:19
I think you don't realize that like people, they see you on
33:22
billboards, on TV, on buses, on radio.
33:26
It's just, it's a huge deal with them for you just to like spend
33:29
some time with them and talk to them and like maybe to you, it's
33:31
like, well, why wouldn't I like, I want to help you?
33:33
Like that's why I'm in this business.
33:35
I want to help people. Like this is, I'm always going
33:37
to give my time like this, but it goes a long way with people.
33:39
When you've grown a business organically like you have, I
33:43
think it just that type of exposure happens over time.
33:48
And then you just don't realize when you're walking through a
33:50
shopping center, like, hey, yeah, it's weird.
33:52
That's John. Yeah, I had some.
33:54
Guy yeah, it's, it's funny. Like there's funny stories like
33:56
that. And I can't even imagine what
33:57
it's like for some of the like these top dogs and like these
33:59
huge markets where it's like you can't go anywhere.
34:01
You become a local celebrity. Yeah, it's crazy.
34:04
Talking about billboards and traditional advertising, how
34:08
have you transitioned your marketing budget over the you've
34:11
had six years, so you've been through this like burst of
34:14
digital evolution over the past half decade.
34:16
How have you transitioned your marketing, budget and attention
34:18
from traditional media over to digital?
34:20
Going back, I mean, even long before I even met you, yeah, we
34:23
definitely made the mistake of to a degree, like playing the
34:28
copycat game, like, hey, this works for the legacy players,
34:32
billboards, TV, buses, radio, whatever.
34:36
And not that like it doesn't work.
34:38
It does. You have to you have to be
34:40
careful though. And so I think the big mistake
34:42
we made early on, on top of doing SEO and and and paid and,
34:46
you know, paid Google and paid social, I think the big mistake
34:49
we made was we were spending obviously nowhere near what
34:52
these guys can spend in these mediums.
34:55
And it's like, if I was, I mean, this would be a disaster no
34:57
matter what, But if I was going to fight Mike Tyson in his
34:59
prime, like I'm not going to the middle of the ring and slugging
35:02
it out with him. If I want any chance to beat
35:04
him, I got to move, right? I got to be very clever.
35:08
I have to be nimble. Like I, I have to say, I don't
35:10
know. I'm not a boxing guy.
35:11
I don't know why I use that analogy.
35:12
But like, you're not going toe to toe with the heavyweight,
35:15
right? And so it was like, we have to
35:16
be clever. We have to be smart.
35:18
And, you know, it's funny. And so we were doing all this
35:20
and like, don't get me wrong, like building the brand, like
35:23
people, I thought the billboards were new and fresh.
35:25
Like they liked the way we handled TV.
35:27
We ran an animated commercial like the no one had never seen
35:29
before. We spent a lot of money on it.
35:31
Like whatever. What happens is once you start
35:33
doing that too, is like you get really nervous about stopping
35:35
it, even though you have no attribution to your cases from
35:40
any of it. Like you just get nervous.
35:41
And I was like, so I started working with you and I was like,
35:44
you know what, screw it, I'm going to pull it like almost all
35:48
the out of home except for I'll keep a little bit of here and
35:52
there. So we'll still do CTV.
35:54
We'll have a couple billboards that we've still creative with
35:58
strategically placed where we get rid of all the cable,
36:00
broadcast TV, get all read, all the rest of the billboards, stop
36:04
doing radio with the bills because they just started
36:06
letting like every personal under law firm in the area and
36:08
do it. And it was just, you're just
36:10
drowned out and started putting all of our time and effort and
36:15
money into SEO paid, you know, paid ads, social media, which we
36:21
had really neglected, which was idiotic.
36:24
Like we, we always had social media presence, but just
36:28
recently even we started really taking it to the next level,
36:31
putting money into the podcast, heavy, heavy, heavy in the
36:34
community, all this kind of stuff.
36:36
And my point is like I would have, if I did it, if I could do
36:39
it over, I would start, just started with all that stuff and
36:43
then start throwing up a billboard, throwing up this like
36:46
start to, to, to kind of to tie everything in together.
36:50
Show that you actually exist in the real world.
36:51
Right, to tie everything in together.
36:53
So we do everything now, but a little bit more careful with
36:56
every now. Like now this year, you know,
36:58
we're going to be doing going more into like maybe some more
37:02
traditional methods just because we can now and we started to
37:05
build the foundation. But I still think, you know,
37:07
part like we love the digital world, whether it's attribution
37:11
or having the ability to split tests.
37:14
And before you heavily invest, say into creative on, you know,
37:18
vinyl billboard or in in the TV commercial, you can really test
37:22
out messaging and figure out how people react or feel emotionally
37:26
to, you know, the things you're putting out there before you
37:28
ever do that. Not to mention, I mean, now with
37:30
like AI and large language model search and all this kind of
37:33
stuff, like I mean, you have to be heavily invested in digital.
37:36
100% alignment there. You're saying that you recently
37:39
went pretty heavy into social media.
37:42
Can you talk to us about how you did that and how you're able to
37:45
produce content on a regular basis?
37:47
Meanwhile, you're here in Orlando, you're dealing with
37:49
cases, you got a lot of things to do.
37:50
How do you How does a law firm owner effectively manage social
37:53
media for their firm? I realized, like we ought to
37:55
take you to the next level basically last like May or June
37:58
at the same time we're starting the podcast.
38:00
I mean, what's like, what's the point of starting this podcast
38:02
if we can't distribute it, right?
38:04
So you have the best content in the world.
38:06
If you don't know how to distribute it, you're screwed.
38:08
So I had an outside contractor, she had run social media for one
38:12
of the biggest Pi firms on the East Coast contract with her.
38:15
She she's amazing and she really helped us get off the ground in
38:18
terms of their vanity metrics. But starting to build up
38:21
followings and, and we will be realized was it's going to be
38:25
probably easier to build the following on my personal brand
38:28
and the podcast brand. And we kind of neglected a
38:32
little bit the firm brand because we know it's going to be
38:34
harder. But we started really getting
38:35
things off the ground right. And especially with my personal
38:37
brand in the podcast, everyone knows like who it is and where
38:40
it's coming from. So, but after a while we
38:43
realized to really take to the next level and it's not a knock
38:45
on her at all. It's just we need someone in
38:48
house in the community. So now we brought the marketing
38:51
team in house. The the woman that Brad brought
38:53
with him, Chiara, she's amazing. She's going to be running point
38:55
along with Brad, our social media because you know, they,
38:59
they come from the digital world.
39:00
That's really how they built, you know, the auto, the auto
39:02
dealer in New York. But from a strategy standpoint,
39:06
I think it's a combination of you can use tools and use Sprout
39:09
social. You can use all these different
39:10
things and you can have, you need to have content calendars,
39:12
you need to have audits to make sure you know the, the content
39:15
is appropriate and that it's, it's true to your brand.
39:18
There's no typos whatever. And you can have a schedule,
39:22
right. And we always look at it as
39:24
like, there should be buckets. Like every month you have to
39:28
show X amount of results, X each month you have to show X amount
39:32
of FAQ brand videos, like say, or FAQ videos that we shoot with
39:36
you. Different buckets, right?
39:38
But then you have to be nimble. You have to have someone in
39:41
house who's paying attention to what's going on in the news,
39:45
who's paying attention to trends like things like this.
39:48
So that in a moment. Following the algorithm.
39:51
Boom go. That just happened to me this
39:53
morning and this is one of the things where I'm like, wow, this
39:55
is crazy like I never it's crazy.
39:58
They're doing this already like, hey, John, there's this trend
39:59
going on right now. It's an animated I don't even
40:02
know like it's an animated thing.
40:03
Are you good with this? I'm like, yes, boom.
40:05
It goes in the moment, right? Because that's probably your
40:07
best bet of like of really catching heat, right with the
40:12
algorithm because you know, and you know this right better than
40:15
anybody like followers are great and they're, they are important
40:19
and we are working on building them more, but.
40:22
That's a vanity metric like views, impressions or you're
40:26
talking about click through rates without really shares.
40:29
That's what really matters, yeah.
40:30
We found from testing a bunch with our own social content, the
40:36
retention rate after 5 seconds is really important.
40:39
You can tell because what's the point of producing a 92nd video
40:42
if everybody's abandoning after the 1st 2 seconds?
40:44
Exactly. There's this this concept.
40:48
I mean, you, you know this, but those of you who are reducing
40:50
social media content, you may have heard of a, of a hook.
40:53
Yeah. Right at the beginning of a
40:54
social media post, at the beginning of a video, there's
40:56
something that's going to get your interest piqued and get you
40:59
to not swipe again and go to the next thing.
41:02
We found that hooks need to be done visually, something on the
41:07
screen. Hooks need to be done audibly.
41:09
So it's like, what what we're saying and then what's actually
41:12
written, right? If you can align all three of
41:15
those, you have like all the different senses engaged.
41:19
And then there's like little tricks, right?
41:21
Like as soon as someone comes on to your post, like, can you find
41:24
something that's like moving? And it just engages their brain
41:28
in a way that keeps them trying to.
41:30
Follow like like quick comments, the integration of all the
41:34
accounts right talking to 1 each other.
41:36
So John Richmond law commenting on Richmond bone or Richmond
41:40
bone are coming tonight. John Richmond law John Richmond
41:42
law commenting on angles like this kind of thing.
41:44
And they're starting to now do all that and you're starting to
41:46
see it and even to like, you know, obviously this is tough
41:50
like you got to like work up to tailoring the content per, you
41:55
know, the platform because what? As opposed to syndicating the
41:59
same thing. Yeah, look, we're guilty of it
42:00
even now too. Like that's something they're
42:02
working on right now. They're just taking it over
42:03
where it's like, I see something on LinkedIn.
42:05
I'm like, that shouldn't be on LinkedIn, right?
42:06
But I don't bust shops too much right now because they're
42:09
they're they're working through it.
42:10
But and then the last thing right is like a lot of people
42:12
don't realize is you can just put a little bit of money behind
42:15
posts like every single post we now with the new team,
42:18
everything is boosted. So you post it organically and
42:21
then you boost it. Everything.
42:22
Yep, every single thing. Like one thing, it could be 20
42:25
bucks, it could be 30 bucks. Like this one's Catching Fire,
42:27
150 more, 200 more like. And then you start like then you
42:30
start seeing growing. I mean, then you can layer in
42:33
things like giveaways and all these different things that you
42:36
can do that can really catch fire, especially for like
42:39
building up, like followers, that kind of thing.
42:41
Yeah. But it's it's moving so so so.
42:43
Fast, yeah. And look, and I'll be the first
42:45
one to say like we were again, we were behind the game and like
42:48
we don't have anywhere near the amount of followers we should
42:51
have. We've started gaining momentum
42:53
like the followers we do have. Now if people see him as like we
42:55
get, we got those in the last like few months, like now
42:58
they're starting to like go up and now this team's going with
43:00
it and it's like you can start seeing the impact.
43:02
If you were to to Fast forward now to the end of the year,
43:06
right, which is beginning of February, so almost a full year
43:09
from now, you're going to look back on 2025.
43:12
What is something that a decision that you are going to
43:16
make at some point this year, you're going to say I absolutely
43:19
made the right decision. That is something that I am so
43:22
glad that here we are at the beginning of 2027.
43:24
OK. Like I can answer that a million
43:26
different ways, but I'm going to, because of the nature of
43:29
this conversation and, and who you are, I'm answering like,
43:33
like the scope of marketing. And I think it's for me, I think
43:37
it's going to be an even heavier investment in, in branding work,
43:42
whether that's through high level asset creation to heavily
43:46
investing, you know, more in SEO, in, you know, basically
43:51
doing things in the community to work with that to then work with
43:54
your, your organization to make sure it's communicated properly
43:57
online to really building the brand online.
44:00
Like heavy investment in digital online brand building.
44:03
And especially working with you guys to understand more and more
44:06
how the AI algorithms are, or I'll call it that are like, kind
44:09
of like are, are kind of like deciding who they're going to
44:13
show. I think that's huge right now.
44:15
And I think it's we know where we're going.
44:18
We're putting a lot of chips in because we want to make sure
44:20
that the end of this year that it's clear in our community
44:23
that, OK, this is like this real serious challenger brand and
44:28
these legacy brands, you know, that were right up there like
44:31
neck and neck with the legacy brands.
44:33
I mean, and there's a million things else I could have talked
44:35
about with like operations or AI or whatever, but I think like
44:38
from a brand perspective, brand building, it's like really
44:41
doubling, tripling, quadrupling down.
44:43
I'm building the brand and really making sure that
44:45
everything is connected. Like we really know who we are.
44:50
This is our voice, this is our style.
44:53
Like everywhere you see it, you can tell distinctly it's us,
44:58
right? There's no more disjointment.
44:59
I don't think that's a word. Nothing, nothing is disjointed.
45:02
Everything is connected, Everything is clear, it's
45:04
concise, it's very well planned out, it's creative as
45:07
everything's done very well. And then we're working with you
45:09
guys on the technical side. And I think that by the end of
45:12
the year we'll be like, wow, like what a difference.
45:14
We finally we finally pulled it all together.
45:16
That's a big thing for you to say considering how well you
45:19
guys are doing right now. We.
45:20
Try, but it's like, you know, it is like and anyone watching like
45:23
such, you run a firm like you're probably perfectionist by nature
45:26
and nothing is ever good enough. It's a blessing and a curse,
45:29
right? But I think there are some
45:31
things where you're like young for real, like, come on, like
45:33
we, we need to connect this. We can do this.
45:34
Like if we are taking so much pride in all these other things,
45:37
why are we not? Let's really take this thing to
45:39
the next level because we know it's going to work and we know
45:42
it's going to benefit us. It's like, and now we have the
45:44
human beings to do it like the the amazing people who can, who
45:47
can I guess, like throw the needle for us.
45:50
Amazing conversation, amazing insights.
45:52
I would say anyone who's growing a law firm right now who wants
45:56
to stay on the cutting edge, Follow John on all social
45:59
platforms. Where are you the most active?
46:01
Probably Instagram. So like at John Richmond Law is
46:04
where you see me probably talk, especially now going forward
46:06
with what we're planning more and more and more about what I'm
46:09
thinking, what we're doing with the business, that type of
46:11
thing. Yeah, this amazing stuff.
46:13
I know there's all the AI stuff that you guys are working on.
46:16
I love all the technology forward things.
46:18
I love the thought leadership you guys are doing.
46:21
I think that the marketing outside of the legal space that
46:23
you're taking into the legal space, there's so much good
46:25
stuff that's going on at Richmond Vona.
46:28
I wish you guys a very, very successful little quest you guys
46:31
are going to. Yeah, yeah, It should be fun.
46:33
I'm looking forward to it, and it's been a pleasure being down
46:36
here. You know, we've known each other
46:37
for a long time and I love working with you guys.
46:39
This is the first time we actually met in person, which is
46:41
like kind of crazy but. We talk all the time on the
46:43
phone. You text all the time.
46:45
Like I have my list of people that I could text at 5:00 in the
46:48
morning, and you're on that list.
46:50
Don't have to delay this text, he's awake.
46:52
Thanks so much, John. Thank you everybody for
46:54
watching. Great episode.
46:56
We'll see you next time on the John Mark Podcast.