Latest / Sharp Strategies Sweet Success / #99 – Building a Law Firm for Profitable Growth with Thomas Pivnicny

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#99 – Building a Law Firm for Profitable Growth with Thomas Pivnicny · Sharp Strategies Sweet Success

0:00
SPEAKER_00: If you're just growing and everything continues to grow in lockstep,
0:03
SPEAKER_00: that doesn't mean you're becoming more profitable.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it could easily go in the other direction.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to look at that as the driving force because just
0:12
SPEAKER_00: because one competitor is doing You are listening to Sharp Strategies Sweet Success.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone, and welcome.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: You're listening to Sharp Strategy, Sweet Success.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Tiffany Swedensky.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: And today I am talking with Thomas Pivnickney.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: And I really struggled to get the pronunciation right, but I think I did at that time.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Thomas and I were just talking about how we kind of run in the same circles,
1:01
SPEAKER_01: but really haven't had a chance to meet each other.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: So really glad to have him here on the show to get to learn more about him and
1:08
SPEAKER_01: to talk with him about law firm marketing.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: So Thomas, I'll turn it over to you to finish out your introduction.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Tiffany.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: I've been in practice now since graduating in 2012 as an attorney.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: I went to Villanova Law School and it was a great experience.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: And I've actually been here at Cate Law Offices ever since then.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: I've worn a number of hats and continue to wear a number of hats.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Everything from being the primary workhorse with respect to running cases
1:39
SPEAKER_00: and helping clients to now a lot of business development,
1:43
SPEAKER_00: legal marketing, management, building out different departments, things like that.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Again,
1:48
SPEAKER_00: that's kind of why I was surprised we haven't really run into each other before
1:52
SPEAKER_00: because we really do operate in similar spaces,
1:54
SPEAKER_00: but it's great to be here talking to you today.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: Let me just ask you this.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: Are you part of any law firm mastermind groups?
2:01
SPEAKER_01: Do you participate in any of those?
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've actually been in Pilma ever since,
2:06
SPEAKER_00: right toward the end of 2019, right before COVID hit all of a sudden.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: So we've been in mastermind groups there ever since.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Probably something we'll end up talking about today in some way,
2:15
SPEAKER_00: shape or form, but that has been a great experience.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: Oh, mastermind groups are really great.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: What's like the three big things you're doing at your law firm right now?
2:24
SPEAKER_01: What are the big projects that you're spending a lot of your time on?
2:27
SPEAKER_00: I would say the number one,
2:29
SPEAKER_00: which is probably not a surprise to a lot of people is working
2:33
SPEAKER_00: with artificial intelligence and figuring out how to leverage AI
2:38
SPEAKER_00: in its various forms for our law firm and for our clients.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Number two is, again,
2:44
SPEAKER_00: I do have the legal marketing hat on all the time and AI is definitely a part of
2:49
SPEAKER_00: that, but that's only one part of what it means to conduct legal marketing.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: And number three is,
2:55
SPEAKER_00: I would say,
2:55
SPEAKER_00: the kind of boots on the ground operational work as there really is,
3:00
SPEAKER_00: I think,
3:01
SPEAKER_00: a big intersection between legal marketing and trying to market for growth,
3:06
SPEAKER_00: but also understanding the kind of operational needs and planning that needs to go
3:12
SPEAKER_00: in to be able to handle that, assuming you're successful.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: So those are the three kind of big buckets.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
3:18
SPEAKER_01: it's funny that you bring that up because I was thinking about it earlier this week
3:22
SPEAKER_01: because I'm getting people are reaching out to me about fractional CMO services
3:26
SPEAKER_01: and it's just as likely to be the COO as it is to be the attorney or one of
3:31
SPEAKER_01: the owners.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm usually really happy to work with firms that have a COO because there's
3:37
SPEAKER_01: so much internally that needs to happen.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: To supply marketing with what marketing needs to promote the practice.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, really, it's just kind of an invaluable role at most businesses.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: And I was explaining to my daughter yesterday,
3:50
SPEAKER_01: they used to be office managers,
3:52
SPEAKER_01: but really they're a C-suite seat because operations is so critically important
3:58
SPEAKER_01: and particularly for law firms.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned AI.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm always curious and I'm talking about AI quite a lot myself.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: What's the AI project?
4:08
SPEAKER_01: What are you guys trying to do right now?
4:09
SPEAKER_00: So I think initially we thought about AI,
4:13
SPEAKER_00: I think in the same way that a lot of primarily say personal injury firms do.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Personal injury is one of our primary practice areas.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: So we thought about what's kind of the initial bottleneck that we need And
4:25
SPEAKER_00: that was drafting demand letters.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we're not the only one in that boat.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: So we started out utilizing a product called EvenUp.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: There are some other competitors out there, such as Supio, Eve and others.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: And so that was kind of the initial use case was let's kind
4:41
SPEAKER_00: of overcome this bottleneck here with getting demands out.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And that's great.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: And we still utilize even up and it's a great product in a lot of ways.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: All the competitors,
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SPEAKER_00: I think in this space are doing a great job,
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SPEAKER_00: but that also kind of started us thinking, well,
4:54
SPEAKER_00: how can we use AI throughout the practice,
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SPEAKER_00: not just for a single use case,
4:59
SPEAKER_00: but how can we sort of embed artificial intelligence at the center of the way
5:04
SPEAKER_00: that we operate?
5:06
SPEAKER_00: And we're actually in the process right now of building our own internal platform
5:12
SPEAKER_00: that will be the center kind of connective tissue with all of our business systems,
5:16
SPEAKER_00: with case management being one, that we can utilize AI throughout.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's a pretty ambitious project,
5:23
SPEAKER_00: but it's probably going to be one of the biggest game-changing things that we can do
5:27
SPEAKER_00: over the next couple of years.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: You're the first person I'm asking this question,
5:31
SPEAKER_01: so I feel like almost I'm picking on you, but what is the timeline?
5:35
SPEAKER_01: When are you giving,
5:36
SPEAKER_01: what's the deadline maybe in your head as far as our firm is going to be fully in AI
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SPEAKER_01: and it's going to be a part of everything?
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Is that five years away, 10 years away, longer, shorter, something like that?
5:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a really hard question to answer.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Probably better to talk about it in terms of like V1, V1.5, V2.0, like whatever that may be.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think we really kind of started embarking on this project at the kind
6:02
SPEAKER_00: of middle to tail end of first quarter of this year in terms of really being,
6:08
SPEAKER_00: really pressing hard to kind of build out our own platform.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: We're already there when it comes to V1.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: We've got a ton of business systems and a ton of kind of connective tissue all wired
6:21
SPEAKER_00: in to various modules that we can utilize AI to generate types of content, insights.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Yes, provide valuable kind of time-saving measures for our firm in a number of departments.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: But that's just the beginning.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And really, I think this is something that's going to play out over a number of years.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And I think we just have to Be cognizant that we have to kind of keep our foot on
6:46
SPEAKER_00: the gas because the development process is something that's going
6:51
SPEAKER_00: to be ever evolving when you're able to build something that is customized for you,
6:56
SPEAKER_00: right?
6:56
SPEAKER_00: You'll always have a new idea.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Of something that you want to build.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: You'll always have some new use case that you're like,
7:01
SPEAKER_00: oh man, I forgot that I spend four hours on this thing every quarter.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: What if I could compress that to 30 minutes?
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Those are the kind of things that you're always going to come up with ideas about.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: And so this is going to be a long-term evolving project.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned you were building your own platform.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: Can you be more specific on what that looks like?
7:22
SPEAKER_01: Are you using like open source AI and training it?
7:25
SPEAKER_01: Are you hooking into an existing model?
7:28
SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
7:31
SPEAKER_00: The simplest way of explaining it is we're building sort of
7:36
SPEAKER_00: a self-contained universe in a secure environment because as lawyers and as
7:40
SPEAKER_00: a law firm,
7:41
SPEAKER_00: we have to be very cognizant of where our information, where our data is.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: We have data where our client case information is stored and shared.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: And so we're basically building a secure environment that has a user interface that
7:58
SPEAKER_00: when we are leveraging So that our private information,
8:02
SPEAKER_00: client information is not being shared, being used for information.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Training being stored in places and co-mingled with other individuals or entities data.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: So it's all built within a server environment.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: That's a self-contained environment with the inference happening within that same space.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: You could almost kind of think about it as its own MCP server for those who are kind
8:33
SPEAKER_00: of familiar with that terminology,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: but that's kind of the idea that we're, that we're working with.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm just now looking into this myself and building out basically a separate PC
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SPEAKER_01: for my work PC that will become my agent.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: And with marketing and what I do, there's less of a need for privacy and security.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: With the law firms, there's a tremendous need.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: I just read just today like California's might be making it so law firms can't use
9:04
SPEAKER_01: and share client data with these public AI tools.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: Honestly,
9:08
SPEAKER_01: it raises a lot of questions for me because I already know case management softwares
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SPEAKER_01: that are built on Plot or built on ChatGPT.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: And it's just like, well, that's problematic, right?
9:18
SPEAKER_01: That's going to really throw a wrench into all of these SaaS tools
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SPEAKER_01: that are built directly on top of those AI tools.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Am I wrong on that?
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SPEAKER_01: Or is that, am I kind of in the ballpark in my thinking there?
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Well that's definitely a concern right and I think that one of the first steps
9:32
SPEAKER_00: toward being able to feel comfortable using and building
9:36
SPEAKER_00: with artificial intelligence is kind of understanding the various kind of gradients
9:42
SPEAKER_00: of Where your data goes, right?
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Let's assume you're on some consumer free tier of whatever platform you're using,
9:51
SPEAKER_00: whether it's ChatGPT or Gemini Cloud, whatever it may be.
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SPEAKER_00: Read the fine print, your information is being commingled.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Then your chats are being stored and all of that.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: And so that's a no-no from a law firm point of view.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: But then once you get into various sort of enterprise tiers of using those tools,
10:09
SPEAKER_00: you are going to have optionalities in your contract negotiations.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And then you can even go further than that,
10:16
SPEAKER_00: such as building in your own self-contained environment,
10:19
SPEAKER_00: using what you could potentially call like a tool.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: A local copy of an LLM or something of that sort
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SPEAKER_00: where you're not sharing your information and the inference is not happening
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SPEAKER_00: in shared space.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: So you've got all these kinds of different gradients of how you can use
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SPEAKER_00: and how you can build the various
10:45
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's where a lot of the hesitation comes from.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: And as we, as lawyers and law firms, we have to be cognizant of that.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: We have our ethical duties, of course, and just like email or just like email.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Cloud-based case management software.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Every time those types of technologies have kind of become more prevalent within
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SPEAKER_00: the legal space, there's always this initial, oh my God, this is new.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: This is so dangerous.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: There's reason to be cautious,
11:15
SPEAKER_00: but that doesn't mean with learning and understanding and building in a cautious
11:21
SPEAKER_00: and safe way that you can't then utilize those technologies.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: And that's where I think, you know, where we will evolve to as an industry.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, the legal industry tends to take some time to get there.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: Marketing wise, I feel like I always ask this question because I'm bound to.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: What channels are you guys working to bring in the most cases?
11:38
SPEAKER_01: I had to pick my words carefully.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: You probably would agree with me here,
11:42
SPEAKER_00: but I think the direct answer as to what channels are you using is probably not
11:46
SPEAKER_00: the right way to start the conversation, right?
11:49
SPEAKER_00: It's probably best to start the conversation with what's your strategy?
11:52
SPEAKER_00: What are your goals?
11:53
SPEAKER_00: What's your time horizon?
11:54
SPEAKER_00: What do you stand for?
11:55
SPEAKER_00: As much as we really haven't met before and talked before in learning a little bit
11:59
SPEAKER_00: about you, I think you'll probably agree with me there.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: And so I think the answer to your question is we try to maintain
12:07
SPEAKER_00: a balanced marketing strategy depending on what the goal is.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: We always want to have some degree of budget and some degree of active campaigns
12:16
SPEAKER_00: that are helping us drive overall long-term brand awareness and recognition.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Some of the most kind of...
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Easy to talk about ones are like billboards or TV,
12:28
SPEAKER_00: which we really don't do traditional TV, but maybe streaming TV or radio.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: And again, maybe you don't do traditional radio, maybe you do streaming radio.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: So things like that, we always want to have something going.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Then you've got maybe some more kind of demand generation type of campaigns going.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: So those could be some type of display ads or some type of retargeting,
12:50
SPEAKER_00: prospecting type of ads,
12:51
SPEAKER_00: whether it be on Google ads or Microsoft ads,
12:55
SPEAKER_00: or we actually do some programmatic advertising as well.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: So you always want to have some of that going.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And then of course,
13:01
SPEAKER_00: your bottom of the funnel,
13:02
SPEAKER_00: bread and butter, people who are looking for a lawyer right then.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: I need a lawyer.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Who's the best lawyer near me?
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Then you're really talking about your Google Ads primarily.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Google Local Services is a big one over the past number of years now.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: So those are like,
13:17
SPEAKER_00: as far as paid advertising goes,
13:19
SPEAKER_00: I'd say those are the big kind of primary things that we look to do strategically
13:24
SPEAKER_00: with whatever ratios, depending on the time horizon and goal.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: But then, you know, you've got SEO.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: You've got how does, what's the interaction of SEO and AI search now?
13:34
SPEAKER_00: And you have to plan and work with that as well.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: I was actually at an event just yesterday talking about AI visibility.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: It's definitely a fun and actually totally new topic among marketers, which is exciting.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean,
13:47
SPEAKER_01: it sounds like you guys have like a lot going on as a firm and I'm kind of curious,
13:51
SPEAKER_01: how close of attention do you pay to your competitors?
13:54
SPEAKER_01: How much are you looking at what they're doing and saying like,
13:56
SPEAKER_01: let's adjust what we're doing here?
13:58
SPEAKER_00: It's important, but I don't like to look at that as the driving force, right?
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Because one competitor is doing X, Y, Z, whatever it might be.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean it's the right thing for us to do for kind of all the reasons
14:12
SPEAKER_00: that I initially mentioned, right?
14:13
SPEAKER_00: What's your time horizon?
14:14
SPEAKER_00: What's your budget?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: How quickly do you need to build a pipeline of cases?
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Or what type of case that you're trying to really build up right now?
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Or whatever it might be,
14:23
SPEAKER_00: you can't just look at a competitor in your space and say,
14:26
SPEAKER_00: I got to do what they're doing.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: It can be a guidepost, right?
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Am I competitive in the outdoor space?
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, I only have one thing out there on Main Highway X, but my competitor has like five.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: You can get a sense of whether you're being competitive in any particular channel
14:41
SPEAKER_00: by looking at what your competitors are doing.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: But I think what's most important for me as far as guiding principles actually comes
14:49
SPEAKER_00: from the world of SEO.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: And the acronym that probably many of your listeners are familiar with is EEAT,
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And regardless of what marketing channel you're using,
15:07
SPEAKER_00: There's likely going to be various ways that you can generate content,
15:12
SPEAKER_00: whether it's paid or unpaid, that help kind of check those boxes.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: And not just for the purpose of SEO,
15:18
SPEAKER_00: but even sort of old fashioned traditional marketing principles.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Who do I think is going to give me a good experience?
15:26
SPEAKER_00: And who do I think is going to do a good job?
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And who am I going to feel confident in helping me out with whatever the problem is?
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And so if you can apply those kind of traditional concepts to whatever it is
15:39
SPEAKER_00: that you're targeting in your marketing,
15:41
SPEAKER_00: I think that's going to give you the best results long term rather
15:45
SPEAKER_00: than strictly comparing yourself to one or more of your competitors in your market.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: What do you see attorneys,
15:52
SPEAKER_01: personal injury attorneys doing right now and think, oh, that's just a distraction?
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Just a distraction.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, lawyers are, I think, notorious for getting distracted by the new shiny thing.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: And so what's kind of ironic here is that AI is kind of a new shiny thing to a certain extent.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's something that As an industry,
16:13
SPEAKER_00: we could get distracted and just start using AI for the sake of using AI
16:18
SPEAKER_00: because we hear about it throughout the economy.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: We see that our competitors are using it in one way, shape, or form.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: We go to places,
16:27
SPEAKER_00: conferences,
16:28
SPEAKER_00: or other industry-related conferences, and just as kind of part of the narrative.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And so while I think that artificial intelligence is a huge game-changer for AI,
16:41
SPEAKER_00: The economy generally,
16:42
SPEAKER_00: the world generally,
16:43
SPEAKER_00: and legal industry, of course, I think it's easy for it to become a distraction.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: So that I think is a major risk that probably warrants learning a lot more
16:53
SPEAKER_00: about how AI functions.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: And how it connects to various systems before just using it,
17:00
SPEAKER_00: because then you can understand how to leverage it and build with it
17:04
SPEAKER_00: and help connect systems to it rather than just generate some type of document
17:09
SPEAKER_00: for me, which I think is where most of our minds go initially as lawyers.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: I want to generate written content,
17:15
SPEAKER_00: which is great,
17:16
SPEAKER_00: but that's a very limited scope of how we could utilize artificial intelligence.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's also kind of a question of economics.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean, specifically when you look at SEO and if all of a sudden everyone in
17:30
SPEAKER_01: the planet is empowered to write as many articles,
17:33
SPEAKER_01: SEO articles as they want,
17:35
SPEAKER_01: previously they had And so
17:41
SPEAKER_01: it's something that it is
17:45
SPEAKER_01: an interesting economics question beyond just like,
17:48
SPEAKER_01: will it take our jobs and will we all still be able to make money someday?
17:52
SPEAKER_01: But just the economics of how we spend our time and what's actually valuable,
17:57
SPEAKER_01: that's going to move the needle for us
17:58
SPEAKER_01: because you did see this like universal raising of the floor.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: When it came to marketing and AI and all of
18:05
SPEAKER_01: a sudden everyone got tremendously better at it than they were before.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: But, you know,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: there's still going to be a delta between people who know and understand the tools
18:15
SPEAKER_01: and how to market where its strengths and weaknesses are and the people
18:19
SPEAKER_01: who are just blindly putting their faith into the AI tool
18:23
SPEAKER_01: and assuming it knows best.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, what a time to be alive.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: What a time to be marketing.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: And I guess running a law firm,
18:28
SPEAKER_01: I just do the marketing stuff because it's all so much different
18:32
SPEAKER_01: than it was four years ago.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: Even it's just so much different.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: What are the bigger differences for you other than just like we're using AI now?
18:39
SPEAKER_01: Has your time changed?
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Where you dedicate it?
18:42
SPEAKER_01: Where you spend your time thinking?
18:43
SPEAKER_01: What does it look like for you?
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: That's actually an interesting question because kind of at the top,
18:49
SPEAKER_00: one of the kind of three main things that I talked about that we're really working
18:53
SPEAKER_00: on is operationally and kind of planning for growth.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: And so we're kind of sitting here having a conversation about legal marketing.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: But in a way, sometimes that's putting the cart before the horse.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And as much as we want to be foot on the gas,
19:08
SPEAKER_00: bringing in cases,
19:09
SPEAKER_00: which we're utilizing artificial intelligence for as one of our tools in that step.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Substack and all that, you have to be ready for it.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: And so the other way in which we're utilizing AI is in helping to build efficiencies
19:25
SPEAKER_00: so that as we grow and as we bring in additional work,
19:29
SPEAKER_00: additional capabilities,
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's an important distinction to be made where growing for
19:34
SPEAKER_00: the sake of growing as a law firm or as any business, that's kind of frustrating.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: The easiest word to use is, oh,
19:47
SPEAKER_00: I want to grow,
19:48
SPEAKER_00: but that doesn't really always take into account your cost structure.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: If you're just growing and everything continues to grow in lockstep,
19:56
SPEAKER_00: that doesn't mean you're becoming more profitable.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: In fact,
19:59
SPEAKER_00: it could easily go So instead,
20:02
SPEAKER_00: I think what we're really doing now as part of this kind of building of
20:06
SPEAKER_00: the platform,
20:07
SPEAKER_00: creating efficiencies,
20:09
SPEAKER_00: connecting various business systems together in order to accomplish things in
20:13
SPEAKER_00: a condensed period of time.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: This is meant to be able to handle the additional cases,
20:20
SPEAKER_00: the additional work that we hope to bring in while also using AI to help
20:24
SPEAKER_00: the effectiveness of our marketing strategies.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's chicken or the egg.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: What came first?
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Cart before the horse.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of interesting to think about it that way because they both go hand in hand.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: It's a
20:39
SPEAKER_01: bit of me repeating myself because we said this earlier in the show,
20:42
SPEAKER_01: but operations are so important.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: And for me, I'm a fractional CMO and out here kind of winging it.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm just doing my best to do good marketing for the law firms and figure out how
20:52
SPEAKER_01: to deliver that to them in the best possible way.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm very much learning as I go.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: I've unfortunately come to learn that there are some law firms who are They want
21:02
SPEAKER_01: to work with me.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: They want to grow.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: They want more cases.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: Every attorney I talk to says that same thing.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, well, what are your goals?
21:09
SPEAKER_01: I want to be bigger.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: But well, let me ask you a few questions.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Who's answering your phones?
21:13
SPEAKER_01: How do you follow up with leads?
21:15
SPEAKER_01: And it's, oh, that stuff doesn't matter.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: We just need more leads in the pipeline.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: I do my best,
21:19
SPEAKER_01: but I really can't help that law firm because they're not seeing
21:22
SPEAKER_01: the operational issues that Are making it literally impossible for them to grow
21:28
SPEAKER_01: or scale.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: And there are just so many important questions that as a business owner,
21:33
SPEAKER_01: whether you're running a law firm or running a marketing agency,
21:36
SPEAKER_01: you have to ask an answer because growth without trajectory or growth without
21:41
SPEAKER_01: an aim, I guess, is you don't know where you're going to end up.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: You have to have the end goal in mind.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, and since we're kind of just getting to know each other and have lived
21:51
SPEAKER_01: in similar spheres for a long time, who are you listening to in this space?
21:56
SPEAKER_01: What podcast are you listening to, influencers you follow?
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Where are you getting your legal marketing information from?
22:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, folks like yourself, of course.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: I also happen to recognize a lot of the names of folks who you've talked with in the past.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, folks like Mickey Love, who you've had on, Eric Sanchez, Tanner Jones.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Those are names, those are folks who I'm pretty familiar with.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: With going to conferences,
22:19
SPEAKER_00: whether it's PILMA or it's other organizations,
22:22
SPEAKER_00: being in mastermind groups, I mean,
22:23
SPEAKER_00: you learn a whole lot from kind of being in the industry and kind of meeting folks
22:29
SPEAKER_00: from around the nation who are dealing with your same issues.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: At the same time,
22:33
SPEAKER_00: I really do try to read and listen to a lot of content that's outside
22:38
SPEAKER_00: the legal space,
22:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:39
SPEAKER_00: generalized like growth mindset or leadership training or tips for scaling
22:45
SPEAKER_00: or all sorts of things like that,
22:47
SPEAKER_00: where If you're just in the legal marketing fishbowl,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: it's great,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: but like you kind of have to kind of get out of that every once in a while.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what's been very helpful for me is
22:58
SPEAKER_00: that more generalized business growth,
23:01
SPEAKER_00: leadership growth,
23:02
SPEAKER_00: those are the things that I think you can then apply in a way that a lot of folks in
23:07
SPEAKER_00: the legal marketing space or legal management space aren't necessarily thinking
23:11
SPEAKER_00: about all the time.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and that is so important.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: And I love it when I talk to marketers outside the legal space and I try not
23:17
SPEAKER_01: to get jealous because they get to do some fun stuff that it's really hard to do for
23:22
SPEAKER_01: a law firm or it's just impossible and plausible against ethics or whatever.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: And when you're selling a product or when you're selling even a service
23:30
SPEAKER_01: and not law firm,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: the doors are wide open and they're doing stuff outside the legal space
23:36
SPEAKER_01: that attorneys haven't heard of.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: And It's you really do need to keep a finger on the pulse.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: I like listening to several marketing podcasts because you can just get
23:45
SPEAKER_01: so much information about it.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh man, they're talking about that.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: They're thinking about that.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: Shoot.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: That's actually really cool.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're coming up to the end of our show
23:53
SPEAKER_01: and I have my last two questions I traditionally ask us.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: So is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to go over today?
24:01
SPEAKER_00: I think an interesting topic is,
24:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, AI is huge, but I wouldn't want to belabor that too much.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: I think the concept of it's really,
24:11
SPEAKER_00: really hard unless you've got a ton of resources to be marketing.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Marketing in the way that I think we all want to,
24:18
SPEAKER_00: which is being everywhere on all channels, all mediums, all the time.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: But that's kind of how we have to do things or at least plan for things now.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: So there's a whole lot to go into that conversation,
24:31
SPEAKER_00: various platforms, various strategies, how do you allocate your budget and all that.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: So that would be an interesting topic of conversation,
24:37
SPEAKER_00: but obviously we don't really have the time for that right now.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, probably have you back on again and get more end up.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: Where do you want people to look you up and learn more about you?
24:45
SPEAKER_01: What platforms are you most active on?
24:46
SPEAKER_00: I'd say the easiest way to find me would be, number one, on our law firm website, catelegal.com.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: You can find my bio there.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: You can contact me there through email.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: You can find me on LinkedIn.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: I am on X.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: My handle there is Avogadosuave.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who speak Spanish,
25:03
SPEAKER_00: that may mean something to you, but you can find me there as well.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I can speak Spanish enough to figure that out.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: Why did you pick that actually?
25:09
SPEAKER_01: Why is that your username?
25:11
SPEAKER_00: So I'll try to make it a short version of the story,
25:14
SPEAKER_00: but we have in our law firm historically a very large client base
25:19
SPEAKER_00: that are Spanish speaking or of Hispanic origin.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: So I've picked up a lot of Spanish over the years.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Avogado is Spanish for lawyer and then suave like smooth.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: If I ever get kidnapped and I have to speak Spanish,
25:33
SPEAKER_01: the only Spanish words I'm going to know confidently are related to marketing.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: It's like, avocado.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: And they're going to be like, why is she asking for a lawyer?
25:40
SPEAKER_01: It's like, that's all I know.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for being on the show.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much, everyone, for listening.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: And Thomas, everyone else, we'll see you next time.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Bye.