Latest / Go Big with Gib Podcast / From College Dropout to Legal Marketing Maestro: Ben Buckwalter's Entrepreneurial Journey
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Go Big With Gibb podcast, where we talk to professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs about their big wins.
- 0:06Speaker 1: Welcome to this episode of Go Big With Gibb.
- 0:16Speaker 1: Today, I've got a good friend of mine here with me, ben Buckwalter.
- 0:19Speaker 1: Ben, how are you today?
- 0:21Speaker 2: I'm great, gibb, thanks for having me on and thinking of me.
- 0:23Speaker 1: Yeah, ben, I appreciate you today.
- 0:24Speaker 1: I'm great, gib.
- 0:25Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on and thinking of me.
- 0:25Speaker 1: Yeah, ben, I appreciate you coming on.
- 0:26Speaker 1: If you could, I like to start things out by having you just give a brief introduction.
- 0:31Speaker 1: Tell the listeners a little bit about yourself.
- 0:34Speaker 2: Sure yeah.
- 0:34Speaker 2: My name is Ben Buckwalter, located in Dallas, texas, founder and CEO of Law Pro Nation, where we service, actually, personal injury attorneys all over the US, help them with their marketing and to obtain more cases.
- 0:49Speaker 1: Yeah, ben.
- 0:49Speaker 1: No, I love that.
- 0:50Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about Law Pro Nation.
- 0:52Speaker 1: So you know, my firm has been working with you for several years now.
- 0:57Speaker 1: We've signed a ton of cases through your system.
- 0:59Speaker 1: When did it start and how have you grown your business over the years?
- 1:04Speaker 2: Sure.
- 1:05Speaker 2: So we started nearly eight years ago it was actually a little backstory had started a marketing agency, you know, as a college dropout, and after I dropped out I started just like immersing myself in like sales and marketing material.
- 1:18Speaker 2: Started a marketing agency Was kind of, you know, being a jack of all trades at first or attempting to be Going after every type of niche and industry.
- 1:26Speaker 2: Went to a marketing conference to go accept an award, met a personal injury attorney there who asked if I had done it before in the legal space and I said no, but we could give it a shot, tried, it went well, and the rest is kind of history.
- 1:41Speaker 2: So this is about eight years ago.
- 1:43Speaker 2: So niched down on lawyers at first, and then I really got attracted to the personal injury side of things, cause I felt like it kind of uh, it kind of mirrored like what I was going through, right, like dropping out of college, and wanted to kind of find a route I could go where there was like no cap on my income, right, and so sales and marketing and learning, all that became attractive to me.
- 2:03Speaker 2: Well, with personal injury, that became attractive to me.
- 2:06Speaker 2: Well, with personal injury, that became attractive to me as an area of law to service, when I saw like hey, there's also no cap, you know, on the income.
- 2:12Speaker 2: It's really how hard do people want to work?
- 2:13Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
- 2:13Speaker 2: How much do they want to invest and there's really no ceiling for it.
- 2:17Speaker 2: And so that you know, that was attractive to me.
- 2:19Speaker 2: So just started diving in, you know, right away, started going well, getting a lot of different firms and having some success early on.
- 2:28Speaker 2: And then, uh, what really started, you know, helping us blow up and scale is is when, early on or not really early on, I would say probably about a couple couple of years in, it took it first for me to really be able to just like completely step away you know what I mean From from things that were not my area of expertise, and to really start being willing to hire and delegate, you know, any tasks, um, that didn't have to do with me focusing on how to grow law pro and you know, and take it to the next level Um.
- 2:56Speaker 2: So I think that you know there's a lesson in that um, because I know it took me even a little bit longer than it really should have to completely like delegate tasks, and that's something that I see, with a lot of people, not just in this industry but in general with so many type of businesses, it can be really hard, when you're that invested, to step away and be willing to to hire other people and, just, you know, completely trust them.
- 3:19Speaker 2: So that's really how we started scaling quickly and then just um, finding unique edges, that that separate us from other people in the industry.
- 3:29Speaker 2: You know what I mean, like getting our own production studio so that we can, you know, crank out efficient um.
- 3:34Speaker 2: You know, quickly and efficiently crank out content.
- 3:37Speaker 2: You know what I mean that we can, that we can run and keep fresh for all of our firms, um, to make sure they're getting the most amount of leads and the best quality leads in cases and you know, just different stuff like that to try and separate us.
- 3:48Speaker 2: And we've always made sure that we treat every firm that comes on with us like a new member of the family.
- 3:52Speaker 2: You know the goal is for them to be with us for years.
- 3:55Speaker 2: So just giving them, like you know, the tip top customer service at all times and making sure we're there to grow together.
- 4:03Speaker 2: So I would say those would be the biggest things that would contribute to our growth and how we are continuing to grow.
- 4:17Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 4:17Speaker 1: So, ben, without giving away any of the proprietary information, can you speak in general terms about how you're getting these cases and tell me a little bit about the marketing and sales side of things and how that works?
- 4:24Speaker 2: Sure, so we generate the cases for our firms by running, you know, content on social media, like creating, like custom ads and stuff like that for our firms right in our production studio.
- 4:37Speaker 2: And so then, basically, we're targeting on social media platforms.
- 4:40Speaker 2: You know Facebook, instagram, tiktok, youtube, right the four main social media platforms.
- 4:48Speaker 2: And also you know Facebook, instagram, tiktok, youtube, right the four main social media platforms and and uh, also you know, on Google as well too.
- 4:51Speaker 2: Um, pretty much anything that somebody needs us to do for them we can help with, right and uh.
- 4:55Speaker 2: So then we really focus on, you know, attraction based marketing and then also direct response marketing, right.
- 5:04Speaker 2: So, like that, the content that we create and we run on these social media platforms, it's meant to get that, you know, that prospect, that lead, that injured victim, for them to react right away.
- 5:16Speaker 2: Right, and to instantly, you know, see this ad, opt into this ad, fill out all of their information and then quickly, you know, capture that lead and then immediately start following up with them with other you know systems that we set up for the firms that we start with, such as, you know, texts, emails, live transfers, different stuff like that.
- 5:35Speaker 2: But what we've noticed, not just with other marketing agencies, but just with most law firms in general, is it's not always that they won't pay for advertisement, but a lot of the stuff they're paying for, even, like you know, it's not direct response, right, like they might run an ad on social media that looks really pretty, but there's no call to action.
- 5:57Speaker 2: There's nothing that gets people to act now.
- 6:00Speaker 2: And so it can be good for branding, but you also, branding's not just enough, right, because branding's a long-term game.
- 6:06Speaker 2: There's, you know, everybody out there you're competing with, so we also focus on making ads.
- 6:11Speaker 2: You know that make people take action right away, and I would say that's a big thing that separates us in obtaining, you know, the leads for our firms.
- 6:19Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
- 6:20Speaker 1: Does your experience and background with ClickFunnels play any role in terms of how this works?
- 6:26Speaker 2: It definitely.
- 6:26Speaker 2: You know it was good early on for learning.
- 6:29Speaker 2: You know what I mean Some different marketing stuff and you know what people learn in there.
- 6:34Speaker 2: Like them teaching.
- 6:34Speaker 2: You know how to build funnels and all of that.
- 6:37Speaker 2: I would say it helped early on.
- 6:40Speaker 2: But you also have to learn like you know how to have your own spin on everything and try and find your own lucrative edge and find that, as ClickFunnels would say, that blue ocean instead of that red ocean.
- 6:51Speaker 2: You know what I mean, where everybody is already doing something.
- 6:53Speaker 2: So we're just always trying to find ways to stand out and to help our firm stand out as well, to get more traffic.
- 6:58Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things I love about working with Law Pro Nation is that it's kind of like I think of it like a faucet, like a water faucet.
- 7:07Speaker 1: You know, like I can give you a call and say hey, ben, we really need to load up on new cases, turn on the faucet.
- 7:13Speaker 1: And so you turn on the faucet and boom, now we're drinking from the fire hose, we're getting a bunch of calls.
- 7:18Speaker 1: You know things happen relatively quickly, like you know.
- 7:21Speaker 1: You turn it on, we quickly get a bunch of activity and then we can always turn it off when we need to.
- 7:26Speaker 1: It's not like the branding campaigns that you do on TV and billboards and buses.
- 7:32Speaker 2: Right, exactly All of those.
- 7:34Speaker 2: You know they have their place.
- 7:35Speaker 2: It's not that they're not effective, it's not that SEO is not effective, but you do need to be prepared to have quite an upfront investment and you have to be very patient because it can take months and months you know what I mean before you're having anything come in, and so that's why we love focusing on, you know, getting people those fast results.
- 7:52Speaker 2: You know, really quickly.
- 7:54Speaker 1: So, talking a little bit about the structure of your business, are you at a place now, Ben, where you can be away from the business for multiple weeks or even months and still have the business function?
- 8:08Speaker 1: What is your structure like now in terms of you know, your ability to step in and out as you see fit?
- 8:14Speaker 2: Yes, and that's I can.
- 8:16Speaker 2: You know, we just went to Greece, turkey, and yeah, of course, everything you know not only ran well, but you know we're putting in new clients, of course, left and right while there, and so that's.
- 8:27Speaker 2: It's definitely at the point now where I can step away, like I like working, I like being involved.
- 8:33Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
- 8:33Speaker 2: I like seeing how things grow.
- 8:35Speaker 2: So it's like, even though you can step away, it can be hard to turn your mind completely off, even if you can physically step away.
- 8:42Speaker 2: You know it Right.
- 8:43Speaker 2: But, yes, thankfully I have gotten to that point now and have that structure.
- 8:47Speaker 2: You know where there's somebody for every area of the of the company.
- 8:51Speaker 2: You know what I mean If something needs addressed, then somebody knows to address it and how to address it very quickly.
- 8:56Speaker 2: And so, yeah, it took time to get to that point, but I am at the point now where I can step off, take some time back you know what off and then also start thinking of new ways to scale the business and just to put my focus on that.
- 9:11Speaker 2: It wasn't like that for a while, but it got to that point now, after just years of just finding out what can we delegate?
- 9:21Speaker 2: What can we automate?
- 9:22Speaker 2: Who would be able to do this?
- 9:24Speaker 1: So Ben one thing I didn't ask you earlier was how old are you?
- 9:28Speaker 2: 31.
- 9:29Speaker 2: , 31.
- 9:45Speaker 2: So and now, and you told me that LawPro started about eight years ago.
- 9:47Speaker 2: So I have like a crypto masterclass you know what I mean, that people where I teach everybody how to invest into crypto, and so so, yeah, there's been a lot of other things in between.
- 9:53Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I know you well, Ben, and I know how successful you've been in all the different things that you've done.
- 9:59Speaker 1: I mean you've had, you know, multiple seven to eight figure businesses that you've run over the years, and at 31 years old, that's very, very impressive.
- 10:09Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about crypto.
- 10:12Speaker 1: So when did you get into it and what about it attracted you?
- 10:16Speaker 2: Sure, so I got into crypto in 2020.
- 10:19Speaker 2: It was attractive to me just because I saw people talking about how they had bought.
- 10:24Speaker 2: You see the stories of buying Bitcoin early on, and you know they bought like whatever $500 worth of Bitcoin and other multi, multi, multi millionaires in crypto, and I'm like, wow, right, so that that was just interesting to me.
- 10:37Speaker 2: I got it.
- 10:38Speaker 2: What happened, though, is I had very bad luck early on, right Cause I had no idea what I was doing, and so I actually.
- 10:46Speaker 2: What's different about my journey through crypto is, you know, I didn't just I wasn't one of those people that, like, bought Bitcoin super early, right, like I got in in 2020.
- 10:56Speaker 2: I didn't buy like Bitcoin earlier, eth early or any of the top you know 100 market cap coins.
- 11:02Speaker 2: I didn't buy, invest in any of those early on.
- 11:05Speaker 2: The way that I accumulated my crypto and built, you know, what I consider a pretty strong portfolio in a short amount of time, was through trading meme coins.
- 11:15Speaker 2: When I first got into crypto, I was actually buying meme coins before I had ever even bought any Bitcoin at all.
- 11:22Speaker 2: Right, that was actually like the first thing I started learning about, which is very opposite, because most people don't know anything about crypto hardly at all.
- 11:32Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
- 11:32Speaker 2: We still haven't even reached mass adoption.
- 11:34Speaker 2: But the people that do know stuff about crypto there's a very small group of those people that understand like meme coins, and you know the stuff that I got into, and so it was.
- 11:43Speaker 2: It was a bit backwards.
- 11:44Speaker 2: That that's what I started like learning more about.
- 11:47Speaker 2: First I knew somebody that had bought a meme coin early on they bought sheep, actually, when that was still early.
- 11:53Speaker 2: You know that they had said they made quite a bit of money off of it.
- 11:57Speaker 2: I was like, well, what's the returns?
- 11:58Speaker 2: Like you like doubled your money on it, whatever.
- 12:00Speaker 2: And they're like no, like I made like 35 times my investment back in a few months and I was like what, that's crazy, right, and so I was like I need to check that out.
- 12:09Speaker 2: So what happened is, you know, I started learning then how to buy these really low market cap coins, but what I did is I just went and bought, you know, thousands of dollars of the first coin that I saw.
- 12:21Speaker 2: It was a meme coin that launched and I remember within like hours it was gone.
- 12:26Speaker 2: You know what I mean Pretty much all drained, and so that was kind of my start with it, losing a bunch of money at first because I, you know, I just saw what other people had made and I had no strategy, and so then that's when everything started changing.
- 12:40Speaker 2: So I had to lose quite a bit at first and then which made myself, which made myself really want to get this and understand it after having those losses, then started finding some coins early on, after proper research, and had several 100, 200, 300x returns on my investment.
- 12:56Speaker 1: This episode of Go Big with Gibb is brought to you by Irons Equity.
- 13:00Speaker 1: At Irons Equity, we specialize in helping investors like you create long-term generational wealth and save money on taxes through recession-resistant real estate investments that create passive income for you and your family.
- 13:13Speaker 1: If you want to secure your financial future, go to investwithgibcom to schedule a 30-minute introductory meeting with me.
- 13:20Speaker 1: Gib Irons Again, that's investwithgibcom.
- 13:24Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so.
- 13:29Speaker 2: Just to give us some sort of scale, like are you comfortable saying like figures, like into meme coins at the beginning you know some of that through trial and error and then just finding other other coins and investing in and grew to, you know, an eight figure plus portfolio.
- 14:00Speaker 2: You know what I mean At the at the height of last, of the last market, and so now we're kind of bracing up for the next bull run.
- 14:10Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
- 14:10Speaker 2: Market's been dipping over the past couple of days.
- 14:12Speaker 2: Obviously, what's going on with stocks and everything is a direct reflection of what's going on with Bitcoin and the crypto market, but it's going to be.
- 14:19Speaker 2: This is the time when the market crashes and things go down, to start looking for meme coins too to buy that can potentially go 100, 200x.
- 14:28Speaker 2: In the same time, bitcoin goes 2x 3x from here.
- 14:35Speaker 1: You know, yeah, yeah.
- 14:35Speaker 1: So I heard that President Trump made a speech recently at some sort of Bitcoin conference I don't really know much about this, but I did read about that and that he was talking about the US becoming, you know, really active in the Bitcoin space.
- 14:50Speaker 1: Like, how would that affect things in terms of Bitcoin value?
- 14:55Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very bullish and history will probably repeat itself.
- 14:59Speaker 2: I think that the stock market crashing is a big reason that crypto is having a pretty heavy dip over the past few days, but it's also people are on the sidelines waiting to see are know, are they?
- 15:11Speaker 2: Are we going to have a new Republican president or is it going to be Democrat people?
- 15:16Speaker 2: I think most people don't really know right now.
- 15:19Speaker 2: You know, it's been a wild year just with everything going on with the election and, and uh.
- 15:24Speaker 2: So I think that people are kind of waiting on the sidelines.
- 15:27Speaker 2: But you know, if we, you know, elect a Republican again, that's you, and, and, with Trump being bullish on Bitcoin and wanting the US to dominate it, then yeah, I think it's going to soar.
- 15:39Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely something to keep an eye on.
- 15:41Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
- 15:42Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
- 15:43Speaker 1: So I know one time we we got together for dinner we were talking a little bit and I mean you had had some amazing success on social media in the past, right, didn't you have like over a million followers on Facebook?
- 15:59Speaker 2: Early on, I did yeah.
- 16:00Speaker 1: Did that come into your mind in terms of like?
- 16:03Speaker 1: It just seems like you're the kind of guy that I don't know that you were ever looking for a W2 job where you're just going to have a cap on your salary.
- 16:10Speaker 2: They all kind of go hand in hand.
- 16:12Speaker 2: It's funny you mentioned that.
- 16:13Speaker 2: You know what I mean, because it was something else again, that that's it is marketing, right, because you're just like looking at stuff and looking at you know what can I try and imitate or model after to try and get attention and views, right, so it all goes kind of hand in hand.
- 16:27Speaker 2: So I mean, yeah, it's funny you say that because, like my goal, like they would always say, like what do you want to do growing up?
- 16:34Speaker 2: And I'd be like I mean, figure out a way to not have to have a job.
- 16:36Speaker 2: That's just always what I was attracted to.
- 16:40Speaker 2: Right, because it's like it's one thing to make a lot of money, but most people they either have a lot of money in no time or a lot of time and no money.
- 16:50Speaker 2: Right, it's hard to find both.
- 16:53Speaker 1: Sure Ben, did you grow up around St Louis?
- 16:56Speaker 1: I know we met up in St Louis one time.
- 17:00Speaker 2: Yeah, small town Illinois on the other side of the border, like two hours from St Louis.
- 17:05Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I remember meeting out there and we shot a couple of videos which we now use as part of my campaign.
- 17:15Speaker 2: Those are some of the best tacos I've had in a while.
- 17:16Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that was great.
- 17:17Speaker 1: So, Ben, at this point now, what does the structure of Law Pro Nation look like?
- 17:23Speaker 1: I mean, do you have like a brick and mortar?
- 17:25Speaker 2: Brick and mortar office, you know, like here, locally right, but Law Pro our team is scattered all over the nation.
- 17:31Speaker 2: So fortunately, you know, those people can work remote.
- 17:35Speaker 1: But you do have a brick and mortar office in in.
- 17:38Speaker 1: Is it in Dallas?
- 17:40Speaker 2: Yeah, in Dallas yeah.
- 17:41Speaker 1: Talk to me about how have you, over the years you know, grown to having so many different law firms.
- 17:48Speaker 2: Just, you know, finding what ads work in the marketplace, finding the pain points that need to be served at these firms.
- 17:55Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
- 17:56Speaker 2: Like just like over time, like figuring it out and like getting to the point where we can look at something and say, okay, they need help with this, this, this could be improved, right, and those are things you all just learn together, you know, over time.
- 18:10Speaker 2: But you know, just being willing to like, being willing to scale right, and so like seeing something that works, like, okay, this ad is working, um, and this, this firm in this state is doing really well, um, let's figure out what type of ads we need to run in this state, right, cause the ads we run in North Carolina might not perform as well as ads that we run in California.
- 18:29Speaker 2: You know what I mean, depending on the demographic.
- 18:31Speaker 2: All of that, right.
- 18:32Speaker 2: So just learning all of that and knowing how to scale, but then being like willing to scale, like being willing to spend the money on advertising, being willing to spend more money to start ramping everything up, you know, cause it's a lot of people, um, they're kind of uh, almost like afraid to scale, right, like they're fine where they're at and they're comfortable.
- 18:51Speaker 2: And it's like every time you scale anything or take it to the next level, you're definitely like automatically taking a bit of risk too, right Inherently.
- 18:59Speaker 2: So, um, I feel like just being willing to like again, keep hiring people, knowing that, uh, you know, sometimes you're going to hire the right person right away, or sometimes maybe hire someone and they're not meant for that certain task and you've got to kind of change gears again.
- 19:13Speaker 2: But, yeah, just being willing to scale and doing the things it takes to go to the next level and taking risks.
- 19:20Speaker 1: As a business owner, how do you decide what is a risk that you're willing to take?
- 19:25Speaker 2: Definitely based off past experiences now, but I feel like if you're going to take a decent amount of risks like I've always been willing to take risks and I think sometimes you're just going to end up taking even bad risks because they do seem good in that moment, Right Um, I think that's that's why it's such a risk, right, Cause there's definitely a chance that you can try something and it's supposed to go well and it goes the complete opposite route.
- 19:48Speaker 2: So that's going to happen.
- 19:49Speaker 2: You know what I mean no-transcript.
- 20:23Speaker 1: Business owners and entrepreneurs is that the most successful ones were willing to take a lot of risk seems like you have a pretty high risk tolerance and that it's really worked out well for you.
- 20:34Speaker 1: You know, taking those educated risks has paid big dividends for you.
- 20:39Speaker 2: Absolutely, and so that's why I'll always continue to take risks too right and again, you know learning every day.
- 20:44Speaker 2: I'm going to take more risks that don't work out, but that's just part of it.
- 20:48Speaker 2: Right, being a risk taker.
- 20:49Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely.
- 20:57Speaker 2: So, ben, for people that have heard the podcast today, that want to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you?
- 21:01Speaker 2: Sure, so, if as far as if you're reaching out, you know, as a law firm, email ben at lawpronationcom is the best way to reach out.
- 21:06Speaker 2: If you're reaching out for anything that has to do, you know, with crypto or trying to learn crypto, that would be through my personal email, ben, at benbuckwaltercom, or you can go to my Ben Buckwalter website and opt in on there if you're looking to learn anything as far as that with crypto.
- 21:21Speaker 2: And for social medias, ben Buckwalter across all social medias, and then Law Pro Nation across all social media as well.
- 21:30Speaker 1: And Ben just one other question nation across all social media as well.
- 21:35Speaker 1: And Ben, just one other question Do you have your own mastermind to teach people how to buy and sell cryptocurrency?
- 21:40Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not.
- 21:41Speaker 2: Sometimes we'll like open it and close it, depending on what all I've got going on.
- 21:45Speaker 2: But, like I said, if they go on my website, you can go to the crypto section on there and opt in and we can have a phone call and see if it's something that makes sense for someone that's looking to learn crypto.
- 21:54Speaker 2: Yeah, Fantastic.
- 21:56Speaker 1: Well, ben, look, it's always good to catch up with you, man.
- 21:58Speaker 1: I appreciate what you've done for me and you know I just really value the relationship.
- 22:04Speaker 1: So, man, it's good to see you.
- 22:05Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming on the show today.
- 22:07Speaker 2: You too, man.
- 22:08Speaker 2: I really appreciate our relationship as well and excited for continued success to come.
- 22:13Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on here, man.
- 22:14Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun.
- 22:15Speaker 1: Yeah, brother.
- 22:15Speaker 1: Thank you, man.
- 22:16Speaker 1: Have a great day.
- 22:23Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode of Go Big with Gibb.
- 22:25Speaker 1: If you haven't already, go follow us on social media at Gibb Irons.
- 22:28Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.