Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / What Actually Works in Law Firm Marketing: Cassidy Lewis’s Marketing Playbook

Transcript

What Actually Works in Law Firm Marketing: Cassidy Lewis’s Marketing Playbook · The Jon and Marc Podcast

0:00
You want to get me in so much trouble because these national
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and statewide firms are coming in our regions.
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You have to do community marketing now.
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People that you see on the billboards don't want to put the
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time and effort in to actually be in the community and show
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that there, and that's kind of the new differentiator.
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You have implemented human touch points across the entire client
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journey. Niches get riches.
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Welcome to another episode of the John and Mark podcast.
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This one is 1 I have personally been waiting for.
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We were talking to my very good friend Cassidy Lewis.
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We are in Norfolk, VA at Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers.
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We stole John Cooper's office for this interview.
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Thank you so much so much for joining us today.
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Thank you guys for having me. For those of you that don't
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know, Cassidy is I need like 2 hands to count all the different
1:04
things that you do. She is the CMO of Cooper Hurley
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Injury Lawyers, she is the founder of the CMO Academy, she
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is mom and wife extraordinaire. She is a cook.
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We can run down the list and she's a wonderful person.
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If you ever run into her at a conference or in a mastermind
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group, she is just full of content and information and is
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very, very open to sharing. And we were so happy that you
1:27
joined us today. I'm happy to be here.
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We are going to have fun today. We are.
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Sun just got up. It's a little after 8:00 in the
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morning. We're fully caffeinated.
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All right, John, where are we starting?
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We are going to be talking today about the things that Cassidy
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has implemented or plans to implement at firms like Cooper
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Hurley and things that she's that she shares through her CMO
1:47
Academy to help law firms grow. I think we should start with the
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transition that we see even in your local market here where you
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have large national law firms that previously did not have a
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presence in Virginia Beach, in Norfolk coming in.
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When those national firms come in and start flooding a market,
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they don't have any presence prior to that.
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What is the the visceral reaction that you have when you
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see that happening? Ironically, Friday.
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So a few days ago, my account manager at Adam's Outdoor, my
2:20
billboard guy, called me like in a panic, left me a voicemail.
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So you got to call me back. I'm like, I called him back.
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I was like, hey, what's going on?
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Did the Billboard blow up? You sure there's not a crisis in
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the Billboard world? He's like, I just got off the
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phone with a national competitor that's about to buy up
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everything. What do you want to do?
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And this is just what we're dealing with now.
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It's a private equity firms and just the I don't know how
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capitalism, whatever you want to put it on.
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This is a reality that we are facing now.
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Emotionally, when I see it, when I see somebody out of area in my
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market, I'm offended because it's like, yeah, you guys watch
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me and girl, you don't even go here.
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But I have to to come back to reality because I firmly believe
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that the years of work that we put in prior to their, their
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billboards going up, prior to their commercials, prior to
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their PPC, they're buying up my name.
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I have to believe that the work that we put in in our region in
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Hampton Roads will show, right? They don't know them.
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They don't know those big competitors.
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They don't know that one lawyer all the way up in Northern
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Virginia. They don't know them, right?
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And so all they have to go off for their reputation is a
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billboard. Nobody's going to refer them
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locally. You know what I mean?
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They weren't doing the vote for school program.
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I can't say that I have something that comes in after
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that. Now am I?
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Am I going to change my billboard strategy?
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There's a possibility, but I I think where I have to stay
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rooted in the fact that we've put in the years of work even
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before me getting here, that I can't stress over them.
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What was that call like? Did they give you first dibs?
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Yeah, Yeah. They were, you know, they called
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me, they're about to come to the market.
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They haven't purchased anything yet.
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Essentially, do you want to extend contracts?
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And I said, OK. And we work with a company to do
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our billboards. So I said, hey look, send this
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e-mail to me and my account manager who purchases our
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billboards, and then her and I are going to talk about it this
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week. So when you get that call and
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you have, you know, someone's coming in, what is your first
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thought? Is it, hey, we need to restart
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our entire marketing strategy to defend them?
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Or you say, hey, I'm not going to focus on those people coming
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in. I'm going to focus on what's
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working and keep doing more. The latter 100% I can't.
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It's there's always going to be something new.
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There's always going to be something new.
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When you look at a strategy, you change tactics, you don't
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typically change a strategy, you know what I mean?
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So I, I am going to remain focused on my consumers.
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And this is another thing, this is a a fundamental belief I have
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in the injury world. My competitors are not the other
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injury law firms. I am competing against the
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person that does not believe they need an injury lawyer.
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It's something like 50 or 60% of people that get into an accident
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and are injured bad enough to need a lawyer that never call a
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lawyer. They don't trust lawyers.
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They think they can do it on their own.
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Whatever it is, I'm competing to get that I want.
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I am competing their beliefs. So while everybody's fighting
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over that, those 40% of people that will call lawyers and
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there's a merit there, I'm trying to talk to those 60% of
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people that wouldn't call us without the information that I'm
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going to give them. And how would you go about doing
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that because most of the firms focus on the 40?
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Right. Injury law breaks a lot of
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marketing rules. OK, so I have both my undergrad
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and masters in marketing and it's like target market.
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There's also the piece that it's not like I can persuade you to
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need an injury lawyer. It's not like make up, right?
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It's not like a this new lipstick, you know, I can
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persuade you to get this new lipstick.
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Like you have to actually be in need.
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So I'm of the belief that you have to meet us before you need
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us. You have to meet me, the brand
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or the attorneys and know that we are regular people that are
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injury lawyers. And that's where a lot of the
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community work comes in. That's where us being a resource
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to the motorcycle community comes in.
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So like we do these classes, we partner with the organization,
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basically what to do if you're riding with someone and they get
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hit, how to keep them alive, right?
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But Bill also comes in and says, hey, bring your deck page, bring
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your insurance. And I'll tell you if you have
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enough insurance, because something that we see is that
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these riders will get in these really bad accidents and not
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have enough. Horrible accidents.
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Yeah, horrible accidents and little to no insurance, right.
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And so it's there's not, there's no sell right there.
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We, we cannot sell our services right there.
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But they need us before they need us.
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It's interesting, it's, it's a, a skill set in the B to B almost
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side where it's like give a ton of value with asking nothing in
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return, where a lot of time and consumer marketing, they don't
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give any value. And you're just like, give me,
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give me, give me your money. But it's like, hey, how do we
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give a ton of value to the community and ask for nothing in
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return? But just know who we are that
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unfortunately, if the time comes or you're injured, we're here to
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help you and we'd love to talk to you and help you through this
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horrible time. Right.
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Exactly. That's exactly what it is.
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How? Do you justify or track like an
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ROI to these things that are intangible where you can't
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directly say, hey, you know, because I gave them this
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insurance thing later, 18 months on the road?
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Yeah, thankfully, Thankfully, the partners, Jim and John
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specifically believe in marketing.
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And Jim has always had the heart to give.
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Always, always, always. I always tell the story.
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I remember when I started working here, then we got a, a
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letter from the lady just written on a piece of paper.
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And it was like, Jim, we're having a church picnic.
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Can you donate $100? It was just written, folded up,
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licked it and sent it to Jim Hurley.
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He gave it to me. He said, hey, process this for
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500. I said, we don't know.
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This is a scare. Like Jim looking at me like the
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little church lady. And it wasn't there were no
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flowers there. There were no sponsored by
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Cooper Hurley injury lawyers there.
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And it's always been his thing. He's, you know, he's firmly
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believed. I he told me when I started
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working here. I want us to be the thank you
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Fern. So who are we thinking?
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What are the like? What will the car be a car?
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He's like, oh, I don't know, you'll figure it out.
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And so we thank Hampton Roads through our giving and for I, I
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believe that it is my partner's job to have the heart to give or
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the vision and it's my job for there to be an ROI at some
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point. So I have not had to defend it
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like some marketers may have. But I will say this, through the
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years, I've sort of, you know, built these fundamentals of what
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you should do first in marketing.
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Community marketing used to be later, but because these
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national and statewide firms are coming in our regions, you have
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to do community marketing now. They have to meet you now.
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You have to build those relationships now.
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So if a marketer is listening and they're like, I want to do
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these great community projects, I want to do these sponsorships,
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but I can't prove an ROI. You have to explain to your
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managing partner that these firms are coming in our area and
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these consumers, our residents, our citizens have got to meet us
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and the ROI will be there. Right now, year to date, I want
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to say 60%, but it may be like 565556 percent of our clients
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year to date are referred by other humans, most of them in
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our database, but a good chunk of them are not anywhere in our
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database. They met us out there somewhere.
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My sister in law's insurance agent's dog referred me like
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it's these. Long and that's compounding.
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So the the larger you get, the more clients you serve it just
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that number keeps increasing year over year.
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Yeah. So we do a really good job of
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putting people in our database. But and when I got here, we were
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at like 12 or 15%. We were primarily digital, but
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there's nothing wrong with that. But we're up to 50 something
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percent now. It's crazy that we have been
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talking for what, 5-10 minutes and you're just spitting out
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percentages. Like talk about being a
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data-driven marketer, right? It is ingrained in your soul.
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I also find it really interesting that the things that
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you're talking about doing in the community, they are much
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more about investing time than they are about investing money.
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You do would have to invest money, but it's not about hey,
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can we stroke a check and sponsor this and walk away and
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say we we were the, you know, sponsor of such and such
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program. How do the partners, along with
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you as a team, get the organization to invest the time
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in something that is a effectively a non directly
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attributable revenue driving activity?
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A few years ago we built Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers Cares
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right, which is our giving arm, and we decided that we would
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focus on education and youth based initiatives.
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It took us a while to get there and there's a whole list of
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things we did to get there. It makes it easier to decide
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what to give to when your program or if you have a
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foundation or a nonprofit says these are our pillars.
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You get what I'm saying? Like these are the things that
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that we believe in. And again, because my partners
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believe in marketing and believe in our community and believe in
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our region, it's a lot easier to sell.
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Hey, we are going to go do this coat drive a high school, a
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middle school and elementary school.
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They can't give a lot to you. They can't really get, I mean,
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we, we've been working, we we've partnered with some schools.
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They really can't give a lot. We're giving, you know, 100
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coats to do 100 or 200 coats every winter.
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It's not a whole lot they can give.
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But we're going to do a good job on our side for the digital PR,
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the social media, marketing, other things that say, hey,
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look, this is what we got to do today.
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This is how we served Hampton Roads today.
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And I think them seeing it on the back end after stroking the
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check for the coats for example, it's like OK this makes sense.
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Yeah, I think part of the success that you were talking
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about earlier for is that you have to have top down alignment.
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So like your partners believe in it.
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It's not you pushing them do it and may OK, Cassie will do it.
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It's they believe in the project and they're willing to invest in
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a long term. And it's one of those things
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that interestingly now too, that you used to say that you should
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do this later, but now it's a must do.
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I think it's because a lot of other firms, maybe the ones you
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know, come in or spending a bunch of money, the main people
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that you see on the billboards like don't want to put the time
12:25
and effort in to actually be in the community and show that
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they're. And that's kind of the new
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differentiator is everyone can spend a bunch of money, but
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who's actually going to show up and put the time and effort in?
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And people like, realize that like there's a real human around
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here and showing up in the community.
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Yeah, absolutely. I think it is at one of the big
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different differentiators. We have a large marketing
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department for our size firm. We're about a fifty person firm
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and we are currently looking for 1/5 marketer and it allows for
12:52
us to be all the spaces where a lot of these large firms will
12:56
have a marketing assistant and it's like, oh, the the managing
12:59
partners will be leading the effort.
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But when you have a team our size, we are able to be spaces
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where other firms just cannot. We're able to do all because
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then I don't want to go down and have a whole, but the marketing
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operations side is just something that's not appreciated
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right to the logistics of an event.
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Jesus Christ like the logistics of an event.
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I had this conversation with John last week.
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Like then the pills, like the press release, Well, the press
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release, yes, it goes to CAMG, but then it also has to go to
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all the different newspapers. And did we tell the news?
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Well, who from the news and which stations?
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And you know what, we we do this.
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And then they have all of the logistics, all of those pieces
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that people do not appreciate. They see your name and lights.
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And it's like, yeah, we can buy that.
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But the differentiator of being in community marketing also, you
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have to lay on the the piece of the operation side and do you
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have enough people to get it done?
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When you're looking at at those marketing operations and let's
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talk about like from the point where a client first meets the
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firm all the way, let's talk about like a year beyond when
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their case gets resolved, right? There's so many different touch
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points there. We're living in an age now where
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firms are starting to, and all businesses are starting to
14:12
automate different components of that that entire client journey.
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What do you feel like are the pieces that are irreplaceable
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and always have to be touched by a human?
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Give us two or three different touch points that you cannot
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foresee ever being automated. You want to get me in so much
14:29
trouble 'cause I, OK. I, Cassidy, am not of the belief
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here in 2025 you're our Lord, that that intake should be
14:45
automated. I think a human needs to get on
14:48
the phone, hear what's going on. Is this a high 5?
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Yes, I said this on the last episode 2 episodes ago.
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Needs to get on the phone and hear what that client is going
15:00
through and decide if we are going to take that case on and
15:07
then sell that person on why we are the best firm.
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So I think intake, I've seen it. I just posted about this on
15:13
LinkedIn. My son was trying to set up an
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optometrist appointment. The optometrist, he went to
15:19
Harvard and he was awarded and blah blah blah blah.
15:23
And he had an AI intake system. And I never made the
15:26
appointment, not because I didn't want to, I was trying to.
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I couldn't. I didn't understand what I was
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talking about. Well, the technology, I don't
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think that technology is there yet.
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We're getting close, right? It could take a message, right?
15:39
It could give you like a little bit of canned feedback.
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I think eventually we'll get to a point where there are pieces
15:45
of intake that could be automated.
15:48
But beyond intake, right, you have implemented human touch
15:52
points across the entire client journey.
15:54
One of my favorite stories was when you were talking about how
15:58
in your database you keep track of kids names, favorite sports
16:01
teams, colleges. Like it's incredible, like the
16:05
level of personalization that goes into your marketing.
16:08
How does a firm do that at scale?
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One thing I tell people when we have a five person, well soon to
16:13
be 5 person marketing team and we've built this thing through
16:16
the years, right. So you can't jump in with
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everything that Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers is doing.
16:22
You have to figure out what you can do, systemize it really
16:26
well, and then add the next step, right?
16:29
So that, for example, that personal nugget is what we call
16:32
that Cooper Hurley injured lawyers.
16:33
Jim has always said to do that, right?
16:35
These paralegals and legal assistants, they talk to the
16:37
clients all the time about any and everything.
16:40
If the client says I can't make a 5:00 appointment because
16:44
little Johnny has soccer, the personal nugget there is that
16:47
little Johnny plays soccer. You know what I mean?
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It's just you have to, you have to open your ears or have that
16:52
act of listening there for it, right?
16:54
If we say, well, you know, tell me, did you do anything fun over
16:58
the weekend? Oh, I watched the Eagles win.
17:00
Well, we know that person's a winner, right?
17:02
Because he's an Eagles fan, right?
17:04
Eagles fan, right? So you just have to, you have to
17:11
have that, that act of listening.
17:12
That's something that cannot be done by AI, right?
17:18
That that got systemized. And then we check behind it and
17:20
we do audits of client files to say, hey, you guys, you know,
17:25
50% of your client files don't have a personal nugget.
17:27
How do we get you to 60%? You know, and that takes work.
17:30
And it's my team that does those type of audits.
17:33
It's super interesting because these conversations are so you
17:36
said you, you have a masters in marketing.
17:38
Is that correct? It's like traditionally that's
17:41
not like a scalable effort that people want to put into.
17:43
They want to guess what your profile is.
17:45
They're like, oh, he's an Eagles fan, so I could put him in his
17:48
bucket. So my marketing messaging will
17:50
just hit with him in a certain way so I can sell him his jersey
17:52
or sell this product and market to him correctly.
17:55
But people don't put the effort into have those unscalable touch
17:58
points to make like a unique interaction.
18:00
And I think it's super important because you're one of the very
18:04
few services where you're actually like interacting with
18:07
your client for a very long period.
18:09
Of time so. Like if you go to the dentist or
18:11
the optometrist, you're in that appointment for maybe an hour
18:14
Max and then you see in them again the next year for an
18:17
appointment. If someone signs up with people
18:20
Hurley injury lawyers and they were in a horrible accident, but
18:23
from the time they sign up to that time, things are resolved
18:25
could be years, right, right. And so they have a deep
18:28
relationship with you. And it's like the more you can
18:30
know about that person and have that real close touch is
18:33
important over the long term. I'm hell bent on impressing my
18:36
clients. Yeah, I like, it's not like
18:38
there are different levels of referrals.
18:40
It's like, yeah, you know, call, call CAMG, call them.
18:45
Then there's like, no, you have got to call CAMG.
18:50
Let me tell you what I need. I need to impress my clients
18:54
enough that they are hell bent and then they call them.
18:56
But hey, did you call? Did you call C?
18:57
Did you do that? What I said, OK, this is the
18:59
number. In fact, let me put you on an
19:01
e-mail with you know what I mean?
19:02
So it's like, Oh yeah, we get referred all the time and this,
19:05
yeah, this is who I use after my car 'cause I use Cooper Hurley
19:09
Injury Lawyers. No, no, no, I need Cooper Hurley
19:11
Injury Lawyers is the only law firm I'd ever call for anything.
19:14
Even if it was a divorce, I'm still calling them and they've
19:17
referred me to somebody they trust.
19:18
That is a level of referral that I need.
19:21
You've done the same level of marketing intensity to your
19:27
referral partners as you have your direct consumers.
19:32
Do you manage that within the same team that manages the
19:35
consumer marketing or do you have a dedicated like referral
19:37
marketer that handles all that communication?
19:39
The marketing team works as a unit.
19:41
We're family, but I do have a referral specialist.
19:43
And then in addition to that, we John Baker, one of the partners
19:46
here, he's over attorney marketing because respectfully
19:52
attorneys respect other attorneys and so it mates, it
19:56
makes sense to have him sort of the point of contact for them.
20:01
So yeah, it's marketing team with an asterisk because you've
20:04
got to add John Baker in there. What are some of the things that
20:07
work to market to other attorneys to show them that if
20:10
they get a case that makes sense for Cooper Hurley to handle?
20:12
Because you guys, you're known as the car crash experts, but
20:15
you also have expertise in railroad accidents, you have
20:17
expertise in motorcycle accidents.
20:19
You know there's a need for a firm like yours.
20:22
How do you get that message out to other attorneys?
20:24
You'd be surprised at how many attorneys don't know that they
20:26
can perceive A referral fee. We were just talking about this
20:30
like 2 weeks ago. Part of the messaging has to be
20:33
informational, has to be educational.
20:35
Some practice areas cannot give a referral fee.
20:39
So they don't know that they can receive a referral fee, right?
20:41
So letting them know that there's something in it for
20:44
them, and then also letting them know that we are the experts
20:47
because you can be a family law lawyer and maybe, yeah, you
20:50
could handle that injury case. But do you really want to?
20:53
Do you really have the time? Do you really understand the
20:55
state laws? Do you really understand
20:56
insurance? Let us do that for you.
20:58
That's sort of our guerrilla marketing.
21:00
You know, we do advertise, we do a lot of B2B marketing, but then
21:04
having structure around what our touches look like with our
21:08
attorneys, like making sure that our attorneys are on a system
21:11
for reaching out to other attorney friends, going to
21:14
lunches, telling us, hey, this attorney moved.
21:18
My team knows already if an attorney gets a new office,
21:20
we're sending them a Keurig immediately.
21:22
Nobody has to think about it, right?
21:24
Somebody makes partner, we're sending them an engraved
21:27
business card hold. We already know like putting
21:29
those systems in place just like we did with our clients for the
21:33
B to B side has made a world of difference for us and the amount
21:37
of intakes that we get from our attorney friends.
21:39
How big is that database of potential referral firms that
21:43
you're marketing to today? Probably about 2000, like 17102
21:47
thousand. In that referral base, do you
21:49
have like us, find a sweet spot of success and the type of law
21:53
that's prefers the most is like family law or is it all over the
21:56
place? It's so embarrassing because it
21:58
we thought it was going to be smaller injury firms and we
22:01
found our best offensive. They're like, no, we can, we can
22:04
do. We can handle big cases too.
22:05
Just because our name isn't on a billboard isn't that we can't
22:07
handle it. My bad.
22:10
But it's everything outside of injury law because any, again,
22:13
injury law breaks all the rules. Anybody can be in an accident.
22:17
Anybody can be in an accident with an 18 Wheeler.
22:19
So it could be our family law attorney whose cousins such and
22:22
such, or could be the workers comp attorney 2 doors down.
22:27
So it really is a mix. I haven't found a practice area
22:30
that refers most. It's really about relationship.
22:32
I think this is a good time to talk about the launch of the CMO
22:36
Academy and how you have taken some of the systems that we've
22:40
spoken about today and turned them into a training course.
22:44
Because people call, I call you all the time.
22:46
If I have a question about something, I'm like, I'll text
22:48
you, I'll call you. And I know that if I'm doing it,
22:51
that there are dozens or potentially hundreds of other
22:53
people across the country. So was this an effort to save
22:56
Cassidy time and taking all those calls personally, or is or
23:00
is this something else? People always ask me the what or
23:04
the how. How did you?
23:06
What did you? And I want people to ask me the
23:09
why. If you understand a why you can
23:13
make as many hows or what's as you want.
23:15
I want it. I want my.
23:17
I wanted my marketing friends to approach marketing from a more
23:22
strategic view instead of just tactical.
23:26
I'm going to go do this community event.
23:29
Why? Well, because it's good to do.
23:32
Yeah. But you know, Yeah, but, and so
23:38
I kept, I would get those calls right from marketers, from any
23:42
and everywhere. And we e-mail back and forth or
23:45
we talk on the phone a few times and it'd be like putting a
23:48
Band-Aid on an open wound, you know what I mean?
23:52
Like on a gash, it's like, yeah, it's going to fickle.
23:54
Is it? Yeah, we're going to help a
23:56
little bit. But nothing I did could really
23:58
help solve the really large problem.
24:02
So I sat down for like 4 months, 4 1/2 months.
24:06
That was really hard to do. It's a lot of videos in there.
24:09
But I sat down for a few months and I recorded it.
24:12
I wrote everything out first. What made sense?
24:14
And I, I mean, I think about stuff that could go in there
24:17
monthly or weekly, like I could do another video on such and
24:20
such. I really wanted my marketing
24:22
friends to to really approach marketing from a higher view
24:26
from the from 1000, from the from the CMO view instead of
24:29
just a marketing assistant that goes and hosts a table at the
24:33
football game. I think what you're doing is
24:35
great because there I believe there's a huge gap in the market
24:38
today, especially in personal interim marketing, where like
24:41
you said, it breaks all the rules.
24:43
And a lot of people come in from other industries and come in
24:46
and, and fail and make a lot of mistakes and they don't know why
24:50
they're failing when they're, they're great marketers.
24:52
And it's like only if you could learn from someone who knows
24:55
what they're doing and and kind of to understand some of the
24:58
playbook and the reasons why you should be doing things.
25:01
It really helps people be more successful in these roles
25:05
instead of just throwing money at stuff.
25:07
If I was anyone in marketing, I would watch it and subscribe to
25:12
everything you're putting out to be able to just get up to speed,
25:16
especially if I'm coming from somewhere outside.
25:18
It's personal injury. It's like a cheat code.
25:20
Also in personal injury, there's this weird thing that happens
25:22
and people aren't really marketing especially they're not
25:25
really willing to OfferUp what's working.
25:28
They try to keep their secrets. They keep secrets to themselves
25:31
or you're just giving, so you're giving out all the secrets.
25:34
Just because you're telling the tactics and strategies they're
25:36
working doesn't mean they can execute them at the same level.
25:39
Comes down from the details, but giving out that information is
25:42
is super helpful to the community and just raise
25:44
everyone else up. Yeah, yeah.
25:46
We, we live by abundance theory. You know, I talk about stuff
25:48
that I did here. I talk about previous
25:50
experience. I did have a market I was
25:52
talking to. He just got hired and, you know,
25:55
you could kind of tell he was like, yeah, no, I know that.
25:57
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I know that. And I talked to him about a
25:59
month later. I was like, how's it going?
26:00
He was like, man, this is different.
26:05
Yes, injury law is different. It just is.
26:08
How have you seen just this year, right, So we're talking
26:12
about over the past nine months, how have you seen your marketing
26:15
strategy shift as the pace of technology has just rocket
26:19
shipped? Primarily in digital, right?
26:22
So we're dealing with the lack of clicks, the increase of
26:27
impressions or dealing with all these FAQs and blogs doing
26:31
really well. I'm fine with FAQs.
26:32
Some of these random blogs like I don't want you to show.
26:35
I think that I've had to be even more intentional about my
26:40
digital public relations, right? And it's we did good, right?
26:45
But watching what these LLMS are picking up, no, and they're not
26:49
scraping from Google like knowing these things.
26:52
OK, well, let's spread out. Let's go get some reviews on
26:55
Yelp. Let's go get some reviews on
26:58
Ava. Let's make sure these profiles
27:00
are filled out and up to date because you know, we kind of got
27:03
off of that. It's like, OK, we have it, we
27:06
have it, We checked. The box we.
27:08
Checked the box, but OK, wait a minute, these LLMS are picking
27:11
up what from where? You know what I mean?
27:13
And we're at that. Like we got a large case a MO
27:18
see $1,000,000 case from ChatGPT.
27:20
Like we're we're consistently getting cases from AI.
27:24
So I want to make sure that we are doing the things that it
27:27
wants to see. That's probably the biggest
27:29
thing that I've seen. You answered my question with
27:33
AIAI is what is shifting your marketing strategy.
27:37
But the things that you went back to tactically that you're
27:40
doing are really the things that really should have been done
27:42
anyway. Yeah, right.
27:44
Reviews on Yelp, like I get it we all hate Yelp but I forgot.
27:49
They're still in business. But that's where LLMS are
27:52
picking reviews up from. They are.
27:54
And the assumption is that AI and the LLMS are simulating what
27:59
a user would do if they were doing really deep research on
28:02
your firm. They would go beyond Google and
28:04
your Google business profile and say, how are they?
28:07
How do they look on Yelp, right? How do they look on BBB?
28:10
Do they have any complaints? But as humans, we cannot go
28:14
through that exercise of checking all the different
28:17
things and aggregating it together.
28:19
Where do you think the next spot is?
28:22
I'm asking you to be a little bit prescriptive here, right?
28:24
Where do you think the next thing is that you are going to
28:27
have to do? Or the next shift that's coming
28:30
in the next month, week? Who knows?
28:33
Tomorrow, Google can throw another curveball at us.
28:35
Google throws, you know, that's what we talk about most of
28:38
Google. My beef with Google, I want to
28:40
know what the next thing is. There's going to be another
28:43
thing, right? So we kind of went back to, like
28:45
I said, oh, let's go back and get more Yelp reviews because we
28:47
haven't tried to get a Yelp review in years.
28:50
Is it going to be video? Like do we have to, are these
28:53
Ellens going to start showing video?
28:55
Are they going to start showing like, oh, and they were on this
28:57
podcast, you know what I mean? Like, so I'm I'm in in this
29:01
podcast, this podcast, I am in anticipation of the next medium
29:08
that LLLLMS will start showing and prioritizing.
29:13
So and I don't know what it will be.
29:14
I assume it could be video. Like I could see us doing a
29:17
search and there's like like a video popping up.
29:19
Not a link to a video, but a video popping up.
29:21
Here's this video from Oh God, would they get it from YouTube
29:25
if they're not going to scrape Google?
29:26
Well, I don't even know, but you know what I mean?
29:28
Like what's going to be the next medium?
29:30
Because remember when they started showing Max, we were all
29:33
excited, right? So what's going to be the next
29:36
medium that they show and how do I get ahead of it today?
29:39
They're already multimodal, they're already understanding
29:42
what's in videos like this, who we are, what we're talking
29:45
about, the transcriptions. I don't know.
29:48
I don't it's, it's an interesting, we, we have an
29:51
interesting future ahead of us. Yesterday I saw that Google
29:55
changed their slash AI website. So if you go to google.com/AI
30:00
now, it takes you to AI mode. And there are engineers at
30:05
Google who are talking about AI mode becoming the default soon,
30:08
right? We don't know what soon means,
30:10
right? It could be days, could be
30:12
weeks, right? Soon as it's all relative.
30:15
When search moves to an, a truly AI first world where one morning
30:20
we're all going to wake up and Google is literally going to be
30:23
AI. It's going to be like the the
30:24
LLM, the ChatGPT within our standard search results.
30:28
How do you think that will change user behavior?
30:32
And will you be able to take advantage of that as Cooper
30:36
Hurley or do you think there are things that are going to have to
30:39
shift in order for you to be able to take advantage of that
30:42
shift? I'm going to take advantage.
30:45
I don't know how necessarily, and I say that because I one
30:49
thing that LLM LLM's do very well, whether it's Google,
30:54
AIGPT, perplexity, they give users the information they need
31:00
without it being 412 results. You know, like our mind, and I'm
31:05
a bit of a dork when it comes to the human brain.
31:07
But our mind, our brains, they want to do the easiest thing.
31:11
They want it, they want it to be effortless.
31:14
Whatever it is, they want it to be effortless, right?
31:18
The real gold in these elements is that it's just going to give
31:22
you this. And This is why and that's it.
31:25
And we're sold. And it's like, how do I become
31:27
the this? How do I like?
31:29
What does that actually look like?
31:31
What are you really looking for? Because right now ChatGPT refers
31:35
us all the time and a lot of times it's because of the
31:38
community work. Well, I wanted to talk.
31:41
That's great. I love that.
31:42
That's really nice. I wanted to talk more about our
31:46
work are cases and it's like, am I not doing a good job?
31:50
Do I not talk about it enough? And so I think that people are
31:54
saying, oh, it's going to take so long as a culture for us to
31:58
get used to. AII don't think so.
32:00
And it's because of the simplicity of it, right?
32:03
It just simplifies everything because even the the map pack
32:08
like it, it shows you name and phone number and you can go look
32:10
at reviews, but then there's a mixed bag of reviews and blah,
32:13
blah, blah, blah, blah. If you look at AI mode, it just
32:16
tells you to choose to one of the three that they suggest.
32:19
And This is why. And that looks really nice.
32:21
And if AI said it and it feels like a human, it feels like a
32:24
referral. It's like it's, it's I don't
32:26
think it's going to take, you know, remember it took decades
32:30
for us to start saying, Oh, you got to Google it, you got to
32:32
Google it. I don't think it's going to take
32:33
that. Long.
32:33
I didn't like the AI results at first, but it's getting a much
32:37
better because what I've realized it's doing it's it's
32:40
trying to give me the result that I actually want when I do
32:43
my googly. So before I do my googly, I had
32:45
to like say if I'm going on vacation, I'm a psychopath.
32:48
I'm doing like TripAdvisor reviews and then I'm going to
32:51
the Google Maps reviews for like hotels.
32:53
Then I'm going to look in Reddit.
32:54
And now it's just doing all that for me to summarize the
32:57
recommendation I was going to get to already.
33:00
So it knows how I'm going to be searching all the different
33:03
sources. And then it's giving me the
33:04
recommendation then probably was going to or most the information
33:07
I'm looking for to make that final decision to down to three.
33:10
And I've been enjoying that result so far.
33:12
Effortless. Yeah, it's effortless.
33:14
Yep, one of the things that many firms struggle with is like
33:18
ranking for best queries, right? Who's the best injury law firm
33:22
You know, who should I hire? Who has the best results for my
33:26
car accident? In case you branded the firm as
33:29
the car crash experts, can you talk about that process, how you
33:34
landed on that? How?
33:35
How is that bar complying? Because many firms struggle with
33:37
being able to say expert or best.
33:39
We were working within advertising agency.
33:42
This is Jim. Jim decided we needed a newer
33:45
slogan. Our slogan used to be your
33:47
injury, our fight, a good slogan.
33:49
And he wanted something that was more concise, a little more
33:53
punchier. And so our advertising agency
33:57
sort of came to us with a good number of ideas, maybe six or
34:01
seven. I don't know if they actually
34:04
gave us the car crash experts. I think they gave us the crash
34:07
experts and then about 80% of our cases are car crashes.
34:14
And so we added the car crash experts.
34:17
Everything we do, I mean, I say everything.
34:19
A lot of what we do, we run past the bar and we sent it to them
34:24
and then there was some back and forth about it because the
34:27
expert term is an issue, but they agreed to it and that was
34:31
all she wrote. I don't get into, you know, I'm
34:34
a marketer. I don't get into legal disputes.
34:36
That was all she wrote. Now we're just in the process of
34:38
getting trademarked. When I get the answer I want, I
34:41
just move along. I don't ask and you work less
34:43
shits. But the take away here is that
34:45
you went through the the proper channels, you got it sanctioned
34:49
and then you use it. And for firms that maybe are
34:52
struggling with differentiating themselves in their market,
34:55
maybe coming up with a slogan and using that everywhere,
34:59
getting it sanctioned, making sure that that you are
35:01
completely above board. That is one way to do it.
35:03
You know, it's definitely better than just changing your Google
35:06
Business profile name to include and.
35:10
It does come up in the LMS, they'll say, you know, they've
35:13
known as the car crash experts. What's your opinion on, I don't
35:16
want to say niching down as a personal injury firm or or
35:18
setting your expertise versus being broad because like we work
35:21
with firms across the nation. We're like we're the best firm.
35:24
We'll take everything but that messaging kind of gets lost.
35:27
What was that? What's your opinion on kind of
35:29
niching down or or coming going a car crash expert?
35:33
Obviously you guys will take any kind of Kate almost that's an
35:35
injury case, but what's your opinion on that?
35:38
Niches get riches, right? And you know what I like about
35:42
what? What happens with the car crash
35:44
experts When somebody is searching a premises liability,
35:48
we still pop up and those pages don't have anything about the
35:52
car crash experts up there, right?
35:54
So because I was very concerned about missing out because we, we
36:00
take prim cases, but we only take really, really good prim
36:03
cases. And then we take FILA cases,
36:04
which are really national. So our car crash expert branding
36:09
is here locally and our FILA cases and our Amtrak cases, our
36:13
railroad cases, we don't obviously put anything like
36:15
that. So they don't know what's to be
36:16
there. But even when people are
36:17
searching locally, right? They've seen our billboards,
36:20
they've seen us in the community and they go to, you know, slip
36:22
and fall at such and such. We pop up and none of that car
36:27
crash expert branding pops up. That doesn't mean they don't see
36:30
it somewhere, etcetera, etcetera.
36:32
We train intake, but I think it I must say it's working.
36:36
You know, like I think that anytime you can customize your
36:42
messaging to fit to make it feel like you were talking to that
36:45
one consumer, you're on the right track.
36:48
Absolutely a ton of helpful information that you shared
36:52
today, Cassidy, for those of you who are really interested in
36:54
getting, you know, Cassidy strategies, tactics, her why
36:58
highly recommend you go to thecmoacademy.com, right?
37:02
Take a look. The first, I mean, the first
37:04
video is free. People can take a look and watch
37:06
that, get to know Cassidy, see the format, make sure you feel
37:09
comfortable with it. But I highly recommend.
37:11
It's probably going to be the best $1000 that you spend for
37:14
your firm to take a look at those videos and sounds.
37:17
You're constantly adding new content there as well, so.
37:19
Remember continued education? Write it off.
37:23
Cassidy, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us
37:26
today. Thank you guys so much.