The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Revolutionizing Law Firm Intake
Join The Renegade Lawyers Podcast for a riveting discussion with Erik Ovesny about revolutionizing legal intake processes with Gabby AI. Discover how this cutting-edge AI technology is boosting lead conversion rates and reshaping client communication in personal injury law firms. Don't miss this insightful episode that explores the future of legal tech and its impact on law practice efficiency. Tune in to learn how Gabby AI can become your next top-performing intake specialist.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
The journey starts, you know, moons ago where I was working for a company in Paris, france. So I started my career not in PI, but was working for a flooring manufacturing company where I was helping them with a lot of their digital strategies. And I made a very weird pivot after two years doing that and ended up getting recruited by a personal injury law firm. And, you know, at first I thought to myself you know what does this going to entail, how can I really make an impact here? And I joined the firm, made the leap and I loved it, so worked in-house as director of marketing for personal injury law firm through that venture, ended up speaking at a number of events, ended up leading different circles and groups as, particularly on social media, digital was always my background and from, I realized, based on all the requests for my knowledge and skillset in the space, I decided you know what you only live once. Let's get out there and give this a shot, hey there.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show where we ask the questions why aren't more lawyers living flourishing lives and inspiring others? And can you really get wealthy while doing only the work you love with people you like? Many lawyers are. Get ready to hear from your host, ben Glass, the founder of the law firm Ben Glass Law in Fairfax, virginia, and Great Legal Marketing, an organization that helps good people succeed by coaching, inspiring and supporting law firm owners. Join us for today's conversation.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, this is Ben Glass. We're back with the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where each episode, I get to interview someone inside or outside of legal who's making a ding in the world. This is going to be a fun one. We're going to talk about AI. We're going to talk about Gabby AI. We're going to talk about things that maybe we should be thinking about for 6, 12, and 18 months into our future, that we can't even imagine right now, and so I love these conversations, these technology conversations with smart folks.
Speaker 2:So I've got Eric Ovesny with Arrow Effect Marketing, and Eric is a leading digital lead. The company is a leading digital lead generation and marketing company specializing in personal injury law firms, and Gabby AI, which we'll hear about today, is a groundbreaking conversational AI designed specifically for the legal industry to streamline that speed to lead process Really doing. What all firms, but particularly PI firms, need to do is really to make sure that all the money they spend generating a lead isn't now lost somehow in the sales and conversion process. So, eric, thanks for carving out some time to chat with us today. Yeah, thanks for having me. So, eric, thanks for carving out some time to chat with us today. Yeah, thanks for having me Talk to us a little bit about your background, what your experience in the space is. And then we're always curious, because we're entrepreneurs, like how did you get to Arrow Effect Marketing and Gabby AI?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So really, the journey starts, you know, moons ago where I was working for a company in Paris, france. So I started my career not in PI, but was working for a flooring manufacturing company where I was helping them with a lot of their digital strategies. And I made a very weird pivot after two years doing that and ended up getting recruited by a personal injury law firm and at first I thought to myself what does this going to entail? How can I really make an impact here? And I joined the firm, made the leap and I loved it, so worked in-house as director of marketing for a personal injury law firm through that venture, ended up speaking at a number of events, ended up leading different circles and groups, particularly on social media.
Speaker 1:Digital was always my background and from there I realized, based on all the requests for my knowledge and skillset in the space, I decided you know what you only live once. Let's get out there and give this a shot. And so I've been doing this for a little over a decade now, which I could not believe when I was putting pen to paper the other day and just thinking about how long I've been in the space and working in personal injury law with personal injury law firms speaking and whatnot. But I really love it because it's an industry where for me, I believe you know it's always evolving the digital space is always evolving. So to come in and make an impact in an industry that traditionally isn't exactly pioneers when it comes to technology yeah, so that's somewhere where I've had a comes to technology.
Speaker 2:No, not us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's somewhere where I've had a lot of fun just having conversations with folks like yourself and owners of firms and their personnel to make a difference.
Speaker 2:That was quite a leap from working for a manufacturing firm of sorts in France to being recruited. I take it back to the United States to do marketing for a personal injury firm. What was it that they saw about your resume, or how did you make that connection?
Speaker 1:You know, I had really a lot of family that worked in the legal space my uncle's a lawyer, so I had a lot of contacts just through that. But really where I made a bit of an impact early on in my career was the storytelling aspect, and we all know how similar a lot of the ads and the creatives can be on a lot of these platforms that we're putting out there in our world, and me working for a flooring company, which isn't exactly the most exciting thing ever. Some of my creative, and video creative in particular, was noticed and that led to me being recruited over in the legal industry, which they took a leap of faith in me and vice versa, I took a leap of faith in them and doing it ever since you mentioned a word, that is.
Speaker 2:it is really a secret card that a lot of my market, my listeners, which is a solo in small firms, can get really good at.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter the practice area, but it is storytelling. It is, since so many firms, eric, their advertising is shout, shout louder and shout the highest right, and it's the same message that most of them are screaming from the top of a mountain or the side of a bus or something. But being able to take your client stories and experiences, retell them in, of course, ethical, sane way, but an interesting way, so that whoever then hears of you finds your website, finds your other marketing materials, they can perhaps see themselves If they're a good lead for you. They can see themselves inside of a story that you have told about a prior client. And so it's not just hey, we get the biggest verdicts, or you know the most number of cases, or you know the most number of lawyers. You know, in a firm, interesting stories that prove our expertise and our experience, without having to shout, oh, like we're just the best, we have the most experience. To talk to us about that for a moment, because I think that sounds like maybe your superpower that became that attractive for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, I mean me really. Even before I started with the flooring manufacturing company, I was on a path where I almost was a filmmaker, was making documentary films. At a young age I thought I was the next Steven Spielberg. I said this is what I wanted to do and I just happened to get into it at a time where social media just started taking off, advertising started to become a thing. So I realized I'm able to take this cinematic, this storytelling component to advertising, which then led to the legal space and personal injury.
Speaker 1:And I can tell you I was shocked when I initially started working in personal injury because I did not realize how competitive it was until I was actually living and breathing in space. I mean, this is a place where anytime you're turning the local channel, every other commercial, personal injury commercial, every other ad. So it was just something where I felt like I could come in and really help build that story. And really what I realized firms needed to do was to create something. That's what I call sticky right, what is going to really resonate. Because the other tricky part of what I always loved about the challenge no one plans on getting hurt.
Speaker 3:So who's your target?
Speaker 1:audience. It could be anyone. Who's your target audience? It could be anyone, because when you're dealing with a lot of other industries, you can kind of define the he, the she, whoever your target might be, but in this space it's everyone. Anyone can be hurt at any point in time. So that's why it's just that much more important that your creative, your storytelling, your brand, your firm, your just overall visibility really sticks out, because that's who they end up going with. It's not the person necessarily, see, a hundred times the person that sticks with them.
Speaker 2:Exactly Because that person who has not yet been in an accident, their brain is working hard to just block out the basic PI messages. Anyway, it's just way too much. There's way too many advertising marketing messages out there for the brain to to comprehend and to focus to remember oh, ben the CrossFit soccer referee guy who happens to be a lawyer, versus Ben, the guy who buys the most ads on the side of a bus. So I'll bet you were you surprised when you came into the space to see that storytelling was an opportunity even in this very competitive market space. Particular PI lawyers oh my gosh, how come no one's doing this?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because I realized a lot of the creatives I was seeing, with doing competitive analysis and seeing what other firms were doing, I realized, wow, they're so similar. I could see how easy it makes for the commercials the firm I was working with or perhaps it was a client with the competitors because, you know, we're all trying to talk, you know about the same things and, at the end of the day, when someone's injured in an accident, it's a very emotional thing. You know, right there there's a lot of emotional cords being pulled and I realized that the storytelling aspect can really, you know, connect with that and it's someone that you know, who might see something that, like you know what this person actually cares. This isn't, I'm not just another case number to them, I'm not just a dollar amount. This is someone who gets it and they really want to work with me.
Speaker 1:And that storytelling aspect just across the board not just, you know, in video creative, not just in a social media post, but just something that was incorporated within the brand I definitely started to notice that was going to be a big opportunity for firms that weren't necessarily out there, you know pouring, you know tons of money on, like the billboards, the traditional mediums and you know, like I said, social media and the digital space has always been a platform that's pennies on the dollar compared to some of the other ones. So I just happened to get in the right place at the right time and be able to bring some of the talents that I had prior to being in the legal industry.
Speaker 2:And, to be clear, I mean the other forms of broadcast media can and do work. It's just that you have to be the one or two or three top spender in the marketplace to be able to get it to work. All right, so now, as an entrepreneur, talk to us a little bit about the journey where the idea forms like oh, I could maybe go and start my own business and take that entrepreneurial leap, so to speak. What was that like for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's funny because when I really thought about it as an entrepreneur when it really started, I think it's always been there with me, but I grew up a very blue collar town, youngstown, ohio, where it was just ingrained You're going to go to school, you're going to get a job, you're going to work a nine to five and that's going to be it. And I really enjoyed my time working in-house with the firms and even my time in Paris working with the company, but it was always really a dream of mine to get out there and being able to bring my vision to life. Whether it be through cinema or whatever it was, I always had a passion for creativity. So really, when I started to notice that, okay, I've got something going here is really when I started to put different things out there and getting requests. Hey, I noticed I saw you did this. Could you do this for me? Or hey, would you be able to lead this mastermind and tell us a little bit about how you did this?
Speaker 1:And I again just happened to really put all my focus on digital platforms, in particular, social media, which was just growing year by year to what it is now. So it was then I realized there's a big opportunity, there's demand and I'm passionate about it. I really love it and now's a great time and fast forward to really present day. I also had a really good friend who sadly passed at 36 from esophageal cancer. He really convinced me. I really credit him. His name was Sal Ponzio. He had really given me the boost to say you can do this, you've got the skills, you've got the talent, you've got the market, the relationships. Now's the time and I really appreciate him giving me that kick because I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
Speaker 2:So with Arrow Effect Marketing, which is the company that you founded today and, by the way, folks, we're recording this in exactly in the middle of 2024. We're going to be talking about AI here in a few minutes and probably everything we talk about will be vastly outdated in three months.
Speaker 1:But with Arrow Effect Marketing, who is your ideal client in that business? Yeah, I mean really personal injury law firms. We did start to expand a bit in other types of legal, but personal injury law firms have always been our bread and butter. We have worked in healthcare a bit and I'll explain a little bit why that is when we talk about AI and even our Gabby AI system and the reason is because of intake we saw a lot of similarities with the intake systems and processes. So they're both bad, they're both generally bad. They both have some room for improvement 100%. But yeah, the bread and butter of what I've been doing for the better half of the last decade has been personal injury specific.
Speaker 2:And is there a particular size or marketing overall marketing budget? That I talked to a guy recently and his avatar was the firm spending a million dollars a year just on digital ads. It's a part of their overall marketing budget. Do you have a budgetary ideal?
Speaker 1:That's a great question. Really, we don't. I'll tell you what we do is we just have different pillars. If their ad spend is X amount, we still can help them. We still can create them strategies, because at the end of the day, they need cases just like everyone else. And I get it.
Speaker 1:When I started my company, it was the same thing. You just have to know where to go. And the thing I love about and I know we're going to talk about AI, but even just the digital landscape, that's what we focus on. We really don't do anything else outside of digital. That's what we focus on. We really don't do anything else outside of digital.
Speaker 1:And digital really gives, I think, firms spending a little and also a lot an opportunity to level the playing field and a lot of that. One of the things I always tell the firms that we work with that maybe don't have the budget that maybe another firm does is the thing I love again about the storytelling and the creative is you could be spending as much as you want on a digital advertisement and, yes, you're sure you're going to get some results, but if you have one good creative and you're spending a little bit, but that one creative sticks or goes viral guess what it? Just organically it does the work for you. So certainly, what we do is, when those that have lower ad spends, we guide them and then our goal is we start to build them up, to get them. But we want to show them what you can do and what we can do for them and then build from there.
Speaker 2:So a big problem that perplexes lawyers, and apparently the healthcare industry as well, is hey, we can engage companies to get us leads In using whatever media there is, but leads generate then a conversion or a sales process, which is generally horrible, and anyone that doesn't think it is just go and listen to. Like your last 10 intake calls at your own office, your own well-trained team just took. Just listen to them and see if they're actually representing your voice, your brand. I guarantee you you'll be disappointed, but this is a space that you have been working to help law firms fix that lead to sales conversion process. And we'll come back and talk about AI generally if we have time, but let's talk about Gabby AI, talk about how Arrow Effect Marketing is helping lawyers solve that conversion process yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean really with with arrow effect marketing, we really got it down to science, with the ability to generate leads. We've been doing it for years and, you know, after the last, I'd say, year, I started to notice and I started going through the data with the team and while we were were converting at a good rate, I started looking a little bit closer at some of the details. I'm like, wow, you know, this is a significant injury. This is this. And I talked back with the client and say why didn't this one convert? They just really weren't sure.
Speaker 1:One thing we started to notice was response times was a common theme, and even the firms that have some of the most amazing intake systems, there's always that one that could slip through the cracks. Maybe they're so busy. All their intake is on the phone. One of the issues I know I dealt with when I was working in-house there was always inconsistencies with the intake personnel. Someone might've been great on the phones, while the other person, eh, not so much. So what I realized was I was very passionate about results for clients. That's something that we always tried to do when working and signing with the client just become. We consider ourselves growth partners, not necessarily a marketing agency, although that's what we are but we really refer to ourselves as growth partners.
Speaker 1:I realized that what if we could help with the lead intake process? And starting a call center wasn't exactly something that was something I was interested in doing, but with AI happening, I jumped to it because, while everyone else was scared and trying to figure out, this isn't something that I think can help. I really dove in and was like what can we utilize right now to help solve some of these issues? And that's where I decided to create Gabby AI so it could help with our lead gen portion to ensure that there's always speed to lead. So I know we'll jump into some of what it can do, but there's so many stats out there when I started looking.
Speaker 1:I mean facts like if you do not get back to leads within the first five minutes, your odds of converting them go down more than 80%. I mean it's insane. And I started to really look at those that were getting back to leads within 30 seconds to a minute to two minutes and how much it can decrease by the second. And it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. I mean, especially when you're injured and you're getting inundated with other competitors. Especially in today's digital age, when you land on someone's page you're going to see 10 other lawyers at. Sometimes they get confused. They don't know what's going on. It's whoever gets a hold of them first is who they're going to go with. So we wanted to make sure that we got first right of refusal for any quality lead.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things we've seen, it's not just getting a hold of them first, but it's getting them to sign your form, because what you just said is absolutely true they don't even know that they're e-signing fee agreements, and they don't even know what they're signing. They don't even know who sent it to them, and so it is a multi-step process and you're exactly right, there's this human element in there that's important has traditionally been important and it's really hard.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's one thing to talk about firms that have call centers, right, dedicated sales reps. It's really hard for the smaller marketplace that doesn't have dedicated sales reps. They have paralegals that are answering the phone in the midst of everything else. They have receptionists quote you know that are answering the phone when everything else is going on. There are still firms out there, eric, you know this that have answering machines after five o'clock Are you kidding me? And there's, and some of those answering machines are I swear to God, this is true are still answering because of COVID and like, oh my gosh, no one's even listened to the message in like three years.
Speaker 1:So so let's even listened to the message in like three years. So yeah, I was just going to say you know it's interesting because you know we use softwares where we can go in and we can listen to the calls, you know, across the board and we even have access to different data. And it's funny because we see when people hang up and I just had a conversation with another firm where they're like, why didn't they leave a voice message? And I'm like if they don't get a hold of someone that they're talking to, that they think is a person, within the first five to 10 seconds, they're hanging up. If the phone rings too much, they're hanging up and they're going somewhere else.
Speaker 2:So you're absolutely right If it gets answered and they're put on hold for two minutes. We have this is related, but not totally related I ordered something. I needed some part in it and I couldn't get it on Amazon, so I got it from the manufacturer or whatever. It took like a week. I'm like, what are you talking about? I ordered it on Amazon and it comes that afternoon or overnight or something, and so we have been spoiled in large part by what some of these big great companies can do in terms of response time.
Speaker 2:And so you call a doctor's office and they say oh well, it's lunchtime, we're closed. What the hell? What are you talking about? And it affects lawyers too. All right, so now, before we talk about Gabby A, there should be folks that are listening to this who are fairly sophisticated about AI in the legal space. There'll be those who have took one look and got afraid and ran the other way, and there'll be those, like us, that we're trying to leverage a bunch of it, particularly in the marketing space, particularly in the creation of chronologies and the evaluation of medical records, things like that. So let's talk AI in general, because you say that you then created an AI called Gabby AI and there's be a lot of people, including me, that not 100 percent sure of what that means to say you have created some sort of an engine, so walk us through that for my benefit and I'm sure others will be listening and going. Thanks for asking that question, ben.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean just starting with AI in general. I mean the thing is like to say, you're an expert in AI, yes, you could be today, but tomorrow it's going to evolve again. I mean that's the thing, that's the name of the game with this landscape. I mean it is growing and evolving so fast that, you know, I was even looking back and I did a presentation in December and some of the things I talked about there aren't even relevant anymore. That's how quickly this is growing and evolving. So, really, you know just AI in general. I mean it's only going to continue to get better, and my biggest thing is that those that are going to start to adopt it and not run from it are going to, you know, get to the finish line a lot quicker and start to perform see a lot quicker as far as results go.
Speaker 1:When it came to Gabby AI, you know what we really tried to do was take a look at, you know, the top of the line offerings out there. What were others doing? You know what were some of the bigger companies doing? What was Uber doing? You know how was Amazon connecting? We looked at everything from website chats. I mean that was something that at the beginning, like right now, like Gabby will talk about the phone conversational piece that sounds like a human.
Speaker 1:When we started with her it was just meant to really be an artificial intelligence infused web chat. That at the time when we started, which was a little over a year ago, there wasn't many out there. And you know, in the personal injury space there are many services out there that offer 24 or an actual human, you know, 24-7 intake specialists that can handle the intake. But we quickly started to evolve. When we're trying to keep up with the technology we still are. I mean, just even today we had a phone call of how we can add some things on that aren't even out there yet, but we know they're coming. So by just looking at some of the different offerings out there, we were able to kind of see where we currently were, what we could do but also get an idea of what was coming and get ahead of the curve.
Speaker 2:I love that you gave Gabby a gender, called her a her. All right, so talk to us. Let's just do this first. In terms of essential or baseline AI for legal, do you have recommendations or thoughts there?
Speaker 1:By now, summer of 2024, most law firms that have any sort of semi-sophistication with technology probably have in place what what I think at this point everyone should be or at least know of and definitely should be using a Fathom AI. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Fathom AI, but that has been a lifesaver for me, someone that's constantly on Zoom meetings. It's actually removed the fact that I've had to have some of my other team members or personnel on there to help take notes. We utilize a project manager very often when we hop on clients to see what they need, what Fathom AI can do, and it integrates with Zoom all the different video meeting softwares out there. It will actually put together the meeting notes for you, record the video and actually give you a timestamp of each thing that was mentioned different notes. So definitely, if you're not using Fathom AI at this point you got to get on the train there.
Speaker 1:But really, one of the things that I know I talked about this the last time I spoke on just AI there's a lot of tools out there where you can actually filter and look for exactly what you need. One in particular I look at is it's called futurepediaio. That's actually a free website where you can actually go through and just tell it what you're looking for and it'll give you the latest AI offering for that software and you can actually filter by free versus cost and by reviews. So that's something that I have found to be very valuable. And then, other than that, I mean I'm sure I could nerd out on this stuff all day just about the different offerings that are out there. You know, even like with sites like Shutterstock, which a lot of times, from a creative standpoint, we have to rely on stock photos, stock visuals you know a lot of existing softwares that we're used to.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people don't realize they're starting to have AI infused into it. For example, shutterstock, you don't even have to rely on the photos that were taken by a professional photographer. You can go on there and just tell it what you're looking for and it'll create it. I use a software called Runway, which is amazing. It's one of the top of the lines out there that can generate artificial intelligence videos that look real. I actually did a movie trailer just for fun and people thought it was the real commercial for a trailer for a movie and it ended up getting a good amount of views, and so I realized this is scary. I mean, even when I'm doing it I'm realizing this is just incredible the technology and where we're at, so utilizing some of those technologies right here and right now, and everyone knows about ChatGPT and what it can do, but these are things that can make your life much easier.
Speaker 2:I think everybody has heard of chatGPT. I think you may overestimate lawyers writ large when we say it knows what it can do, because, honestly, eric, you sit at some of these conferences with regular lawyers and they're like they're clueless still, whereas the rest of us are always asking, sometimes asking chat GPT, like, what can you do next? One of the things we've done here in terms of product creation and great legal marketing is trained an engine on lots and lots of hours of my voice, and so, to the extent that we have text-based product from the past, based product from the past, I can now lecture and it is shockingly, amazingly real sounding, I mean, except for the mispronunciation of a word here or there, like you wouldn't really know the difference. And so you know, we named those voice actors AI Ben, just so that people know that it's not really Ben voicing it. All right, so let's talk about Gabby AI. What exactly does it do? And is it for every PI law firm, do you think, eric?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, what I always say is this if you have an intake system and process that's working, why try to fix what's not broken right? So now, obviously, gabby AI. We really, you know, if you mentioned at the beginning, there's a lot of other firms out there that don't necessarily have the intake personnel and certainly, like when I hear, when I talk to them, like we have a perfect solution that's cost effective. But even those that have intake personnel, one of the things that we're actually working on right now is we're looking to gamify it and then add a dashboard for human intake personnel where you can actually have like a leadership board and reward your intake personnel for those that are actually seeing the most conversions and using it as a training mechanism to see. You know why is this? You know this person getting more cases driven in. Is it their script? What is it? And so we also can compare that to the artificial intelligence that's handling it.
Speaker 1:But, at its core, what Gabby AI is, it's a lead intake qualifying and automation system. So what it does, it ensures that it follows up within 30 seconds of a lead coming in. Our system can actually help qualify the lead. What's really cool. We've now infused it. So if it is qualified, it can call and sound like an actual human, I'm sure, like, as you just mentioned, when you record, you know to the snippet of your voice you have no idea that you're not talking to an actual intake personnel. But while they're on the phone, if they qualify and can actually send them a contract, send them a link to book the meeting, handle live transfers, you name it. And this is just the beginning.
Speaker 1:So we're really right now focused on what's next. That's my job as the founder and CEO of Gabby AI is to really try to look at the landscape of what else we can incorporate. So, in addition to handling phone conversations, gabby can also handle texting conversations, because we all know how people feel more comfortable using that. One of the things that has been very popular is its multilingual capabilities, so Gabby can pivot. So if someone calls. We just had a firm the other day that called us and they were in a heavy speaking Portuguese speaking market. So we created a version that can actually adapt and speak Portuguese. So it's something that, if you don't have someone in house that can speak that native language or is multilingual, gabby now can handle that both with on the phone and SMS.
Speaker 2:In the instance where it's a live caller now talking to a voice, does the live human being know? Or are they told hey, I'm Gabby the AI assisting person. Or does the human think that they're talking to a live, to a human?
Speaker 1:Yeah, typically what happens is, let's say, someone fills out a form and they fill it out, they qualify, they get a call from Gabby. Gabby just starts off typically by saying hey, I'm Gabby with this ex law firm. We noticed you just filled out this form, just wanted to verify a couple of things. We typically wait until, if they ask, are you a human, would you say we're actually a virtual assistant. But we can do everything, and a lot of times when we listen to the calls too, they love it.
Speaker 1:I was really interested to see at the beginning how many people could really tell they were talking to an AI, and one of the investments we made was in the latest speech technology out there, so there wasn't any lag when you speak to her. It was an instant response. There wasn't any interruption. It sounded like you were talking to a person. They could tell jokes, they could laugh. So that was something that we spent a lot of time on. But I was really just astounded at how many people had no idea they were talking to an AI. But in a few incidents they said, hey, are you a real person? Should just say, hey, I'm actually a virtual assistant here, and then, if they do ask to talk to a real person.
Speaker 1:We do two things. They can do a live transfer, right there to intake, or just say they're not available. I could take a message and then send a text to the on-call attorney, the intake team, via email, whatever works best. The one thing I will say that makes Gabby unique as a software it's customized for every firm because every firm has different systems, different processes, so it's not just hey, I'm Gabby, it's I'm Gabby with X firm, right Like, and she her like. One of the things that we're working on right now and I'm the onboarding process is you upload things about your firm so then when you log into your dashboard, you have access to Gabby. She's trained and you can manipulate whatever you need to, as far as the knowledge base goes, to be specific for your wants and needs for the firm.
Speaker 2:You know it's funny. I've got kids, you know, age 22 to 40. And some of them, and many other kids that age group that I know, like they hate getting on the phone for whatever reason, with a human being, like they, just they would rather go on their phone and text. Or, you know, hit one for yes, hit two for no, they like that. And so there's going to be a certain cohort of callers who are like, yay, I don't have to talk to a human being, I can talk to this computer. That's not going to make a mistake and nobody will ever ask me, you know, a hard question or something like that. So that's fascinating. Talk to us. So this is in use. Now you have customers.
Speaker 1:Yes, we do. Yes, Gabby, it's actually. You know, it's funny because we haven't really done a lot of marketing or promotion for it yet because we wanted to make sure we had the best of the best. But we actually, over the last, I'd say, three months, we've started to get some users, and I believe we're up to about 20, 25 different users right now. And what we're seeing what were things that we're measuring are conversions, and we're noticing, in some instances, 40% increase in conversions just from having that speed delete. It really is incredible to see what a difference, just in general, what speed delete can do for firms that don't necessarily have it.
Speaker 2:So I take it today for these 25 users you're covering from. In some cases, just call comes in on the phone, it's answered by Gabby, and in other cases Gabby is making an outbound call when there's a form fill or a chat or something like that. Is that right, Correct?
Speaker 1:Correct. Yeah, we have some users that want to use it just for their full-on intake. Yeah, we have some users that want to use it just for their full-on intake. When we initially created Gabby AI, we didn't really want to promote it at some point. Hey, replace your intake team with Gabby. That's because we actually created her to work in tandem with those that have intake teams, but 100% for those, as you mentioned at the beginning, that don't necessarily have those teams just yet. Gabby 100% can do the full intake, but she is meant to work in tandem with it. Be the first line of defense, do a transfer after hours or just if the phone rings after so many times.
Speaker 2:Gabby will pick up so they don't go anywhere else. Outline for me sort of the pricing model for firms that you know, maybe firm 26 to 50 in your customer base. What does that look like In chat boxes? Sometimes it's based upon total web traffic, sometimes it's based upon actual quote conversations. Some of these processes are a pain in the butt for the law firm to disclaim bad chats and stuff. What is the model? And if you want to discuss pricing like, what does that look like now? Again, folks, we're in the middle of 2024, so things can change.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I can tell you this. It starts one of the things that we always say is it starts as low as $250 a month, and that includes, you know, some of the basic components of Gabby AI, but really, right now, most of our users are about $500 a month and that gets them up to a certain amount of minutes, and I believe we get them up to 1,000 minutes per month most of our users are at, and then there's a cost per minute that go over. The only times that we really don't find Gabby to be the most useful is, let's say, especially when we got some calls from healthcare and they're saying, you know, we really don't find Gabby to be the most useful as, let's say, you know, especially when we're, you know, we got some calls from healthcare and they're saying, hey, we're getting, you know, 20,000 calls a day, or something like that. Obviously, your phone bill can get kind of pricey because there's a cost per minute right now, but other than that, it could be anywhere from $250 to $500 a month.
Speaker 2:And then just a one-time install and build, because everything we do is customized for that firm. Does Gabby so a firm that's setting us up? Do they set it up on their main number and so you can have vendors, you can have claims adjusters calling? How does that work? Are they immediately shunted then to a live person? If it's not a?
Speaker 1:prospect. It could be either or Some firms that we work with they just have a siloed number, like you would work with a tracking number, others that we could actually talk to their main phone company and they will dictate when to transfer it over to Gabby.
Speaker 2:Really, it's just once again a choice of the firm and how they want the user user dashboard behind it that firms are logging onto, and then, of course, the next question is that dashboard? The answer must be yes. Then talk to the case management system or the other intake system, whatever the firm is using.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes, in there in the dashboard you can actually go in. You can listen to the calls, see the transcripts. You can actually add into the knowledge base. You can actually test out the software right there. Right now we're working on implementing just a web-based or mobile version where you can just click a button and have a conversation just to test it out. Part is, too, you can have multiple different like chatbots One of the things, too, that I love about you know I cause we try to stay away from the term chatbot just because those you know you see so many that are just you know you click it. Let's talk to someone and says we'll get back, like fill out this form, we'll get back to you in 24 hours.
Speaker 2:It's a horrible customer experience, exactly.
Speaker 1:They're gone and I will say, in the legal industry, they do a really good job most of the time with their chatbots, from what we've seen in our research, but they're still the ones out there that either don't have them, which is a big mistake across the board, because there's a lot of stats to show. If you have them, you're going to see an increase in cases and quality leads. But the one thing, too, that we built with Gabby AI is integration with social messengers within Facebook and with Instagram. We just had an instance not too long ago where we looked at a client and said have you checked your Facebook messages lately? And they went on there and there were three cases of catastrophic injuries from a motorcycle accident. No one got back to them. They're like are you kidding me? So one of the things that we offer and there's others that do this but with Gabby AI, we ensured that she can integrate with all those different social media messengers. In addition to not just having that web-based. What we really want to do is just cover every aspect of communication. Gabby AI also has built-in automation, so it'll email them and can communicate via email as well, in addition to the phone and the SMS. So one of the things that we're really starting to get creative with.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned, we're looking ahead, I think, just in general. Besides Gabby AI, what we're going to see and what I'm starting to look at and maybe even have Gabby AI invest in, is mixing artificial intelligence with augmented reality and even some virtual reality, and, for example, there's all these things like I just saw an ad the other day for the first screenless laptop, where it's just a keyboard and you put on glasses and you see the screen. That's where we're at, and what I think is going to happen is pretty soon, here you're going to be able to put on these glasses and be connected and actually have a live conversation with an artificial intelligence that comes off as an actual human, as an actual human person. That's there 24 seven, and we're so close to being there. So I really think that's what we're going to start to see and evolve. But yeah, gabby AI right now offers the latest in that AI, and the thing is, our knowledge base is specific to legal and personal injury, and so the wider our knowledge base is, the better she's going to perform.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned earlier a minute ago about, you can go in and update your knowledge base or change your knowledge base. So talk about what sort of information is going into a firm's knowledge base with Gabby.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that we've done is you can actually take scripts, like you can actually take a recorded call from your intake and you can drag and drop that clip right in there and it'll train itself on why that was a good call, you know why that intake specialist did a good thing. You can actually script it exactly how you'd like it. Like here's when they, if they give you pushback here, if you know they get out of line, you know do X, y or Z, and the other part too is within that knowledge base and those prompts you can actually include actions. So, hey, if they mention this, send them the booking link right there. Or if they say, hey, they want to talk to this specific attorney, do a live transfer right there.
Speaker 1:The other really interesting part in what we've been doing is Gabby AI can actually integrate within most case management softwares, management softwares. So like, while she's doing the intake, she can actually take a lot of those notes and automatically populate that within the case management softwares, which saves the intake, the attorney, time from having to go and enter all those manual notes. So there's a lot of different options behind the dashboard that we're going to. We're trying to keep it clean and simple. But what do we want? To make sure we tackle everything that's attractive to an attorney.
Speaker 2:Is Gabby smart enough now, eric, to kind of do an initial evaluation of whether this caller is someone who fits my avatar client profile?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yeah, that's part of the qualifying questions and what's. You know the way I always try to and that's why we ended up calling her Gabby AI we went through a whole branding thing is because we wanted to build out a persona, Because the way it is, it's not even just a software. It's your next intake employee. That's the way we look at it. It really can do. What we want Gabby to do is do everything your best intake employee can do, but never make a mistake, Always be an A-plus player and be there as a support system, whether you have an intake team or not.
Speaker 2:You know, because I'm a marketing-focused guy, I think that software like Gabby AI will also help this way is that lawyers presume that certain that clients are talking in a certain language or using certain words and then they go out and buy keywords associated with things. I've never had a client call us and say I was looking for a truck accident lawyer. They're in a car. Truck hit them, it's a car accident to them. Truck hit them, it's a car accident to them.
Speaker 2:I think lawyers have an opportunity to really refine the marketing side when they get not just anecdotal feedback from their human intake team about what the call was about, but having software that analyzes the exact language being used and then developing scripts that are tied to ask questions like you know, what made you decide to try to call any lawyer, why did you decide to call us? And embedding that in it just seems you would get real-time and sort of almost perfect information that the software could then turn around and quote. Then talk to your marketing team or talk to your pay-per-click digital ad buyer and say this is what people are asking for. Create campaigns that answer these questions and that are attractive to people who use these words in describing car accidents or whatever the personal injury space is. Is that something that you think about as well?
Speaker 1:I'll tell you. You just gave me the idea Because, yeah, you absolutely can do that just by taking, you know, the conversations. Not only can you listen to the call recordings, but you can also get the transcripts, and you could take that and kind of start to look for common traits or themes amongst the conversations there. So, 100%, that could help you build a social strategy, Google AdWords strategy, whatever it might be like. Hey, this is a common thing. One thing that we just wrote out that's not necessarily relating to marketing, but is just that, client satisfaction. Most of the firms we work with, I will say they really put emphasis on existing client relationships. So one of the things you can do within Gabby AI is, when you set the client's birthday, upload your existing list. She'll call them on their birthday. You never have to miss it again. Happy birthday, right. Increase your referral source just by having that good client service.
Speaker 2:It's brilliant the first time. But I have a finance guy that I haven't used in 10 years but I'm still on his birthday card, stupid birthday card email list, and so I get his stupid birthday card email every year. So it would have to be like it's really cool, Like the first time, and then we have to figure out how do we make this real, you know, or sound real every time.
Speaker 2:That's a neat idea right, that's a neat idea. I mean, there's so many things you could do, because you know we have different sort of chase lists here when a lead comes in and either we can't get a hold of them or they've started one part of the process and now we're. You know, we rate them internally, like how hard and how frequently we're going to chase, and so I imagine, with Gabby and the software behind it, like you can even adjust for that, like okay, this is the case I really want and this is the kind of language we want. Or this is a case where, yeah, if I miss this one, it's fine, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. So that sounds really awesome. So is Gabby AI the main product, the only product of what you're selling?
Speaker 1:Is that your thing, correct? Yeah, so you know, obviously, on the Aerofx side, we're just strictly the marketing, digital lead generation, the growth partner, as you will, and then Gabby, ai is its own company where we just sell, know, it's its own company.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, correct, yeah, yeah, so you must have competitors in the space, or if not today, you're gonna have tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I mean it's gotta be right oh yeah, I mean here's the thing. I mean I'll say this we are at least first to the race and I don't know exactly how many have popped up since yesterday but that have focused on personal injury and really on legal. And I just had a call with someone the other day and they said, well, what's to stop me from utilizing Chad GPT and building a similar product? And I said, well, good luck, hey, good luck. Yeah, I mean, all of this, everyone can do it. But I will tell you we have, like I said, put the latest technology. We're trying to advance it every single day.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's funny, because I spend so much time talking to an artificial intelligence just to test it out that I'm starting to forget that I'm talking to AI. Sometimes I'm like this is pretty scary. So, and again, because our knowledge base is specific to the industry, you know we, you know there's not going to be as many errors, there's not going to be as many mistakes and just really everything we've built, even behind the scenes. As far as the dashboard, it's customized for you know this industry's intake process and even like when we've gotten a lot of requests from the healthcare industry, just because they have a pretty similar intake process when it comes to patients.
Speaker 1:We did make sure that HIPAA compliance was something that we really considered promoting a lot of, just because of confidentiality. We made sure we went through all the hoops just to make sure that the privacy was something that was a key component. But sure, there's a lot of technology, but I can tell you what we did was we went and grabbed the latest, infused it with our own that we built, and we're just going to only get better. As I mentioned, we're already working on I mean really the next phase. We're working on technology. Right now that's not even there. That's where we're going. So we're really excited about what the future holds.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you this, like just personal habits wise, you seem like a very smart guy and you're thinking into a space where maybe no one has been before. So how do you iterate ideas personally, and you must have a team here. I'm just curious about people who are on the sort of cutting edge of whatever it is technology or just thinking about law in particular. How does that work for you? Do you think? Is it describable?
Speaker 1:I think, you know, being around like-minded people, and I mean, for me, passion has to be a driver and, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this conversation, you know, cinema, the storytelling aspect of things, was always so important to me. It was something that I just, it just fueled passion and that led to you know, cinema, the storytelling aspect of things, was always so important to me, it was something that I just it just fueled passion and that led to, you know, guiding me to where I'm at now. When it came to AI, I just think I love the constant, you know, need to always be learning right, because it's always evolving. It's the same thing with social and digital marketing. I like the space because you know you can be an expert one day. The next you know nothing because it's all changed.
Speaker 1:So for me, it's really two things, I think, surrounding myself by like-minded people having conversations like we're having right now. But it's so funny because I know we talked a little about ChatGPT with their latest rollout 4.0. I converse with it constantly, which is very similar to the way it converses, the way Gabby does, but it's actually my note taker. I'll wake up in the middle of the night and say I had an idea. What do you think about this? And literally ideas I've gotten from 4.0,.
Speaker 1:I'm like that's actually a fantastic idea, fantastic. So I communicate with AI and like-minded folks.
Speaker 2:To keep it simple, Well, look, this has been great. And again there's a set of lawyers that are taking a peek and running the other way. And then there's the rest of us who are trying to figure out how can we free up the time and space to do our craft, which is to think intelligent about our clients' cases, and utilize things like Gabby AI and other software that's being developed in the artificial intelligence space to make everything else go faster and go smoother, really for the customer and the client experience. Eric, this has been wonderful. So people want to find out about Gabby AI. Where should they go? What do they find when they get there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you go to meetgabbycom a couple of things you'll see some demos. You'll see across the board. You know it's multilingual capabilities and you can also give her a call. Her number will be on the site. You can call her, converse with her, test her out. But if you want to see the full functionality and features, you can schedule a demo and I will actually be on most of those demos one-on-one, just because that's something I love doing, talking about it.
Speaker 2:So if you go there, those are the things you'll find, and you're still, and every call you do, you learn something too. So oh yeah, oh, we're doing it every day, absolutely all right man. Eric avesney it's gabby ai arrow marketing effect, but really I think gabby ai is the thing you want to go, and you can go to the website, find a phone number and talk to this system. That will sound like unbelievable.
Speaker 1:probably It'll sound like your next intake specialist. There's your tagline.
Speaker 2:There's your tagline your next intake. Specialist Eric, hold on for a moment. Thanks so much for your time today. That was an awesome discussion. Thank you, ben.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it. If you like what you just heard on the Renegade Lawyer podcast, you may be a perfect fit for the great legal marketing community. Thank you, ben. I appreciate it. Deliver high quality legal services coupled with top-notch customer service to clients who pay, stay and refer. Learn more at greatlegalmarketingcom. That's greatlegalmarketingcom.
