Ep. 244 – Stop Guessing. Track Everything.

What separates smart marketing from expensive marketing? Tracking. Ben Glass and patent attorney John Rizvi discuss branding, direct-response marketing, lead attribution, physical mail, podcast content, and why law firms need to know exactly where their marketing dollars are going.

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

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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.

Transcript

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Welcome And Meet John Rizby

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Here's more from the Renegade lawyer, Ben Glass. Hey everyone, this is Ben, and welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where each episode I'm interviewing someone inside or outside of legal. Today I've got a great guest, the patent professor, John Rizby. John is a uh obviously an intellectual property attorney, he runs a 16 attorney firm. We'll talk a little bit about that. But like many of us, he got interested in the world of marketing and the psychology of marketing. He's a Dan Kennedy uh aficionado, as as everyone knows as I am as well. He's written a couple of books. Um most recent is Dirty Secrets, digital marketing companies use to rip lawyers off. That'll make us some friends. And uh he's also the author of a book called If You Brand It, They Will Come, the Ultimate Guide to Building a Multi-Million Dollar Law Firm. So John is one of us. Um and, you know, John, we we we are all competing against a ton of big money. And so everything that uh the owners of and leaders of smaller firms, and your firm is still a smaller firm in the world of lawyers, everything we can do to get in that that next really great client um is is just a win. And so uh thanks for coming out some time today. John is in uh South Florida, um and we're gonna chat a little bit. So take take me back. Tell us a little bit more about like I'm curious what the firm looks like today.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

And I know you said uh I think you you you inadvertently said 16 uh lawyer law firm, but uh I'm I still consider myself a small law firm. We have 60 uh team members have so I've had to uh learn to do with small budgets and uh to take you back to the the start. I started my law firm uh with just a a laptop and a cell phone and revenue. And I attribute a lot of that to really careful uh direct response uh marketing that that I've just taken a passion to. And that's where the analytics come in. I think the key to marketing that's overlooked is is the numbers and spreadsheets and what many consider the boring parts of marketing. It's easy to think of new creative uh and and be get excited about that. But few people get excited about tracking um attribution of a lead and figuring out exactly where it comes and then calculating uh it down to dollars. So that's that's the stuff I'm passionate about. It's it's it's phenomenal to uh to get to jump on this this podcast interview with you because I know we we both share a lot of the same views on marketing. We're both disciples of Dan Kennedy and uh and his uh like

Direct Response And Why Numbers Matter

SPEAKER_00 2:54

really strict adherence to direct response.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

How did how did how and when did you find uh the world of Dan Kennedy, what we would call Planet Dan?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

So, oh my God, I I really can't remember where I first got the uh introduced to him. I do remember um him talking about like the big dumb companies and how they market, and that caught my attention. And and the example he would always use is like um I think the the Goodyear of Blimp, for example, and I I think you talk about that and say, you know, there's no way of knowing they pay a fortune to have this thing fly around and and have people look at it. And if you're Goodyear, yes, maybe you can continue doing that. If you're Coca-Cola, you can do that. But there wasn't uh a lot of there weren't a lot of people speaking to smaller companies that have and and especially law firms that have to like budget carefully, and they just can't do that kind of uh impression-based marketing where they can't track things. So that that's where I got really interested because I it just made sense. Uh and it really is the only way, I think, for a small firm to to to advertise like that and stay in business. You can you can just waste a ton of money on uh the big dumb way of marketing. And I think I carry that on to digital marketing today because there's although Dan I haven't heard him speak about the the big dumb way of marketing in digital because it's a lot easier to track attribution, but there's still a lot of agencies that are not tracking. I I think that's uh lazy in a in a way. You really have to strive to continue tracking just as well as uh as you would before.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

In in in your marketing arm, like whoever the vendor is, so that you and the vendor can have some agreement on what success will look like, how do I know that what you're telling me is true and useful? Um, and then to be able to understand, okay, hey, the the next recommendation, because in the old days, you know, I started great legal marketing, part of our mantras was that the uh the advertisers' response to everything was like you should have spent more. And you can certainly see that in in the digital space, right? There's just uh unlimited, I don't know how much of you know, in the personal injury space, a ton of competition, a ton of non-lawyer money in in the digital advertising space. You've grown up, though, in a different niche. And this is this is interesting because you're taking these principles and you're applying it to a practice area where a lot of people would say, and I think they would be wrong, well, this is a B2B thing. Like I'm marketing to companies. The reality is every company's got a human being that's making a decision someplace. So let me ask you this first. Like

Choosing A Profitable Client Niche

SPEAKER_02 5:56

today, like who is your avatar client who comes to you with a problem you can solve or an opportunity you can help them exploit? Who are you looking to be in how you know of to be interested in you and your firm?

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yeah, so there's there's really two distinct businesses. One is the patent professor, which is my law firm and uh who I'm trying to attract there, and the other is my digital marketing company for lawyers. For uh the patent professor, I'm looking for uh, and it doesn't necessarily have to be an individual inventor or a small startup, but I'm looking for a decision maker where the impact really affects their bottom line. And I started my practice or I started practicing law at a large 200-lawyer law firm in in New York City, Fish and Eve. And uh the clients there, the decision makers were really that they really didn't weren't that concerned about costs. They just wanted uh a fail-safe option so that if something goes south, their careers are safe. And that is not the client that I'm going after. Like that that's somebody that says, well, let's hire uh, you know, scadden ARPS, and if we lose the case, well, the in-house counsel chose scadden, so he did he was reasonable. Exactly. And those clients would be afraid to take a chance on the patent professor because uh uh they don't want to shift the risk to them and then they get scrutinized. So they always go for the safe firm bet. Uh I'm going for the person that's spending their own money and uh is not accountable, is not worried about their own job security. They're not gonna be fired if it goes, if something goes south, uh, but they are gonna suffer repercussions. So they they want somebody that's good, but they're not just gonna go for the safe bet. And that's how I've really exploded my practice because it turns out there's a lot more of those people inventing and creating, especially with uh with the change in technology, with AI, with the lower barriers to entry. They the the old expression of you know the the uh oh something about what Walmart was the the the something's in the masses. The riches are in the masses. The niches. The riches are in the niches. The riches are in the niches, but also going after the smaller fish because there's a lot, lot more of them. And that's really where uh where my marketing and my positioning and my branding has has really caught hold is the individual inventors and the small startups, two, three uh uh inventors that are that have a small startup, 30 person, 50 person companies that want patent protection, want to protect their brands. And the the beauty of uh of of the way I've marketed and of branding is that it's memorable. So I don't have to run my ads as often or put as much money into them because uh they will see someone will see it two or three times and the patent professor is is is uh is memorable. They'll remember it. But if you have a name, if you're branding a firm just under your law firm's name, uh once your ads stop, the leads stop coming in. And that's what one thing that uh I think a huge advantage that branding provides is that you don't have to uh uh continue your ads for as long. And another one of uh Dan Kennedy's uh uh I guess positions is that he who can afford to spend the most wins. And if you're branded well, then you're able to spend the most, but you're able to go abroad and spend a lot of money in a lot of different areas. But because your ads and your brand and your name is memorable, people associate you with that practice area, and then you end up uh getting a lot more work uh than you would from that same spend, and that allows you to spend more, which which I had a tough decision when I was thinking about my brand, uh knowing that I do I'm an intellectual property attorney, so we do trademarks, patents, and copyrights. But when I brand as the patent professor, I knew I was going to lose some trademark work, and it was a a trade-off in a sense, because yes, I may lose some trademark work, but I'm a lot more memorable uh to those patenting clients. And the patent professor is a lot catchier than the patent and trademark professor. So uh so that's what I I thought about.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Well, yeah, you know, and and the the the principle there is um, you know, so many lawyers make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people, in which case you're just showing up as average and and maybe being able to shout louder if you have a whole lot more money than your competitors, but that's not most of us. Like so most of us are looking for a way, A, to get noticed, that's marketing, so we can have a conversation, that's sales, and then delivering an experience that is so good that your clients go out and tell others about you, or other people, even if they don't come clients, they go out and tell other people about you. And so we'll come back in a minute to talk about the digital marketing agency. But I'm I'm curious about hearing more about like how you did go out and differentiate yourself because you're you are competing to some extent, maybe to the big extent, with the big law, right? And and the sort of quote unquote the sure bet, because nobody ever got fired for hiring scattered arms, right? Like you said, like if the deal goes sour, it wasn't my fault. I I hired the $1,500 an hour lawyers. Um, but talk talk to us a little bit about your journey of kind of figuring out um how do I stand out? And this is a I mean the practice area is nationwide. I don't know where your work is coming from, but one of the challenges with these sort of federalized practices is hell, the United States is a big place. And um, so I'm curious about that too. Like, have you do are you focused regionally? Did you start regionally? Um and how you know how do you decide today where to deploy the marketing uh assets for this federalized national availability of clients?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, so uh yes, patent practice is similar to immigration law, for example. Like it it really doesn't matter where somebody is, they can they can hire us. So

Designing A Client Experience People Share

SPEAKER_00 12:44

uh so my goal in all of my marketing is to uh to not really focus on on being the local attorney and focus on uh uh creating content and creating a brand that's so magnetic and so memorable that people will will pass up their local lawyers to try and and and get an appointment with with us. And I I still it it shocks me even still when I've had clients that are will come to our office and some will fly, some will drive and literally pass up hundreds of other patent attorneys on the way. And that's because uh almost a fanatical focus on just not a of course it's a better client experience, but something that's so different than they have ever experienced at any other law firm. I I, you know, maybe if we jump on uh uh at a different time where I can be mobile, I I would like to sh take you on a tour of the office, but our office is not like anybody would expect a patent law office to be like. Our walls are red. Um, we have red carpeting, like this is our firm logo or inventors walk in and all of a sudden, and these are this is and you have to know your client. Our clients are not uh you know IBM employees that are that uh have like stuffy and have rules. They're they're creative individuals, they've come up with something new. They come in and it's it's uh it's just a completely different feel. Uh and when a patent is granted, our office, when they come by the office to pick it up, we have uh a confetti cannon that will blow and it'll shoot stuff all over, we'll form a human train where we're clapping and everyone meets the client right there in the reception area. Uh it it used we used to want to surprise clients with this, and it was and it was a lot of fun. But with social media, we're finding the opposite is happening. They already know when they get their patent granted, they already know that and they're looking forward to this. So they'll call, we'll have clients come in with uh sometimes uh like a spouse, kids, family, and make an entire uh occasion of it uh of hey, I'm going to pick up my patent that's granted. Now, you know, if you're an engineer at IBM and you know, they're a in-house counsel, you don't care for that. You know, you get a patent, you're you've helped Google get their 10,000th granted patent. None of this means anything, but know your client. Our clients are this is they're they're getting the patent for financial reasons, but also it's it's their legacy. They're incredibly proud. And and when somebody has that type of experience, we we put it on social media, other clients see it, but they they just love it. They want to tell all their friends and family and anybody that will listen that they have a granted patent. Um, and they post this uh all over on social media. Hey, my patent's granted. And people see this and say, wow, these are these lawyers are different. They're clapping. Oh, and we have going back to the red, we have a big red cowbell that will ring um uh every time a client's patent gets granted. And I got that idea from um uh oh gosh, it's the big It's a Wonderful Life, the Christmas movie, where every time an angel gets its wings, uh you'll hear a bell. And I said, well, you know what? Every time a client gets a patent, uh, we're gonna ring this bell. And it's not just great for uh our clients, but what a huge boost of morale for our staff. Um and I, you know, I love analogy. So I think of at a hospital when a baby's born, there's excitement there, not just from the doctor, but the nurses and the parents. Well, a granted patent is the baby that we deliver. Like I consider myself an OBGYN. This is your baby. This is your your dream child that was at one point just in your mind, and we want to celebrate it that way. So uh when you get this patent granted, it's a huge deal. Um, and it's it's a huge deal for our team. Like people want to work someplace where they feel they're making a difference. So the happier the clients get and they show this excitement in the office, the happier the staff are, the happier the the team is. And and this kind of thing, it's it's attractive to everybody. Like my so I I talked about my daughters joining my practice. She grew up rebelling. Um, I don't want to be a patent attorney just because you're a patent attorney. Um and I said, fine, go clerk and at other places. And she did. And they don't celebrate their wins. I mean, it's just, oh, another, you know, if it's a PI firm, you know, another settlement check, and the client will come in, they'll pick up their check, or if it's whatever the practice area is, it's really hard to for somebody for for to for her to find that kind of environment anywhere else. So in a way, we're lucky. We're in a practice area where we, you know, people are excited, they're optimistic, they're happy, and when they get their patent, for many of them, it's a fulfillment of a lifelong dream uh to get this acknowledgement from the U.S. Patent Office. So we celebrate that. But yeah, I'm sorry, I don't want to take up. I could speak for hours on this. I'm just so excited about it.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Oh, this is like it's like like me, I have long answers for everything. But but there's a couple things that come from number one, like understanding the psychology of what this means to the client. And again, that would apply in every practice area. It's not just, hey, we were able to get a divorce. It's not just, hey, we're able to get you a check for your crack net. It's not just, hey, you're able to get have your invention recognized uh, you know, by the patent and trademark office. It it really is something deeper. And and when we as lawyers like understand that, that can infect and infect in a good way all of the marketing, all of the messaging. And then this loops to my second point, which is I'll bet you that a lot of the team members who come to you um to work at a patent and trademark or patent off for the patent professor, it's like it hasn't dawned on them yet, um, like this why that you have just described. And so, as a culture point, constantly reinforcing, we do this at Ben Glass Laws, like our life, our clients all are of injuries or disabilities, like their lives can be pretty miserable. And the work we do can be profoundly effective of their of their lifestyle, their life enjoyment. Um, but every all of us who are listening to this podcast, like you need to, when you when you have a team that's like what John just described, which is they understand the why behind the work that we do, you become an unbeatable force. The leader founder has to do less when the team is totally behind the mission not only of the business, but of the clients the business serves, if that makes sense. So that's that's an awesome place to be playing from. Um actually.

Follow-Up Systems Using Books And Mail

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Tell me uh sort of uh briefly, John, like um the sequence or the experience that someone has from finding you, either they got your name, but if even if they get your name, they're gonna go look at your digital stuff, or they come through one of your digital um properties. What is that a sort of lead follow-up experience? Like, I I don't even know if you have a book in the patent area or white paper or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Boy, I didn't I didn't prepare to have that book with me to show. Maybe it's on here on a shelf somewhere. But yes, we do. So I'll I'll tell you about it. It's so the first book I I wrote took me over um got 11 years to write. It's called Escaping the Gray, and it's uh it's a book uh really for inventors to to tell them about my journey from leaving the safe uh uh corporate law job uh at Fish and Eve in New York City and going out on my own and drawing kind of parallels to a lot of inventors that are taking a huge leap of faith in on their idea. So uh part of the client journey we have when they when they call our law firm, we'll get their information, maybe uh schedule uh uh a consultation, and uh we will get their address. Again, I like the surprise element of a gift. So I try whenever possible not to foreshadow that something's coming. So we don't tell them that we're mailing them a free copy of this book, uh, although I've considered it because the the buying cycle is getting shorter and shorter for prospective clients. So we try to get this book out as soon as possible. But I know that there may be some that end up hiring a patent attorney that's not us before our book arrives. So I've been tempted to say, you know, we're we're mailing a book, but then we've held back because the I I just think the surprise of all of a sudden they go to their mailbox and they see a book, it's it's it's really Really nice. It's um we we send them out in hardcover, uh a thick book, Escaping the Great. It's exactly what they're doing. And based and after they get that, uh they're put on a uh mailing list for a monthly newsletter. And I've resisted, you know, I'm I've cut, you know, the there's a book called like the revenge of analog, right? Like I've resisted everything digital. So our newsletter is a beautiful print newsletter that arrives in the mail and it gets open and it gets viewed, and people look forward to it. So that there are is a sequence of 27 different things that go out to a prospective client after they sign up. So it's a newsletter, it's the book, uh, another newsletter, and then there's um uh postcards that will go out. It's all designed to keep us top of mind. And we spend, you know, it's we spend $152 a uh per appointment to get an appointment scheduled. So once they've scheduled an appointment or at least called in and we've gotten their address, uh I've resisted the urge to to it it's always tempting. Like, gosh, all this postage and costs of like why can't I just send my booking will turn into a PDF and I can send it as a download, I can turn it into a video. And I always have to remind myself, you know what, you're already $152 in. Don't cut back on the $16 book. And I've resisted that. And the reason I can do that is because we carefully track the ROI. And anytime I'm tempted, I go and look at the spreadsheets and I'm like, you know what? Keep spending on physical copies because I'm a huge believer of uh of differentiating yourself with physical and digital and have them both continue.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

You're probably having to beat back the young marketing parts of your team if you have them who want to do everything digital. And I'm I'm constantly in that lovingly battle myself here with like, no, we're gonna keep mailing stuff. Lots of newsletters, lots of referral letters, lots of books, like, because nobody else is doing it, right? Um no other patent law firm that they contacted is sending them a book in the physical mail shortly after the contact is made and the case is signed up. Uh so it's a huge differentiator. Um, so and again, very typical Kennedy style, a lot of follow-up steps. It's all worth it. You have to know the value, uh both the lifetime value and the and the instant transaction value of every new case. Um let me ask you about

Building A Podcast Studio For Lawyers

SPEAKER_02 24:47

this. I'm curious now about the digital marketing agency, right? Because you got this fine practice, um, obviously smart on marketing, differentiating, got a cool you you live in a cool part of the country. Um, what were you solving for in your life uh by starting and when did you start a digital marketing agency?

SPEAKER_00 25:07

So uh I've been helping lawyers uh, I guess informally, probably for about five years, like friends and others that would that have seen my growth. And but the real uh impetus for the agency, in a sense, was uh was tied to a second company. So I have the digital marketing agency, Law from Growth Professor, and then Growth Professor Studios, which is a podcast and content creation studio that really uh developed because I had I I owned the building we're in, and after the pandemic, a lot of like a lot of other businesses, they they went uh virtual or remote. So we ended up having space available, uh, so 2,500 square feet in on our floor, and we in the meantime immediately we got another tenant, but then I was saying, when this tenant leaves, I'm going to turn that space into a studio and start uh doing podcasts there and recording content. And I did. And then what I found, it there's something I'm I could talk about podcast, and we are we're on a podcast, uh, so so you realize this. No matter how good content I design and I script and I plan, there's stuff that comes out uh spontaneously when you're just having a conversation that is just so real, it's authentic, and you can't plan it. It's just and and people and it's believable and it's it it works unlike anything I've seen. So uh what I offer started offering to the lawyers is if they want to come on and just speak with me about their practice area. And I won't just ask about the normal questions like, you know, what do you do? Where'd you go to school? But something like maybe something in the news that's that's trending right then. If it's it's uh if it's an immigration attorney, I might speak about uh because of the part of the country we're in, alligator Alcatraz, the the detention center in the Everglades. And all of a sudden, uh you can't script, it's hard to script genuine anger or genuine passion in an interview. But you bring up a question, and then all of a sudden you have this lawyer, and you can tell their face changes, their demeanor changes, and they talk about maybe there's one that uh like if they they've visited or seen it, they'll talk about the conditions there. And wow, it's just for it's it gives a glimpse of how strongly this uh how strong of an opinion this lawyer has, and how pro um uh if I was if they someone's an immigrant says, you know what, I want that guy representing me or that girl representing me because uh because they they they can tell that they believe what they're saying. And there's no uh like there's there's no substitute for that. I saw um, gosh, the name escapes me, but the the lawyer that represented um uh Johnny Depp in uh in his trial. I I heard her speak, and there's no uh and it was in it, and there's absolutely no doubt that she believed that he was not guilty of the things that that uh Amber Heard had accused him of. There's no no no wonder that he won because when she spoke, it was it was genuine and it was uh authentic and it looks like it's uh it's it's really believable. And I remember reading years ago about, I don't know if you've heard about like micro expressions uh on a person's face. And they would tell you in law school to to pick cases that you believe in because people can tell that you believe in them. And like, how can they tell? And the study that I had read, they talked about slowing down video uh but to an incredibly slow level. And say if you're in an office and somebody walks in and says, you know, hey, do you have a minute to speak? You might say, Yes, come on in, but for a tiny microsecond, you're gonna have a maybe a frown. And uh the person consciously won't pick up on that. The video, when you super slow it down, will catch that, and then you know, you know you're unwelcome. And you can try to tie that to why are you unwelcome? They said come on in, they said they have time, but uh subconsciously you picked up on that tiny microfacial expression uh in that instant of time. And that only happens when you have live, that's let's live human reaction to something. So if you ask a question, I can't help it. Like if it's something that I'm that I'm upset about, my face is gonna reveal that. The viewers would be able to witness that. Uh, but if it's a script and I'm reading off a teleprompter, or even if it's something that I believe, but if I've practiced it or said it a couple times, that emotion's gone. The beauty of a podcast is you don't know, I have no idea what you're gonna ask. You have no idea what I'm gonna say, and something I say is gonna get a reaction from you, and and vice versa. Uh and now I've also heard lawyers say, well, nobody listens to podcasts anymore, or they're too long. No one has that kind of time. Well, you only need those small 30, 45 seconds of brilliance in a half hour podcast, the stuff that's the soundbite, so to speak. And those are the things that uh that that are memorable, and those are the things that are that are golden. Um and so when I pick up on those, and I can when I'm looking at creating ads for lawyers, it provides me the ability to get the content and do the advertising, which like no other agency does. They they they either ask the lawyer to send them videos or content, uh, and that's the hardest part, or ask them to hold up a cell phone and and and create something. It looks scripted, it looks fake, but I would rather have the lawyer come in, or with podcasts like you're in Washington, D.C., I'm in South Florida, we still have a conversation. They don't even have to be come to our studio, but we have this podcast. I ask questions about their practice and their and and just normal curiosity in that process, something comes up, they say something, and I'll and I'll capture that, and that will be the stuff that'll make it onto their website or on their ads.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

So, and and that's um are you creating websites too, or this is after the you are creating websites? Yep. Um everything. And so how how long have you been running the uh did this arise uh since the pandemic? The digital marketing agency?

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Uh well I would say about three years. So um the uh the during the pandemic was the the first initially the initial basically I feel like the patent professor is the laboratory for everything that it gets tested, and then when I when I figured it out, then it gets uh over to the law firm growth professor. So initially after the pandemic, uh I had purchased our building in um like in uh well what was in in December of um before the pandemic, and three months later the entire world shut down. Uh the patent lawyers, if anyone's gonna be seen as non-essential, I think maybe be considered a patent lawyer. So my entire staff went remote. I was in here, so I had time to and plenty of space. And that's when I started experimenting with uh with content creation myself. And it was just a a beautiful, I guess, combination of factors. Like number one, being able to create that content and get it out there. Uh, but for the first time, uh inventors that never would consider a non-local patent attorney or a non-local service provider, they were forced to because even their local patent attorney was not meeting them in person. And for a lot of inventors, then I think in their mind, they're like, well, if I'm gonna speak to somebody through a screen anyway, let me give the patent professor a shot. And we really uh capitalized on that. And as more and more people became comfortable with Zoom, uh, it just became easier to overcome the we're not local uh objection, which we were getting before a lot more before the pandemic.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

COVID taught the legal profession a lot. It did.

Digital Marketing Dirty Secrets And ROI

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Uh talk to me about your book, Dirty Secrets Digital Marketing Companies Use to Rip Lawyers Off. That is your latest book. Yes. Uh I could probably guess what inspired it, but talk to us a little bit about uh, John, what we would find in the book and how we can use that in our own conversations, either with a digital marketing company like yours or with any, you know, any other company that's out there.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

So there's a lot of uh uh the and and you know the toughest uh secrets, I guess, to rip lawyers off, the toughest things to decipher is when things are half true, right? Those are if something's blatantly false, it's easy to catch. And if it's true, it's true. But what do you do with those statements that are a little more ambiguous? And I'll give you an example of that. Um when you're doing search engine optimization, uh it in a sense, it does go against uh all of Dan Kennedy's teachings of like direct attribution in a lot of in a lot of ways. Because what the digital marketing agencies will tell you is the the analogy they use is really powerful. And they said, you know, when you start an SEO campaign, it's like turning on the faucet with a garden hose attached, a long garden hose, uh, and they keep you spending uh in hopes that and eventually water is gonna come out the other side. And when it's not, and you're not getting leads and you're not seeing any difference in in the amount of money you're making, it's tempting to turn it off. And just when you go to turn it off, they're like, well, it would be a real waste because all the water that's in there is just gonna stay in there and not come out the other side if you turn it off now. And because of that, you're strung along for a really long time. Uh so my way of kind of countering that, and that's the stuff going back to your question, like that's I I think a dirty secret, because if they would tell you up front that it not only is going to take a long time, but there isn't that they there really isn't any guarantee that what they're going to do is end up providing a positive return, uh that's the part that bothered me. And I find that in almost rampant in any of the marketing that uh I have purchased from other agencies. What we do different is uh for is we have an audit that will go in, we'll do a deep dive of a lawyer's spending, where they're uh uh getting their leads, what their ROI is. And a lot of people are offering audits and they're offering a free audit, which many of them are just a disguised sales pitch, right? Let us audit your website. We get those every day. The difference in my audit is it's expensive because we really do a deep dive. So it's it's a minimum of $10,000, often $20,000 uh for this audit. But what separates it is that after nine, after 30 days, the audit's complete, and now I come up with um recommendations and suggestions on how they can improve their marketing. So you you might say, great, what's again the burdens on me, uh, but it's not. So once I provide those recommendations, I will implement those recommendations uh for the next 60 days. And our guarantee is at the end of that of 90 days from when we start, they will get three times their audit um fee back, minus like in addition to all of their ad spend. So that I haven't found a single digital marketing agency in the country offering that uh because they all tie it to, well, you have so and that doesn't mean so we do we we do SEO, but you have to counter the SEO with PPC, with paid uh advertising, because now it's my neck on the line. If I so what happens if I don't get them three times their audit fee back within 90 days? Uh what I will do is continue their marketing at zero cost, and eventually it's gonna be their return is gonna be three times what they've paid. So that kind of uh offer requires like almost a fanatical amount of uh detailed attribution on spend because I'm now not telling them you pay me $4,000 a month or $3,000 a month and you continue uh indefinitely and we're gonna turn on the water hose and please don't turn it off because the water like none of that. It's like, hey, you give me $10,000, let me jump in. Uh founder of a law firm that's grown his own law firm, and I'll give every strategy, every tactic, everything I have that your 10 will become 30. And the goal is to do it within 90 days. If we don't make it in 90 days, then you don't pay another cent. We continue until uh we figure out where the the soft spots are in your marketing that we need to solidify and get that return to you. So I'm excited. That's that's this is uh something that has taken me 25 years to perfect. And now that my law firm's at a place where I have uh a management team in place, a uh a CMO, uh a COO running somebody in charge of intake, and like all of that's taken care of. My daughter's here as an attorney in the firm, and I can now uh pursue this passion of uh of helping other lawyers not make the mistakes that I've made over 25 years.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

John, that that's great. And you know, there's not many uh marketers or agencies or digital marketers who have the legal experience and the real, you know, on the ground blood, sweat, and tears that it takes to build a law firm, have never sat in front of a client to explain anything, have never had a client be mad at them. Um and so you're in that you're in that rare breed. Uh look, this has been great.

Where To Find John And His Brands

SPEAKER_02 40:09

If folks want to reach out to you either to find out more about the patent professor or uh to find out more about the digital marketing and that really interesting and unique offer that you have for them, where should they go and look?

SPEAKER_00 40:24

So the uh the patent professor is my law firm, so the patentprofessor.com. That's our handle everywhere. Uh the studio, if anyone's interested, if they're in South Florida and they want to come to a real studio to record content is Growth Professor Studios. And again, I love branding, so Growth Professor Studios is short for GPS. Uh, so your roadmap to higher revenue and growth is GPS, growthprofessorstudios.com. And then finally, the law firm Growth Professor is the digital marketing agency. So the common thread to all three is professor. Uh and to go back, uh, I am, you know, I started early in my career as uh as I was practicing as an attorney, I became an adjunct professor at NOBA Law School, and I taught patent law. And initially I was just known as the patent professor, and that's that's where I started thinking, you know, that would be a cool brand uh for my law firm. And that's how I I started focusing on the patent professor. Unfortunately, I'm I'm I'm now kind of the if there's one regret is that I I really love trademark work and I know we're losing a lot of trademark work because of this brand. So that's that's uh you know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

On the other hand, your daughter can pick it that up uh and take the trademark professor and and run with it because you've laid out the model for her.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

That that is that's that's in that that is something we've considered. But um, you know, what we don't know is how much more patent work we have because we have focused on patent work, you know. So Yeah, the grass is always always looks greener on the other side, right? You always think about the the fish that got away is always like this big, right? Like, oh man, if I would have just pulled that one into the boat, it would have been a record breaker. That's just human nature, the one that got away. So, you know, that's part of me going, gosh, a lot more people have brands than ideas. What if I branded as the trademark tutor or the trademark teacher instead of the patent professor really focused in on that?

SPEAKER_02 42:26

But you're right, there's no um But this coming from a dude who's got a great practice in South Florida and a very nice office and a couple of businesses and a and a and a whole big team working for him. So nobody's crying about your big fish that you missed. Um, but it's a great place to be. Look, at the end of the day, what we want, I think all of us who are listening to this, you want to be able to live a thriving life where you're doing work you like, with people you like, for people you like, making good money doing it, and still having time for other endeavors. And that comes from EOS Life. Um, and so, John, look, this has been uh terrific. Thank you for your time today. Uh, it was really good to meet you, and I'm glad we were finally able to get together to record this.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Thank you.

Closing Message And Subscribe

SPEAKER_01 43:09

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