Booking More Clients: Breaking the Price Shopper Paradigm

Allison Williams: [00:00:15] All right, welcome, Jan Roos to the Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast.

 

Jan Roos: [00:00:20] Thanks, Allison. Glad to be here.

 

Allison Williams: [00:00:23] Yeah. So I’m really excited about your topic. We’re talking about breaking the price shopper paradigm, which I think is something that a lot of solo and small law firm owners really, really need help with because for both the people that I serve in the community and as well as people that are my private coaching clients, we see this a lot that they really just don’t know how to get away from those people that call up and say, I just want to know what you’re gonna charge me. I just want the punch line so I can decide if you’re worth it. And people spit out prices on the phone or via email and then the person runs away. The person who otherwise might have gotten to that place if they had had the right kind of conversation. So let’s first start with, what is the issue with the way that things are done today when it comes to pricing in the legal industry?

 

Jan Roos: [00:01:12] Right.There’s a couple of different ways to look at this topic. It’s been kind of interesting to see things evolve over the last five years or so. And I would say the biggest change is that we’re seeing people that are increasingly coming online to find their thing, to find an attorney. And, you know, if you think about things even 10 years ago, it was more likely that somebody would go from a referral or go to the Yellow Pages or something like that than today. So if you fast forward to 2020, we’ve got this kind of Amazonified customer more or less.

 

Jan Roos: [00:01:42] So we’re used to looking at a ton of options. We’re used to price shopping. We’re used to looking at different reviews and that kind of stuff. And it’s really less about what attorneys have been doing or not doing and more about what’s been happening and how people are finding. So another big thing that’s come up and I’m sure this is something everyone’s familiar with is just these, the increasing prevalence of these directories. So whether it’s ABO, whether it’s Justia, you know, you name it, basically it’s it’s a lot harder to be a price leader when you’re essentially being presented as a commodity.

 

Jan Roos: [00:02:18] And if you just want to go to your hometown on ABO or even do this on Google, just type in the practicer that you have and attorney and you know, there’s there’s ability to write good copy. There’s ability to have a really good SEO ranking. But, you know, even if you have the best ads guy in the world, even if you have the best SEO guy in the world, you’re one of probably 20 results on a given page. So in some ways, it’s like, you know, what’s know, it’s on. It’s not surprising that people are price shopping because they’re price shopping, everything else. So I think really the challenge and you know, there’s a lot to unpack here, but the challenge is how can we really break that paradigm? Because it’s yeah, it’s either, you know, we have to figure out how to break that paradigm or, we’re kind of starting from a deficit in trying to make sure that we can do something with the people that are going to find you in that way.

 

Allison Williams: [00:03:06] Yeah. So, you know, it’s interesting you say that, the idea of how people are finding information now because it’s changed even just you know, if we think about how we used to find information even five years ago. You know, you would search for a different term. But now the way that Google allows things to be found by local or allows the way that they index web pages is really changed to the point where people are in a constant state of trying to alter what they say, how they say it, how many words, how, you know, how much new content. Can you speak to us a little bit about how that alteration in the way that information is actually indexed on Google and found by search engines is affecting the way that we’re creating legal marketing content?

 

Jan Roos: [00:03:49] Yeah, so that’s pretty interesting. You know, there’s another thing to it. And we see this because we do quite a bit of advertising for our clients on Google AdWords. And one of the things that that always comes up is, is what are the best keywords to get after?

 

Jan Roos: [00:04:01] And without a doubt, the highest volume keywords are always the most generic. You’re going to have more people in a given area that are searching for the term personal injury lawyer than you’re going to have searching for, you know, traumatic brain injury lawyer or one of those things that will probably be higher value. So and that’s the thing is you get into this weird place where a lot of the pay per click or SEO best practices are actually kind of managing for this whole volume thing. But the thing is that, you know, you can be like I like I said, it’s like, you know, when you’re managing for that, you’re managing for a specific kind of person that you might not have expected to get. So a lot of the times it’s kind of weird because, you know, we’ve got this thing. It’s like, you know, lose my train of thought here. We…

 

Jan Roos: [00:04:49] So far, yes, as far as the indexing goes, it’s, you know, when we’re when we’re managing it, and this is even at a point where we’re talking about things like content. So when people are saying, oh, like, you know, you need to have this keyword appear as many times as you can, in a certain thing. So if you’re having personal injury. key or like a personal injury lawyer showing up 50 times in the paragraph, it’s completely illegible to anyone who’s trying to read, but it’s great for Google. And again, this is kind of an oversimplification and you know that we’ve passed the era or that happened a lot, but you know, that’s that sort of thing. But now we’re kind of having a now a a more of a meta thing where, yes, you can you can win for Google in a way that actually makes sense to people. But what kind of people are you bringing? On the flip side, one of the strategies that I’ve actually seen pretty well and we’ll kind of dig into this a little bit better. I’m sorry, a little bit later. Is that, basically we have this kind of different approach, which is going niche, but going in sort of a content way. And I actually saw, I’ve seen this in different practice areas for years, and I’ll give a kind of a fun example.

 

Jan Roos: [00:05:47] So I used to work with, this is way back in the day, back when I used to actually to be in Iowa. I was a solo consultant. So there is this guy and he was just a fantastic personality. He was an appeals lawyer. So basically, he never showed up to court. He would just basically spend all day in his office writing briefs. So this guy was a content machine. And his his best clients were people who were in, you know, in jail for some pretty highfalutin crimes for the most part. These guys would just be showing out like researching old law books in the prison library and Googling the stuff afterwards. So he would write all of these all these articles that were super rich and super helpful on on just like weird constitutional law stuff like habeas corpus and whatnot. And then because it was so specific, he was the only person to show up on it. But again, this is kind of the difference because this shows up. He was showing up on Google in a way that other people weren’t. So it wasn’t he wasn’t the only person who was showing up for, you know, New York appeals attorney. But he was you know, my person was showing up for a habeas corpus attorney. So we don’t have price shoppers for him because he’s effectively a monopoly in a way that he does content.

 

Allison Williams: [00:06:54] Wow, that is really clever.

 

Jan Roos: [00:06:58] Yeah. He was a super smart guy. I didn’t mean honestly to be fully transparent. I did not suggest this strategy. I merely bore witness. And it was just super impressive how this guy had had had found it, which was cool. But it really it really kind of makes you think. It’s like.

 

Jan Roos: [00:07:12] So I guess the big question is, is what you’re doing putting you at the top of of of a list attorneys? And, you know, it’s obviously better to be on the top of that list or in the bottom list, or is it putting you in a different category?

 

Allison Williams: [00:07:25] Wow. Wow. And you know, that’s an interesting frame to put around it because I think a lot of times people really think I just have to keep hustling to get myself as much traction as possible. But the problem is, the smaller the company you are, you really can’t buy your attraction the way that larger companies can. And so what I often advise my clients to do in terms of getting to the right person is creating the message that really resonates with them by having that avatar that really fits. So who is it that you’re serving? How well are you serving them? What’s unique about you that connects with them so that they see you as the only choice, not one of a multitude of decent choices that you have? You know, a lottery on as to whether or not you’re going to get picked on a given day.

 

Jan Roos: [00:08:05] Yeah. And it’s interesting, too, because like you, we’re talking about a customer Avatar, a lot of the times when you talk about this stuff, like there’s there’s ah, there’s your general case for almost any form of law which happens to be the highest volume stuff.

 

Jan Roos: [00:08:17] It’s like, you know, you talk to a personal injury attorney. OK. Car accidents. That’s probably pretty common. If you’re talking to a trust and estate’s attorney. A retirement age couple is looking to get their home or new parents who just bought a home. Like those are specific things. But even within that super generic case, if you go out and brand yourself as, hey, I help retirement age couples protect their assets, you know, that’s not really narrowing down the field a lot. Anyone that’s an attorney would know that. But you know, to the person who is, to the person who is just putting that out there. It’s it’s it’s a world of difference. And I actually have another kind of funny story about this. So this was actually a friend of mine. So I went to school in Canada. I have a lot of friends who are Canadian. And one of my friends ended up getting married there. Their American boyfriend. And she’s looking for, she had one of the situations where she got flagged. And she was, this is an immigration issue. So she was she didn’t pull down for this Stokes interview, Do you know what the Stokes interview is?

 

Allison Williams: [00:09:16] I do. But for those that are listening, that might not.

 

Jan Roos: [00:09:19] Yeah. So I’ve described it as it’s like that, that old 60s game show, The Dating Game, where you ask the different people different questions and if the answers don’t match up. Instead of losing the game, you get deported. So she was freaking out over this and so is her boyfriend.

 

Jan Roos: [00:09:35] But basically, the situation was to search Stokes interview attorney. And so to any immigration attorney, this is a perfectly standard, perfectly standard practice that anyone will be able to do and able to do well. There’s not much of a difference from the best, you know, Stokes interview prep and the worst. However, she ended up hiring somebody who had an article on business or was going after the keywords. Stokes interview attorney. That could’ve been the worst immigration attorney in New York City. But it doesn’t matter because they were branding themselves correctly and then they were a Category 1 because people really want to. And this is the thing.

 

Jan Roos: [00:10:09] Even if you you can see this from the perspective of knowing your practice in depth to the person out looking on the outside. Their situation is very, very unique. And having the context and the expertise to help that person to help you out specifically is, goes a really, really long way in terms of in terms of actually winning the business.

 

Allison Williams: [00:10:32] Yeah. So I think that’s a perfect illustration exactly of what I guess what we could refer to. It’s kind of niching the normal. Right?

 

Jan Roos: [00:10:39] Right.

 

Allison Williams: [00:10:40] And I think a lot of people don’t understand the power of calling yourself associated with the one, because a lot of us say, I’m going to cut off my supply to the other. But the reality is you’re gonna multiply your reach for the one, and that can be much more effective in terms of getting yourself a lot of business. So let’s shift a little bit now and talk about the dynamics of the way that things are being done today, like what’s kind of fueling the way that we have gotten to this place of blitzing ourselves everywhere so that we can get a little piece of recognition by the marketplace to try to get ourselves clients.

 

Jan Roos: [00:11:14] Yes, it’s really interesting.

 

Jan Roos: [00:11:15] Like one of the big changes that we’ve made on the agency side is getting a lot more details. So we’ve basically taken a pretty big stance on helping people out with intake. And with that comes a lot more metrics than we were ever used to having. So and if any of you guys work with a marketing agency you’re probably familiar with, they’re talking about stuff like here’s your total spend, here’s the amount of leads that you had. Here’s your cost per lead. But the real insight for us over the last couple of years is, you know, what’s the difference between leads and signed retainers? And that’s kind of that’s kind of what really switched us on to this kind of stuff. So the thing is basically the legal marketing as far as, you know, as far as I’m concerned and since since the very beginning, like you, you had to convince people in 2005 that there is this thing called Google. And if you’re in front of it, then you’re the first person there that you be the person that wins. And, you know, that’s that’s not something you know, that’s it’s almost taken as a given.

 

Jan Roos: [00:12:11] Any single person who’s who’s, you know, passing the bar today knows that that’s that’s the case. And that’s the reason why it’s it’s no longer easy to do that and no longer resource effective to do that in most instances. So but that’s the thing we’re basically… The entire legal marketing industry has been really geared towards search. And if you think about it, it’s not materially different for somebody getting to you from pay per click advertising on Google, whether it’s basically advertising on something like Bing, whether it’s an organic search or whether they’re going to one of these, one of these directories like ABO or Justia. So the real thing is that, you know, it’s we’re all we’ve basically all been trained because this was easy at some point. But we’re still kind of coasting off of the idea that this is something that people can get ahead on. But it’s all really based on on waiting till the last minute for something. So I’m a huge fan. My favorite book on marketing ever, and if anyone is a geek and wants to get better, it is like really invested in understanding the stuff. It’s a book that was written in the 70s by a guy named Eugene Schwartz. It is called Breakthrough Advertising. So I’ve actually recorded multiple upsets on my podcast. I can’t get enough of this book, but it’s really one of those perennial classics because he was a person who really understood human psychology.

 

Jan Roos: [00:13:31] So one of the things and the reason why he was so effective, and this guy literally was such such an effective copywriter that he owns, you know, so much art that this guy’s personal art collection fills up entire wings in New York City. This guy made a lot of money leveraging the stuff. And a lot of the most successful marketers I know are fans of him because they’ve been able to do similar things. But basically from from a human perspective, basically he realized that there’s there’s differences with how you’re going to write messaging to communicate with people based on where they’re at in the customer journey. So then the other thing, too, and this is, you know, this is kind of one of things I think doesn’t get discussed that much, is that there’s also kind of a place that different channels affect in the journey. So if you think about it, whether it’s a personal injury lawyer or an estate planning attorney, I’ll use estate planning attorneys because we’ve been doing a lot of work in that space. But if you wait, if somebody is typing in estate planning attorney New York and whether they click on ABO, whether they click on an ad, whether they click on the SEO listing, they have already made the decision to hire an estate planning attorney. So what’s left at that point except to choose the one that fits you the best? And you know, that could be by having a really good branding play and you could be the person that searches out.

 

Jan Roos: [00:14:47] However, you know, you’re probably going to show up for the generic search. And fortunately or what’s the best thing to do is just to just to price shop or call three people and ask them that same annoying question that everyone that’s listening to this has been on the other side of. And then just go for the person that they think is going to do the best for the best value. Right? So on the flip side, there’s also if you think about the whole thing, we’re only seeing, and this is you know, if you’re following the standard legal marketing paradigm that’s based on search, you’re only ever seeing that person. So one of the other things that Eugene Schwartz was talking about is that there’s this level of awareness. So you go from somebody who’s totally unaware and estate planning is a great a great example for this. So people will know that when they turn 18, they became a legal adult. There was a need to get a will in place. Do people know this? Some people do. Some people don’t. Then you become aware that there’s a problem. OK, cool.

 

Jan Roos: [00:15:39] You know, I’m aware that I have assets. And if something were to happen to me, to make sure that they’re passed on to somebody. So then you’re becoming problem aware. Then you become solution aware? So whether you know, based on where you are in life, you need to submit a power of attorney or you need a will or you need the whole trust and estate’s package and become aware of the solution. And then you become provider aware. And that’s when you end up searching for a specific attorney. And then finally, you’re most aware when you’re ready to make that decision. So here’s the thing. The, if you think about this whole thing in any given time, there’s this entire market and your market for the estate planning for estate planning nationwide is every adult in the country. And the portion of that that’s unaware is much, much, much, much larger than the kind of people who are searching for estate planning attorney on a given day. Right? So and this is one of the things that Schwartz said was that the higher up you go in the funnel as opposed to like the least aware stuff, the more clever you have to be, the more, it’s more skill required from a copywriting perspective, because, you know, it’s not really hard to write Google ads.

 

Jan Roos: [00:16:41] And I say this out of my own interest. As somebody who’s done a lot of Google advertising in life. The best, you know, the best headline that you can have for estate planning attorney is great estate planning attorney. Call us now!

 

Jan Roos: [00:16:55] That’s that’s, it’s really not, really that tough. But to be able to talk to somebody’s unspoken needs and go out there and you’ll be the person that convinces somebody to take the first step. It requires a little bit more craft. But again, this is something that can be developed by knowing your market. And honestly, if you’re at the point where even a couple of years of practice, regardless of what that practice area is, you’re probably going to be up there with some of the better copywriters out there. But if you’re the person you can, you can say, hey, all right, instead of waiting until someone says, hey. I need a trust to protect my home. I’m typing in estate planning attorney in New York. If you’re the person who goes out, says, Hey, homeowners. Did you realize that there are special protections in place if you have the right documents according to New York state law. So and then, you know, making an offer based on that. Now, all of a sudden, you’re you’re talking to the unaware market or the people who are just, that are, that are just just solution aware. And then if you’re the person to set that up and you, and this is the very, very important caveat. If you can get them to take next step and then have a continuous chain of getting that person closer, whether that takes weeks, whether that takes years, if you do stuff like, you know, marketing. If you’re the person who takes them all the way through, then you’re gonna be in the category one because you’re the person who’s been in their inbox. You’re the person who brought this to their mind. You’re the person who’s been investing all this time and developing that warm, fuzzy feeling from your expertise.

 

Jan Roos: [00:18:20] So by the time he gets the point, even if they get to your office and they say, OK, they have the consultation and they leave, then looks other people up, they’re not gonna have any context for those people. So and not that I recommend letting people out of your office, but in theory, no you have. You just have such an advantage that you wouldn’t have just by being the next estate planning attorney on Google. Yeah. So basically what you’re doing is you are becoming the education source for the client and then you are cultivating a relationship with that client through every step of their process of getting closer to the decision of making the purchase.

 

Jan Roos: [00:18:54] Exactly. And then, you know, if you do that correctly, then you’re in a category of one. You’re not in a category of one hundred.

 

Allison Williams: [00:19:00] Yes. So therein lies the caveat, if you do it correctly.

 

Jan Roos: [00:19:03] Exactly.

 

Allison Williams: [00:19:04] Right? Because I think what a lot of people think they they’ll do is they’ll post a video that says, hey, this is what you need to know about divorce 101, estate planning 101, residential real estate 101. And then they leave it out there. And then there’s no nurturing. So they just hope that that person sees that communication and then hopes that if they walk into the door, that they are more likely price to buy. But there’s a lot in between.

 

Jan Roos: [00:19:28] Yeah. Hundred percent. I think that’s kind of one of those. Yeah. There’s there’s definitely there’s different ways to do it. So like I kind of consider everything’s on a spectrum.

 

Jan Roos: [00:19:36] Right? So if you’re just the hardcore, spend a million dollars on Google, have the world’s best intake person closing, every single person walks in the door, then you’re like a hundred percent transactional side of the spectrum. On the other side, you’ve got the you know, if if if I build it, they will come. Put a bunch of content out there. Educate the market, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, that’s the thing. It also it also works to some extent. But really, you know, you have to kind of strike a balance. And I kind of consider things like there’s there’s sort of the the yin and yang of the you know, the education versus taking the next step kind of boils down to this concept. And this is another thing that’s sort of an old school marketing concept that Eugene Schwartz is a big thing was of direct response marketing.

 

Jan Roos: [00:20:17] So I think the biggest the biggest gap that I see for most of is we’re looking at or talking to reach out to us, that kind of thing. Are people that put out content without having a next step. So that’s the thing. It’s you know, if you want to educate a market, you’re absolutely entitled to have somebody have the next step. Right? So, you know, maybe, you know, if you’re putting out the content on real estate 101, maybe you have the next thing, which is, hey, you know, we’ve got a guy that you can use if you’re looking to invest in commercial properties is what you have to know. These are the things that the mistakes to have to know. But, hey, make them give up their e-mail for that. Or, you know, it’s a really simple example. If you want to have the best stuff and you want to talk to me directly, as you know, as an attorney, then, you know, you have to schedule consultation. Come to my office. Right? You always have to weigh out what? And there’s a little bit of calibration in place. But like the worst thing I see is like, you know, you have to have, you know, under that YouTube video, make the card where people can sign up to find out more. Push people to like and subscribe. You know, if if you have the link to your mailing list in the in the description, like make sure that people have the right next step because, you know, there’s, there’s ways to get massive traffic. But like it’s kind of this interesting paradigm, too, because you can also see where where people’s background comes from. So, you know, we always we always specialize in pay per clicks.

 

Jan Roos: [00:21:38] So for us, the way that the way that we win is that we get, you know, one out of three people who click on our ad to call as opposed to one out of 20. But if you see people that are used to more of an organic approach, a lot of times it’s like, well, OK, we’re getting five people that are gonna contact us on five hundred and our sites. So we’re not thinking about how to make that ten people out of 100. We’re making you know, we’re seeing how we can get two hundred views. So this is kind of these two different camps. And again, it’s like either of these will work in isolation. But where you really see the increases in effects is when you can kind of consider those both things. So I would say, you know, for the people that might be a little bit crazy on on sort of the on sort of the transactional side, thinking about how you can offer some content if you’re on the build it, they will come. Just think about how you can have the next step. I think, you know, you’ll be a lot of times. I don’t think people value what they do enough on the content side. And I think you’ll always be surprised if you just ask people to do simple things, especially if you’ve got those big numbers. There’s gonna be people that take the next step. And again, you need to take, get people to take the next step if you’re ultimately going to get them to hire you. So, you know, don’t be too shy about you’re gonna have to ask for their credit card at some point.

 

Allison Williams: [00:22:51] Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, you’d be surprised or maybe you wouldn’t because you deal with this all the time that, you know, there are a lot of lawyers that are very, very afraid to ask for business. You know, they they will they will put it out there. And it’s almost like this this kind of negative association with the idea of selling something to the point where they put things out there and they figure, like I say, build it and they will come, not let me give it to you and let me let me then tell you why it’s valuable and how you need to do the next thing. Like you said, the right next step to actually do something with all this free content that I’m giving you.

 

Jan Roos: [00:23:22] Yeah. And I also like it’s, there’s there is a very, very anti sales thing. It’s like, you know, we’ve even made up a word for it in the industry. We call it intake. We’re not allowed to say sales. Sales is a four letter word. But but here’s the thing.

 

Jan Roos: [00:23:35] It’s like I really I really think the opportunity that it’s like, you know, what people don’t realize is. There’s this this whole thing. So there’s there’s one thing which is is a concept called the curse of knowledge, that there’s, I forget what the book is, but it was just like a big thing. But like you as an attorney understand how valuable things that you are. And it’s very tough to take yourself out of your own head. So you understand that with the knowledge that you’re giving people, people can really affect real change with that. A lot of people don’t understand that. So the thing is, you have to kind of understand that they might not appreciate things as much as you do. But the other thing is that you’re almost obligated if you have the situation where you can take somebody who’s in pain, and trust me, you know, people would rather be watching Netflix, they’re not going to be looking up content around legal issues if they don’t have something that they need to solve. So if you’re in a position to help that person and you don’t pull every trick in the book to make sure that you can. Not to say that they’re tricks. But, you know, if you’re not if you’re not asking for the business, if you’re not giving them the steps to move forward, if you’re not doing whatever you can to make sure that that you guys work together and some bad thing happens to them. Shame on you.

 

Jan Roos: [00:24:47] I think you should be obligated if you are doing good work in the industry, which people… People don’t start a law practice to do bad work. If you can help people, you should be obligated to do everything you can to make sure that you help them the most, which in most instances is working with them directly.

 

Allison Williams: [00:25:01] And charging them a premium price for your service.

 

Jan Roos: [00:25:05] Yeah. No, that’s a thing too. It’s funny too, because it’s one of those, this is something you know, it’s it’s like, you know, you can’t run a great practice if you’re charging people nothing.

 

Jan Roos: [00:25:16] And it’s it’s it’s funny because you see people that are hip to this. And I thought this was a really interesting, really interesting reframe. So people are, and this is just kind of talking about business in general. It’s like there’s this perception that big businesses charge premium prices. And that’s not the case. It’s it’s, you know, premium prices become big businesses. And, you know, do you want to have, you know, look at what your price is going to look like, three years, five years, ten years down the line. Are you gonna be able to get better help for people if you have to work 90 hours to fulfill the people that you’re not charging enough for? You know, if you could double your prices and work with half as many people, do you think they would get better results with twice as much attention from you?

 

Jan Roos: [00:25:56] You know, it’s like one of those things. But it’s not selfish. It’s it’s something that you have to do to make sure that you’re, that you’re providing the best service for people.

 

Allison Williams: [00:26:04] Yeah. You know, it’s not just that. It really is a psychological thing that, you know, people value something that they have to put something in to get. There’s an investment portion of your client. And it’s not just their money. Right? When when you are charging them a high amount, they expect more from you. You have to rise to the occasion of serving them and you expect more from them in terms of their behavior. Right? Because you’re giving a lot to them in high value. You’re expecting and requiring a lot from them in terms of how they will treat you, how they will respond to you. What they will do. If you give a crap service and you get crap fees for that, then you’re both functioning at a low level and neither is happy. And again, you don’t grow business that way. People don’t get positive referrals to the cheapest lawyer.

 

Jan Roos: [00:26:46] Yeah, that’s a good point, too. And like I mean, I’ve kind of kept things sort of meta and how to like not deal with price shoppers. But there’s an entire discipline of how to deal with people that are these price shoppers. And I’ll give a quick example. We work with a family law firm in a town in Texas. And these guys, this is really funny because this is back in the day when we started with these guys. They’re like we’re not paid a free consultation on outreach. And I was just like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? Like, no one’s going to click on this ad. No one’s gonna call these people. And basically we’re like, well, we got to work with this. This is a non-negotiable. This guy, has a super high retainer.

 

Jan Roos: [00:27:20] He charges like ten thousand dollars minimum. But basically on the consultations of everyone else, he’s the only person who advertises in this area. And he’s charging three hundred dollars to talk to him on the phone. Everyone else is doing free consultations. But basically, we got them and their intake staff is fantastic. But they’re basically positioning these things on the phone. And it’s not a free consultation, though. It’s a winning divorce game plan from one of the top attorneys in the area. So, you know, that’s that’s the thing. And he’s been able to expand his practice and work with higher end people and not have to deal. His reviews are great. He’s been able to charge that premium price.

 

Jan Roos: [00:27:57] And then that’s that’s actually one of the things. And this is like, you know, a little tactical takeaway is that, you know, sometimes you might know, when somebody has a, you know, a great SEO ranking right now on Google. I’m not going to tell you that you just just wasted the last five, 10 years or how long it took you to get there. If you’re stuck with those people that are price shoppers, you know, doing stuff like that, charging for consultations, that’s a way to suss out the other ones. Right? And you’re able to you know, you see, you know, you’ve got the blessing of this huge volume of people coming in. You can, you can do stuff like that to make sure you’re only getting good ones.

 

Allison Williams: [00:28:28] There you go. That’s a great way to get those tire kickers out of your life, or at least in limited supply in your life. And so I think that’s a great strategy. We talk about charging for consultations. I always tell people unless there’s a statutory restriction on it, like in bancrupcy and in some other practice areas, you absolutely need to be charging, 100 percent. So let’s wrap this up by talking about some of the things that we can do as solo and small firm owners differently than we are currently doing them for getting people through the door in a way that prevents this. Right? Prevents this problem of just somebody who wants to just dabble to get some information. Pay as little for it as possible and move on to the next attorney.

 

Jan Roos: [00:29:08] OK. Awesome. So, yeah, I mean, definitely agree. As far as the paid consultation thing. It’s better to find out somebody has no sense of seriousness after a 15 minute phone call, then after an hour that you book with them in your office. That’s that’s definitely one to start. Another thing I’d want to say is to kind of think about your practice area and think about kind of the broader decision making process. So this is going to be tougher for certain, certain practice areas. Like I would say, like the most inherently transactional field of law would be personal injury because, you know, basically there’s no one’s like, oh, yeah, like, oh, I’m making the decision to go get, you know, t-Boned in this intersection. Like, that’s a very that’s a very transient market.

 

Jan Roos: [00:29:47] It exists. Until they get a problem solved. They don’t. But even for that. You know, there’s there’s ways to associate with groups, perhaps. People that are more likely to, and I’m actually a big fan of the way that Andy Stickles been doing this kind of stuff. So groups around motorcycle riders or victims of traumatic brain injury, that kind of thing. But for the other areas of law, like think about what are the ongoing needs. You know, family law. Right? There’s there’s situations where people are looking into getting a divorce, but there’s also these longer ongoing situations where, you know, something, may be single parents that are not aware that there were changes to the law that might allow them to modify their, their child custody agreement. And there’s there’s portions within every practice area, you can think about it. And even in those most transactional ones, think about ways that you can get in front of people before they’re typing in, you know, your practice area, plus city. So, and this is a thing, it’s almost tougher because, you know. That’s Eugene Schwartz said it was the the stuff that’s that’s waiting for the last minute is a lot is a lot easier. It’s a lot more straightforward. But the flip side of that coin is that it’s more competitive. So it’s tough to kind of prescribe, prescribe how to be creative. But, so I guess in lieu of that, the recommendation is just think about those areas in your practice and then ultimately, you know, it’s going to be something that comes with you. But just know. Write that intention down. Stick a Post-It Note on your fridge or your your laptop, go to bed, meditate on it and see what comes up. I mean, it’s always really interesting to see people come up with these things, but that’s that’s really, I think, the best recommendation I could make.

 

Allison Williams: [00:31:20] Yeah. So that’s a lot of just really putting some creative thought into how to connect with people. Right? Because that’s really what marketing is. It’s connecting with people.

 

Jan Roos: [00:31:28] Yeah. 100 percent. And you know, that’s the thing, too. You know, you got to think about it not as marketing. It’s always back to that service mentality because that’s the thing. It’s like, you know, if if we’re going to that example of family law stuff. It’s like, you know, we have people that are in pain. They might be in a situation that that could be in a better place. And, you know, if we’re looking at how to serve those people, that’s that’s always going to be the most magnetic marketing, you know, in the age of social media. That’s going to be the stuff that’s getting the highest click through rate. If you’re running an ad on Facebook, it’s going to get the most shares. And, you know, whatever you’re doing, that that genuinely helps people. We’ve always seen a much better response to stuff that’s generally coming from a place of service.

 

Allison Williams: [00:32:04] Yeah, absolutely. I love that we’re gonna tail this out on coming from a place of service. Everyone, I want to thank our guests, Jan Roos, for speaking to us about breaking the price shopper paradigm. Jan has a lot of great resources. He is a wealth of information he shares on the Law Firm Growth Podcast, which is his podcast. And also, Jan, before we let you go, if you would, just let everybody know how to reach you and your company, CaseFuel.

 

Jan Roos: [00:32:29] All right. Awesome. So I’ve got a site. CaseFuel dot com. It’s pretty thin. I’m going to comment, but there’s actually a chat box there.

 

Jan Roos: [00:32:35] You want to ask any question, want to that or feel free to email me directly at J-A-N at Case Fuel dot com. And I say to people on the phone, is case like briefcase, fuel like what you put into a car.

 

Allison Williams: [00:32:50] There you go. Makes perfect sense. All right. Thank you again, Jan, for your wealth of information. And everyone, thank you for joining us for another edition of the Crushing Chaos with Law Firm Mentor podcast. I’m Allison Williams. Your Law Firm Mentor. Have a great day.