Ben Bingham, Benson & Bingham – How to Retain Elite Talent, Acquire Reviews Through Competition, and Surround Yourself with a Motivated Team
Ben Bingham is a Partner at Benson & Bingham Accident Injury Lawyers, LLC, a Las Vegas-based law firm that describes its ideal client as the proverbial little guy. By design, Benson & Bingham restricts its client load to ensure that the clients they do take on receive the attention they deserve. The firm has secured more than $135 million in settlements and judgments for its clients, and in 2019 it was named among Expertise.com’s Best Car Accident, Personal Injury, and Workers’ Compensation Lawyers.
What’s in This Episode:
- Who is Ben Bingham
- Ben shares his experience of starting Benson & Bingham with his partner, Joe Benson
- How Benson & Bingham generated leads during the beginning of the practice
- Why Ben mandates in-person meetings between his attorneys and clients
- Ben talks about the SEO and digital marketing strategies that propelled his firm to success
- The significant impact that client reviews can have on your firm, and how to motivate your team to get top reviews
- Ben’s advice on retaining elite talent
- Ben shares the books and mentors that were most influential to his career success
This transcript was created using an automated transcription service and may contain errors.
Episode 36:
Prologue
Welcome to The Rankings Podcast where we feature top founders, entrepreneurs and elite personal injury attorneys and share their inspiring stories. Now let’s get started with the show.
Chris Dreyer
Chris Dreyer here, CEO and Founder of Rankings.io. You’re listening to The Rankings Podcast where I feature top business owners, entrepreneurs and elite personal injury attorneys. Speaking of elite personal injury attorneys I have Ben Bingham on the show today. Ben is the Partner at Benson & Bingham a Las Vegas based law firm Benson & Bingham was named Expertise.com’s Best Car Accident Personal Injury and Workers Compensation Lawyers. Three Best Rated’s, Best Personal Injury Lawyers, Esteemed Lawyer of America’s Top Personal Injury Lawyers, Legal Elite and dozens of other awards. They specialize in accident injury law and data describe their ideal client as the proverbial little guy. Benson & Bingham by design restricts their client load so that the clients that they take on can receive the attention that they deserve. Then Welcome to the show.
Ben Bingham
Thank you very much for having me this morning, Chris, and thanks for the generous introduction there.
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, I’m excited to speak to you. So let’s just jump right in. Let’s take me back to the beginning of Benson & Bingham on what were those early days like,
Ben Bingham
Boy, so when we got started, Joe Benson, my partner and cousin was actually working for his father at his father’s firm. And I was working for a firm myself and being cousins. I had Joe over for dinner one night and I said, Joe, why don’t why don’t we jump out and start our own, you know, start your own firm and hang a shingle. And I think about four months later, that’s what we did. And I can tell you in the early days, it was burning the midnight oil it We put a lot of hours in early and went through a lot of struggles and just trying to figure out You know where things fit and how to make our firm grow and how to be successful. And it was it was quite the challenge. It’s a it’s interesting that in law school, and all the education that you receive going to college and everything else, there’s I really didn’t get any education on how to build a successful business. And thankfully, Joe Benson went to business or a hotel management school at UNLV. And I think that probably is what got us through a lot of the tough times just knowing what to do, and how to run a business.
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, that’s, that’s very true. I mean, I think that’s a for a lot of attorneys. It’s, you know, you, you, you go to law school to learn how to try cases to be a lawyer. And it’s like, it’s different when you’re running a business. So, you know, it comes down to lead generation and beginning so what were you guys doing to generate leads at the very beginning?
Ben Bingham
Boy, it at first, we were, you know, at first when we opened our practice, I was actually doing a lot of criminal defense work. And that’s all I was doing and And then Joe Benson was doing personal injury. And at first it was just kind of, you know, reputation I had grown up in Las Vegas. And so I had friends from, you know, elementary school all the way through high school, and, and then contacts through my family and just people I’ve met along the way. And then Joe Benson went to school at UNLV as well for college. So we knew some people in the in the valley as well. And so it was really just word of mouth, sending out a lot of letters, letting people know what we’re doing that we opened up our own firm. And then once we started getting, you know, fans financially, where we could do some things, we started doing some advertising, had a lot of lessons learned there. That was back when the double trucks for the yellow pages where you had both sides of the Yellow Pages when you open we were paying a fortune to have that back in the day and we were in the mix up about you know, two inches of attorneys. That makes it so it was a learning lesson but it you know, it was a lot of lunches with doctors and people in the community and just really trying to get our name out there and So, you know, over time, that just starts to culminate and starts, you know, coming back and and, you know, as well as taking good care of your clients. One of the biggest referral sources that we have to this day is is repeat clients or past clients that refer a neighbor or a co employee or something of that nature. So it, it was quite the process when you’re young, and it’s and it’s scary, because when it was just me and Joe, and I think we had two other employees at the time. You know, if we were doing eight to 10 cases a month, we were rocking and rolling back then, you know, and so it, but some months, it was tough to get there. But you know, what eventually happened over time. And like I said, I think just taking good care of your clients goes a long ways and helps get your name out there.
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I know we’re going to talk about reviews because you guys have killer reviews and that that comes from taking care of your clients, but I wanted to jump right in and talk about one of your unique differentiators. So your attorneys personally meet with each and every Clients to address their needs where you know, many firms will just delegate to a case manager. Why did you make the decision to operate like this? And then how is it impacted the firm?
Ben Bingham
Well, it’s actually something that’s mandated by the State Bar of Nevada, that an attorney meet with the client. So that was an easy decision. But I think what you mentioned, I think, is true. I think a lot of firms do have case managers or paralegals to meet with their clients. For us, it’s something that we just want to have that personal relationship with our clients. And so me and Joe, when we were building our firm, we met with all of our clients, we mandate that the associate attorneys in our office always meet with their, you know, our clients. And I think it’s just something that helps build the relationship with the client. And also, I think, gives the client some confidence in our firm when they meet with the attorney rather than a case manager. And I think also the attorneys are able to kind of extract the critical questions in a case for you know, pre existing injuries and things of that nature. Just so we can, you know, get get all the facts surrounding you know, what someone’s been through. But But yeah, that’s that’s something that that I think is important for any firm is to have the attorney meet with a client just because it’s it just helps establish the relationship and they know who they’re working with.
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, and I see so often it’s, you know, every the partners are advertised on the website are really featured and it’s almost like the bait and switch like, right, you’d be dating someone and then you marry them and you marry your wife and then oh, it’s like, Hey, here’s, here’s a Bob. He’s gonna take care of you
Ben Bingham
get married, you find out she’s a gambler, right?
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, that’s,
Ben Bingham
I think that’s true. And I you know, that’s something that, you know, it was tough when our firm was growing. It was tough for me and Joe Benson to actually come to terms with the fact that we’re going to hire associates because me and Joe met with every client. And it was something that you know, I think I do think special Joe thinks he does he, you know, his thing special with his clients. And so it was really difficult for us at one point to say, Hey, we’re going to need some associates here. And I think it was either that or me Joe, we’re going to get burnt out and what we were doing, because the hours that we were working and through the weekends and everything else was was, was pretty bad at one point for a long time. And so it’s, you know, what we did find, though, is that we had our new associates sit down through our client interviews, when we met with clients. And I think that kind of helped them kind of pick up some of the thought processes or patterns that we have when we meet with clients. And I think that our associates have done a good job in carrying that through.
Chris Dreyer
So they kind of got immersed and got to hear the same types of questions and how you guys would respond kind of naturally, I’m sure.
Ben Bingham
Yeah.
Chris Dreyer
Yeah. So So what was you know, what were some of the big turning points for your firm, obviously, hiring the associates, but like from from a marketing perspective, was it a big case you settled? Was it just a kind of momentum build up that something was working? What was the big turning point for the firm?
Ben Bingham
Boy, you know, it’s hard looking back, it’s hard to put your finger on the pulse exactly where things changed, obviously along the way, I mentioned earlier that we had Yellow Pages. ads. We had some billboards in the past when we were young, back in probably early 2004 2005. And then obviously, you need to have the bigger cases come through so you can afford the the advertising. But the game changer really was the internet for us. Joe Benson had a longtime friend that was involved in the internet early on back in 2004. And he got into Joe’s ear, about getting involved online and advertising and getting your own web page and things of that nature. And so he was he was really an influence on us. And he’s still working with us today. And he was a great influence on us and getting involved early and seeing the potential that the internet would bring to us. But I think along with the internet, just you know, that’s something that’s just always changing, right is you know, so the algorithms with how advertising is brought up with search engine optimization and all that good stuff. It’s just an it’s an ever changing event. But, you know, once our firm got up and running with the Internet, and we started getting a lot of reviews, I think that was helpful. And then obviously, you know, rankings was a was a big deal for us just as well. And getting everything getting everything tagged correctly, and there’s just a lot that goes into it. And again, that’s something they don’t teach in law school, right? So it’s, it’s, uh, you know, as an attorney, we probably get, or at least, you know, 10 or 15 phone calls a month from someone that’s can really, you know, the, they’ll say that they were looking at our website, they can really help us and, and move things through and get us on the top of the list or this and that and the other. And it’s a lot of hype and a lot of jargon. And so we feel fortunate for our firm that we found Rankings.io and and, you know, getting all that stuff dialed in, was just a big deal for us. I think that’s one of the the biggest critical factors is you know, as an attorney, you’re used to kind of being the The lead guy to run everything and it’s something that you need a third party for this stuff just because it’s it’s certainly over my head and Joe Benson said, we’ve learned a lot over the years on kind of what works and normal advertising media, advertising billboards, things of that nature. But with the internet and how it evolves every day, it’s something that you need a third party to really step in and grab that by the horns.
Chris Dreyer
And absolutely at first, thanks. Thanks for that, Ben. And I gotta say, you know, working with your guys’s firm, it makes it easy for an SEO agency because of one of the major differentiators you have is so many reviews, so many five star reviews. And as you know that this helps tremendously for local SEO. So let’s let’s dive right in there to talking about reviews. So first of all, why did your firm become so intentional about obtaining reviews and really trying to obtain those and create that experience?
Ben Bingham
You know, I think one of the things that that pushed us in that direction is just my personal feelings. I’m a consumer. And I buy things online all the time. And the first thing I do is I usually look past a lot of the ads, when I’m searching for a company or a product, and then I’ll, you know, I’ll pull up a website looking for a certain product, and then I read the reviews. Because I think it really helps people evaluate what they’re getting into, you know, sometimes you find a product, and it might be $50 cheaper than you know, another brand that you’re looking at for the same type product. But, you know, I look at the reviews just to make sure that it’s built well it will last and things of that nature. And I think the same thing carries forward with with personal injury attorneys or any attorneys for that matter. And so it was something that you know, the review started coming in just kind of naturally and organically. And then thereafter we started asking our clients, you know, hey, if you know you’re satisfied with what we did, or you know if there you have any critiques or anything else, give us a review on it. Just helps make our firm better if, you know that goes good and bad, right. And so, you know, it’s no fun to find out that someone was unhappy with something that you did at your firm, but at the same time, it helps you grow, it helps you make those corrections, helps you change things. So people have a better experience, and at the end of the day, really is a personal injury attorney, that’s what you’re providing as a service. And so if you can make that service more enjoyable for somebody, or make it less stressful for somebody, you know, that’s kind of what it’s all about in our area of practice. So I think from where it started, was organically then as time went on, we realized how many people really take a look at these things and the impact it’s had in our business and the overall case volume that we have on a monthly basis was something that we started asking clients to please provide us with reviews. And they’ve done it you know, I would say probably, you know, I’m guessing here off the cuff but probably 10% of our clients will leave reviews for us which is great. And again I mean, we appreciate that and it, it helps other people know what we’re doing and and, you know, their experiences and how we’re able to help them. And I think that just helps people be attracted in our firms direction, because there’s certainly plenty of personal injury firms in Nevada that they can choose from.
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, so there’s tons of takeaways there. So you’ve got these retrospectives. I mean, this is a form of a retrospective, a post mortem, a debrief, whatever you want to call it, I so someone’s upset, you get to see why. And then you guys can address that and continuously improve. So I really love that aspect that you also get to hear what you guys did well, and that can almost be a unique selling proposition that you can highlight if you hear more and more individuals talking about it. The other thing that I wanted to ask is, so I work with a lot of personal injury attorneys. And one thing I see is the owner or maybe the managing partner are very intentional and they do a good job of getting reviews, but it’s very rare that the entire team is motivated and it’s It’s harder to get the rest of the team kind of rolling that same direction and know that it reviews are important. So what are some recommendations that you guys have there? Is it more just values and or the right team? Or how do you go about that approach?
Ben Bingham
Well, I think some of the things you just mentioned, you know, what it you know, is it values is it, you know, someone’s pride, you know, things of that nature. I think all those things come into play. One of the interesting things that we do with our firm is, we post our numbers every month to our firm in terms of how many cases were brought in by this individual, how many reviews they got things of that nature, and I think it makes our employees happy, honestly. And so I think it’s become somewhat of a competitive game to see how many reviews they can get, whether that’s the case manager, asking the client for it or the attorney or the paralegal. And again, I think it’s just a creates a really good competitive environment. You know, for you know, for the people that that are within our firm, but it’s just something again, it’s just, it’s tough to put your finger on, you know, When do we say, Boy, let’s focus on the reviews. You know, it’s certainly in the forefront now. But looking back, you know, four years ago or three years ago, it’s not necessarily something that we were pushing that hard. It’s just something that organically happened. And then kind of that competition within our firm just kind of sprouted from there. But, you know, that’s one of the things that we do with our firm is just the internal competition, if you will, and it’s friendly competition, but at the same time, everyone likes to shine a little bit and our employees work hard. We’ve been really lucky to have the employees that we have, from the, from the receptionist, to intake department to the case managers, the paralegals, the attorneys. I mean, we’ve got a really good staff. Right now we’ve got four offices throughout the state of Nevada, and each office just we just, we’ve got great employees and we’ve got employees that care about our clients. And it’s something that I think that that in and of itself, is what brings some of those reviews and the people that We have working for us now. Everybody’s motivated. And that’s something I found over the years that you can’t teach somebody, you can teach somebody how to practice law, you can teach them how to open up a case, you can teach them how to know do certain things within your office, but motivation is something you either have or you don’t. And I think we’ve got a really good group of motivated individuals within our office and that just helps get those reviews in.
Chris Dreyer
You know, Ben, it’s interesting, I’ve heard you mentioned motivation, I’ve heard grit ever get thing get shit done in my past few interviews, but you know, so that kind of transitions to me. So, transitions to, so how do you find and retain this elite talent? What’s the process that you guys go about to find these these motivated individuals?
Ben Bingham
You know, it’s something that’s taken years to kind of mold together. You know, I will tell you that some of our employees have been with us since the day we opened. And so we’ve gotten lucky. Finding the right people. And then you know, over the years just, you know, kind of selecting some of those individuals, but motivation, I think is a big factor. You know, people that are hungry, like like to hunt, right? And so it’s, it’s something that’s just worked out very well for us. You know, the other thing in terms of retaining those those individuals who are, you know, good at what they do, I hope they’re not listening here. But it’s, it’s something that, you know, you put the golden handcuffs on him, right? When you got someone that’s, that’s really good at what they do. Certainly those people are capable of going out and either opening up their own firms or, you know, moving on in a different direction. And so, one of the things that a colleague of mine told me many years ago that’s always stuck in my head is people in America kind of live up to their paycheck. And so what we found is rather than giving huge bonuses, and things of that nature, what we’ve done with a lot of our employees is we just we just give them raises, and then you know, and over time when you give someone a raise, they had that money coming in and it’s it’s something They usually live right up to their means with their their paychecks. Rather than if you give someone a bonus that allows them the opportunity to go out and open up their own law firm, how you might lose that really qualified employee.
Chris Dreyer
And that makes sense because most individuals aren’t Savers, right? But they get that big cash insertion.
Ben Bingham
You got to be disciplined, right?
Chris Dreyer
Yep. So I wanted to kind of transition to a couple personal kind of more fun questions here. So the first thing I have to ask you about is I was reading your bio, it said something about you broken your right arm twice your left arm once. You know you’ve torn off the bottom of your lip, broken ankle, right ankle left ankle bruise broken ribs. So is it just your very clumsy or? third story?
Ben Bingham
I think I just need to drink more milk. It when I was young, I was pretty reckless. Uh, you know, it’s something I ride motorcycles. I’ve been injured snowboarding I’ve been injured. Just sports along the way, just things happening, probably trying to push my talents further than what they’re capable. But yeah, I’ve unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of broken bones and things of that nature over the years, that’s for sure.
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, I was reading the bio. And I was like, Whoa, there’s no explanation here. I have to ask about this. Um, so let me ask another kind of fun question. So, being that you’re in the entertainment capital of the world. Are there any bizarre cases that come to mind that you that you can share? And it could be when you’re a criminal defense attorney to PI, whatever you think of?
Ben Bingham
Yeah, interesting. So being being that we have three offices in Vegas. We get a lot of people from out of state that come to Las Vegas and get injured obviously, and so probably a good 20% of our clientele out of Las Vegas is actually out of state clients. There’s just per capita we have a lot of DUIs in Las Vegas as well and so you know, people out on the roads or people you know nightclubs or walking through hotel properties. Slip and Fall trip and falls, things of that nature. We just get a lot of that kind of normal stuff in terms of having a unique case that rings a bell. Boy doing criminal defense when I was younger, I had all kinds of juicy stuff. And that’s really what I liked about criminal defense is just you get some really juicy things and, and some of the cases that come in, you know, during the client interview, you’re thinking in the back of your mind, you did what I mean almost like robbing a bank with leaving your driver’s license on the counter type deals, you know, it’s pretty bad, but I had some really juicy cases that were in the news when I was younger. And you know what one case that was always really unique to me is a case involving a Brinks truck robbery, and the individuals were able to get away with it essentially and hide the Brinks truck in a storage unit for a long time. And one of the three parties that were involved was just out kind of bragging about it and they’ve got all this money sitting in a storage unit and this and that and the other and so obviously, the, the cards tumbled after some point because he told too many people, but that was a really interesting case. And I’ve just I’ve had a bunch of criminal stuff that was just kind of juicy, if you will.
Chris Dreyer
I hear you, I hear. So uh, and then now let’s go to personal development. Are there any business books you recommend? Any any mentors you have?
Ben Bingham
Boy, in terms of books, I haven’t been reading anything recently, just because I’ve been so busy. But, you know, one of the books that I read that really was good for me several years ago, was by John Morgan of Morgan and Morgan and I, the title right now is escaping me. But I read that book and actually, when I read that book, I took notes on it and highlighted it and and actually typed up my own notes afterward and shared it with Joe Benson. There’s just some really unique things about firm and firm growth and really Getting your firm to expand, for example, a vanity number which we didn’t have at that time, but after we read that book, we went out and got a vanity number. For our firm that’s easy to read on billboards and all your advertisements and it’s just something I overlooked when I was younger and just didn’t realize how important that could potentially be. It also talked about you know, how do you expand your your firm and there’s really only a couple ways to do that, which is change the areas of practice that are add areas of practice that your firms involved with, or, you know, add additional geographic locations which I’ve almost followed everything in that book. That was practical for us and it just gave a lot of good financial advice for attorneys to and their partners and not overspending. And you know, it’s it’s easy to work, work hard, and I think most attorneys work really hard. And with that, they they want the rewards for it. But sometimes you find people overspending, unfortunately and it just can put the entire firm in a bad position. If If The partnering partnering attorneys are in financial straits. But outside of books influences me I’ve had I’ve been really lucky my entire life. I’ve had some great people in my life that have been great influences on me. Not just from the law side, but just a personal side as well. My cousin Joe Benson, his father, Joe Benson senior, was a an attorney in Las Vegas for a number of years and had a very successful firm. He’s probably the influence that that pushed law on me from a young age. But he’s always been a great influence on me. I was a caddy when I was young for a gentleman in Las Vegas, who was a casino owner. He was a great influence on me, and always help helping me be pointed in the right direction. And then probably the best influence ever had throughout the years is my father. My dad is a financial consultant. And just one of those dads that’s just always there never pushed me in a direction But if I ever said this is the direction I think I want to head or anything else, he would do whatever he can to, you know, open those doors for me and try to give me introductions and he was just one of those dads that always said, you know, if there’s an area that I wanted to pursue that I could do it, you know, the only thing stopping me with me and so it’s, uh, you know, looking back I probably at the time didn’t realize how important that was. But, you know, I look back now and probably am where I am today because of my father.
Chris Dreyer
And well, that’s incredible that you had that support and you had somebody that had your back, essentially. And I think is the book can’t teach hungry or I can’t remember the
Ben Bingham
you know what, that rings a bell? I think he may be right. Yeah, I think he may be right. I thought that was a great book. And, you know, hats off to John Morgan. Obviously, he’s his firm’s huge and in many states. I think it’s the largest personal injury firm in the country if I’m not mistaken, but, you know, it’s, uh, I hope he knows how many attorneys that that books probably helped to grow their practice. And move in the right direction because it was just really insightful and some of the thoughts. The funny thing is some of the thoughts in the book are just right in front of you, but to read it and be able to say, Okay, I need to do this a little different, or we need to do that. It’s just something that was really helpful. And for me, I think it had a profound effect assistance in our growth of our firm and some of the directions that we’ve headed.
Chris Dreyer
Awesome. Awesome. We’ll be sure to share that with John too. So you know, one final question. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we haven’t discussed?
Ben Bingham
You know, not in particular, it’s I think it’s probably tough for me to talk about myself than anything. But you know, I will say this, Chris, I really appreciate everything that you’ve done in working with our firm, and you’ve really helped light the fire and put us in the right spot online and getting us headed in the right direction and it’s been noticeable and we appreciate you and look forward to having a long term relationship with you.
Chris Dreyer
Awesome, Ben that that means the world to me. I really appreciate That guy’s we’ve been talking to Ben Bingham an elite personal injury attorney at Benson & Bingham. Ben where can people go to Learn more
Ben Bingham
at www.BensonBingham.com or feel free to give us a call at 702-600-6000 Awesome.
Chris Dreyer
Thanks so much, Ben.
Ben Bingham
Thank you, Chris. Have a good one.
Conclusion
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