Muhammad Ramadan:
Experience is the best knowledge. You could read a million books, but until you go out there and actually do it and actually screw up and learn from it, you're never going to really learn.
Chris Dreyer:
When a personal injury firm leverages zero cost guerilla marketing, the ROI goes through the roof.
Muhammad Ramadan:
I can create a phenomenal system. I can build up great staff, and I can really scale this to basically an unmatched level and the ROI on PI I just looked and I said, really, the sky's the limit here.
Chris Dreyer:
You're listening to Personal Injury Mastermind, where we give you the tools you need to take your personal injury practice to the next level. Few have more grit and determination than managing partner Muhammad Ramadan. He began his firm Ramadan & Associates while still in law school and with no outside help. A natural guerilla marketer and rainmaker, he has always seen community involvement as the cornerstone of successful marketing. Early on, Muhammad grew his practice without spending a dime on traditional advertising. Instead, he found clients in the courthouse and planted seeds all around the community by attending business openings and volunteering. He has discovered what works. Now armed with the budget, he doubles down on marketing channels he knows will perform well. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. We help elite personal injury attorneys dominate first page rankings with search engine optimization. Being at the forefront of marketing is all about understanding people so let's get to know our guest. A first generation immigrant who grew up on the south side of Chicago, Muhammad didn't know lawyers to look up to, but that did not stop his ambition. Here's Muhammad Ramadan, managing partner at Ramadan & Associates.
Muhammad Ramadan:
It was never something that I actually thought would be possible. I remember, I think the very first seed planted was one of the guys in the neighborhood that I really looked up to and respected he mentioned it to me and I kind of laughed it off and he didn't laugh. And I'm like, well, you know people like us don't go to law school. He's like, "Says who?" And I didn't have an answer for that and it stuck in my head ever since then. So when I was in community college, I stayed at community college just because I knew if I didn't go there I'm not going back to school and I'll have some regular 9-5 and I knew I wanted to do something different. I think it was when I got to undergraduate, when I got into DePaul, it started to become a serious thought. But if there was one I think magic moment that really implemented in my head was probably the OJ case. I was a big Johnnie Cochran fan growing up. I loved Johnnie Cochran. Just his style, his swagger, the way he did things and I said, man, that'd be really cool to do that. So I think as a young kid, the OJ case, but growing up it was just I got to a point, people laugh at me when I say this, but it's the honest to God truth. I said, if I go to school, I'm going to be a doctor or lawyer. I'm not smart enough to be a doctor, I suck at math and science so law school sounds like a good deal for me. So that's when I really start to look into it.
Chris Dreyer:
Not easy professions either one so first of all congratulations. You decided to take the hard route, right? Most people, they go to law school, they go work, they're an associate, they do that, they kind of get their feet wet, but you made the decision by L3 to open your own practice. What was going through your head? Why did you decide, hey, I'm going in full steam ahead. Why did you make that decision?
Muhammad Ramadan:
Yeah, it's a multi-layered answer. For me, you got to understand my story. Where I started community college, I got into undergrad, I got denied by eight law schools. Michigan State gave me a conditional acceptance. So I looked at it as I wasn't even supposed to be in law school. And I looked at it as I am playing with house money at this point. I don't even technically belong here. Secondly, this was around 2011, 2010, right after the crash, the job market was terrible. I was bottom 20% of my class. I didn't have lawyers in my family, I didn't have a network, and I was applying, applying and nobody would even give me a call back. I wasn't even getting interviews. And it was getting to the point where I'm like, I'm going to come out of law school, I don't have a safety net, what am I going to do? And I remember one night I said to myself, I'm going to put my destiny in my own hands. I'm not going to wait for someone else to give me an opportunity. So I basically saw the writing on the wall. I said, you know what? I'm playing with house money. What do you do when you got house money? You go all in. And it was simple as that. I just didn't have any other options, and I said, I'm either going to feast or famine. And I said, if I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down on my terms. And that was really where I said, you know what? I got to do what I got to do and that's what I did.
Chris Dreyer:
I appreciate the grit and determination. I think that builds strength and character. So running a business is hard. Where did you learn to run a successful law practice? Is it trial and error? Did you have mentors? Where did this come from?
Muhammad Ramadan:
I've always worked. My family's worked. Middle Eastern culture we're very big on entrepreneurship. It was something that was embedded in our community, and I just looked at it where I hustled my way up to this point. I felt I can continue to hustle my way and just figure things out. I was never the smartest person in the room, but I was the type where if I needed to get something done, I'm going to figure out how to do it. So I already came in with that mentality knowing before I finished law school that I wanted to do it. It helped me prep mentally. I would just read books, I would talk to other business owners, and just again, preparing, knowing I'm coming out and I'm going to do it. Mentally, I was just really starting to get ready. I spoke to a few other attorneys who did it and just got their input, but it was trial and error and just really going out there and getting your feet wet. Experience is the best knowledge. You could read a million books, but until you go out there and actually do it and actually screw up and learn from it, you're never going to really learn. So yes, there was some education to it, but it was really just guts and not being afraid to screw up. And I know nobody wants to screw up and it's not like I intentionally screwed up, but I told myself minimize the screw ups and you'll eventually get better at this. Deal with the lumps in the beginning and it will get better, and that's kind of how it happened. But the lumps were bigger than I expected, but mentally I just knew it was coming. I knew that the punches were coming and I just prepared myself mentally for it.
Chris Dreyer:
There's so much to that. A lot of people have that recall at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy. They can recall, but they miss the application, but I think it's important when you're going up to the top where you can really be strategic and create. That you got to go through the application side too and not just study, study, study and read and make those mistakes and learn from them. Shifting over, right out of the gate you went from criminal defense and then you switched over to PI. What was the reason behind the switch? Why did you choose to start in criminal defense? What went through for that decision?
Muhammad Ramadan:
So criminal defense, again, I was very influenced by Johnnie Cochran and that stayed in my mind. I was at the time in love with the allure of the trial attorney, and I always saw trial attorneys as the criminal defense guys. I wanted to wear the nice suits and I wanted to go into court every day and do all of that. That was part of it. The second part of it was, how do I say this? Not that I knew a lot of criminals, but I felt that I can get more of those cases than anything else at the time. I knew I didn't want to do divorce, I actually studied immigration law in law school, that's what I wanted to do. In practice, I absolutely hated it. So I said, okay, I know immigration's not for me and I was just getting calls for little BS criminal stuff. So I said, you know what? I've always wanted to be in a courtroom. I like the vibe of this. This is what I pictured an attorney said be. I was still kind of naive to what an attorney is at the time. That was part of it. I mean, I started off doing a $100 traffic tickets and that led to, all right, now we got misdemeanors and now we got a misdemeanor speeding ticket. And then now I got a DUI. And then after a couple DUIs, it's, hey, I got a Class 4 felony which is a low level felony. And once I hit my first felony, I'm like, okay, I might have something here. And I just felt it was the most accessible. I could walk into a courtroom and try to plug business. I didn't feel I could do that with any other area of law. So I felt I had a venue that I can actually go to and try to recruit clients, and it was just a mix of all of that and I enjoyed it at first. I really liked it. Three years in, I did my first attempted murder jury trial. I worked with a couple other younger attorneys, we teamed up on this case. We did a great job. We got not a guilty. And the judge really kind of not praised us, but really kind of gave us a lot... He kind of looked at it, who the hell are these young punks coming in here with the guts to do an attempted murder jury trial three years out of law school and win? And we won. And I think that gave me the confidence after that win. Even though I was second or third chair on that it gave me the confidence like you know what? I like this and I enjoyed being in the courtroom. But I say fast forward about five years into my career, I'm heavy duty, guns, drugs, attempted murders. I got my first murder case and I was excited for it, but it was wearing me out. Anybody that does criminal defense will tell you, you're jumping from courthouse to courthouse, you're just doing so much. And then after you're done with that, you still got to go to the office, take care of your admin work, then you got to prep for the next trial and prep for all of that, discuss with clients. It was fine when I was single and I wasn't a father. When I got married and I had my first daughter, I would come home really late every day and I just didn't have much for her. And I always told myself I would never be that dad. That was a promise I made to myself. Even before I got married, I said I would never be that dad. And meaning that dad was the guy that never saw his kids, saw them maybe once a week, spent a couple hours with them. I just didn't want to do that. And I said, you know what? Right now I'm young, it's cool, whatever. She's young. But I said, okay, in five, 10 years am I going to regret this decision? And I kind of felt that I would. And at the time I was sending out a lot of PI cases,.I was just referring them out. I'd get the call and I would just send them out and I'll never forget it. One of the firms, they took me out this fancy dinner, they take me to a Bulls game and I'm not the brightest guy, but I'm not a dummy either. So on my way home I'm like, they don't like me like that. I mean, we barely know these guys. Why are they doing this? There's always something. And then I went and I looked, I said, oh, I sent them 15 cases this year and I didn't even realize I sent them 15 cases. So I'm like, okay, there's something here. And then I started getting the referral checks and I'm looking at the checks I'm like, oh shit, this is my referral cut? So I'm like, how much did they make? And I'm like, well, if I could rain make and I did pretty well on marketing. I was starting to build my name and build a reputation. So I looked at the numbers, right? I'm a numbers guy and I said, the ROI on PI versus the ROI on criminal, that was the first thing. The second thing was scalability. And criminal defense is extremely difficult to scale because you need bodies, you got to have bodies in court. PI, I'm a very systems based guy. I said, you know what? With PI, I can create a phenomenal system. I can build up great staff and I can really scale this to basically an unmatched level. There's no ceiling in PI, and that attracted me. Criminal, I felt there was a ceiling because you need bodies, but in PI if you build the right system and you hire the right people and the ROI on PI, I just looked and I said, really, the sky's the limit here. There is no ceiling in PI. And I'm like, I'm still young, I'm in my early thirties at the time. I was doing well with marketing and I wasn't even spending on paid ads. I was just guerilla Marketing, which we'll talk about later. And I'm like, if I can without linking send 15 cases to this firm, why can't I do it for myself? And I was also doing some business law stuff at the time, I was fighting City of Chicago for a lot of the business owners so I really enjoyed then and I said, that's cool, but that's not going to be enough. I said, if I want to get out of criminal, I need to supplement it with something. And the train of thought got into PI and I transitioned slowly into PI. And I spent about a year or two just learning PI before I gave up criminal. I'm not one to just totally jump in, I wanted to learn the law, the systems, I had to find good doctors, I had to learn the Lean Act and all of that. Once I felt I had a firm grasp on that, I completely cut off criminal. I got a referral from a previous lawyer I worked with on criminal. I said, you're going to have everything, here's on my files, and I went knee deep into PI after that.
Chris Dreyer:
Muhammad or Mothelawyer, the lawyer has a natural talent for rainmaking, but with such a competitive field, he still needed to rely on marketing to be successful. He explains how his marketing has shifted over the years.
Muhammad Ramadan:
So I didn't have a low budget, I had no budget. I didn't have much money at the time, and it was about year three or four and I'm like, I need to do something, but I don't have money. And I kept looking at my negatives and I said, how do I turn my negatives into a positive? So my negatives were I was young, my name is Muhammad Ramadan, it's not a common lawyer name. I didn't have a ton of experience. So I'm like, these are all negatives, how do I turn into a positive? And I said, well, the positive is, well now I'm going to be the young cool hip modern attorney. Let me flip the script on it. So what I did was I would just go on my personal Facebook page and I started doing these posts about my criminal defense stories, and I would fluff them up and oh, this woman came crying into my office and blah, blah. And I would do this whole dramatic story, and I kind of did it jokingly at first and people were loving it. And I'm like, wait, hold on. I'm onto something here. And this is before Instagram really blew up. Before TikTok was even around, this was maybe six, seven years ago. And I just started doing these posts and I'm getting DMs. People are seeing me in the street and say, "Hey man, we love your posts." And I'm like, okay, this is pretty cool. Let me run with this. It's free. That was the first thing that attracted to me. I said, Facebook's free. I don't have to pay for this. I don't have money for billboards. I don't have money for radio. I looked into all of that. I didn't believe in mailers. So I said, you know what? Let me continue with this. And then where I really saw the power was I wanted to flip the script and test it. And what I mean by that is I did a video with a hip-hop beat, and I did a Kanye West, Kanye West from Chicago is pretty crazy Kanye West. So Chicago and Kanye West, he's really big out here. So I did the Power beat, I did this hype video. I rented a Uber black and I hired a videographer and I did this really cool one minute super hype video. And I noticed in three days I got 55,000 views for free. And I started looking, I said, wow, I mean, some billboards don't get 55,000 eyeballs on it in three days. So I said, I'm onto something here. Now I got a lot of backlash too, but the backlash confirmed my thoughts. The legal world wasn't ready for this. And I saw an opening for someone like myself to come in and be an alternative to the traditional legal world. Everything you saw from the legal world at the time was again an old white male behind a book stack behind them in a suit and tie that they've had for 20 years. And I realized through social media that the era has changed. People want personality in their lawyers now. They want to know who their lawyer is. They want to be able to relate to them. And once I saw that, I said, I'm onto something here. And I just nonstop, I just kept flooding it, flooding it. Again, I got a lot of backlash, but the backlash was from lawyers. The actual people who I wanted to hire me loved it. So I said, screw what the lawyers are saying, they just don't know what the hell's going on. If the people who I want to hire me like this, well let's just go all in at that point. And that's basically where I started in. Once I saw the power of social media, it was game over from there.
Chris Dreyer:
Being candid, I think that's what really drew me to you. I was cracking up watching some of your TikToks. I mean, we joked before the show about how most attorneys hate the show Suits, so I was needling you on the intro about that. And I think that you are really entertaining, but also educational too and it's a mix. It's a nice balance because I think a lot of times attorneys will be too heavy on the informational. You just don't want to watch it, but it's mixed in a good balance.
Muhammad Ramadan:
Or too goofy.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. And you also have a unique take on your perspective of the five-second rule. So what is your take on the five-second rule, and how does that play into your marketing?
Muhammad Ramadan:
Yes. I learned the five-second rule when I was just starting and I needed to drum up business. So in my first year, what I would do is I would just put a suit and tie on, I would just walk around the courthouse. And I would even... I remember I used to call my sister and say, "Hey, act like you're a client," so that people can hear me and think I'm an attorney. And I'd be like, "Don't worry, we're going to beat this case." And I would just do that and I would go into courtrooms and I would act like I'm looking for my client just so people can see me. I would get random papers and act like I'm getting paperwork ready when I'm really just scribbling on it. And I really took the fake it till you make it and I just put steroids on it. And I would get people that would talk to me and then they would say, oh, well I want someone with more experience. So what I learned from the five-second rule though was you really have five seconds to impress someone, and in those five seconds they're going to decide if they want to hire you or not. So what I did was I went and spent a few hundred bucks on some really nice business cards, and I went and bought a couple suits and I would make sure I'm dressed to the T. And the five-second rule was you give a nice handshake, give him your very nice business card, smile, show confidence, and if you can do that in five seconds, you will get someone to hire you. And I had my first felony client. He got me out of the courtroom, he hired me from there. When we sat down in my office, I said, "Hey man, I have to ask you, why did you hire me? You know I'm younger, I'm curious." He's like, "Honestly, Mo, you were the best dressed one and you seemed to have the most confidence, so I rolled the dice and I'm going with you."And I said wow, people really do look at those things. And once I learned that, every time I met someone, in my head, good handshake, good business card, smile, shoulders up, show confidence and you'll get someone to hire you. Because when you don't have anything else, all you have is yourself so sell yourself.
Chris Dreyer:
The one thing that I think of when you say that [inaudible 00:20:01], first of all, that's brilliant and that makes me think about reframing even on the podcast, maybe dressing up a little bit more other than the Under Armour and stuff that I'm used to. But I've heard every sales conversation is a conversation based upon trust, and it seems like those things were really contributing to that. It was like subliminally, they're thinking, well, if he can afford this super nice suit, these nice business cards, obviously he's very successful.
Muhammad Ramadan:
Not knowing that's a sale rack suit that I bought at Men's Warehouse for like $90, but they didn't know that. I grew up in fashion, so I always knew how to per se look good without spending a ton of money, and I didn't have a ton of money anyways. But yeah, they didn't know that was an off the rack sale rack suit. They didn't need to know that.
Chris Dreyer:
Mothelawyer is an expert guerilla marketer. He explains how getting involved in community has helped his business grow.
Muhammad Ramadan:
So guerilla marketing for me and how I've really built myself, and I still do it till today and it's worked is I do a lot of in-person events, and not events just show up. So I've always done a lot of community work. So I work with a lot of community organizations and just little things where if I saw someone on Facebook that I knew open up a new business and they have a grand opening, I would go to that grand opening and I would just show up. And sometimes I would be one of the only few people that were at that grand opening and guess who that business owner's going to remember when they need legal work? The one person, the one attorney who showed up to their grand opening. If a nonprofit is looking for volunteers, I would go volunteer and I would just introduce myself. "Hey, Mo Ramadan, I'm an attorney, I'm just here to volunteer." And then I would cut them a $100 check or $200 check. I would just plant seeds everywhere that I go. It might not be right away, but at some point those seeds do grow. So when I say guerilla marketing, it's really being in people's face, being out on the streets, it's being at events, it's letting people know who you are. And all of this is free. You don't have to give a donation, right? Go volunteer with them. And when you go volunteer, wear your firm gear. They're not going to tell you no. They're going to be more than happy to allow you to do that. So like right now, I do a lot of community work where we're sponsoring families for Christmas this year. There was a bad incidence in Chicago. Someone reached out, hey, I'll be glad to sponsor this. Now, one, it's the right thing to do, but two, I can promise you with 100% certainty these families know anybody that's involved in a car accident. They're not going to look at your billboards. They're going to come and say, no, no, no, call this guy, he's in our community. He cares about us. And in injury law, you know this as well as anybody they need to trust you, and they need to know that you care for them. How else and how better can you show you care for someone than helping them when you're not getting anything out of it? So you plant those seeds early so that when that case does come about, you're already locked and loaded. You've already sold yourself and you've already built that trust. And I always tell people, your seven figure cases will probably not come off SEO or your billboard, it's going to come from a referral. Build those referrals, build those trust by showing up and showing your face and the people will call you.
Chris Dreyer:
I couldn't agree more. And I think even from a Google perspective, most of the time it's capturing existing demand. A lot of times it's quick hitters convenience versus those big cases, they're going to do their research. They need to know someone, and a lot of those times, those do come from referrals. The other thing that's interesting is even these businesses can draw attention. And I saw you're involved in one of the largest Chicago turkey giveaways and people like that because it's not you're not selling, you're engaging, you're trying to be helpful and it makes you more likable from the no like trust in the middle of the funnel.
Muhammad Ramadan:
And to show you how it works. So that is the largest turkey drive in Chicago, it's run by a guy named Steve. So I know Steve from way back through mutual connections. I helped Steve with something really small when I first started. So Steve is very well known in this city, and I owe Steve a lot because he hired me when I was younger and gave me some of the credibility. So I didn't just take that and run. So now when Steve started doing events, he started this years ago, it was small. I used to support him doing that. So then now it's blown up, Steve is much bigger than he was before. I can pick up the phone and say, hey Steve, I need one, two, three, or can you connect me with this group? Or can you connect me with this organization? Sure Mo, no problem. 'Cause when Steve needs something, I give back to Steve. So it goes hand in hand and I think a lot of attorneys miss that because they're always worried about the close. Sometimes your close, closing the case is four or five steps later, right? And most lawyers want to close on the first conversation. And you also got to know your city. We're a Midwestern blue collar city. We don't like fake, phony. This is not Hollywood, right? This is Chicago. We're blue collar. If they smell bullshit, they're going to run away from you, right? So they'll know if you're genuine and if you're not genuine. And people are okay giving it to you if they trust you, so they have to trust you. And again, it takes a few steps to build that trust. And I think that's what a lot of attorneys really miss.
Chris Dreyer:
I love that. So you're building up all this relationship equity, it just compounds. You get introduced to this next person, it compounds. You get that reciprocity, just natural reciprocity, the give without expecting anything in return, and then it does come. It's like putting out the good karma in the world. How has your marketing changed? Now that your practice got consistent cases and you're starting to grow, are you just, hey, social media's working, now I'm going to put my foot on the pedal and just go all in, or has it really evolved? Or is it truly sticking to that flywheel where they all compliment each other?
Muhammad Ramadan:
The biggest difference now is I actually have a budget, which I'm 12 years in and it took me a while. And the one thing I did well was anytime I had good months, I would dump it back in. I never bought a new car. I never bought jewelry and all these things that some lawyers tend to buy. I always took it and I reinvested back into my practice. So now it's multifaceted, right? So we do well on social, but now I'm able to hire a social media manager, which I did. I have my own in-house videographer that's on payroll. So now the next step is Google and also putting steroids on my community engagement, right? So that's not going anywhere. That's actually, I'm doubling, tripling down on events. So now instead of just being able to give $50, $100 donation, now I'm covering your entire event for that day. And what I do and it's worked, is a reverse psychology. When I go sponsor their events, I don't ask to put my signage anywhere. I just say, look... Like Pastor Brooks, he's a really big pastor in Chicago, love his work. I knew someone that knew him, I met him. I just told him, "Pastor, I love what you're doing. I just want to help. Whatever my law office can do, we can do." He's like, "Cool, and we're going to blast you everywhere." I didn't have to ask for it, right? He understood what I was doing and that there is any game to this, but they're fine with it. And the trick that I did is I would never ask for it. And almost always they do it for you anyway. So you come off a little bit more genuine when you're just saying, "Hey man, I just want to help." But if you come in and say, well, here's my flyers, here's my poster, here's my this, here's my that. They're going to look at you and say, dude what are you doing here, right? So you got to be strategic about it. But yeah, I mean again, instead of giving a couple $100, I can give a lot more. I can sponsor more families, I can do more of these events. So the difference now is I can do multifaceted marketing ventures and now I have the budget to look into Google and whether it's PPC, SCO, LSAs, that whole thing, but I will never, ever, ever... The cornerstone of my marketing is my community engagement because that's organic. I could not spend, I could spend, it'll never go away, right? And you know this well enough, the moment you stop spending on PPC you're done, right? So if you build the organic, you build the trust within these communities, they will always be there for you. So you got to do a combination of both.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's brilliant advice. And I think that those relationships do compound and those businesses do get bigger. Most of the time you hear strategies where it's starting with Google or starting with the radio or the billboards, but this is really working out and it does have the ability to compound. So how has success changed? You said now you have a family and that dynamic, so what does success mean to you now?
Muhammad Ramadan:
It's a very good question. I think that constantly changes. Five years ago, I would tell you success would be hiring my first paralegal, right? Now that I have five staff, it's I want them to make really good money, right? I want them all to be at six figures plus. That's a big goal of mine, I've always wanted a great staff that got paid really well. A success for me is creating great firm culture where we all generally like each other, we treat our clients well. That comes from your firm culture. How your staff treats your clients is based on how you treat your staff, and I think a lot of people really miss that. So be good to your staff, treat them well because they will then treat your clients well, who then pay you and you could feed your family from it, right? So for me, success right now is building up my team and really being the law firm for the disenfranchised. I grew up in areas that we didn't have access to attorneys and we didn't know attorneys. And I always felt that people in our neighborhoods were taken advantage of and I always wanted to build the firm that not only represented them, but gave them that A+, A1 service, as well as speaking their language, being in their communities. So the ultimate success for me is going into marginalized communities and knowing that they have a law firm that knows them, that cares for them, and is going to bust their ass for them, and is going to give them top level service and not treat them any less because they live in a zip code that might not be the upper echelon. And that was one of the biggest reasons I went into opening up my own law practice. I wanted to really reset the standard of what marginalized communities get in return in legal services.
Chris Dreyer:
So powerful. Amazing, amazing. Well, we've got one final question here. What's next for attorneys of Chicago and where can people go to learn more about you?
Muhammad Ramadan:
I'm very big on Instagram. I love Instagram, it's my favorite. So you can catch us on Instagram. I'm Mothelawyer on Instagram and on TikTok. We're growing our TikTok right now. I'm still learning it, so any feedback I love feedback guys. So if you guys see me, if you hate something, please tell me you hate it. If you love something, tell me you love it. At this point for us it's really just continuing to grow our team, continuing to be embedded in communities. We're hitting different parts of this city now. We're very south side based, so I'm doing a lot to go more west side, north side, so just really hitting different parts. I got a big project coming up next year where we're going to actually open up offices in these communities so we can then be a legal hub in the communities for these communities to come in. And we're going to offer free services where they could use our recording equipment or if they need a center for kids to come in or anything like that. I really want to build this model law firm that's in communities with actual brick and mortar locations and not just as a for-profit service, but actually being a hub, a legal hub for these communities. So I've already picked some locations, so that's going to be the next big thing that I'm working on. But I really think I can really set the standard on community engagement by being embedded and having a location in these communities. Some communities that lawyers won't even drive through, okay? So it's communities that I'm familiar with that I know if people just saw it and got over the reputation, they would love it. But let me be the first one, let me show proof of concept. I do think law firms should be more embedded in their communities more than we are. Let's take it back to the old school essence of what lawyers were. We are the representation of people. We stop the government from overreach. I mean, we play a very vital role in our communities, in our system, in our great country. Lawyers play a very important role. Yes, we're here to make money, I never hide from that. I can't grow and I can't help people if I don't get clients. So we need money to do that, but you also keep in mind who we are, what we do, and I just hope lawyers remember that and remember what our ultimate goal is as attorneys.
Chris Dreyer:
Zero cost guerrilla marketing can make any firm more profitable by building trust and relationship equity. Social media, volunteering, attending grant openings and donating to causes are all great ways to get started. Be aware of the community you're looking to engage. Understand them. In some towns, plastering your firm all over a sponsorship event could come off as spammy, while in others wearing a bit of swag when you volunteer could drive more referrals. I'd like to thank “Moe The Lawyer” from Ramadan & Associates for sharing his story with us, and I hope you gained some valuable insights from the conversation. You've been listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris Dreyer. If you'd like this episode, leave us a review, we love to hear from our listeners. I'll catch you on next week's PIM with another incredible guest and all the strategies you need to master personal injury marketing.
