Charles Buist:
It boiled down to what do we know, and where's the competition at?
Chris Dreyer:
Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the legal marketing company the best firms hire when they want the rankings, traffic, and cases other law firm marketing agencies can't deliver. Each week, you get insights and wisdom from some of the best in the industry. Do me a favor and hit that follow button right now to subscribe. You'll be the first to get every new episode delivered straight to you the moment it drops, giving you the edge. All right, let's dive in.
When Charles Buist first set out, he aimed to build a boutique firm, but when he found a blue ocean of underserved clients, everything changed. Charles is bucking convention and blazing a trail in underserved niches. He quickly dove into dental med mal, helping as many clients as he could. In just three years, he's cornered the market in four states and he has no plan of stopping. If you're ready to discover your own blue ocean, Charles charts the path forward. Here's Charles Buist, managing partner at Spetsas and Buist.
Charles Buist:
I think a lot of personal injury attorneys have one of those situations in their lives where they were in our client situation. In our family, we had a real serious car accident when I was a kid and that affected me. I think initially, it was a bit infuriating, even as a kid, to understand what's going on. And I mean, later, the emotions come out of it when you understand it's just business. It's how these people do business. But it kind of stuck with me. I'm certain that guided me to where I am today. No doubt about it.
Chris Dreyer:
Well, you had this goal of starting a small boutique firm, taking high value cases, and then it kind of changed. You made a pivot to more like a high-volume trial practice model instead. Jumping right into the deep end, walk me through your thought process on that. Because you do litigate, you do have some unique areas of expertise. And we'll talk more about dental and some of those components too. So talk me through just your vision of your practice and how it's developed.
Charles Buist:
I really wanted to use that bowling pin model. The bowling pin model, just boiled down, is you pick out one really niche area and you try to master that, and then you knock down an adjacent bowling pin. Rather than just saying, "Hey, I'm going to go after all personal injury," you have to go after niche things in order to get seen, right? I mean, it's really difficult to go in and just scatter shot, "I'm a personal injury attorney." There's already people around that are doing that. They're spending millions and millions of dollars a month on advertising. So we really wanted to take that bowling pin model and use it to grow our firm.
The whole idea of high value cases, I mean, you look at your mentors, you look at the people that are where you want to be, and that's what they're doing. But I think once you jump into this business you realize, "Hey, I need to take what comes along, and I need to help as many people as I can." And then you start seeing that, as you help these people, you build these relationships, they start telling their friends to give you a call. And so that goes back to that whole concept of what's my customer lifetime value?
And you see a lot of these terms used in other businesses, but you think, "Okay, well I've got somebody here with a quote-unquote small car accident case. But what if they're really pleased with the way you treat them? What if they really love you? What if you make a friend here, and now they're out in the world, they'll let the world know about you?" So I started seeing tons of value in helping people with a lot of these cases that maybe people would turn down. Once you've walked that road before, you know what to do next time. We've evolved and we've certainly pivoted from what we thought walking into this. Absolutely.
Chris Dreyer:
I have clients that do trucking, but when I think of trucking, I think of Joe Fried. He's on all these trucking boards. He's speaking about it all the time. He is teaching, educating. And sure, he does auto and these other cases, but he really stands out as the trucking guy. There's some great people, David Craig and other individuals. What was the head of the bowling pin for you?
Charles Buist:
When I started doing the keyword research and started trying to figure out, in personal injury, where's the least competition, it just so turned out that there just weren't a lot of people doing dental malpractice cases. And I grew up assisting my dad in dentistry. He raised me a single father, I was an only child, so I spent a lot of time in a dental practice. And Dad rose to the top of his field through a lot of work. Education was always very important.
And he kind of got to that point where people came to him when they were messed up, so I got to see a lot of these things. So when I saw these keywords popping up on dental malpractice and I looked at it objectively and said, "Wow, there's no competition here," this is a great place to look at as a potential bowling pin. Plus, in addition to that, I grew up in dentistry. I have access to a lot of dentists that can give me advice, can point me to the right textbooks. So it just seemed like a natural bowling pin to go after.
For my law partner, when he worked on the defense side, he defended a lot of negligent security cases. And so, for whoever doesn't know what that is, you go to a gas station, you're filling up your car, and a shooting breaks out in the parking lot, you get hit with a stray bullet, or you get stabbed by somebody at some sort of business property. Really crazy stuff, we found that that was a great area to target as well. So what were our initial bowling pins? Certainly dental and negligent security cases.
It boiled down to, what do we know and where's the competition at? Everybody can do the car accident cases, everybody can do the pedestrian accident cases, the trucking accident cases. Once you are the person that people call for trucking accident or wrongful death, you've sort of made it, right? That's the last level of Mario, right? I mean, that's as good as it gets. But we all have to figure out how we're going to get there.
And that path, I'm sure if Joe was here, that he'd tell you it's not a direct path and it's not as easy as maybe it looks now, that getting to be the trucking accident guru was, I'm sure, a very long road for him. And so, I see that as certainly a goal. We would love to get enough trucking accident cases to be an authority in that one day. We're doing what we can, we're learning as much as we can, and targeting what makes sense to target from an SEO standpoint.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. So you mentioned... And I think a lot of our audience is PI attorneys, and the biggest question for most of them is how to get more cases, more leads, right? When you're targeting something so niche, you mentioned, of course, SEO, and you've got deep expertise yourself doing that, what are some of the other approaches that you're doing to get these unique areas? Because sometimes they're really difficult to even target through SEO. Like the queries, they come in differently. They don't have the volume of a head term, like car accident lawyer. So how do you approach marketing in these different areas for your practice?
Charles Buist:
I think it all starts with research. You have to find out what's going through people's minds and how many people is that an issue for. So as you start searching these long tail keywords, you start getting an idea of how your potential client thinks. And I think that's my approach, is more from a psychological standpoint is I want to know what are they looking for? What can I do to help them get the answers they're looking for?
Even if they come to my website, and they get the answers that they're looking for, and then they go and talk to somebody else, that's okay. I've touched base with them before, and three or four years from now, maybe someone comes to that person and goes, "Hey, I got into an accident." Who knows? My name might come up. Maybe that next time they get in a car accident or something happens, they find me, and maybe this time, it's the second or third time they've seen me, and so that trust is there.
The data is out there for how many times it takes a person to see you, recognize you, and then trust you. There's a reason billboards work. They're super expensive, but once somebody sees you a certain number of times, they begin to feel more comfortable with you. And I think it's really important in our practice that we just get seen. We don't have to get hired by everybody. We're lean right now. The important thing for me is I want to put out great content, I want to give people the answers they're looking for, and I want to be there when they're ready to look around. It's kind of my strategy.
Chris Dreyer:
A lot of what I heard there, and I think it's another Seth Godin book is like, this is marketing. It's like everything that you're talking about is marketing. Some people equate it to just the billboard. But from what I hear from you, it's the experience, it's the education, it's treating people right. I love every bit of that. When I hear med mal, I instantly think of extreme costs from expert witnesses.
And even the negligent security, I think... First of all, I think both of these areas, it's like do the hard things that people aren't willing to do. It's like you got to go out and get these investigators, and there's just additional complexities because not every single one of them are the same. It's not just a common rear-end collision, so your paralegals and staff, you got to train them differently. When it comes to that, and doing the hard things, and the capital allocation, how do you think of investing into those types of cases? Because there's some risk, right? You may have tons of money in a case, and it may not go the right direction.
Charles Buist:
Sure, absolutely. Yeah. With dental, the damages, unless it's a death case, or some very, very, very severe case of infection, osteomyelitis, people have jaw infections where they end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. But other than that, there's a lot of good cases out there that are indefensible. Meaning if you can screen all those calls, and if you do decide, "Hey, I'm going to start looking at dental malpractice cases," you're going to get a lot of calls for every good call.
But if you get to the point where you can screen cases and you start understanding and it goes through the algorithm that, "Hey, this is an indefensible case," you can keep the cost low by being smart that way. The competition is so low. Everybody... I got calls from Michigan today. I got calls from Minnesota today. I got calls from Indiana today.
I don't have a license to practice law in any of those states, but there's so little competition that even the stuff I'm targeting in the states that I'm licensed, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, is coming up in these states all across the country. And it's because there aren't answers out there for people because nobody's doing this.
So if you do decide to jump into this area of practice, you're going to get a lot of phone calls. And I think initially, you're going to pick some bad cases. That's just something you have to be ready for. But once you start understanding what the insurance company needs, what boxes can you check for them where they say, "Okay, here we go," then you can really find some good cases. I would say a lot better than your medium range car accidents. You can find some really good cases where things go well, our costs are high, but the insurance company's costs are very high also, so they have to make that calculation, that judgment call. So if you do have a case that is what I would call indefensible, then you're sitting on a great case.
Chris Dreyer:
Armed with both expertise and data, Charles has an edge when taking on dental malpractice cases. And aggravating case data over time informs sound legal strategies. With calls flooding in nationwide, efficient intake processes and centralized tools are a must. Charles explains how his CRM, Clio plays a special role.
Charles Buist:
We're using Clio, and we also have virtual receptionists. If we're ever busy or if we just don't have time for calls, people call in, they talk a little bit, that's transcribed into a couple of paragraphs, and we get that in an email. And it helps us kind of understand what's going on. It helps us be prepared for the touch-based phone call. And that's really how we manage it.
We get a lot of calls every week for dental. And trying to figure out what to do with that, unfortunately, a lot of the times you have to say, "Look, this isn't something I can help you with and I'm really sorry. Here's some options." Again, the problem is that in a lot of these states, there's just nobody I can refer someone to.
And I've had great cases that I really just couldn't do anything with it, and it's a shame. But overall, we are pretty solidly set on Clio for using everything that keeps track of everything and how we manage our referral network. I'm just always looking for people that'll take those cases, and I keep them in a list, and this is who we talk to.
Chris Dreyer:
I'd say that's the cue for those listening that are in those states outside of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, that if you're listening in and you take those cases, hit up Charles, and could be a very beneficial partnership, very mutually beneficial. So I would definitely, if you're listening, take that time.
Another component of this is your marketing and how you approach things has evolved over time, right? You started with that head pin, and then you moved to these parallel areas, and then you have your partner who has his expertise. How do you think about just budget, reinvesting into the firm, and growth versus profit, and just those types of components of... Some people design the firm, they just want growth for... And they'll take on debt, and there's no profit, and they're good with it. And others have a profitable business. They enjoy what they do and it's a very good lifestyle. How do you think about budget, and growth, and all those different components?
Charles Buist:
Our strategy and our goal, and this could change, is to really grow this thing. And paying ourselves is not the goal right now. One day, that might be the goal. But right now, we want to build as fast as we can. And eventually we may say, "Look, you may be a fantastic manager of one or two law practices. But when it gets to 4, 5, 6, you have to make a real serious strategic call there. Do I need to hire that CEO type position? Or is this where we stop and we perfect these several practices?"
Our goal and our vision is to grow as much as we possibly can. Then eventually, we stop growing, and there's going to be a lot of overflow there, and that's where we profit from everything we've done. But our goal is to grow as far as we can, find out where we're uncomfortable, and then either stop there or take that next step and get the right person to grow further.
Chris Dreyer:
Let's dive even more into the channels. And you mentioned SEO, you mentioned billboards could be good, they're really expensive. For you, how do you think about just marketing and picking your channels at this stage in the game?
Charles Buist:
Well, I started out, the plan was to stay digital and figure out what we could do there. If we can grow this business and expand using just digital, I think obviously, when you dig into the cost associated with all these other traditional forms of advertising, you have to say that the most cost-effective way to do this is digital. And by far, the most cost-effective way from what I can see to do that is through effective SEO, learning how to do that.
And just as kind of a side road I'll take, I started in on this, learning SEO, back in '09, 2010 to help my father with his dental practice. So it's been a long road to get here and understand what these search engines are looking for. They update, they change what they're looking for. So it's a profession in and of itself to understand that. But if you can do that or if you can find the right person to do that for you, I think you get your most bang for your buck out of that.
And then, of course there's going to be other things you can do. There's listings you can get where you can be seen. That's more along the lines of that brand awareness advertising, like billboards and stuff. So it's not really going to give you that initial bang for your buck. But SEO is a great way to get seen, pay-per-click is a great way to get seen if you can dig in and really understand the details of that.
But from what we've seen being here where we're at today, I see that we can expand easily into other practices and expand this business on a digital strategy. And then, like we talked about, at some point, we might say, "No more states, no more practices. We're stopping here." And I think that's when I'll look really closely at things like radio, billboard advertising, things like that. Just grow what we have in those spots. And so, that would kind of be kind of like a phase two, phase three of marketing.
Chris Dreyer:
And I think that's super smart. And first of all, you've been through the trial, starting right before the first Penguin algorithm right around in 2011, so you've been through it all and you've seen the giant... That's probably one of the biggest algorithm updates was that 2011.
And the thing is, I would say especially for the dental side and the negligent security, when Google's database and they don't have a query covered just by the nature of being the only one, you automatically rank. Well, that's not the case for car and truck. Literally every single thing that you could possibly fathom has been written. But for yours, your niche is like, no, there's not very much competition. So just the cost to acquire those backlinks and things like that that you need to invest tremendous amount in other areas, maybe you don't in these very unique areas.
Charles Buist:
And I mean that just all boils down to the strategy. I mean, there's all kinds of things you could do and just kind of narrow it down and try to focus on the smallest market possible, and then expand from there. But yeah, the goal is always to get to that point where you're the first call for the auto accidents and the truck accidents. It's just figuring out how to get there and being realistic about how long is that going to take, and what is that going to take, how much is it going to cost to get there? How much is it going to cost to maintain that spot?
And so you have to figure out how to feed the machine and grow to that point, where all those things become possible. You absolutely do not need to dig into dental, or you don't have to dive into negligent security. Those areas are fraught with their own issues. But there is something there. There's always something there that you can find and say, "Okay, this is the one. This is the one I'm going to pick out and I'm going to try to rank for this."
My goal was I want to rank as fast as I can in the top three on dental mal. Didn't take very long. Once we got there, then I said, "Okay, now we're going to get plenty of calls on that. We can screen them. We'll get some good cases there. That's good, steady money. Now let's figure out what's the next one." So negligent security, we hammer that down. There's always going to be more things. But I think staying narrow and staying focused on creating that activity on the internet and making sure that you maintain it and then grabbing that next one, grabbing the next one.
Chris Dreyer:
I love every bit of that and the strategy, and focus and focus, and then you achieve that goal. Because we all know the traffic's in the top three. It's certainly not in the fourth and below, especially how Google's keep shifting everything down. So take something like current events, like right now you got Suboxone, right? Is that... Because you're in the dental space, is that something in the wheelhouse that you'll be approaching from a tort perspective, trying to get some of these cases, or you're staying away from those? And is that one of those parallel types of pins that you're referring to?
Charles Buist:
Well, it's interesting. I haven't looked at that one specifically, but I'll tell you that as you develop relationships with other firms, you start understanding what they're looking for, and there's a whole nother opportunity if you're a marketer to find those things. Say the Suboxone cases. Okay, you get out here, you make your YouTube content on it, you put your articles out there. You get the calls, you talk to the people, you find out what questions you need to ask and get them screened a little bit, send them to the people.
And if you get a reputation for sending them good cases where a high percentage of them are signable clients, then you can really develop some great relationships, even if you don't take those cases specifically, right? Because the people that are looking for you aren't necessarily looking for you. I mean, there's some firms out there where people are looking for them by name. And you can do a little bit of research on Semrush or someone else. You can figure out who those people are in your area. They're out there.
But for the most part, people are looking for answers. So if you can be that person that stands there and gives them the answers they're looking for and gives them a path toward their goal, sometimes connecting people with that referral attorney is enough for them to give you a good Google review, to say something nice about you on the internet, and there you go. You've got an opportunity there to treat someone right, show them some empathy, give them some knowledge, and give them a solution. Hand them over to the right attorney who they were probably looking for in the beginning, but they didn't know how to find them. They found you instead.
And so I think there's a huge opportunity there in building a lot of relationships. And again, if these people remember you for showing some empathy, taking a little bit of time with them on the phone... You give people a little bit of your time... They're so used to lawyers not getting on the phone, A, and B, if they do, they're pushing you off in a couple of minutes. But if every one of those people that comes along is an opportunity for you to build a relationship, I think it's a totally different way of looking at things. And that can happen. My whole point of that is that can happen whether you take those cases or not.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's an entirely different way of looking at it. And I think if you look at most of the negative reviews for a lot of the firms that are struggling, a lot of times it's because they didn't take the case, but they didn't show that empathy and help them in their search to basically reduce that pain that they're experiencing. What's next for your firm? And how can the attorneys listening get in touch with you?
Charles Buist:
I'd like to go back to my home state of South Carolina. We have built a great thing here in Orlando. I think we're a few hires away from really needing me here at this office. So I'd like to get back to South Carolina. I got kids, I got ideas of where I want them in school, all those kinds of things. So the future for us would be that next lateral move into a neighbor state. In terms of how to get in touch with me, it's real easy. I'm at charles@spetsasbuist.com, that's S-P-E-T-S-A-S-B-U-I-S-T.com. Shoot me an email. If there's anything I can do to help folks, just let me know. I'm here.
Chris Dreyer:
There was a lot to take in from today's episode, so let's do a recap. Time for the pinpoints. Provide as much value as possible, show care and empathy for potential clients by educating them and connecting them to appropriate referral sources. Even if you don't take their case on, this good will fosters relationships and boosts reputation.
Charles Buist:
Sometimes connecting people with that referral attorney is enough for them to give you a good Google review, to say something nice about you on the internet, and there you go. You've got an opportunity there. Give them a solution. Hand them over to the right attorney, who they were probably looking for in the beginning, but they didn't know how to find them, they found you instead.
Chris Dreyer:
Pick your bowling pin. Do your research. Pinpoint an underserved, hyper-specific legal niche to establish your authority. Use focused content to capture search traffic and demonstrate capability in that specialty. Once your first practice area is dialed in, consider expanding to an adjacent niche.
Charles Buist:
When I saw these keywords popping up on dental malpractice and I looked at it objectively and said, "Wow, there's no competition here. This is a great place to look at as a potential bowling pin." In addition to that, I grew up in dentistry.
Chris Dreyer:
Market end phases. First, expand your reach into new markets through measured digital channels. Once your footprint is established, root down using targeted offline promotion.
Charles Buist:
Our goal is to grow as far as we can, find out where we're uncomfortable, and then either stop there, take that next step, and get the right person to grow further.
Chris Dreyer:
For more information about Charles, check out the show notes. Before you go, do me a solid and smash that follow button to subscribe if you haven't already. I'd sincerely appreciate it and I know you won't want to miss out on the next step episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. All right, everybody. Thanks for hanging out. See you next time. I'm out.
