Micki Love:
The most important thing to do is know your market, knowwhat plays in your market, and then go hard after those things.
Chris Dreyer:
Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm your host,Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the legal marketing company thebest firms hire when they want the rankings, traffic, and cases other law firmmarketing agencies can't deliver. Do me a favor and hit that follow buttonright now to subscribe. You'll be the first to get every new episode deliveredstraight to you the moment it drops, giving you the edge. On these specialToolkit episodes, we dive deep into conversations with the leading vendors inthe legal sphere, the masterminds behind the technologies, services andstrategies that help law firms not just survive, but thrive in today'scompetitive landscape. This is Toolkit Thursday on PIM, your weekly guide tostaying sharp in the legal world. Let's get started.
How do you build a nine-figure firm? Know your marketbetter than anyone, tracking shifts in attention, not just annually, butquarterly. My next guest is an expert at dominating markets through strategicmarketing. Micki Love pioneered data-driven techniques while moving up theranks at Hughes and Coleman. She handled everything from intake to leading thefirm as COO during her 23 years there. Now, Micki is bringing the insiderperspective on PI firm growth to the integrated ad agency, CJ Advertising.She's laser-focused on results for law firms through digital, media buying,video and beyond. Micki shares tactical advice on how to market your way tonine figures and how to staff your firm to get the most out of your top 5% ofcases. We also discuss the messaging needed to stand out and capture thosecoveted trucking and complex catastrophic cases. Here's Micki Love, Presidentat CJ Advertising.
Micki Love:
So I started at Hughes and Coleman when I was in highschool. We had a co-op program. They didn't yet allow you to go take collegecourses, so this was our entry into the workforce back then. Started out as arunner and a file clerk sitting in the floor putting staples, this was beforethey had the fancy way of stapling papers or inserting papers into files. So Iwas doing all the things and I was just super curious. I wanted to learn everyaspect of what the case managers were doing, the attorneys were saying, so Iwas running errands and just trying to pick up as much knowledge as I couldwhile I was there, and then eventually got my degree in accounting, worked myway from reception to a bookkeeper and I happened to be the youngest person atthe firm at the time, so that automatically meant I knew more about computersthan anyone else.
So we were one of the first adopters, our firm was one ofthe first adopters of pins, which was the predecessor to needles, and so I gotto transition from a DOS based CRM and work with needles to develop what becameneedles. I don't know why I chose accounting as my degree because I reallydon't enjoy doing debits and credits, but I love figuring out how to make moremoney. I was sitting in that basement office thinking, "I've got to dosomething different with my life because I do not enjoy debits andcredits." So I just started fiddling with all the things that make themetrics move from a dollar-wise for the law firm. And so I took them to LeeColeman and I was like, "Hey, what about this? Can I just take overmanaging the intake department for 30 days? Can I just do this and see if I canmake a difference? Because if we can get more leads in the door, then we canmake more money."
He talked about it for a while and then eventually agreedto let me try it, and from there the rest is history. We took off and they letme do a lot of things. I got to work in marketing. At the time CJ Advertisingwas our agency, and so it's full circle for me to be running CJ Advertisingnow, thinking back to 1993 when we first started using them. So yeah, fromthere I went through and took over the marketing role and learned everything Icould about marketing for a law firm from Marty Malham. Just got even morecurious about the business operations side and I got to work side by side withLee Coleman, who he was one of the very first exposure I had to someone whosystematized law firms from a management standpoint. We created spreadsheets,which eventually we came the dashboards that Chad and I created over years. Andso it was just fun for me. I loved it. I loved the inner workings of figuringout how to make more money for the firm and it was just a great time.
Chris Dreyer:
For anyone that's listening that's working in a firm, ifyou can make the firm more money, you probably have an opportunity to grow. Werun a business to make a profit, otherwise it's a charity. So first of all,congrats on that.
Micki Love:
Thank you.
Chris Dreyer:
I love that you started with intake. It's like, "Hey,you already had a pipeline, but hey, if I can impact the conversions onintake." What were some of the things that you looked at and made animpact back then? Was it scripts? Was it identifying those big cases? What werethe things that you did that made that impact right away?
Micki Love:
I wish I could say that it was that grandiose. Really whatit came down to is we had four offices and we were really one of the first lawfirms to have four separate offices in two different states, and we wereworking off of old T-one lines, which meant they weren't strong enough to sendcalls up and down the T-one lines and still support our ERM at the time, whichwas needles. I would get the numbers every Monday from the different offices,and I would notice that our national office, the call volume was really, reallygreat, but every single week we signed up the exact same number of cases and Iwas like, "That's weird because our call volume is going like this and oursignups are going like this." And so what I learned is that allowingeveryone to do intake means that intake is not anyone's priority, and sothey're just doing intake at what they could do.
I had Lee and Marshall get a separate T-one line forintake to be funneled into our Bowling Green office and we consolidated intakeinto one space with one team operating under the same rules for what getssigned up, what gets declined, and that was really the beginning of it. Andthen from there we worked on all the other aspects of intake. How do we tweakour followup process to get people to sign up? How do we track how well ourinvestigators are doing? Because there was no electronic signups back then, youhad to send people out to go sign them up or get people to come into youroffice, and we learned asking people to come into the office was not convertingat a very great rate. So then we hired multiple investigators in multiplestates to go out. As soon as the calls came in, we just kept refining it fromthere.
If we wait too long, we miss them, so we've got to get thesignup done within X amount of hours. And so a lot of those things still applytoday, if you think about the electronic contract version, just staying on thephone with them until they sign because as soon as you let them go, the chancesof getting them back is really, really low. And if you do have to let them go,then what is our followup process and how closely are we following up withthat? There's so much more fun stuff you can do with customized videos from theowners with all the AI technology that's out there that I think there's so manyopportunities to increase that conversion rate every single day. It's just funto keep playing with it.
Chris Dreyer:
Give me the big eighty-twenty of CJ Advertising. What doesCJ do? How is CJ different from other strategic partners?
Micki Love:
The one thing that really sets us apart is that ChadDudley and I are both super concerned about the law firm first. We're not hereto just sell marketing. Yes, that's what we do, we're a full service ad agency,but we also have the inner working knowledge of a PI law firm. Having been inPI firms, built PI firms and grown PI firms, we invest in the full law firmexperience from how you run your intake all the way through to increasing theaverage fee of the cases through to disbursement and asking for referrals.There's nothing that I enjoy more than figuring out how to grow the law firm.And of course marketing is a huge aspect of that, and so to be able to do theaspect of marketing combined with the PI experience, I think that's what reallysets CJ apart from most of the other ad agencies out there.
Chris Dreyer:
I love that. So yeah, you're probably the closest to whatI would refer to as an agency of record than a lot of other individuals justbecause you have so many capabilities. We get so many varying opinions and alot of times they're like, "What channel's the best?" And I'm like,"Yes." Just a couple of weeks ago I had Angel Reyes on from Dallas,he's got 8,000 reviews and did TV advertising, was a $6 million a year budgetplus every single year, but up until five years ago, he just completely quit TVand went all digital. So that's the extreme. And then you've got some, it's abalance of brand and digital. Today you're wanting to see those firms that arenot trying to get to seven figures, let's say past seven figures. You're goingto eight figures and to go to nine, what are the most effective channels? Howdo you think about marketing when looking at the commonalities of thosesuccessful firms?
Micki Love:
Everything. That's the very general answer that everybodyneeds to hear, but I love to meet the firm right where they are. So each marketis independently unique. So what works in Wichita, Kansas to get you to a $10million firm and beyond doesn't necessarily mean that that same platform oraudience is going to work in Los Angeles, California. Every market is uniquelydifferent, and we have to be able to adapt to that. We love to be able to do testsfor each of those markets, identify their clientele, where do they live at, doa lot of the demographic research so that we're making sure that we're hittingthe message in the right spot. If you're in Los Angeles, it may be a completelydigital play that we say, "Hey, this is going to work best for you,"where if you're in Little Rock, Arkansas, we may be like, "Hey, you don'tneed as much of a digital play because this is where your people are rightnow," and it's shifting every single year, sometimes every single quarteras to where the audiences are.
And so you have to be in a lot of places right now, butthe most important thing to do is know your market, know what plays in yourmarket, and then go hard after those things. I love building a brand, and Ithink nothing is better for building a brand than traditional TV and billboardsat this point, but I'm also hyper-focused on direct response, because that'swhat we need from an agency right now. If we're not bringing you cases, thenwe're not doing our jobs. So you've got to meet them where their clients are,and that's usually some form of digital and traditional combined at this point,for most markets.
Chris Dreyer:
It's like the attention arbitrage game. So a fifth TV in amarket, maybe it's oversaturated, maybe it's more digital. Is that what youmean by... Or is it truly maybe the demographic, maybe the individuals? Maybethere's a broader number of people watching cable in this market than anothermarket?
Micki Love:
So you have some markets are still underserved when itcomes to high-speed internet connectivity, so they're not as likely to bestreaming their videos. So we know now we're not going to put a ton of ourmoney into streaming. We may have to go more broadcast because that's stillwhere they're receiving their traditional media at. And then we may go to someout of home next, which could be radio or billboards. So we'll look at that andsee what does this market look like? Is it overly saturated in one of theseareas? And then how do we stand out? There's a million marketers, it feelslike, in every single market, and so how do we make our brand stand out butstill be very unique to the person that we are attempting to brand? We don'tlike to do cookie cutter type personalities with the firms that we work with.
We like to make sure that they can stand behind the brandthat we're creating. It does us no good to build a brand, making someone looklike a trial lawyer if they've never been to trial. Let's not go there. Let'smake your audience understand, we're going to get you the amount of money andlet's do it that way. So there's just different aspects that we like to take alook at and see how do we make the most out of the market, and then how do wemake the best out of the personality that's coming to us to deliver the messagewith.
Chris Dreyer:
Being distinctive in the market. There's nothing morepainful than going into a market and all the billboards say, "Injuredquestion mark at the top," and it's just like, "Oh my gosh."It's like I just tune those out. I think some individuals listening are like,"Well, that's what works. I'm going to use what works." But no, youdon't stand out. No one can remember who you are.
Micki Love:
I'll tell you a fun story about the injured with a questionmark. So back in 1997, 98, maybe 99, somewhere in that frame, it was the gotmilk question mark, was really big, and so we were experimenting with thingswith CJ Advertising back then, and so we took that injured and we did it in asimilar font. We did it red with the injured, the big question mark, for Hughesand Coleman, and we actually got featured by the ABA, their big journal thatthey did about how horrible it was that people were advertising because one ofour clients had actually worn that shirt to a vacation trip and was spotted bysomebody that writes for the ABA. So it goes all the way back to that injuredwith a question mark from way back when, and it's still being used today, whichto me is fun.
Chris Dreyer:
Back then it's advertising, it's evil, which is just crazyto think because you're helping the consumers and the injured victims, the moreawareness you have. Even in Nashville, I went and I saw bus wraps and sportsendorsements with the Titans and there's different types of advertising and theNIL and the things like that. Do you see a lot of success? Do you see the NIL,it really making an impact? Do you think that social proof and trust carriesover to the individual that they're sponsoring? Do you think maybe it's toocostly, paying an athlete in college a hundred grand for some photography?What's your thoughts on some of these emerging, what I would say, tactics?
Micki Love:
I mean, if the budget is there and you've maxed out theother channels that we know will drive leads to your firm, then let's go forit. Let's do a few of these fun things that are outside of the norm. Let's bevery cautious about the NIL deals. Not an overly huge fan of them just withthey leave the team prematurely or hit the transfer portal or they're stillkids and they go out and they have a really good time one night and dosomething really stupid, and now your brand is associated with something thatyou didn't necessarily want it to be with. So there's a lot of vetting that hasto go into that process, picking the right person, making sure that it alignswith your brand and who you are otherwise, it's not authentic and it's nevergoing to resonate with your marketplace. And so we want to make sure thatanything we do, whether it's Titan, Saints, Kansas City Chiefs, whatever it is,we want to make sure that we are tied in with your brand for a very specificreason and that we can align with that reason no matter what it is.
Chris Dreyer:
When you do the whole team, it's a little different. Butyeah, I think there's a lot of risks, these individual players, even thesestandouts. Another just fun question here is trucking accidents. Everybodywants the trucking case. And aside from doing TV in San Antonio, Texas andcertain areas, is it just a numbers game where it's a 10 to 15% have commercialpolicies? You see the individual standing on trucks or yelling at trucks or.What goes into really getting the big trucking cases? And I think everyone'sears perked up, that are PI attorneys listening. What's your thought there?
Micki Love:
I'll tell you what, I get excited when I talk about bigtruck cases as well because I do think that there's an art to getting the typeof cases that you want. I worked with Parker, I don't know if you guys knowJerry Parker with Parker Wakeman out of New York, but I had an opportunity towork with him early in my career and he said something to me that I haven'tforgotten to this day. He said, "You have to ask for what you want. If youdon't tell the people what it is you want them to do, they're not going tounderstand it and they're not going to do it." And so from that moment on,my mindset is if you want trucking cases, you've got to let the world know thatyou want trucking cases. How are you going to let them know? I don't carewhether it's internet webpages, if it's billboards, if it's televisioncommercials, if you're just putting it out in your email list, whatever it is,if they don't know that you do it, somebody else is going to educate them thatthey do handle those type of cases and they're going to move toward that personwhether you have a personal relationship with them or not.
And we did a focus group with a law firm at one point, anda lady in the focus group was a friend of one of the attorneys there at theoffice, and she happened to have been injured by the truck and she called adifferent law firm. And so we were like, "Well, you're friends with thisattorney, why didn't you call this attorney when you needed that help?"And she said, "Well, when I see this attorney on TV, he never saysanything about truck wrecks, but this attorney that I did call is alwaystalking about truck wrecks," and so it was just a reinforcement for me.It's like you have to ask for what you want, whatever it is. If it's veterans disabilitycases, if it's birth injury cases, trucking cases, nursing home cases, you haveto have an idea of what you want and how you're going to ask for it, always.But yeah, I love trucking cases and I love coming up with new and creative waysto grab people's attention around the trucking accident world.
Chris Dreyer:
Follow up question to that, okay, you have PI firms thatare asking for truck motorcycles slip and fall, maybe even nursing to somedegree. They're asking for all of these. Do you think that maybe just becausethere's so much competition, so much noise, that being specific, being the JoeFried, the David Craig, and those individuals that are just asking for this,the law tiger so to speak, of just asking for motorcycle, where do you thinkthat fits in terms of the advertising, the extremes?
Micki Love:
You know what? I think they get everything as a result ofwhatever they ask for. So we're very much into asking for a specific case type,but we track and monitor everything. So we know if we run a big truck ad, we'rejust as likely to see 10 automobile accident cases coming in from that bigtruck ad. So I think even if they go to the extreme, they're still going toattract the injury cases if the message is correct. So we've got to talk aboutthe injuries, we've got to talk about whatever messaging they're comfortablewith, but trying to make sure we're telling the clients, "We're going tomake it easy for you. We're going to get you the best results possible, get youmoney, and we're going to do it as fast as we can." Those are threemotivators for consumers that really help them to understand what you're sayingand to call you when they need you, regardless of if you're just asking fortruck and they've been in a car wreck, they correlate those same thingstogether, but for whatever reason, it doesn't work in the reverse where ifyou're just asking for car wrecks, they don't associate motorcycles and bigtrucks with those particular accidents.
Chris Dreyer:
Inflation is just crazy. Even someone making a hundred Ktoday, it just doesn't carry the weight that it used to, right?
Micki Love:
Correct.
Chris Dreyer:
So where does things like near shoring fit in? Becausewe're all interconnected now, everyone's got Slack or Zoom. Do you think we'reto that point, is it taboo or is it maybe it's the norm now?
Micki Love:
I feel like it's becoming the norm. I still think it'sstill taboo in some areas, but I think that this is our future, we're going tohave to embrace this near shoring. There are so many tasks that the legalassistants and case managers inside of a law firm are doing that can be nearshored while they take the extra time to spend on the client. And Chad and Iare firm believers that if we're going to spend any extra minutes on a case,it's with our client because the more we know about them, the injury, how it'simpacted them, the more their case is worth, the more we can relay that to theinsurance company. And so frame them up from some of these tasks of opening afile with an insurance company or data entry, we can near shore that while wecontinue to focus on keeping the client close to our best and making sure thatwe're working to maximize the value of the file at all times.
And so I think we have to start embracing that, and I'msuper confident that there are good ways to do this and there are bad ways todo that. My favorite way of doing this is making sure they feel like they'reintegrated as part of your team. They love to get your swag, be able to wear abranded shirt. We like to keep them on a Team's meeting all day or a Slackchannel all day so that we can see what they're doing and if they havequestions, there's someone here in the office, we're connected with the officeenough that they can answer those questions right away to keep them moving andkeeping them engaged with the firm. But if you just leave them out there, youhire them, they're offshore somewhere and you don't interact with them andnobody from your firm ever reaches out to them, you're not going to have thequality of law firm that you built or that you strive to have on an ongoingbasis. There's a lot of effort that goes into keeping those near shore peopleconnected, but I think it can be super helpful and definitely have to do thisto get our margins down to where we can continue to be operating at aprofitable margin.
Chris Dreyer:
A lot of times when people will get the internationallabor, they think that, oh, they don't have to attend meetings, they just dothe task. Well, then you lose sight, but you don't have thatinterconnectedness. You talked about the more time you spend with the client,the better you get to know them, the more value you can pull out of their case.Do you want the attorney talking to the client? Do you want the case managertalking to your client, because maybe the attorney doesn't have those softskills and you just want them doing the legal work? Where does that fit in?Where do you fall? There's just different thoughts about that.
Micki Love:
I love both. I love there being a good balance between theattorney and the case manager. So we like to track the number of communicationsthat the case manager slash legal assistant has with the client and the numberof communications that the attorney has with the client. And it depends on thefirm. So there's some owners who are adamant that the lawyers are going to talkto their clients and only the lawyers are going to talk to their clients. Ifthat's the case, then let's build a model that represents what the owner of thefirm has built his reputation on, and let's go track that, measure it and seehow we can improve upon it. If that's not where the owner sits at, I'm alwaysat the mindset that let's let the case managers do the vast majority ofcommunications that are not giving legal advice. They're holding the hand ofthe client, touching in about their treatment, keeping track of theirtreatment, so that the attorneys can focus on the legal issues and then theattorneys can check in with the clients once a month or once every 45 days,whatever their owner is really comfortable with. But I'm more in the mindset ofthe case managers are holding the hands while the attorneys are dipping intocheck on the legal aspects and make sure all the legal questions are answeredfor the clients.
Chris Dreyer:
The epitome, I think in our space, that would be the AMthe PM, with a little bit more client touch client service oriented side to it.So Chad, when he was on, we spent some time discussing those top 5% cases andidentifying those can have major impacts to the profitability of a law firmthat the follow-up on that is, let's say you've identified those cases, whatgoes into staffing or setting up your operations to handle those? Do you havespecialized Navy SEAL teams? Do you?
Micki Love:
Yes.
Chris Dreyer:
That's what goes into it? So yeah, tell me about that.
Micki Love:
Yeah, we like to have our top case group. So these are theindividuals that are accustomed to working on higher value, more complex cases.So a lot of your trucking cases will end up in that pile of cases because theinjuries are usually pretty severe. There's usually great insurance coveragethat can help offset all those bills and injuries and pain and suffering, etcetera. So it's got to be some lawyers with some really sharp minds that canthink about the legal issues that we can overcome if there are any, as well asa great set of case managers coming alongside of those lawyers to hold theclient's hand, answer questions that the clients have around, "What do Ido with my medical bills?" All the things that can just come into that.And we even offer, at Chad's firm, they have brief writers and a bunch of otherpeople that would fit into that top case group because we're going to pour allof our effort into really making those cases worth every dollar that theydeserve. And so it can be a whole lot of people, depending on the case type,there may be a whole Navy SEAL team, as you said, assigned to these cases totake them across the finish line.
Chris Dreyer:
I think you've got to treat them different. They don't goon the assembly line of an auto rear end collision, they're unique and you needthe experts. So I appreciate that. And it's not just about identifying, it'sworking them up differently too and maybe giving that bespoke touch.
Micki Love:
Yes. In those cases, the lawyer is probably going to bethe one doing the majority of the communications with the clients. It's just awhole different mindset when you identify those top 5% as to how you processthem through to the end.
Chris Dreyer:
Where can our audience go to connect with you and thenlearn more about CJ Advertising?
Micki Love:
Yeah, CJAdvertising.com, love it. Connect with me onsocial media. It's just Micki Love. You can find me on all social channels. AndI love our Accelerator Program that Chad and I do with consulting with lawfirms. We love to do that. Would love to talk to anybody about their operationspiece at any point, even if we're not engaged in working together, I still loveanswering the questions, so feel free to look us up. And yeah, I just enjoy thestuff.
Chris Dreyer:
Thanks to Micki for all the insights today. Let's recap.Understand your market better than anyone. Know your market inside and out.Understand their habits and how their attention migrates not just year afteryear, but quarter after quarter. And remember, what works in one market may notwork in another, so tailor your strategy accordingly.
Micki Love:
What works in Wichita Kansas to get you to a $10 millionfirm and beyond doesn't necessarily mean that that same platform or audience isgoing to work in Los Angeles, California. If you're in Los Angeles, it may be acompletely digital play that we say, "Hey, this is going to work best foryou." Where if you're in Little Rock, Arkansas, we may be like, "Hey,you don't need as much of a digital play because this is where your people areright now." And it's shifting every single year, sometimes every singlequarter as to where the audiences are. And so you have to be in a lot of placesright now, but the most important thing to do is know your market, know whatplays in your market and go hard after those things.
Chris Dreyer:
Mix it up, max out proven channels first. Once you'veoptimize your reliable lead sources, get creative. Consider NIL deals withathletes to establish social proof, but do your homework before you settle on asingle athlete, especially if they're young.
Micki Love:
There's still kids, there's a lot of vetting that has togo into that process, picking the right person, making sure that it aligns withyour brand, otherwise it's not authentic and it's never going to resonate withyour marketplace.
Chris Dreyer:
Motivate your audience. If you cast a wide net and goafter auto accidents or craft a campaign to spear trucking cases, the goal ofyour messaging is the same, it needs to move your potential clients to action.Messaging must motivate clients to call you when injured. Emphasize that you'llmake it easy for them, get them the best results, get the money and resolvetheir case quickly. This resonates across auto accident and trucking accidentcases.
Micki Love:
Those are motivators for consumers that really help themto understand what you're saying and to call you when they need you, regardlessof if you're just asking for truck and they've been in a car wreck, theycorrelate those same things together, but for whatever reason, it doesn't workin the reverse where if you're just asking for car wrecks, they don't associatemotorcycles and big trucks with those particular accidents.
Chris Dreyer:
All right everybody, that's it for this Toolkit episode.For more information about Micki and CJ Advertising, head on over to the shownotes. Before you go, give me a follow and smash that follow button tosubscribe if you haven't already. I sincerely appreciate it and I know youwon't want to miss out on our next episode. Thanks for listening to PersonalInjury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, Founder and CEO of Rankings.io. Catchyou next time. I'm out.
