Gary Yordon:
Rethink where you want to go and if you do that, there's apath there. Quiet can be incredibly loud if everything else is loud. In fact,quiet becomes louder than loud. When you redesign your market, when youredesign the conversation you want to have, you're going to change thatparadigm, but it takes all the other tools.
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.
On this show, I've been fortunate enough to learn fromsome of the best minds in the personal injury space and now we are bringingthem together in one place at the first ever PIM Conference. PIMCon is comingto Scottsdale this September. We're laser-focused on one thing: getting moreleads. And I'm not just talking about just any leads, but quality leads thatactually turn into cases. That's it. That's our entire focus.
It's not just theory. We're talking about actionablestrategies that have been tried and tested by the best in the business. Ifyou're looking to conquer personal injury marketing and go from good to go,PIMCon is where you need to be. We've gathered the top PI marketing experts toshare their secrets. And believe me, this is cutting edge stuff you won't findanywhere else. Don't miss out on another potential client. Grab your ticket toPIMCon now and get ready to supercharge your practice. Your future self willthank you.
Go to pimcon.org. All right. Let's dive in.
In the world of personal injury advertising there's acommon belief: To succeed, you need to spend the most in your market. But whatif that's not the whole story? What if the key isn't just about how often yourad plays, but how memorable it is/ Enter Gary Yordon, a 10 time EmmyAward-winning media strategist who's shaking up the world of personal injuryadvertising. Gary's approach turns conventional wisdom on its head, provingthat in a world of loud, aggressive ads, sometimes the quietest voice can makethe biggest impact. From rethinking target audiences to leveraging the scienceof memory, Gary's strategies help firms dramatically increase their caseloadswithout breaking the bank.
Here's Gary Yordon, partner at SP Media Group.
Gary Yordon:
I wanted to be a baseball player and I was pretty sure Icould talk, and positive I couldn't hit, so I ended up just streaming intomedia. Came to Florida State University in Tallahassee, the state capital inFlorida, to play baseball. Ended up getting a job on public television. Didthat for a few years, and then I got elected into a local government seat forthree terms. So all of a sudden that's 12 years, and that was when I was 30. Soall of a sudden you're 42 and you got some kids and ran home to mama and wentback on TV.
Started hosting the television show I host now, The UsualSuspects, on CBS. A political talk show with idiots around the table. And thenwas blessed to bump into Terry and Ken a few years ago and developed theproduct we're working with today.
Chris Dreyer:
That's amazing, and we're going to dig into that. I got tolead with you're a 10 time Emmy Award winner. 10 time. That's prettyincredible.
Gary Yordon:
Well, it proves that even a melon could win an Emmy. Itwas never a goal. In fact, I think the thing I'm most proud of is that thefirst one was '09 and the last one was last year. You can win one by a bolt oflightning. Some good idea that happens. But consistency is the key. One of mypartners, Terrie Pickerill, was one of the architects of Obama's '08 campaignand then she's designed the media we have today. That's a long stretch to beconsistent over time.
Ken Snyder, my other partner, was doing US Senatecampaigns 20 years ago and here we're still designing cool stuff. I thinkconsistency is something I'm more proud of than each individual statue. But 10was a journey and it was a lot of cool projects.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, and absolute wealth of experience and wisdom in thisspace. What made you make the leap over to the legal space? Was it a light bulbmoment? How did you jump over to the legal space?
Gary Yordon:
I was hoping this would be my favorite question becausewhat I really get off on is market disruption. It's easy to pivot whereeverybody else is to be part of market noise but when you can disrupt a marketin whatever industry by making the market change course, that's fun. And I waswatching; it was about 2015, 2016, in that period; and every personal injury adwas basically the same template. "We'll fight for you. If you're injured,call us." All the things. "This is how much we got for thisperson." And that noise that someone was talking about 30 seconds earlierand you're talking about now, and then 30 seconds later somebody's going to besaying essentially the same thing, I just started looking at it and going,"How is the person sitting at home separating you from the otherfirms?"
So I realized it was an industry that was primed fordisruption and so we started doing some deep-dive focus groups and some otherthings. We actually went to Mayo and talked to a neurologist about brainresearch. I'll get to that in a second. That was really fun too. But learned alot about how PI ads work in the brain.
And I hope lawyers like our coo with this next statement,but what we learned was folks thought most any lawyer could win a case. Theyjust didn't like them very much. The hard sell to the camera, the ambulancechaser reputation. Even that's not who these folks are but that was a publicperception that they spent years adding to with the hard sell to the camera."If you're injured, trust us. We'll fight for you."
So we started thinking if results weren't the issue, thenlikability was the issue. Then let's design something where people like theattorneys. So instead of going to the camera, we put attorneys in a position totalk to each other about things that were important to them, things theybelieve, things that matter to them, cases they remember, clients they gotclose to, people that they still have relationships with today. And it justinstantly disrupted. What's funny, the law firm that first did them, averagedabout 29 cases a month. Today they're averaging about 121. It's like it was acomplete paradigm shift. So just changing the conversation with the marketplacedisrupted the market.
Then the brain research. So we found out that memory isstored in the hippocampus. And if I gave you this phone number, like, (851)247-8143, and said, "Remember that," and then saw you on the streetsix months from now and said, "What's that number?" You'd go,"How the hell do I know that number?" But if it was the number of thepeople who are watching your kids, you'd spit it right back to me. That's howthe hippocampus works. It requires data points. It's like you run into an oldfriend and he remembers a party from high school. You don't remember thatparty. Well, he probably made out with a girl for the first time at that party,and nothing big happened to you at that party so it created a data point forhim that it didn't do for you.
That's why we put our attorneys in coffee shops. Becauseeverybody's had a conversation in a coffee shop. Or we put them into familys livingrooms. So we put them at dinner tables. Our design is meant to create datapoints. So the disruptive design is really just about approachability andlikability. That makes a difference.
Chris Dreyer:
I've heard actually on this podcast some of the big TVadvertisers saying, "Oh, you got to be the number one or two spender inthe market," and I've always thought that's because your ads aren't good.They're not memorable, right? If you're doing the same ad, you got to beat themover the head a 1,000 times before you remember it. Hippocampus. Is that whereyou get the jingles, because it's tying it to a data point for memorability?
Gary Yordon:
That's frequency. And it may not register in thehippocampus because it might not mean something to you. The hippocampus is afile system and so when there's a file that you want to file, like that's thephone number of the person to watch my kids, you file it. It's why you haveselective memory when you go back and you remember things from your past. Sono, the jingle might not work.
Now, you can get somebody by hammering away at a jingle,but think about this for a minute. If you're saying, if your entire message is,"If you're injured, call us," you're talking to less than one percentof the marketplace. When I tell that to attorneys they're like, "Holycrap. I've never thought of it that way." 99% of the market is not injuredso they hear that message differently than an injured person hears it. So whyare you spending your money not talking to 99% of the market?
And so when you do that through likability, six monthsfrom now when God forbid they get injured, they'll remember the firm they like.They won't remember the nine firms who told them the same thing before. That'show the hippocampus works. The market is actually in thirds. Most PI firmsthink of the market as one. People who are injured. So now if you expand it toeverybody who's not injured, well, you've really changed the game.
But there's a third market. I've had the same housekeeperfor 30 years. I have my family attorney. I'm probably not going to hire a PIlawyer if something happens. I'm probably going to go to my family attorney.I've been blessed to have an income level that allows me to have that comfortlevel in my life. But if something happens to the person who cleans my home orsomeone in their family, they're asking me who to call. They're not dialing thephone. They're coming to me. And that's the same for my barista, that's thesame for my lawn guy, that's the same for all people in my life who haven't hadsome of the blessings that I've had.
And so PI firms don't talk to me, but they should, becausewhen they talk to me I'm going to remember the firm that was relatable to meand I'm probably going to steer that person who got hurt in my mate's family tothem. So really, it's not just re-designing the design, it's re-designing whatthe marketplace looks like and what kind of conversation we have to have withit.
Chris Dreyer:
Gary's approach to being quiet in a noisy market makes melean in and the results speak for themselves. Earlier, he talked about a firmthat saw a dramatic increase in their caseload, jumping from 30 cases a monthto over a 120. That's a significant leap by any measure. This kind of growthraises questions about what's driving. Is it just the power of this new conversationalcreative approach or are there other factors at play, such as changes in mediadistribution or advertising spend?
Gary breaks down how this remarkable growth was achieved.
Gary Yordon:
Yeah, no. I couldn't say it was purely the creative. Thecreative changes the course and that didn't happen in a week. Great PImarketing is not a sprint, it's a marathon. That's why creating likability hasto be given time. But you guys, it's SEO stuff. It's how to manoeuvre in thedigital marketplace. No, there's a lot of layers to it but you've got to startwith a fundamental design that changes the paradigm, because if you don'tchange the paradigm, you're using those tools and you'll grow. You'll grow by1%. You talked about the top one or two firms in the market and everybodystrives to be those top one or two firms.
One of the things we've gold our firms was ... I'll use aname here. In one market I said, "What do you care about Morgan &Morgan? I don't care if they have 40% of the market. You're at 4% of themarket. You've got an amazing home, you're driving a Porsche, you got a beachhouse. What if you were at 9% of the market? What if you were at 11% of themarket? We just blew the roof of your firm."
I think it's redesigning goals. I think it's redesigningobjectives and what we say to our firms, rethink where you want to go. And ifyou do that, there's a path there. Quiet can be incredibly loud if everythingelse is loud. In fact, quiet becomes louder than loud. When you redesign yourmarket, when you redesign the conversation you want to have, you're going tochange that paradigm, but it takes all the other tools. If you don't have goodSEO, if you don't have good digital, if you're not using every tool availableto you, you're not going to move as fast as you could move. It's steps, notleaps.
But if you have great material, if you change theconversation you're having with the market and you do those other things well,something great is going to happen and it's going to happen for a long time. We'venever had a firm leave us. Our oldest firm is almost eight years now. It's justwe create these relationships where, over time, it just gets better. The 29 to120 did not happen in a month, but actually ... And the firm grows and you can... The month before it happened they had 34 signed cases. The month we startedthis, they signed 77. So it can be lightning.
Then we had good months, we had bad months just like everyother PI firm, but we never looked back. And I think the folks at that law firmwill tell you that. I think we have to look at this from a couple differentangles. That's why your question is really most relevant.
Chris Dreyer:
I love the answer to that. There's a lot to it. I'vewatched some of your videos. Personally, they feel at ease. Like whenever I'mgetting yelled at I'm like, "Swipe right, next channel." Or I tune itout. I'm on my phone. But when people are talking quiet in almost a serioustone I'm like, "Whoa, what the hell are they talking about? What's goingon here?" And I lean in a little bit.
But could you maybe paint the picture, like the settingmaybe of this style just so our audience, because it's mostly audio, can get asense of what it is?
Gary Yordon:
One of the things we did in terms of establishing thedisruption, was we established a campaign with 60-second commercials instead ofthe traditional 30-second commercials and that was a big leap because 60s aresimply more expensive than 30s. And then our firms began to realize thatthey're not. I'm just making numbers up. If you do a 30 that attracts 10people, and you do a 60 that attracts a 100 people, which one's cheaper? It'sperformance that matters and our 60s were really driving the numbers becausefor the first time they could tell a story.
So imagine three or four attorneys sitting in a coffeeshop and one of them is saying, "Yeah, the first offer that insurancecompany made was $5,000. My client was blind and they offered $5,000. And theycame and they waved the contract and they said this would put an end to it, and$5,000 seemed like a lot of money. And then we went, we fought, we battled..." But they're telling that to each other. "And at the end of theday we got $5 million." So they're having that story but they're tellingit to each other and you're just eavesdropping on them. These are fullfive-camera shoots.
The other key part. Of all the things you're going to heartoday, this is a big deal. The other thing we learned in our focus groups thatwe did was that people think lawyers don't listen. That was huge. That when yougo there you're going to get lectured or you're going to be told things butyou're not going to be heard. About 5% of every commercial we do has listeningshots. That's why the five cameras really work. So you'll hear one lawyertalking and we'll cut to another side of another lawyer listening to thatlawyer talking.
We'll also put case managers on the set. We'll put peoplewho are on the front line of meeting people and they talk about the familiesthey've met, and so you begin to get a culture of a firm. Then the other wallwe broke down was we brought clients on the set. Not third person client thingswhere they're looking off to the side so you can hear what they say, you seethem on a bunch of sides and they're talking about how much money they got. No,these are clients on the set, breaking bread, having coffee with the attorneysand the clients are talking about, "You gave me your cell phone number thefirst hour we met and we became friends. You came over for Christmas last..."
And they talk about their case and they talk about whathappened and how they felt lost. How they couldn't pick up heir kids, how theycouldn't ... And they re-live that experience together on camera. Man, that'sjust some powerful stuff. When you see that, it changes how you feel about thatattorney and you really establish likability.
Five-camera shoots sound like it's going to be reallyexpensive, but it's not. I mean, we put together a template that makes the shotscheaper because with one of our shoots, you'll get eight, nine, 10, 11, 12commercials in 60s and then we do 30s and 15s. So you'll have a toolbox full ofstuff to use for a long time.
Chris Dreyer:
In the world of personal injury advertising we're allfamiliar with a certain type of ad: The ones featuring attorneys and bigtrucks. You know the ones I'm talking about. Lawyers standing on trucks,yelling at trucks, even smashing trucks with their sledgehammers. These ads areeverywhere and become almost a cliché in the PI marketing space.
But Gary's approach seems different. It's more subtle,more conversational. I was curious had he ever experimented with truck-centeredcampaigns that seemed to dominate the market or was his strategy always focusedon this quieter, more authentic approach? Gary shares his thoughts on why hechose a different path.
Gary Yordon:
What you don't know is who you never got. Now think aboutthat for a second. You know who you're getting by standing on a truck andyelling, but what you don't know is who you're never getting. You're notgrowing your firm by concentric circles because you're not having conversationwith your next circle of growth. And that's how you disrupt a market, is whilethe other firms are just parceling out all the available cases, and growing, ifyou want to grow by a leap, you need to start a new conversation with anotherpart of the market. Who's nurturing young people who have either had anaccident or an injury or whatever?
Until you have that larger conversation, you know whoyou're getting but you'll never know who you're not getting and that's what ourfirms are experiencing. They're finding calls from people that never would betraditionally calling a personal injury law firm. But to slide that over herefor a second. What kind of cases you want. Our firm in Philadelphia, there isnothing in any of the commercials we did for them that talks about truckaccidents, car accidents. That firm wants sexual assault and malpractice.That's what they want. That's what they specialize in. That is their center. Andso then the conversation they are having, it's about those cases and so that'swhat they're driving.
We give firms a canvas. What they paint on it is up tothem. Some firms love those truck cases. Some firms want those cases and somefirms don't. That's how we drive the conversation. There's a ton of prep thatgoes into it. About a month before we even shoot, we send the firms about a50-point item sheet. Things we want them to consider. Why did you become alawyer in the first place? How would you describe contingency fees? Rememberthree cases that meant something to you. Talk about two people you've met.They're 50 things we want them to get in their head.
And then we communicate with them after they've had thatfor about a week or two and we just talk to each attorney who's going to be oncamera. And then the day before the shoot we meet with each attorney on cameraindividually and we go over wardrobe and how to use their hands and just talkthem through what to expect in the process. But by that time, they're alreadygot all these things in their head that we know we want them to talk about welook at their mannerisms, we see what they're going to do. So there's a prettybig process that goes into them. We just don't throw them at a coffee table andsay, "Start talking."
One of the fears of our firms is that other people willsee them in the marketplace and then start copying them. Good luck. The prepwork that goes into those and editing five cameras into exactly 54 seconds ofrelative conversation, it's harder than it looks.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. And I believe you on that one. I'm sure some of theindividuals listening, I want to grab their attention. You got the digitalguys. Never done TV. And then you got the old school TV that have had the sameproducer and it's worked back in the glory days when the distribution wasfurther. Is this still primarily a TV play? Are you utilizing it for streaming,TikTok or YouTube. Just from what drives cases. Is TV still driving most of thecases from this strategy.
Gary Yordon:
Yeah, although it's beginning to even out. But I can tellyou that broadcast TV is still the big elephant in the room. It just is. Youhave to remember the market we're dealing with and for most PI firms, you'redealing with about a 150,000 combined family income and down. Let's be honestabout that marketplace. So when you do, you have to go where they are and theyare cutting their cable and they're on commercial supported Hulu, they're on Sling,they're on YouTube TV because it's much less expensive and they're willing toput up with the commercials and they have to watch them. So those are eyeballs.That means, yeah, that's a good place for you to be. But unquestionably still,broadcast is the big elephant and unless you're there as a big part of yourmix, you're going to be missing a chunk of the market.
Having said that, everything else is creeping up and youneed to be geofencing. We want someone sitting in an emergency room seeing ourcommercial. We geofence hospitals and we geofence chiropractors' offices. Wegeofence particular zip codes. So yes, smart digital is altering themarketplace but I just don't think right now it's at a point where it'sdominating. I think it's a new tradition and I think if a firm isn't using itthey're making a gigantic mistake. They are missing out on a significant partof the market because if you don't go where they are, then you never foundthem. But I don't think it's gotten to where broadcast is moving into secondposition.
Chris Dreyer:
Got it. Got it. People are going to ask, "What'spricing look like?" I know every project is unique, but what does aminimum investment look like?
Gary Yordon:
Well, we don't charge a fee. There's no retainers, there'snone of that. We do the one shoot. We'll end up over the years doing more thanone shoot because they'll want to come back and do it again. But one shoot isusually somewhere around 50 grand and for that 50 grand you'll get at least ayear's worth of content. Actually, if you circle back, probably more than thatbecause we're going to hand you about a dozen commercials of different lengthsand you only air one or two at a time. So it's at least a year's worth.
That's a one-time cost and then you're done. And then wedo the buying. Where you buy this product matters and we know how to buy ourproduct. And we don't charge them anything for that except their normal 15%they'd be paying in the agency. This is not an expensive venture. We thinkwe're one of the most cost-effective things out there because we're notcharging a bunch of other fees. We do the shoot. Whatever it costs. It dependson where we got to travel, whether we need to rent the space, whether we rentsomebody's living room. If we got to do a Vrbo for a weekend. But whatever itis, it is. There's virtually very little profit margin on the shoot itself.
But the buy is where we make our money and it's whatthey're paying anyway, so not a terribly expensive venture at all.
Chris Dreyer:
Love that. Thank you for those details. Gary, this isincredible. I've hounded and talked about creative but I have yet to findsomeone that was doing a different approach and I'm so glad to have you on theshow to share this different style and I think it's tremendous value. For ouraudience listening, one final question. Where can they go to connect with youto ask questions? Where can they go to learn more about the product?
Gary Yordon:
Spmedialaw.com. S as in Sam, P as in Paul. Spmedialaw.com.That's our website. You can go take a look. You'll see a bunch of spots. It'sgot a contact us. Our phone numbers are on there, along with my partners,Terrie Pickerill and Ken Snyder. We're all there and the philosophy is there.Spmedialaw.com.
Chris Dreyer:
Thanks so much to Gary for an amazing conversation. Let'shit the takeaways. You don't need to outspend the competition to have a lastingimpact. By creating authentic, engaging content that draws potential clients insmaller firms can level the playing field. This strategy demonstrates thatthoughtful creative can cut through the noise, even without a massive adbudget.
Gary Yordon:
... quiet becomes louder than loud. When you redesign yourmarket, when you redesign the conversation you want to have, you're going tochange that paradigm, but it takes all the other tools.
Chris Dreyer:
Expand your horizons by thinking of the markets in third.The injured, the potentially injured and the influential connectors. Firms cancapture new segments. This approach recognizes that while high earners mightnot need PI services directly, they can influence many who do. It's aboutreaching beyond the currently injured to build a broader network of potentialclients and refers.
Gary Yordon:
PI firms don't talk to me, but they should and I'm probablygoing to steer that person who got hurt in my mate's family to them. So really,it's not just re-designing the design, it's re-designing what the marketplacelooks like and what kind of conversation we have to have with it.
Chris Dreyer:
Effective creative will put you miles ahead. Prepare andbe intentional. By diving into attorneys' motivations and real client impacts,these ads create genuine connections with the viewers that go a step further byactively countering negative lawyer stereotypes. In a market full of loud,aggressive ads, this thoughtful approach proves that authentic strategicstorytelling can make a massive impact.
Gary Yordon:
We established a campaign with 60-second commercialsinstead of the traditional 30-second commercials. It's performance that mattersand our 60s were really driving the numbers. For the first time they could tella story.
Chris Dreyer:
Huge thank you to Gary for coming on the show. For moreinformation about Gary, check out the show notes. Before you go, do me a solidand smash that follow button to subscribe. I'd sincerely appreciate it and youwon't want to miss out on the next episode of Personal Injury Mastermind withme, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io.
All right, everybody. Thanks for hanging out. See you nexttime. I'm out.
