Tim Semelroth:
Enough smart people started saying, "Hey, there's a real opportunity here on this platform if you act intentionally, if you act strategically."
Chris Dreyer:
We all know content is king, but constantly feeding the beast is exhausting. What if you could take a single piece of content and squeeze every single drop of value out of it to dominate your market?
Tim Semelroth:
So, you're getting a print newsletter in your mailbox, you're getting two emails a month, and then if you're actually on the LinkedIn platform, you're hearing from me at least once a week.
Chris Dreyer:
When you run the largest personal injury firm in your state, you're showing an ability to both execute and iterate. Today's guest just posted the two best months of his entire career, and the crazy part is how he did it. He's using smart, practical systems that don't require a million dollar budget. These are actionable tactics you can take and deploy in your own firm today.
This is Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the elite performance marketing agency for personal injury law firms. Today I'm speaking with Tim Semelroth. He's a board-certified trucking attorney, and the driving force behind the largest personal injury firm in Iowa. He's helped build RSH Legal through a relentless omnichannel content machine and brilliant operational tweaks. We're talking about how to turn a single LinkedIn post into a massive referral network, a zero-cost psychology hacks for your intake team, and why you need a strict AI policy right now.
Let's get into it. Before we dive in and talk about what you're doing for Iowa and your clients, and let's talk about a recent win. What's something that comes to mind, something happening you're excited about?
Tim Semelroth:
Well, we just had our two best months of new client signups in January and February. And that's a big deal for a firm that's been around for over 30 years.
Chris Dreyer:
So, we got to ask the follow-up, right? What do you think contributed? Is it compounding? You do a different channel? What contributed to the two best months?
Tim Semelroth:
Well, it's multifactorial. I mean, if you look, it's attorney referrals and SEO. Those are the two channels that provided most of the growth. But as you know, what makes those channels work is not a flip that I switched last month, they are things that we've been doing for the past couple of years.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah. It's so interesting when we talk about marketing. I've had other guests, they talk about broadcast television like, "Hey, just commit to a year. Don't expect anything in return for your first year." You talk to other channels. It's like a lot of people are in and out, but certainly SEO, it starts to build over time.
Tim Semelroth:
Yeah. Well, I'm a big believer in the Warren Buffett investment strategy theory that only invest in things that you understand. And so, luckily I understand our strategy behind how we get more attorney referrals. I understand what we're trying to do online, and that's what we focus on. And I recognize that in both of those fronts, Rome isn't built in a day.
Chris Dreyer:
Love it. Love the conviction, that mindset. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is a top tier referral network. But Tim has engineered a system to speed up that process. Instead of throwing random content at the wall, he treats his LinkedIn profile like a testing ground. It's a masterclass in omnichannel marketing. He finds what resonates, and pushes those winning ideas through email and direct mail to his own referral market. Yeah. So, starting off, we got to tee it up with the attraction. Everybody listening wants to know about the latest tactics and different tactics for attracting leads. And you have a different approach that is kind of cohesive from your omnichannel approach. You write these detailed posts on LinkedIn, and then there's this analysis you do that turns them into other assets. So, maybe you could break that down for the audience listening. It's different, and I really love the strategy behind it.
Tim Semelroth:
Sure. First of all, it's funny to have somebody ask me about LinkedIn, because four years ago I would have said, "I think I have a LinkedIn account, but I never used it. It's someplace you go to get a job, to hire somebody. I haven't needed a job in 28 years, so why would I be on it?" But what happened was, enough smart people started saying, "Hey, there's a real opportunity here on this platform if you act intentionally, if you act strategically." And so, I'm a slow learner. It took three people telling me that before I'm like, "Okay, there must be something into it." And so, what I realized is, LinkedIn can be a very valuable channel if you pick your audience carefully. So, my audience is other lawyers. I want to be interesting, informative, entertaining to other lawyers. And so, that is my North Star for whatever I post on LinkedIn.
And my message is pretty simple. "My name is Tim. I'm from Iowa. I'm a lawyer." And then the next step is, "I personally do truck accident cases, but I have the largest injury and disability firm in Iowa. And if you need anything in Iowa, hopefully I'm the one that you call." So, because of that, when I write a post, what I decide to post on LinkedIn is with that message in mind. And then what I do is I track, "Okay, well, which posts are being read, which posts does the algorithm like? Are they pumping out to extra people? Which ones are getting comments, feedback?" And then what we do is we take those posts, and it's not just me now. The great thing is I've recruited other lawyers in the firm, and we take the best performing posts each month and two times a month we turn those into e-newsletters that go out to every lawyer in the state of Iowa whose email address we have.
Then we look at, okay, well, because that's clicking to links and things like that. Then we look and see, "Okay, which ones are people actually clicking on and reading through the newsletter?" And we turn that into a print newsletter that gets mailed out, just a one-page front and back newsletter. It gets mailed out to every member of the Iowa State Bar Association. And we do that. So, you're getting a print newsletter in your mailbox, you're getting two emails a month. And then if you're actually on the LinkedIn platform, you're hearing from me at least once a week.
Chris Dreyer:
You're also certified trucking attorney?
Tim Semelroth:
Yes.
Chris Dreyer:
And so you have a lot of depth and expertise there. And I imagine that's just another method of getting referrals. And I know there's the Academy of Trucking. And how do you utilize that from attracting case perspective?
Tim Semelroth:
About 10 years ago I really decided to take an inventory of what I loved about practicing law. And what I realized was, there are all these cool tools that I was learning about, whether it was when I went to Trial Lawyers College and I learned about psychodrama and how useful that can be in trying a case, when I learned about how to effectively use focus groups, when I learned about the way that you could do really cool things with courtroom exhibits, visual aids, that sort of thing. And then just the very simple thing of how much better prepared you are when you can drive to your client's house and sit at their kitchen table and really see where they live and what makes them tick. And I asked myself, "When do I get to do those things?" And you really only have time to do those things when you have a big case.
And so, I looked at, "Well, what type of cases in my career up until that point was able to use those tools most regularly?" And it was in my trucking cases. So, I just made a commitment at that point, "Okay, I'm going all in. I'm going to go to the best CLEs, I'm going to associate with the best trucking lawyers in the country. I'm going to learn from them. I'm going to ultimately go to truck driving school and drive a semi. I'm going to get board certified." You just have to announce to the world, "This is what I'm going to do. These are the only cases I'm going to handle." And I know it's scary for people, because they're like, "Oh, but you do this and you do this." It's like, "Guess what? Those cases still come."
It's like nobody has not called me on a case in Iowa because they know that I'm Iowa's truck accident lawyer. They'll still call me. It hasn't taken anything away from our practice, but it is added to it, because when people do any sort of research online or they talk to anybody in the country who's in the truck accident world, hopefully they know who I am and they say, "Why don't you just call Tim?"
Chris Dreyer:
You've got this incredible content engine driving referrals and you planted your flag as the go-to authority. The phone is ringing, but if your intake process is clunky, all that marketing budget goes down the drain. Because Tim runs the biggest personal engine firm in the state, you had to get creative with intake. What he did next is as simple as it is brilliant. Talk to me, I kind of want to shift to intake. Because you have so many different practice areas that complicates things.
Tim Semelroth:
Yes.
Chris Dreyer:
There's a lot more criteria. Does that necessitate an intake attorney? Does that necessitate having everything in-house and no third party whatsoever? How do you build the biggest PI firm in Iowa and also do all these different practice areas and manage intake?
Tim Semelroth:
Well, in fits and starts. I wish I could tell you that we had figured it all out and everything was easy, but it's not. And so, we have an intake team in-house. We have outsourced our overflow and our nights and weekends. And I'll tell you, some things we're doing other smart people have been doing a lot longer than us. So, we finally got to the point where we felt comfortable enough that we could tell our overflow and nights and weekends people, it's like, "Hey, if they meet this criteria, go ahead and send them the contract." I mean, and that was tough for us, because for years and years it's like, "No, we're going to let our attorneys decide what cases to take. They're the ones that are going to be trying them." But what we realized is, you can't have a attorney-centric intake system once you get to be our size, for multiple reasons.
I mean, if attorneys, they're going to have cases, they're going to have depositions, they're going to have trials, they may be just super busy one day. That is not the person that should be deciding whether you're taking a bread and butter car accident case, because in their mind they're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to be up until midnight tonight getting ready for this doctor deposition tomorrow." And they're not in the right head space to decide whether or not this is a good case. The only innovation that we've offered, I think that might be interesting to your listeners is one thing we realized is, when somebody calls in, whether it's fair or unfair, they don't think that the person who answers the phone has juice. And so, particularly in the cases where you can't just sign up based upon, oh, you were ... Red light, green light case, when you're talking about a medical malpractice case, a nursing home case, a complicated piece of litigation, you got to have a long discussion with them before you decide that's something you can invest in.
And so, one thing we realized is by changing the name of a certain part of our intake staff from to investigator, that way the person who answers the phone can say, "Oh, you have a case where you need to talk to one of our investigators." And so, the caller feels like they're being elevated to a higher level. They feel like they're being respected, that they're talking to somebody with some juice. And so, that way when they're talking to that person, they're not like, "Hey, I can't be bothered with you. I need to talk to a lawyer." It's like they're much more satisfied when they're talking to somebody who isn't just the person who answered the phone.
Chris Dreyer:
If you do happen to turn them down, it's like they've went through the investigation process, not just top layer like you actually gave them that time. That's fantastic. What a great piece of advice there. You guys are heavily involved in AI, and you have some different opinions on this. You have a strict no free AI rule. So, maybe you could talk to our audience about that and maybe talk to them about your use of NotebookLM as well.
Tim Semelroth:
Okay. So, first of all, the no free AI rule is, what I tell people when I speak about AI, and I talk about it all over the country, is that I view use of AI sort of like I view the sex talk with your teenager, which is, you can't assume that if you don't talk about it they won't do it. And so, I urge every lawyer I talk to, "You have to have a discussion about AI with the people who work for you, and you have to have a written AI policy." Because even if you don't, they're still going to be doing it. We are a business that uses words and uses documents. And if you aren't teaching your people how to use AI safely, they're going to be doing it on the side, and they may be doing something that will put your law license at risk.
And so, one of the things that when you have that AI talk with your staff, the bright line rule that in our office, and I urge other people to follow is, no client information goes into a tool that we're not paying for, because you can't control where that information goes, you can't control how it's going to be used. And so, if you have the urge, if you hear about a tool that you want to use that involves AI, every employee knows they have to go to our office manager. And if the office manager thinks that this is a tool that they should be using, then the firm's going to pay for the subscription. And then obviously, we use, CPO right now as the product that we use for most of our case work, which obviously we're paying for. So, that's the no free AI rule.
Chris Dreyer:
I think that's smart. I think the written policy, and yeah, especially I think all these tools, ChatGPT and they all have these connections and APIs and they can just get into your ... Now you could sync up your emails and they could get it right into your CRM. And it's like, it's the danger zone if you don't have that conversation.
Tim Semelroth:
Yes. Honestly, I was telling people two years ago that I'm probably not going to have to do this part of the discussion anymore when I speak at CLE programs about AI, because I'm like, "Your malpractice carrier's going to require it." And frankly, I am shocked that that is not a standard thing that you have to sign off on whenever you renew your malpractice insurance, that you have a written AI policy and that it has certain things in it.
Chris Dreyer:
Agreed. All right, so NotebookLM?
Tim Semelroth:
Okay. So, one of the things I love most about being a lawyer, about being a business owner is you learn something new every day. There's always something to learn. It's like I never feel like, oh, it's like I'm here to, I guess, reveal my age. It's like time to make the donuts. It's like I never feel that way. And so, NotebookLM, which as you know is a product that Google has that you can access when you have a paid Gemini account is this amazing tool that can help you learn things. And one of the advantages is that you can create a closed universe of information. So, and I know you know this, and I'm just saying this for the audience, but it allows you to upload PDFs. It allows you to include particular websites. You can upload YouTube video links all into this closed universe, which you can then chat against, just like you can ask it questions like you would ChatGPT or whatever.
But then they have this Studio suite. And the reason I'm doing this is because there's one column where you can put in sources, you have one column where you can chat with it, and then they have this evolving column called its Studio. And obviously, the sexy thing that got everybody's attention almost two years ago was that it can generate a podcast based solely on the information that you have uploaded, and it sounds like two people talking. It does not sound robotic at all. The first time I demonstrated it to a group of lawyers they thought it was magic. I mean, it's that good. But then it has other things, like it can do, it can auto generate quizzes, it can auto generate flashcards, it can auto generate mind maps, all these different things you can do. And so, what it is, it's this amazing tool to help you learn.
And so, the story that I tell people is, in August of last year I testified as an expert witness in a case. I had to testify based upon a couple of thousand pages worth of documents. And so, when they hired me, of course I reviewed those documents and I wrote my report, and then I was waiting to get deposed to kind of find out what they're going to come at me with. And I kept asking the lawyer who hired me and they said, "Yeah, I'm not going to respond." And finally they gave me a response that said, "Yeah, we're not going to depose him. We'll just see him at trial." And so, then I had a vacation right before trial. I went to South Korea and Vietnam with two of my kids, and we had a great time and I had like a week where I got back and I was going to testify later that week.
And so, I just threw my report and the direct examination outline into NotebookLM, and I had it generate potential cross-examinations, which reminded me of documents I needed to look at again. And I just kept doing that and kept doing that. And then eventually what I did, because I'm an auditory learner, is I had it create podcasts based upon that case file. And as I drove to the courthouse every day, I would listen to that podcast and it brought everything in the file back to me, and it was just a great way to get prepped to testify.
Chris Dreyer:
I got two things here on this. First of all, that's fantastic. I love that. I was just an expert witness on a trial and I'm like, "Ah, man, I should have done that." That would saved me a ton of time. Tim, this has been absolutely amazing. Iowa's biggest personal injury law firm for our audience listening has questions about how you're using AI, about maybe some of your marketing tactics or anything on the pod. What's the best way to get in touch with you?
Tim Semelroth:
The best way is LinkedIn. I'm there every day. So, just look me up on LinkedIn, send me a direct message, as long as you are not offering me an amazing business opportunity or a chance to redo my website, I'm happy to respond. Otherwise, my firm's URL is fightingforfairness.com, and my email is tsemelroth@fightingforfairness.com. And I'm happy to talk about any of the things that we talked about today. As you can tell, I'm pretty excited about them.
Chris Dreyer:
Amazing. Tim, thanks for coming on the show.
Tim Semelroth:
My pleasure.
Chris Dreyer:
Tim's approach is an absolute definition of working smarter, not harder. He tests his ideas on LinkedIn and the winners get deployed across his entire marketing ecosystem. It's a masterclass in efficiency. And that one simple tweak, changing intake into investigator is a pure psychological hack that costs absolutely nothing to implement, but completely changes the tone of the conversation. If you want to stop guessing, start executing, and squeeze every drop of value out of your marketing, you need a lead performance marketing agency that delivers proof over promises. Heading over to Rankings.io to see how we help personal injury firms sign more cases. I'm Chris Dreyer, and we'll catch you next week on Personal Injury Mastermind.
