Chris Dreyer:
I even hate that word, intake. It's sales. Whoever's answering that phone to get that lead going, that person's got to be a salesman.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
It's a hard pill to swallow, but if you're dropping massive capital on digital marketing and treating your intake team like a glorified message taker, you're literally lighting money on fire.
Chris Dreyer:
I think I learned a very expensive lesson quick. I was like, "You know what? It works, but is it very expensive to get a case online?"
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
Today's guest learned the hard way that to scale a massive PI firm, you need to tighten up your tech, ditch the bloat, and turn your intake department into a high performance sales team. 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's guest is Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez of Sepulveda Law Group. Operating out of California and New York, Gabriel has successfully transitioned from a solo attorney answering his phones to the CEO of a multi-state firm. Today, we cover why he treats recruiting like a marketing channel, the dangers of tech float, and why you need to completely redefine how your firm handles intake. Let's get into it.
Gabriel, welcome to the show. I like to start off things celebrating a win. So what's something recent that comes to mind, something you're excited about?
Chris Dreyer:
Oh man, honestly, I think just really rolling out our new marketing strategies, getting my hands real dirty into the digital marketing, Google Pay-Per-Click, SEO. We've had a lot of... It's a big learning curve sometimes. It's a new language, but really just really understanding what digital marketing is to its core, the top of funnel stuff, the bottom of the funnel stuff, just really getting my hands on it. I haven't mastered it yet, but I'm also... I've learned a lot of what to do, what not to do, how much you're willing to spend and what you're... Acknowledging that... Seeing what the competitors are doing with that. So just kind of educating myself with the digital marketing. I think the relationship stuff, the business development, I've really been doing an awesome job getting the community to send us cases and serving the community, getting other attorneys. So really just taking a step-up with the marketing and the rainmaking, that's what I'm really happy about.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
How has intake evolved? How you treat it? What's your tech stack look like?
Chris Dreyer:
I even hate that word intake, and I'm sure you're going to agree with me on this, right? It's sales. And I hear so many attorneys that you're an intake person, and intake just sounds so bland and like... And the truth is it's a sales position. Whoever's answering that phone to get that lead going, that person's got to be a salesman and they got to know what they're selling and they got to know how to handle objections because the legal space, if they're finding you online, they're looking... There's five other law firms on your block that could take that case too. So you have to have someone answering that phone that's representing the business well, that is a good salesman in the deck. Or if they're not a salesman, they need to be able to sell or be trained on that. What we evolved from was... I mean, if you go back way back, back, back when we started the firm, it was me.
And I wasn't a bad... I think I was good at that. I could get people. I was an attorney, I was answering the phone, intake sales. I'd get the information down and get the client to sign. But as you know, as you scale, you can't do that anymore. You got to hire people and all this stuff. So I mean, fast-forward years later, we were at a point where a few years ago, we would have a reception person. She would handle our client calls coming in, any incoming clients, potential clients who were doing that. She was doing reception work doing that. And we had to stop that because I'm like, "Yeah, we're getting so much traffic now and we need someone that's specially skilled at selling the firm, really getting the clients to come in the door and sign up cases." So at a certain point, we had to evolve and really just create our own sales team.
And so now it's more niched down. Everyone's got their position. So it's important. If you're spending a lot of money in marketing, you want to make sure those leads are handled right. And it's hard to do that when you got a team member that's playing four different positions. If you're serious about scaling the firm, you got to have a sales team and you got to invest in that. So that was the big evolution. I think we make some good progress there. We use Lead Docket. I like Lead Docket a lot. I really want to see... Tracking where these leads are coming from, seeing the data. If you're spending a lot of money in marketing and you're really making that investment, you better know how many qualified leads are coming in per channel. You got to know where the better case is coming from. You got to know what your cost per acquisition is.
If you're really serious about making that investment and scaling your firm that way, as you evolve, I think where we've... Now where we're at is I really want to see numbers and data. It's really important. Now there's too much at stake. There's a lot more money involved in the decisions we're making. So you got to have numbers and data to rely on. So I think that's the biggest thing that I've seen evolve with us and me as an entrepreneur. It's been the numbers. I'm not a numbers guy at all, but I've learned to love numbers now. And if you're not a numbers guy, you better get someone on your team that is.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
To actually manage your firm by the numbers, you need the right tools. But in the PI space, it's incredibly easy to fall victim to shiny object syndrome. There's a new app or an AI integration for everything. A tech bloke can quickly paralyze a team. Gabriel's approach, keep it simple, keep it rigid, and only use what actually moves the needle. One of the roles that I see more emerging in the PI space is the RevOps role. So a lot of times firms will hire an IT and it's across everything. And I'm not talking just like their email and Outlook stuff. And now I see the RevOps because there's so many components of tech on the front end.
It's like now you got AI to listen to all the calls, and then you have sequences on Lead Docket. Then you have... What are you going to do to transform the data in Lead Docket? Are you going to use Domo? Are you going to use Zoho? Are you going to use... What are you going to do to take that apart? It's so complicated. So how have you pulled out the data, built your dashboards? What are you looking at?
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I'm sure we can be more efficient. I mean, the main text, things we are using, we have Lead Docket. We still run with CasePeer. I've looked at other things and I'm like, "You know what? I think CasePeer's been..." They evolved and some of the things that we used to have issues with, they fix. So I'm very happy with them. I try not to get too crazy around the tech stuff. I think what happens is a lot of people, what I'm seeing is they're running too much stuff. And I think that you have to do enough to where you can get the information you need and be efficient, but you can also overwhelm your team with a lot of this tech stuff. So I think for me, it's just like we have the Domo thing, we want to integrate. We try to get the data from the different stuff we got going on, different apps, and really streamline that into a dashboard.
We have that going on. But I would say for me, I want to keep it. I don't like when we're running with too much tech stuff. I think you need enough of it. You don't want to be manually... You don't want to have a hundred Excel sheets for reports. I think that's an issue too. Some people are more tech easy. I know there's guys out there that want a different app for everything. I'm not like that. I want to know how to operate things. So I get frustrated if I had some new app and everyone knows how to use it and I'm not. I'm like, "How do I even get in this thing?" So everyone's different. It's like what works for you. I think there's no one way or right way. Some people like stacking up a bunch of tech stuff. We do the headspot stuff. We got Lead Docket, we have CasePeer. Obviously we run with Dropbox and I had to stop all that. We were starting to get too crazy with that stuff. So I keep it basic.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
I agree with all that. And even on the agency side, I mean, we don't have CasePeer and Filevine and stuff that I like that for case management, but we have project management tools, Basecamp, Trello, Notion, ClickUp, et cetera. And I like the complete customization where I can do everything. But what I found was so challenging was like, "Okay, well, now I got a hundred plus people that I got to get on this." So now I like things that are a little bit more rigid that you can't make the modifications because then they can't deviate from the system. So I get that. And there's so many new AI tools around the corner that do this or that.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, you even mentioned... I think we... I forgot AI, we are using... I forgot what... I can't remember the name. So that's the thing. We're using some AI... I forgot what it's called. Basically, it saves us time by incoming mail and documents. We're able to... Instead of us looking at it and typing in and like, "Okay, this title in it," basically reads what the document is and organizes it for us and labels everything. So that's cool. It saves some time. A lot of us... Thankfully, my team's very accepting of technology. A lot of them... We have ChatGPT enterprise that we leverage here and stuff. So I think, thankfully, we're not running into a lot of resistance with implementing AI at the firm, nothing like that.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
Or what were a couple of those mistakes? Was it a capital allocation? Was it a wrong channel? What were some of the-
Chris Dreyer:
I think with a lot of entrepreneurial attorneys and entrepreneurs, we like to do a little research and jump into it. And I think what I... I had a big spend budget in my mind and then we executed in January and then all of a sudden I'm like, "Whoa, we're spending a ton of money on this Google Pay-Per-Click stuff," really without knowing what to monitor, what to expect too much. I've got some advice from other people I look up to, but kind of just blowing a lot of money the first couple of months with Google Pay-Per-Click and just realizing... I knew that it's a saturation in the market with the big firms out there, the Morgan & Morgans and all that stuff. But really experiencing that firsthand, I'm like, "Okay, you don't want to neglect digital marketing, but be careful. You got to manage that really tightly. Make sure you have the right vendor or someone in-house to do that."
But more importantly, it really inspired me to really just focus on the hand-to-hand combat, the relationships driving business in through our referrals and our relationship marketing. Because that stuff, it doesn't cost that much. It's pretty much free. It just takes your time and effort to put in getting face-to-face with your referral partners and stuff. But I think I learned a very expensive lesson quick. I was like, "You know what? It works, but it's very expensive to get a case online that's really focused on driving that business in, not totally relying on digital marketing." So I had to learn it the hard way a little bit.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
Yeah. Yeah. And look, and I think that's true, right? Especially, I know the pay-per-click space in California very well. And I mean, a target is like 5, 6K CAC.
Chris Dreyer:
Yes.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
And then the fees got to be commensurate with that. And then it's like you got the cash acceleration of when that money comes in. So when you're spending 5, $6,000 a case, and that's every level of case, the good and the bad cases, that adds up quick.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, definitely. I mean, you don't want to neglect that space, but know when you're getting into that like, hey, you're competing with guys with big, big, big, big budgets. You got private equity coming into that space. People aren't saying it, but it's already there. So I think when you're a firm of our size, I think the big thing was just like, "Hey, you know what? Let's play this game's play. Let's play it smart. Let's be efficient. Let's be real tight around it. We got to manage our budget really, really carefully. But really what's been working for us, double down on that." And that's just clients coming back to us, repeat clients, driving those referrals in through our community partners and all that stuff. That's the way that I'm realizing I'm going to keep focusing and scaling that way.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
Talk to me about boots on the ground, belly to belly, the community building, just some general tactics for a PI firm that wants to grow that side of the biz.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I mean, it's no secret. I think when it comes down to it, it's just trust. And when we really looked at our data, as we scaled, you really have to have a handle on data. I think a lot of my times is spending looking at data now and managing by numbers because the numbers don't lie. If you have good, accurate reporting, you can make good decisions on that. And what we've seen is most of our files, the bigger percentage of our cases are coming in through repeat clients, former clients that referred their family and friends or someone they know got in an accident. And then just basically a lot of local service ads, we have good reviews were popping up a lot in our Stockton location, LA location. So we're getting a lot of just cases through people seeing our good reviews, word of mouth referrals, and then just our clients being our brand ambassadors for us.
And I think all that comes down to is trust in giving them a good client experience, doing your best for them. You can't make everyone happy, but the people you can because a lot... Most of the people you can. And those are the ones that are growing our business. And I think it all comes down to trust and having a personal relationship and really trying to make something memorable for the clients that you do serve. I think a lot of law firms, they take... I think as we scale, sometimes people can lose touch of that and it becomes a numbers game. And you see these numbers and you want to know leads and client signups and all this stuff. But you got to remember, each one of those persons, those are potential referrals partners. So you want to make sure that you leave a good impact on them and do a good job and try to make things right if they don't go right.
But I'm seeing that more and more. I think really focusing on that. And it really comes down to just they trust you, they like you, and they're going to do business with you. And it's really simple. Having relationships with your clients and the referral people, it comes down to that. That's what I'm seeing.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
I think there's a lot of truth in that, especially... Look, I trust people more when I meet them in person. I have breakfast, lunch, dinner, shake hands. I'm in the same office. It makes me feel like I can trust them more, and there's a lot to that.
Trust and community relationships drive the business forward, but you cannot scale that personal touch without an elite team operating behind you. Attracting top talent is one of the hardest challenges in personal injury right now, and relying on expensive third-party recruiters will bleed your margins dry. Gabriel treats recruiting just like a marketing channel, and he's built an internal farm system to develop A players from the ground up. How has the team evolved? How do you think about hiring and retaining top talent?
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me, I think... There's a lot to talk about with that. I think you have to evolve... A players want to be with other A players and it all starts from top down. As a leader, as an entrepreneur, you have to share that vision with your team and you have to show up and how you show up. And it goes from top down. My leaders here, the way... They want to be around A players and we have to raise our... Whatever my standards are, they're going to come up to that. If I have low standards things, they're going to meet that. And they're not going to want to... The only way you're going to attract that type of talent you want is to become that type of talent. That's how I see it. So I was able to get... I have a good operations person here. I've got a good COO. I got a good litigation operations team. I have a great accounting team.
I think for me, it was just knowing what you want and attracting that. I think when you're recruiting people, the same way your mindset is when wanting and attracting high quality cases, you have to have that same mindset when recruiting people. I think of recruiting just as it's another form of marketing. When you're creating your job postings, you really have to set forth like, "Hey, what are our core values here? This is what we want. This is the type of people we're looking for." And making sure they're aligned with your vision. I think as a leader, in order to retain... What I've seen is, as you get bigger, you really have to share that vision and communicate it consistently with the team.
So every quarter we do a town hall where we go back to our five-year vision, what we're doing, why we're doing it, and really sharing that with them so the team's engaged in what you're trying to do. So I think as the team has evolved, now they're a lot bigger than we were. You really have to make sure that vision's communicated with and that they see a future with your firm to retain them. You have to think of like a business owner. I think a lot of law firms, they're stuck in the legal practice kind of mindset. Yes, we are a law firm, it's a legal practice, but you're a business first and people are investing their time in your company, so you want to make sure that they have a career path or a vision for them. So I think our operations, one of our big projects was building career paths for each one of our team members.
I want everyone here to know where they can go, what they need to do to get there. We've done a lot more... What's really interesting is we were having trouble getting solid paralegals for a while, but what we've done is we started to look internally in promoting people within, people that were really good case managers or excelling in another department. And we say, "You know what? Let's just promote them and actually train them to be a paralegal." And it's awesome. So I think there's a lot of taking... It's almost like a baseball team, bringing up your farm system and bringing it up to the big leagues. I think we've done a lot of that and it's been really effective. Instead of just paying recruiters to help you find talent and then they're not that good. So I think that, "Hey, you got some solid people you know are proven here at the firm. Let's move them up. Let's get them and show them the ways." And it's been really helpful for us.
So I think there's two pieces of it. Obviously, there's the attracting the talent you want and hiring the top talent. You have to really become that talent. You have to really share that vision and let these people know why they want to work for you, like why. You got to be able to sell your firm and get those people to come here. And then also retaining them. That's a whole nother thing. It's a whole nother thing. It's not just compensation. They want to see a vision here. They want to see where you're going. They want to be challenged. The right people that want to be challenged. If you got people in here who just don't care, then that's probably not the people you want for your team. Or just clocking in and out.
That's not who I am and that's not the type of people I want. And thankfully, right now, I don't see that going on. So hiring and retaining, two different things. Really, we learned that sometimes promoting within the firm is the best way to get youth-proven talent they know and you can put them in another position, they're happy about it. So I've been noticing... That's been the evolution of my thinking as for hiring and retaining talent right now.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
Well, I see it from your values and the standards that you set, and that's clear. And I agree with you on the recruiters. I used to... Especially when we go through these different cycles of needs where you got to get a bunch of bodies or not, and it's like you carry a recruiter sometimes and it's like you're not hiring very many. And so you go through these ebbs and flows, but the recruiting costs are just wacky. It's just insane. I remember last year, I recruited a couple director plus positions and the placement fee was the equivalent of a full-time salary after two hires. And then I'm trying to justify it in my head, I'm like, "Well, are they worth it?" And it's like-
Chris Dreyer:
You have to be really on top of the hiring thing. And these guys come in with perfect resumes. They have writing samples and sample work and it blows your mind. You're like, "Man, this is all..." And then you see it's like... It's something, either they AI'd that or they had someone else... People are really slick about putting the best foot forward in a hiring process. So you really, really got to be tied around who you're hiring. References are big. They'd get interviewed. Get references, do background checks. You got to go really hard on who you're bringing because that's a big investment you're making. And it's so painful to spend a couple of months with someone to train them and you're like, "Man, this person's just not what they represented themselves to be." So we definitely experienced that. It's growing pains we dealt with, but for the most part, we're doing better now.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
Thank you for sharing that. What's the future? What's the next thing that you're excited about for the future? And then final, just how can people connect with you?
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I think for the future right now, I like seeing us evolve as trial lawyers. We got a lot of really, really good cases here. People have trusted our families, people who have lost their lives, serious incidents. I've been very blessed to have the opportunity to advocate for these people and obtain these files. We're seeing a lot of big cases come our way. We're getting chances to try more cases and bettering ourselves as trial lawyers too. So I think the future is really continuing to build on that and really get the good reputation we have, even showcasing that more and really showing the community the amazing things we're doing with our clients. So we're really scaling up our volume in California. I think the future is continuing to do that, really building out that trial team. And I do have a practice in New York.
I don't have a ton of files there. I got a good amount, but nothing like California. And I like to spend more time out there too. I like to come out there and handpick my favorite cases. I do have a place in New York that I travel a lot to, so I like to just do that. I would say that for me, my vision for myself is I like to focus more on the business, try a few cases a year that I'm really, really care about and I'm really invested in, and really just focus on developing the team and leaders we have here and seeing them grow. That's probably where I'm at in my career right now.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
Amazing. Amazing. And then for our audience that has questions, wants to connect with you, maybe has a case for you in California, New York, what's the best way to get in touch?
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, definitely. So you can contact my email at gabriel@Sepulvedalawgroup.com. You can also contact us... Or it's intake@sepulvedalawgroup.com. And then you can also send me a direct message @gsanchezesq, and that's my Instagram handle. Our business handle's @sepulvedalaw. And yeah, that's the best way to get ahold of me.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
Amazing. Gabe, thanks for coming on the show.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you.
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez:
Gabriel is building a powerhouse by focusing on the fundamentals, treating intake like a specialized high-performance sales force, keeping his tech stack lean, and cultivating a culture that demands excellence. If you want to pull yourself out of the day-to-day grind and focus on trying good cases you actually want to try, you have to build a farm system of A players, and manage by the numbers. Gabriel also talked about the brutal reality of Google Ads and how expensive it is to acquire a case online if you don't know exactly what you're doing. If you're ready to stop lighting money on fire and want to build a brand that commands authority, head over to Rankings.io. We deliver the elite SEO and performance marketing that puts your firm in the front of high value cases you actually want. Let us battle it out in the digital trenches so you can focus on winning cases. See yourself over at Rankings.io. I'm Chris Dreyer, thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. See you next time.
