Center Stage
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Center Stage
A Roadmap to More Referrals for Your Law Firm feat. Delisi Friday
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🤝 Referrals are not just about doing good work. They are about staying connected. In this episode, Danny Decker sits down with Delisi Friday of First Call Friday to discuss how law firms can build a more intentional referral strategy. Delisi shares why former clients and current referral partners are often the best place to start, how small touches can keep your firm top of mind, and why the firms that nurture trust are the ones most likely to generate more referrals.
You can get in touch with Delisi here:
https://www.firstcallfriday.com/
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Copyright © 2026. Spotlight Marketing + Branding
There are four audiences to generate referrals from. Current clients, former clients, current referral partners, and future referral partners. So the first place you start is identifying which of these audiences do I want to target referrals from?
SPEAKER_00Welcome back to Center Stage Podcast. My name is Danny Decker and have a really fun conversation today. I'm really excited to welcome Delece Friday to the show. Delecia is the founder of First Call Friday. She's also a friend. We've had the opportunity to collaborate on a few things over the years. So really excited to have you here, Delece. Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me, Danny.
SPEAKER_00So let's start here, Deleu. Just kind of give us the quick elevator pitch. What exactly is First Call Friday and what do you do?
SPEAKER_01First Call Friday is the business I started in February of 2025. And I help lawyers make friends who refer them cases.
SPEAKER_00I love that. That's awesome. So we're definitely going to dig into that. I have multiple follow-up questions that I'm excited to ask you. But before we do that, I feel like you've had a really cool professional journey. And I've seen you post about it a little bit on LinkedIn, but I don't think you and I have actually connected on it. So do tell us uh a little bit about just your your career journey.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So I didn't realize it until later in life, but I was certainly destined to be in the legal industry. I was born the day my dad became a lawyer, and my first job at 14 was working inside of his law firm. So I look a little younger uh than I should, but I do have 20 plus years of legal experience because that was my job. I didn't have summer camps. My summer camp was going to my dad's law firm, working in his office. So my background is heavy in the legal industry. I broke my dad's heart after college when I decided I did not want to become a lawyer because we had dreamed of being that father-daughter duo in court. And I realized, yeah, that's not for me. I much more enjoy the marketing side of it. And so my journey was using what I learned since I was younger as a kid growing up in his law firm. He grew his law firm all from referrals and one church ad. He's been doing since the 90s. And I've applied what I've learned with him and my experience to create my business now. I spent seven years in-house at a law firm called Callan Rodriguez Peacock. And then I spent two years as chief of staff to R. John Robbins, who is the reason why you and I met and had the pleasure of working together. And with that experience, I realized my passion is lawyers and my passion is referrals. And so my journey has taken me from working in-house in a PI law firm, growing it from seven figures to eight figures entirely from referrals, to learning the operations and the business side of running a law firm thanks to the work I did beside R. John Robbins, and eventually leading me here to kind of put all of that together and try and find a way to help lawyers do this on their own.
SPEAKER_00I love that. That is really such a cool journey. So, all right, so I've been in the marketing space for a really long time. I know you had two. It's really interesting and unique to me that you have really focused your business specifically around helping lawyers generate referrals. Let's let's dig into that a little bit. Why that very specific focus?
SPEAKER_01First, it's because it comes so naturally to me. When I worked in my dad's law firm, this was before Google, and it was only marketing and radio ads and the yellow pages. So since I was a little girl, I had to learn every time someone called your law firm, it was an opportunity to help someone. So at a very young age, I had a list of lawyers. If my father and his law firm couldn't help, we would refer it to someone else. And so that just became ingrained in me since I was a kid. So as I grew older, I learned that was something I do very naturally. And because I've been doing it for so long, my network just continued to grow and grow and grow. And so each time I had a different role, I realized how important that was. It didn't matter the industry, it didn't matter where I was, referrals and connecting the right people to the right people is going to transfer regardless of location, industry, business. And that's kind of where it all came together because I realized I do this so naturally. I love it. I'm just a natural connector. Why not create a business around it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you did it. You launched did you say February of last year?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Love it. And and again, I we're connected on LinkedIn and Facebook. So I've I've kind of seen your growth and it seems like you really are growing fast. And that's super cool to see. So what is that, what does that practically look like? Like law firm owner wants to engage you to help make friends and grow their business. What does your process look like?
SPEAKER_01So my process really depends on the lawyer and where they're at in their journey because I do have associate lawyers who will come up to me and say, hey, I don't own my own law firm, but I realize if I want to become a rainmaker and bring business into whatever law firm I'm at, that's how I excel in my career. So for someone like that, they're talking to me about one-on-one coaching, where I'm kind of coaching them through the things they should be doing to become a rainmaker on their own. For some lawyers, if they just started their own law firm, I'm coaching them through creating their target list and making sure they're creating and maintaining the relationships they have to continue to receive referrals and to grow the amount of referrals they have. And then for the other law firms that have a marketing department, or they're at a point where they want to invest to have someone full-time in their office who's nurturing those relationships for referrals, they will have me come on and help them hire that person, coach that person, and help develop them to become that person in their office doing it full-time. There's been a handful of law firms out there that have marketing teams and say, hey, can you just do an assessment? Can we just hire you on a retainer to do an assessment? Tell us where we should be tweaking some things. And I'll do that too. But I do find a lot of fun in helping someone bring a person full-time into this role because referrals is a full-time job. I did it for seven years. So it's like I'm training the next, the next years of Deleces out there and putting my little sparkle on it, and it just makes me so happy.
SPEAKER_00I love that. So, so tell let's talk about that role. Um, what's a job title? How does that person spend their time?
SPEAKER_01So the job title is gonna depend on what that law firm needs them doing. And I'll give you an example. So there are some law firms where they're gonna call them a referral director or referral manager. There are some law firms that aren't that big and are gonna say, I need this person to be half referrals and the other half working to help with the marketing of the law firm because this role truly is business development, not entirely marketing, and there is a distinction. And so it depends on what that person is going to be doing. Someone full-time in this role who's a true referral manager is going to spend every single hour of the day nurturing those relationships, making sure when referrals come into the firm, they're properly thinked, they're properly rejected, and then trying to work with the law firm to determine how do we grow this list? Because you always want to be growing it, right? And then someone who's doing half and half, half business development, half marketing, is working with the marketing team and the intake team and trying to decide, okay, where do we need to adjust our marketing to help us increase referrals and kind of marrying the two of those together.
SPEAKER_00Love it. Okay, so let's get let's get real practical here. So our our our audience for this podcast is a lot of solo uh and small firm owners, right? We definitely have have some folks that that listen that do have more of a uh just a larger team and and an in-house marketing team and probably some in-house develop business development managers, but but let's focus a little bit on the on the smaller end. Um, so you know, the solos or the or the very small firm, maybe three or four people on the team. What what what are some like practical first steps? Like, what can somebody do right now to generate more referrals, have a more of a plan? Like, where, where, where should somebody start, especially people who haven't been real intentional about this? Because Delecia, I'm sure you see this all the time. Um, in my experience, a lot of people, a lot of law firm owners and other professionals get referrals, and but but it's kind of the conversation is well, we just do good work and then the referrals take care of themselves. And I'm sure that makes like, you know, that that creates a reaction in you. I know it, I know it gets me going. Um, but like where where does somebody start who just has not been intentional about referrals before?
SPEAKER_01So the first place I have them start is whenever I do presentations and we kind of do this as a workshop style, we'll have them do is think through two different audiences because there are four audiences to generate referrals from. And there are two groups. So you have clients and you have referral partners, and the four audiences are current clients, former clients, current referral partners, former referral or future referral partners.
SPEAKER_00Say it one more time. I want to track, say say the four again.
SPEAKER_01The four audiences for referrals are current clients, former clients, current referral partners, and future referral partners. So the first place you start is identifying well, which of these audiences do I want to target referrals from? Because a solo or a small law firm is not going to be able to target all four of those audiences. More realistically, you're probably gonna want to do one, two at the most because you don't have the bandwidth. And my suggestion for that is former clients and current referral partners, because that's all about nurturing relationships. So where I have them start is say, okay, I want you to take a look at your former clients from the last two years. Let's think of ways for you to stay in touch because the reality is if all you do is just stay in touch with your former clients, they will naturally refer people to you because they're natural referrals that come with trust because they've already experienced working with your office. And so those are the easiest to get. The simplest solution there, and I know it sounds super simple, but it's supposed to be, is just sending someone a happy birthday card. Even if it's just one thing, a happy birthday card once a year, you spend four, maybe five dollars to send something like that out, and it makes a difference. No one sends happy birthday cards anymore. And so they all send emails. If you could just send a little piece of direct mail, it'll make a difference. The next is current referral partners, because a lot of times lawyers will come to me and say, Hey, Deleacey, I want to grow my referral list. I want to get referrals from new people. And I'll say, Well, what are you doing to nurture the people who already send you cases? The easiest place to start is with those people who already send you cases because they already know you, they already like you, and they already trust you. And so the next place that I suggest people start is just looking at the list of people who already refer you business and saying, What am I doing to stay in touch with them? You don't have to have a big budget, you don't have to spend a lot of time wondering, okay, what do I do? Just pick up the phone and reach out to them and say, Hey, Danny, you know, it's been a while. How have you been? Something as small as that is free, but people forget to do it. And when you nurture that relationship on a consistent basis, you're more likely to get more cases because the people who stay top of mind are the people who generate business. If people forget about you, they're not going to send you the business. So, my recommendations is figuring out which of the audiences don't pick too many, pick one or two. Try and do it from each group, your referral partners and your clients, and say, what can I realistically do? And start there.
SPEAKER_00Love that. You mentioned the idea of sending birthday cards. And it's funny that you say that because at Spotlight, for a while, we sent holiday gifts and um, you know, around around Christmas and and and and cool, but but we realized, you know, everybody sends holiday gifts. And um, to your point, very few people send birthday cards or birthday gifts. So we actually made that pivot. So so now we send clients and and other valued relationships. We send them a birthday gift, and and we found it to be much more impactful. Um, and also a little side benefit is it it spreads the budget hit out over the year, too, right? Because we have closing in on 200 clients, and it wasn't great for December cash flow to send out, you know, 200, 200 gifts all at the same time. So, so there's another little benefit, but I I'll just co-sign that the the birthday card or birthday gift is is an awesome idea. So, so a specific question for you, Delesian. It's fine if the answer is it depends. Um, are you an advocate of like BNI groups? Should should a solo lawyer go join a BNI or something like that?
SPEAKER_01I am an advocate of that if it makes sense for the lawyer. And I'll give you an example of what I mean by that. A lot of lawyers will come to me and say, well, where do I get referrals from? And we have to kind of do that exercise together to determine where do you get them from? And the way you find out is looking at where you get your referrals from now. You don't have to recreate the wheel, just look at where they come from. What do those people all have in common? Do you all meet, do you meet them all at a certain um networking event? Do you meet them all at a certain conference? Do you meet them all um at church, wherever you meet them, and then go where they are. I am a fan of BI and other networking groups. If you've done that assessment and you've learned, man, these people don't have anything in common. They're just people that I meet when I'm out because I realize I'm a natural networker and I create great connections in person. Great. Well, then go join a BI group and go put yourself in those situations because you've thought through is that how I generate cases? There are so many lawyers who are introverts that I know. And the idea of joining a BI group makes them sick to their stomach. So not for that person, but for the person who loves to network and loves to get out and has done the assessment to determine where they get their cases from, then I fully support it.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic. I I I love that. Okay, so so here's an interesting conversation, Delesi, that I have a lot. And I'm gonna I'm gonna share one of my takes on this. And and you feel totally free to disagree with me, right? I actually love it when guests disagree because we have some fun conversation. But here's something I experience. I think a lot of law firm owners think of referral marketing as one bucket, and they think of digital marketing as a separate bucket. And they, you know, I hear things like, I don't do digital marketing. We're 100% focused on referral marketing. And I get it, but at the same time, you know, I believe, and one of our like core beliefs here at Spotlight Marketing Branding is that smart digital marketing supports referral marketing. And and to be specific about that, you know, you just talked about, you know, building your target list, and every law firm has a client list and hopefully is capturing email addresses. And so it's like, great, you're you're you've got these relationships, hundreds and hundreds and sometimes thousands of relationships. And it's like, no matter how, even if you are full-time, all you do is referral marketing all day long. You can't possibly call every single person on your list every week. And so that top of mind awareness just starts to naturally wane. And so we're really big advocates on two things specifically. One is email marketing, like send out some some value-oriented, interesting, you know, email newsletter, e-blast, you know, call it whatever you want, but email marketing to keep you connected to that network at scale. And then two is what we call, you know, retargeting or digital remarketing, where you take that list, you take your email list, relationships you have with people, you load that into Meta Business Manager, LinkedIn Business Manager, and you create what's called a retargeting audience. And so then you're able to push your content in front of those people. So not only are they getting your emails, not only do they see you at BNI every once in a while, but then when they log into LinkedIn, they log into Facebook, they log into Instagram, your content is being pushed in front of them. And to me, like that's a great example of digital marketing supporting referral marketing. So do you agree with that? Do you see it differently?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I agree with that. Um, but let me tell you why. I learned that lesson the hard way and later in my professional career. So when I was in-house for seven years at the PA firm that I mentioned, we only focused on referral marketing, specifically attorney referrals. And so I put all my eggs in those baskets, that basket. Eventually, we did a variety of different things to keep in touch with them. Email marketing. Uh, we planned events, we created a podcast. And so I focused just on a specific audience, but then I grew the different things I was doing to market to them. Now I realize yes, we did all of those things, and I think we should have ventured off to try different things to stay in touch with them and stay top of mind. But I also think there is a place where every law firm should be doing some kind of digital marketing because you can't afford not to. And so email marketing, absolutely. I have several clients where they do emails each month to current clients and former clients, and emails each month to current and former referral partners. And it's two different messages to each because they're different audiences, but that email marketing helps you stay top of mind without it always having to be you. And that's how you scale it and make it more efficient marketing. Exactly. When it comes to digital marketing and ads, here's one thing that I recommend to anyone who is listening to this. If you do nothing for referral marketing and all of your marketing is placed in digital spend, no one converts 100% of the calls and the leads that come into your law firm. You don't. If you do, you have a problem. What I recommend to continue to grow the opportunities for referrals is every time you've paid for a lead to come in through ads and you don't convert them to a new client, take that as an opportunity to refer them to a law firm that will accept that case. Because not every lead that comes in meets your case acceptance criteria. Use that as an opportunity to say, you know what, I'm so sorry. This is not a case we can assist you with. This is in a different venue, and you're gonna need to hire an attorney who's in this venue. I actually know a great lawyer to introduce you to. We have a wonderful relationship. His name is Danny. Would you like me to transfer you to his law firm? I know his receptionist, Maria, and they should be able to assist you. That kind of warm transfer, instead of just rejecting the call outright, does two things. One, that PNC who called you and you just rejected has a great experience with your law firm. They're not gonna forget that. Two, now you're creating referral relationships. Danny's gonna pick up that call. Maybe he converts them or not, but Danny is gonna remember who introduced them to his office. And that's where you create those referral relationships and you turn that into a reciprocal referral relationship. That is you hope to. I love that. It makes your marketing dollars way more efficient, like knowing that you already spent the money to get the phone to ring. At least get the phone to ring. And if they don't convert, make that dollar or dollars worth it and create referral relationships with that.
SPEAKER_00That is that is awesome advice. I I love that. That's that's really smart. Okay, so talking about social media, you know, Deleacey, I have seen um you do a great job like yourself on both Facebook and on LinkedIn. Like I enjoy seeing your content. Um, I noticed, you know, it it seems pretty intentional. You know, LinkedIn content is is is a little different than Facebook content, right? You're not just putting the same thing out everywhere. Not that there's necessarily a huge problem with that, but I I really like the way that that that you approach it. So, what what is your process like? Like, are You, you know, do you have like you want to post twice a week on LinkedIn and and three times on Facebook? Are you constantly thinking about content? Do you sit down once a month and batch it all out? Like, how do you how do you get it done? Because you do a great job.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. That is very intentional. And I have to be intentional about it because I am a new business and people have known me for a long time as someone who's always been in-house. So I have to create a lot of brand awareness. What I do on LinkedIn is going to be vastly different than what I do on Facebook and Instagram. Um, I I make it a point that I post at least five times a week on LinkedIn. I post every Monday through Friday. If I don't post on one of those days, I make up for it on a Saturday or a Sunday. And that's because I am very active on LinkedIn. One third of my business comes from LinkedIn. And I know the amount of lawyers on LinkedIn continues to grow year after year because I watch that data and those statistics. So I know my target audience is on LinkedIn. And so I'm very heavily active on there, posting at least five times a week on LinkedIn. I also comment and DM and connect because if I just post, I'm not going to get the traction I want. And doing those things is how I became one of the top 1% of LinkedIn across the world. What I do on Facebook and Instagram is very different because the audience is not interacting the same way. On LinkedIn, you're very professional and you're going to post professional things or maybe something here or there that's personal but not private, because you want people to get to know you. On Facebook and Instagram, the content's going to be different. And I'm probably going to post a lot more on Facebook and Instagram, random thoughts or examples of something that I just came across during the week, but I don't do it on LinkedIn because I don't want to overload that content on LinkedIn. And so it's different audiences and different ways that I do that. In terms of efficiency, I do have help. I have my podcast on Legal Podcast Network. So I have a team that helps me push out my content for podcasting. And honestly, I wouldn't have been sharing as much content if I didn't have a team help with that because it is a lot. And I do batch record. So I'm very intentional with my calendar. I learned that from Arjon. Strategic calendaring is very important. And so I set aside certain days of the week to record content and record podcasts, record videos, do things like that. Because if I can batch record, then I can get all that content done and then edit and post, edit and post at a later date. And it makes it so much more efficient. So I do a variety of all of those things.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic. Thanks for kind of pulling back the curtain on it. I love it. That that makes so much sense. So okay, before we hit record, Delisey, you were telling me about a program you're launching called Pocket Docket. What is that?
SPEAKER_01So Pocket Docket is something I created and I tested it out at the end of last year. Pocket Docket is an online community for lawyers who want to generate more referrals. And essentially, I am creating a group of lawyers who all want to get together each month and learn about referrals and find a community with others who find that to be very important as well. So twice a month, I will do a live training on different topics that help someone learn how to generate more referrals. Also bring in a guest speaker. And then an extra hour that month is going to be a group office hours. So I make myself available to answer any questions that someone may have. And that's been really fun because someone may have a question and then someone else is like, well, I have a question about that too. And then sometimes people just listening, say, hey, I actually learned just by listening to the conversation here. And the goal there was for me to make sure I was introducing lawyers to each other so they could benefit from their network and meeting each other and creating a community where people feel like they're not alone because referral marketing doesn't happen overnight. It's really easy to say, man, I tried this thing for 30 days and I don't get results. This isn't digital ads where you put your money in and the phone starts to ring. It doesn't work like that. This is a long-term thing. So creating a community where you can get together with others who are like, man, this takes a little bit longer and you motivate each other. That's something I wanted to create and I did.
SPEAKER_00Love it. So where does somebody go to uh learn more about Pocket Docket or to learn more about your business in general? Like, what's the best way for people to connect with that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So if someone wants to learn about my business, they can visit FirstcallFriday.com. And if they want to learn about Pocket Docket, there's a link on the website where they can visit Pocket Docket.firstcallfriday.com. And I'll share the links with you so we can put it in the show notes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, beautiful. Okay, DeleC before I let you go, one final question here. What is a big goal that you have? Probably professional, but it could be a personal goal too. What's a big goal you have over the next 12 months or so? And how can I or maybe anybody listening to this podcast support you along the way?
SPEAKER_01My big goal is I want to be able to help 50 law firms in 2026. I helped 33 in my first year in business. And so I want to hit that round number and help 50 law firms in 2026. And you can help me by spreading the word about Pocket Docket. I really do want to build that community and introduce lawyers to others. And that would be the easiest way to do it.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic. Deleisi, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing your experience and your wisdom. It was really great catching up with you.
SPEAKER_01You too, Danny. Thank you so much.