Standing Out in a Crowded Market - What Does Earl Nightingale Know About Legal Marketing?

Are you tired of blending in with the crowd? In this game-changing episode which is a replay of a group coaching call we did several years ago, we uncover the secret to standing out in the saturated world of legal marketing. Join us as we challenge the "monkey see, monkey do" approach and explore the power of differentiation. Learn how to develop your own unique selling proposition (USP) that will make potential clients flock to you.  Get ready to transform your marketing game and leave your competitors in the dust.

What sets you apart from other lawyers? In this eye-opening episode, we dive deep into the concept of a unique selling proposition (USP) and its crucial role in the legal industry. Discover how understanding your potential clients' thought process can help you create marketing strategies that make them choose you first. From crafting provocative headlines to adjusting your messaging, we explore the power of creativity in attracting clients. Our guest shares their experience of using renegade marketing strategies, targeting specific clients, and the fear of turning away potential business. Get ready to unleash your marketing genius and become the go-to lawyer in your field.

Are you ready to change the game and make a lasting impact in the legal profession? Join us as we explore the power of differentiation and thinking differently. Inspired by Steve Jobs' famous quote, "Think different," we discuss how this mindset can revolutionize your practice and attract your ideal clients. Discover the art of perfecting inbound media and educating potential clients, ultimately positioning yourself as a thought leader. Don't settle for the status quo - become a hero in your family and community. If you're ready to level up your marketing, this episode is a must-listen.

Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA.

Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

And Ben, you're crazy enough to think you can change the way lawyers market, grow and build their practices and benefit both personally and professionally from that. With that, I'll give you the last word.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show where we ask the questions why aren't more lawyers living flourishing lives and inspiring others? And can you really get wealthy while doing only the work you love with people you like? Many lawyers are? We're ready to hear from your host, ben Glass, the founder of the law firm Ben Glass Law in Fairfax, virginia, and Great Legal Marketing, an organization that helps good people succeed by coaching, inspiring and supporting law firm owners. Join us for today's conversation.

Speaker 3: 0:46

Well, hello everyone and welcome to the call. This is Ben Glass and this is the Great Legal Marketing Bonus Coaching Program, and in the last session we talked about a lot of different ways that we can market back to our herd, keep them interested, to keep them interacting with us, even if they don't actually have a case that we want or we've finished their case. Today, I'd like to explore a little bit the concept of differentiation, or creating uniqueness, because it's a thing that I hear all the time is gee, I'm a bankruptcy lawyer, so how can I be different? Because the bar has all these rules that say I can't say that I'm better than anyone else and yet, as our mastermind and our top coaching members are able to do this all day long. So I thought we talked about some strategies for differentiation.

Speaker 1: 1:42

I think that's just great, ben. And the thing I want to take you to first, because I know this is really again. I always say this, but this is critically important that people understand this one significant point People, when they're trying to figure out what to do for marketing, they look around and they see what everyone else in their market is doing, and they do what he calls MSMD marketing, which is monkey see, monkey do, meaning that we draw this conclusion oh, they're doing that. That must be working, and I'm interested to get your perspective on that concept of looking at what everyone else is doing. And what kind of conclusions should you draw?

Speaker 3: 2:24

So let's start there. So our name for it is incestuous marketing, and I think it comes about in large part two reasons One some lawyers know what to do but they're too lazy to do the work necessary.

Speaker 3: 2:41

So we'll talk about that in just a sec. For most lawyers it's just a general ignorance. I think I don't mean that in a bad way, but ignorance of marketing principles and psychology principles about how and why people make decisions. And one of the first rules that we teach and this comes from an old Earl Nightingale quote, and Earl said something along the lines of it that if you went into a new profession or started a new business and you knew absolutely nothing about going out and attracting customers, clients, patients, whatever it is, the first thing you would do is study what everyone else is doing, figure out what they're all doing, and then don't do that, do something different. Because by definition, if you look at what everyone else is doing and can determine what it is they're doing, they're getting average results such as the definition of everybody doing it.

Speaker 3: 3:42

By that, I think many years ago now, first to get really interested into study, direct response marketing and study the psychology of marketing and advertising, I literally went to the regional library here in Northern Virginia and spent an afternoon because back then you could go in and they would have 10 or 12 or 15 of the yellow page books from around our region and I went through and I looked at all of the lawyer ads and I began writing down the headlines that they were using and the messages that they were using and what I determined was yes, indeed, 99%, indeed probably 100%, were using the exact same headlines and messaging.

Speaker 3: 4:25

And it just seemed really dropped that obvious to me that if I was going to invest in a page and the yellow page is backed out to do nothing more than to repeat what someone else was already saying, that I was indeed engaging in battles, monkey-c, monkey-do advertising. And if there were 100 pages because remember this is years ago of lawyer ads and all I could do was write and write ink, pre-consultation were aggressive, then I really was leaving it to random chance that someone would find me. That's the first thing is in the market. We need to know what the others are saying and we want to get out of that pot and in fact, we want to go create our own man-made link. Okay, completely different, if we can, and in most cases we can do that.

Speaker 1: 5:16

And let's go there now. So we know that we've got to do the opposite of what everybody else is doing, and I know that you would say you've got to define your own USP. So could you talk about what that is and how everyone that's listening can develop and understand their own and certainly what yours is?

Speaker 3: 5:34

Yeah. So USP unique selling proposition, typically described as the answer to this question why should I do business with you versus all of the other choices I have of people to do business with and versus the choice to do absolutely nothing? And that's the eternal fight that all businesses have and lawyers because of restrictions on lawyer advertising and, frankly, restrictions on their own creativity, developed by three years of mind-blowing law school. That's the fight and the challenge that they have, and the way I approach this and it is a way that I think that most lawyers in any niche can think about approaching this is not so much why would I do business with you versus all the others? So let's move backwards a little bit in time To attract that consumer. We've talked about this now on several of these calls To attract that consumer who is not yet to the point of I want to hire a lawyer, but who has questions to be answered and to provoke that person. And so let's think of the USP this way If you may become a potential client for me, in my case, maybe you've been in an accident but you're not ready to hire a lawyer, how could I get you to raise your hand and identify yourself to me. I think you could use that across lots of I think, frankly, across every different niche, if you're thinking about getting a divorce again. Even the guy who woke up this morning in the clinker because he got arrested for DUI has questions first before he's to the part where he says how do I find the right lawyer for me? The probate and estate planning potential client is thinking oh my gosh, how do I preserve my assets, how do I make sure that my kids get it and not their ex-spouses, things like that. I'm thinking about a main need to talk to a bankruptcy lawyer. Well, how could we get all any of these people to raise their hand and identify themselves to us? That really is the challenging question, and the way I did it in the personal injury and medical malpractice world was to come up with this unique selling proposition. Please don't steal it, please be inspired by it. But it says if you've been in an accident, then before you talk to the adjuster, hire an attorney or sign any forms, get our free books. And now, how did I get there?

Speaker 3: 8:24

I think this is important. See, michael Gerber talks a lot about this in EMIF Revisited and EMIF Mastery. You really need to understand what it is your potential client is thinking about. What questions are they asking themselves if they woke up in the slammer this morning, if they're tired of their spouse, if their bills are overwhelming? I suggest to you that most lawyers probably do know, or certainly have access to those questions and those answers. And now we're going to create marketing that says, in essence, you have these questions, we have these answers.

Speaker 3: 9:06

Now let me say this too, is that if you look at most PI personal injury marketing actually you will see that most of it is geared towards we can get you maximum compensation, we can get you the most money, things like that. And I just want to suggest this exercise for the personal injury attorneys who are listening to this at some point, which is ask you this question of someone who comes to you and that is Mr Smith. What is it that I could do for you that, at the end of this case, would make you a raving fan of me and my law firm. And I'm just going to leave that open and suggest to you that you do it. Listen to the answer and now think about your messages and, frankly, even if you're in any niche, ask them that, because sometimes we think we know what they are looking for.

Speaker 3: 10:02

So look at all the bankrupts you have. They pretty much say the same thing overwhelming bills, creditors calling all the time. I don't know because I've not met with lots and lots of bankruptcy clients, but I would ask them that question. Anyway, what we're trying to do is to figure out how we can differentiate ourselves, and I'm suggesting that one of the ways is to develop a unique selling proposition that provokes someone to contact you first, in front of the contact with all of the other lawyers. There's other things that we can do. We'll talk about them, but let's start there. What? Why should I call you first? Why should I initiate contact with you first?

Speaker 1: 10:46

So, ben, by the virtue of having done that, you've changed your message. Now this causes and I want you to just run down through the thinking, but that means now that everything you do, you market differently, you change your processes, everything. Can you just give everybody a sense for what that means? Let's start here it's really fun.

Speaker 3: 11:10

Because when you think that way and you think, gee, I don't just, I don't have to just buy another ad or put up a webpage that says I can get you the most money in the history of the world ever, that's a pretty competitive view. But when you start thinking about, gee, what are all the neat provocative things I could do To get someone? Now, our goal was different to get someone to simply raise their hand, it's really fun and we have. I don't sit down with my team or I just sit down with my little marketing notebook and I'll think about neat and interesting headlines. Now, headline can be used in a print ad and headline can be used on a radio or TV ad. Headline can be used on a webpage. But we'll think about things like a recent headline we figured out was hey, injury victims.

Speaker 3: 12:01

If you've been in action, I'll bet you're getting a lot of good advice, aren't you? And then the next the sub headline is advice. And then a whole bullet list of things that we know their friends are telling them. We know that other lawyers are saying, and we're basically saying, really, that's nonsense advice. But we know what you really want and it's here in this book and when you start to think this way now the path is wide open because we are working on creating headlines that make them stick around and read the whole ad, or make them stick around and watch the video. There's just a lot that you can actually start to do. And again, what the point I always make with lawyers is what's the alternative?

Speaker 4: 12:49

Hey guys, this is Ben. If you like what you've been hearing on this podcast not just the marketing and practice building strategies, but the philosophy of the art of living your best life parts. You should know that my son, brian, and I have built a tribe of like-minded lawyers who are living lives of their own design and creating tremendous value for the world within the structure of a law practice. We invite you to join us at the only membership organization for entrepreneurial lawyers that is run by two full-time practicing attorneys. Check us out at GreatLigalMarketingcom.

Speaker 3: 13:23

The alternative is you're gonna have to buy a bigger ad or more TV time that says injured we can help. No fee if not for your company. That's a very expensive way to success and it's the highest risk way because you get back to pitch just random chance market.

Speaker 1: 13:44

So now this ties over into everything you're doing right. Let's talk about the web, let's talk about print and how you're integrating all of that.

Speaker 3: 13:53

Yeah. So what we're talking about here is differentiating by process. Differentiating by a unique first message, but also by process. Because, again, if we look how most lawyers and we'll talk about the first injury field, because it's the one I'm most familiar with so the process with most PI lawyers is to just sling something out there, get a call, do an intake, all right, and then make a decision whether you want the case or not. Our profits really is, mr Potential client. We're exclusive here and we don't take every case and we really want you. Indeed, we just about insist that you read, watch and listen to the stuff we're going to send you, because we know it will help you even if you don't hire us. It will help you hire the right lawyer, it will help you deal with the insurance adjuster.

Speaker 3: 14:44

It will help you deal with those healthcare providers that are sending you funding notes, but we want you to read it. That in and of itself is a huge differentiator, because the five other people they called are doing a quote intake and or sending a fee agreement to them, or sending a person to their house to get them to sign a fee agreement. We're sending them the book and we're telling them we're sending them the book how to guard against all of that and how to find out if they're getting charged the right fee and all of that stuff. So, process as a differentiator, In terms of now, how do we launch that across all of our media? And for those of you who know and follow us, you know that we do. It's a huge internet presence. We have a fairly significant print marketing presence. We've done direct response radio and that's highly successful. We've even done some TV again, not your traditional TV ad pretty successful, although, I think, becoming more and more difficult just because of the proliferation of choices that people have when they sit down in front of their TV. But it all starts with this. So, no matter what the media is, we're starting with that interesting, non-traditional headline.

Speaker 3: 16:06

Another one we use is mostly our advertising stinks, doesn't it? All right, We've got a headline. Now it's actually a long headline If your lawyer doesn't have a perfect score in an avo. It's a list of in-bus lawyers in America, super lawyers and doesn't have a preeminent rating from Martin Duhubble. What do they say in their advertising? Next line says that's right. Next line says, quote we're aggressive. Close quote we're demolishing all of those lawyers whose the only thing they can think of putting their headline is we care for you and we're aggressive. All right, so we spend a lot of time and energy making fun of other lawyer headlines. We have another one that says I guess the sub-headline of most lawyer advertising stinks is you really can't tell a good lawyer from a bad one just by the ads, can you? That's why I wrote the truth about lawyer advertising.

Speaker 3: 17:03

Again, what you'll find with a lot of our stuff is the ad, the headline. And the ad isn't about us at all. It's about the information that we have. I mean, that's another big differentiator is that there's a lot of us around. There's a bazillion lawyers in Northern Virginia. There's a bazillion lawyers in your market. Wherever you are listening to this recording, Very few are taking the information marketing approach.

Speaker 3: 17:33

What we have found and now verified by hundreds of lawyers, the Great Legal Marketing Universe and, frankly, thousands of others who are not in our universe but who have, when they've tested this and reported back to me that it works. What we find is that the informational type marketing as a differentiator is huge. It gets you a better client. It gets you someone who will take your advice because they see you as a respected authority. For those of you who are in price, they're charging by the hour, charging flat fee. You can eliminate pricing as an object of discussion.

Speaker 3: 18:12

Okay, DUI attorney, his folks aren't asking how much is it and if they do, that's an automatic disqualifier.

Speaker 3: 18:21

These folks ask when can I get in to see you, to pay you $500 for an initial consultation, which Rem is almost unheard of in the DUI world first time DUI defense, where they're almost always competing on price. Bob's done it through a real differentiator with his books, with his videos, and his lead flow is so high that he is comfortable saying no if your first question is how much does it cost? So that's what you do and even if you do a radio ad, you think of that 60 seconds divided into a headline to get them to do what? Keep listening, to pay attention Through copy that does what it raises the questions. You know that they're asking the next copy that Ben says basically, and we know that you're not getting the answers to those questions through most lawyer ads. Because why? Most lawyer ads stink and so taking a very sort of controversial and aggressive stance against most lawyer ads leads them into a funnel that convinces them that you are the wise man or woman at the top of the mountain.

Speaker 1: 19:44

Makes sense to me, and you even take this a step further in doing some things that you would describe as renegade, which is actually trying to help them find the right lawyer for them maybe not you. Can you go into that a little bit? I think that's a fascinating approach. So what? Totally counterintuitive to what most lawyers do?

Speaker 3: 20:05

Yeah, it is, but it gets back to the FUN part of the practice of law. So one of our kind of internal in-house criteria for something is this piss other lawyers off. Okay, so that's one of our big mental imagery secrets when we're figuring out a new ad to run. And if the answer is yes, then we'll really push it. And again, michael Gerber makes a great point in his email series is how does this all look from the customer's standpoint, from the potential client standpoint? And if you're a potential legal client and you're out there looking either in print ads or on the Internet or done through the L pages, you just see this barrage of the same old stuff and it's really not helpful at all. And you know that they know that it's not helpful. So why not stand on the side of the consumer and say, don, I realize most of this lawyer stuff isn't helpful and that's why I'm giving you so much free stuff, so teaching them how to hire someone like you. We've got a pamphlet that teaches you how to fire lawyers. Okay, and before you get all panicky, the sub-message of that pamphlet is it's usually not a good idea. It's usually a better idea to go in and meet with your lawyer, insist on answers and go through this little flow sheet we show you. But I don't think any other lawyer I haven't seen it has published a booklet in their practice niche that tells you how to fire your lawyer. Because most lawyers will be afraid They'd be like sensitive to that, they might lose friends or have someone have them forbid sending their stuff to the bar. But as long as you write it okay and write it correctly and teach them what the rules are. Consumers want to know the rules. Okay, they want to know that.

Speaker 3: 22:05

I didn't write the book because I thought it was a good idea. I wrote the book because people were asking me Gee, can I fire my lawyer? If so, what are the rules? All right, it's easy for a person, a lawyer in particular, to attack insurance companies, and that's what a lot of us do. But, gee, why don't we write something that teaches you how to even go out and buy insurance in the first place? Totally renegade, totally have nothing to do with my practice. But what does it do? It establishes me as a thought leader, as a wise man, as someone who is willing to give away a ton of information, making fun of other lawyer ads, making fun of the regulators. I like to do a lot of that. I like to kick them right up to the brink where they're ready to file a complaint against me. But really what we're saying is totally ethical, accurate, within First Amendment bounds.

Speaker 3: 23:06

We've used some very provocative ad lines like legally, we can't say we're the best law firm in Virginia. Nobody can. The regulators won't let us. But before you talk to the adjuster, hide and turn your sign in the forms, get our free information, and the headline almost doesn't even connect up to the copy. But being able to use that headline get someone's eyeballs at least to read the copy, which is the goal of the headline.

Speaker 3: 23:35

And so I have a kind of a running list in my little black book of marketing ideas, of things that I either am working on actively or will be. My newest one is five things we do better. All right, most lawyers would say, gee, if you do that, you're comparing the quality of your lawyering with someone else and the bar is gonna crush you with a hammer. Maybe, but maybe not. I mean, I'm not stupid, right? I'm not gonna write something that says we're better lawyers, but I'm gonna figure out what I can write under the headline five things we do better. That's gonna be provocative.

Speaker 3: 24:09

I recently bought some URLs Ram, we are the best law firm in Virginia. We can get you millions, and I've not entirely fleshed out exactly what I'm gonna do with those, but I'm gonna do something with them. It's gonna be ethically appropriate. It's gonna be controversial. It's gonna be interesting. Interesting is like the top thing we want to do and it all leads back to being really fun. It gets people to talk about you. It gets people to remember your message. It gets people to remember you for something other than gee. I am a lawyer.

Speaker 1: 24:43

Yeah, I love talking to you, ben. I mean it's so refreshing and that whole, just the stuff we can get you millions To buy something like that, just to play around with it, just to poke at and make something happen With the deadly serious idea of making sure that people who need your help can find you, is, to me it's just brilliant. What a better way to spend your day than to look at the receptionist at four o'clock on Thursday afternoon or say no one else is gonna call today. Why don't we just go home? That's the difference in the world you live in. I just think it's fun. Hey, listen. One last thought before we close up here. I know that another kind of you would describe as a sort of a renegade approach or thought out. There is the idea of being very exclusive. And what does that mean? And how can you help our members see themselves that way too? Besides the fun, go after them types. How can you be exclusive?

Speaker 3: 25:37

Couple things here. Number one it's something that most lawyers are afraid of doing because, frankly, they don't have enough lead flow and so they're afraid that they make themselves too exclusive. Nobody will come. I will say that as we're recording this, I'm reading one of these insider books on the Bernie Madoff Whole Scandal, because there are things that we can learn about human psychology from Bernie Madoff, and one of the things that he did very well was he had the appearance of being very exclusive.

Speaker 3: 26:04

You had to get inside the group. People will, on the pyramid of who they're looking for, will want to go to a specialist or someone who is hard to get to. Everything else being equal, they want to do that more than to go to a generalist. If you needed brain surgery, you want to go to the guy who does brain surgery five days a week, not to the guy who's doing an appendectomy one day and needs surgery the next and can do your brain the next day. And so we want to at least create in our marketing the sense that you are exclusive. You are picky about who you work with.

Speaker 3: 26:45

It's better if it's true In our case it is true. We know who our avatar personal injury client is. We create marketing for that person. We repel others who don't fit our perfect client profile. And what I would say is, if you've never done this before, taking the first leap is often difficult. Our math my members out in Arizona the day they said we will not take any more soft tissue products than we can in cases was a big face it up and get over the hump issue for them. They have reported over and over again in the months and years since they made that decision. That was one of the best decisions that they made. They became exclusive by type of case that they would take.

Speaker 3: 27:36

I know that Dave is exclusive by the type of person and income level and asset level of folks that he is willing and able to help in the probate and estate planning field and so creating that first in your head and then on paper and then carrying it through so you're not taking everyone, so you do have a good picture of who you want to see coming through your door. Everything else being equal, is something that you want to do to further differentiate yourself in the marketplace and as you look at most lawyer advertising around, you'll see that most of it does. Most of it says our door is wide open 24-7, 7 days a week and we really can't think of anything different to say about ourselves. So our door is wide open, just like the one else, which really is absurd, what you're thinking about, but that's what most lawyer marketing actually does. Given the choice, you want to create the appearance of exclusivity in your marketing and then you want to get there, because our goal really is to work with fewer cases and make more money for each case.

Speaker 1: 28:50

Ben, I want to thank you for all of this. I'd like to leave everybody with a thought and then give you the last word, if that's okay, sound good? Yep, okay. And it's interesting because here we are talking about differentiation and I'm reading the biography right now of Steve Jobs and I've had the book for a while. I just now have the ability to really move through it. It's my summer book and I'm just loving every second of it.

Speaker 1: 29:14

But this is from the guy who said think different.

Speaker 1: 29:16

And he got together with some folks that put together his I guess it's almost his manifesto.

Speaker 1: 29:22

And one day in the mail, what shows up in my office, in your office, but a gift from Bob Battle, where this is actually, it's right here at my desk, and so I just want to share this thought with folks and then give you the final word.

Speaker 1: 29:33

But there's what Steve Jobs says about this concept of differentiation and thinking different, and he said here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, you can disagree with them, glorify or vilify them about. The only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things, they push the human race forward and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. And, ben, you're crazy enough to think you can change the way lawyers market, grow and build their practices and benefit both personally and professionally from that. And with that I'll give you the last word.

Speaker 3: 30:36

Yeah, and, importantly, at the end of the day, this is all the best thing for clients and potential clients as well. Everything we do teaches, it educates people, which is so important in this information-filled world. Look, this has been great. And what I'd like to do in module nine now let's talk about perfecting the inbound media, but that I mean we'll talk about is hey, you got someone to go to your website now, and until then, Rem, again thanks for joining us on today's call, today's session. It's been great.

Speaker 1: 31:08

Absolutely Ben.

Speaker 2: 31:09

If you like what you just heard on the Renegade Lawyer podcast, you may be a perfect fit for the great legal marketing community. Law firm owners across the country are becoming heroes to their families and icons in their communities. They've gone renegade by rejecting the status quo of the legal profession so they can deliver high quality legal services coupled with top notch customer service to clients who pay, stay and refer. Learn more at GreatLegalMarketingcom.