Ep. 211 - How to Build a Referral Engine That Actually Works (Without Burning Cash on Ads)

Jason Williams spent more than a decade helping build the marketing engine behind a growing personal injury firm—driving consistent year-over-year growth and increasing referral-based cases from roughly 25% to nearly 50%.

In this episode, Ben Glass talks with Jason about what actually moves the needle for law firms: strong relationships, smart community involvement, better client experience, disciplined intake, and ruthless measurement.

They dig into how Jason helped build a motorcycle injury niche from scratch, why referral marketing still beats flashy tactics, how AI is improving intake review and call scoring, and what law firms should really look for when hiring marketing vendors.

Jason also shares why he launched Fractional Legal Marketing, a business focused on helping solo and small law firms grow with better strategy, better oversight, and fewer expensive mistakes.

If you’re tired of chasing leads, wasting money on bad marketing, or treating intake like an afterthought, this episode lays out a more practical path forward.

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

What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?

In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers. 

One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.

There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.

Transcript

When Less Traffic Means Better Leads

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It looked like our traffic was going down. But the traffic was going down on purpose. And so when we decided, okay, we need to transition into another, or or just with people calling us, because people call flaw firms saying, hey, we're a great SEO provider. We looked at your numbers and they looked like your your website's tanking, I would say, well, there were specific reasons why it was tanking.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

We did it strategically because I wanted to Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show that challenges the way lawyers and professionals think about life, business, and success. Hosted by Ben Glass, attorney, entrepreneur, coach, and father of nine, this show is about more than just practicing law. For over 40 years, Ben has built a law firm that stands for something bigger. He's helped thousands of lawyers create practices that make good money, do meaningful work, and still make it home for good. Each week, Ben brings you real conversations with guests who are challenging the status quo. Lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and builders. These are people creating bold careers and meaningful lives without burning out or selling out. If you're ready to stop playing small and start thinking like a renegade, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Hey everyone, this is Ben Glass, and welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where I get to interview interesting people inside and outside of legal in just about every episode. And today I've got a great guest, a longtime friend, actually, uh Jason Williams, for over a decade. Uh, and I've known Jason for probably for that long, actually. He was a marketing director from Miley Legal Group. Uh, Tim and Susan Miley, uh dear friends out in West Virginia, very significant personal injury practice in that state. And Jason directed the marketing, everything from, you know, really from soup to nuts. And so on today's episode, we're going to talk about some of what Jason learned in helping Tim and Susan build something that was very, very powerful. So, Jason, welcome to the program today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yes. And today, and you have launched your new company, Fractional Legal Marketing. Let's just talk about that for a second. Like, who are will you be serving in that space, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

I think what I'm most comfortable with and who I think I can help are solo and small law firms. Obviously, all of my experience has been with personal injury, but a lot of what I the knowledge and the skills that I have can be transferred to other service areas. But yeah, I'm looking to work with solo and small law firms that are looking to grow, that are looking to utilize the resources and the tools that are available to grow their firms.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Give us some idea when you started at uh your last law firm, sort of the size and scope, if you can, in in any way that's comfortable. Like what was the how big was the group? How many clients did it serve? And then give us uh some idea, Jason, of sort of as you left the firm, what it had grown to, because they're they're a they're a big force.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah, we when I started, I really had no um legal marketing experience. I was kind of blind going in, and I think that was um that was kind of Tim's intent. He hired me because he could help kind of mold the education I got, the skill sets we developed, and do kind of that moving forward. When I started, um it was a we there was it was a single office firm. Um there were uh a couple of attorneys. We when I left, uh the firm grew considerably, at least in my opinion, there was consistent growth year year over year, um, anywhere from twenty two twenty to thirty percent in um case acquisition growth, which which turned, I mean, turns into great significance um when you're looking at my tenure, which was um about 11 years, uh compared to the to the firm that it is now. They have there is um they've added a few attorneys. A couple years ago there was a second office opened throughout the state. Um and and one of the primary things that took place, we actually grew and developed a niche in the motorcycle injury um area from scratch. I mean, that was that was and and that that's probably one of my my proud accomplishments. I mean, we built it from scratch and and and and it's growing. And uh actually last motorcycle season, um, we hired a a biker ambassador and and and kind of we had already had an event coordinator that I was working with for the bikers and and the a lot of the activities and the events that we did with them. And so that that was a an avenue that we pursued and built from scratch that is still is still growing strong. And we develop relationships with um free dealerships. So that's one of the and actually that to tie that back into to where I'm at now, that's one of the things that I would like to work on and to assist other law firms in doing. Develop that community involvement, build that referral source, help develop other avenues that that maybe they're not even looking at.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

And of course, um you all had a sort of a built-in personality, not with Tim, but with Susan. Um more than Tim in terms of motorcycle riding.

Building Referral Engines Through Community

SPEAKER_00 5:32

But that's yeah, that she had she did have some history. When we started, when we started though, and neither neither one of them are riding. But she but yeah, she did have history on motorcycles when she was um when she was uh younger. But yeah, that was it's been interesting. It's been interesting.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Yeah, no, it's been real interesting. And they're they are great friends of mine and um were almost like original members of the Great Legal Marketing Mastermind community. That's how I first met Tim and Susan. But just in terms of talking about like the motorcycle community and developing relationships, that really falls under the umbrella of referral relationships. And you know, today, um as you and I were talking before we went live, there's so much emphasis, particularly as firms grow and all sorts of the digital channels. But you and I both know that these real relationships and firms that endure are are oftentimes and usually built on strong in-person human relationships. So let's talk a little bit, Jason, like over the years of what you did and what the firm did in terms of building out a number of really good relationships either with individuals or communities or professional communities in West Virginia.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Sure. One of the things from the beginning, that was a big focus. As you mentioned, the firm was in Great Legal Marketing Mastermind when I joined when I was brought on. And so that I immediately was kind of um involved in that and and and and participated in that actively. That was a big um stretch or big portion of that referral, referral marketing. When I started, and just just just to give some quick stats, when I started, um, when we started really focusing on referrals and getting those types of cases, referral sources brought in a maybe, I believe, about 23 to 24 percent of the cases that came in that were signed. When I departed um last year, um we were at about 50 percent. Um we really, we really hyper-focused on a number of different aspects. We we worked hard obviously to build the relationships within the motor motorcycle community, which obviously tied us into a lot of other communities because some people may not be aware, but but a lot of people within the motorcycle community are are really involved in other aspects of their community. Like the um one of the big events that that we participated in was with uh local animal shelter. And so it all kind of tied together. And so we were always bumping elbows with additional groups, additional organizations, raising money for different um nonprofits. Um so that that developed a lot of that community involvement and obviously referrals. But keep in mind that that that really wasn't the main focus. We were just building relationships. In the beginning, though, we were kind of we had programs that developed relationships with local medical providers. In my capacity or in my role, there were times that I would go and deliver checks to chiropractic offices, bring them donuts, just try to build that relationship. And that and that that's kind of where we started. We turned that into other groups within the attorney field. We participated in a lot of those different things, just basic attorney type things that we we offered. Like I was in specific networking groups that targeted some attorney groups, some other attorneys, some other law firms, but also um other businesses. So we tried to focus on business development, but relationships with other businesses, obviously in the medical provider field, um, because we had relations already had started relationships with them. We kind of moved into, we we created a program and started a program of um community service recognition. And we did that for a good number of years, where we would on a monthly basis recognize a volunteer for a community group. Um, and and as part, we we the firm was big TV advertisers, so we had relationships with both with in our area. There are two networks, and one of the channels would actually do a report, interview that particular volunteer. So we would get them on the news, get them some publicity. We actually gave them a check and we cut a check each month to that group and kind of give them some space to grow their awareness within the community, as well as help us build those types of relationships. And so that kind of helped work us into the motorcycle community as well. Cause like I said, they that that that crosses the spectrum on the different on different um organizations and groups within our community. Um on a completely different track for referral marketing, one of the things we also focused on, and I focused on it a lot, especially recently, was client experience. Obviously how clients felt or how they were treated or the experience that they had was important because we wanted them to be happy, we wanted them to refer, we wanted Google reviews. We actually were very strategic in getting Google reviews and making sure that the client was comfortable giving them. And so we we set up and had specific standard procedures when clients came into the office, what happened when they came into the office. Um we actually started making cookies. And so they were given cookies every time they came into the office. Initially it was just like a basket of snacks. We also had, we weren't large enough and we didn't have the space to have a um um what uh a trinket room. So we actually, two years ago, we established uh what we called our trinket cart. And so just a bunch of swag that we provided when somebody came in to a meeting or a disbursement, they we would have our receptionists wheel the swag cart into the the um the conference room, and the clients could take whatever they wanted. We didn't care. There were all sorts of things on there. Just to kind of give them and show them that we cared. We wanted them to have a good experience in general. I mean, you can look at the Google reviews of both offices of the firm. When I left um in both um areas, we were we we were number one in the terms of how many Google reviews we had. And because that's what we focused on it. We focused on the experience that our clients clients had. And that kind of pushed us, pushed our referrals up as well.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Let me ask you this. So over this decade, you were the marketing director. Did you have a team under you? We'll talk about vendors in a moment, a few minutes. But did you have actual human beings in or around the office that were helping you do this?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

We I didn't have we didn't have a separate team. I was it for marketing, the marketing team per se. However, um I also uh managed the intake staff. We did have an intake specialist. Um and then anybody that was associated with intake was was on my team. However, marketing that generally fell in my lap. But as we developed programs like the client experience, we I had to involve um the receptionists, the people that answered the phones and those kind of things. But the day-to-day marketing work, it was uh we it I was a one-man band, so to speak.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

So so and you did and you did a lot. Like you will talk about intake also in a minute. And so that's you know, it's a related but it's a different hat altogether. How did you keep organized? For example, you had different groups of referral sources. You mentioned chiropractors, you have the the uh the animal care, the animal rescue type organizations, you have the motorcycle groups, were you using CRMs? Like I'm curious about how you kept it organized, and then in the in-betweens events, like how were you staying in front of or in contact with these organizations?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

We use, when I started, we were using Infusion Soft. They transformed into Keep, and we were, we were, I was still using Keep in the end. However, there's CRMs and case management software. It was difficult a lot of times we had a fanatical getting them to communicate with each other. But we had a separate intake system that we had to manipulate to feed into the case management software. That helped track a lot of sources, how things were coming in and out. But any of the e-communication newsletter or e-newsletters, email blasts that I would that we would send out that would go out actually as an example for the motorcycle community, we tried to send them something out weekly. And so that was all handled through Keep, Diffusion Soft. I still call it a Fusion Soft.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

They were just here at our analog uh marketing boot camp, Keep, uh now owned by Thrive, a company called Thrive.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, I think I saw saw that transition. But in the end, we we were initially when I had started at the firm, I think we were trying to develop that and move that more into case management. But really, in the end, we just used it for drip campaigns and reaching out to when I when I'm especially during the on-season for motorcycle uh motorcycle riders, I was texting, not only emailing, but I was we were texting riders about events and things that we were at and participating in um weekly. They would probably get a couple of and they were used to it. I mean, we got them used to that kind of stuff.

Client Experience That Sparks Reviews

SPEAKER_02 15:00

So your database was not just to the organizers of events, but over the years, every event was a collection opportunity for you all to get names and contact information. And I know you you ran a number of contests and giveaways to do that. So then these communications are to individuals who are on your various lists. Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

One of the big things that we did for the motorcycle community, we did the we we gave away um, there was a large contest that the firm gave away$15,000 towards a motorcycle. And so we allowed one of the things that that we had staff doing at these events was was get with people were providing entries, they were doing it manually, we had it done uh obviously uh online, you could enter and those kind of things. So that that built our database tremendously. And and obviously we tagged them as motorcycle riders. So when I was sending out stuff that had to do with events or activities that were coming up, I could isolate those riders and send out a text and an email to them and keep them informed. That's what we were doing.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

I can't remember. Did you the firm run scholarship programs at all?

SPEAKER_00 16:08

We did for a few years. We did for a few years going into, and this kind of touches on vendor management a little bit as well, but we went through a few different SEO companies that had different opinions on the workings of that. And so for a few years we did it, then it paused a little bit and then we picked it back up again. But yeah, that we did do that. But that was more of an of a national type thing. We didn't necess not necessarily do something with our local schools. I mean, other than giving there's like local community scholarship programs that we participated in, but it wasn't anything that we had developed. The one that we developed was more of at a at a national level to help get some build some um back-end links in essence.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Yeah, it's all different reasons. We've just finished up uh in the fall, we did our uh referee and umpire scholarship program. We've just we're getting ready to announce the winner as a local athlete here, and we'll do that again, both for the backlinks. I mean the backlinks were cool, both from you know, educational institutions.edu sites, but also from all the referee and sports groups from from around the country. And it was good that we were able to, you know, to merge a primary interest of mine, right, sportsmanship and sports with a scholarship program that Hennessy Digital has helped help run for us. Let's talk about intake because you mentioned you not only wore the marketing hat, but you wore the uh the intake team hat and you had an intake, I think you called it a program. But what were the things that you learned over the years, Jason, about you know, the value of having people who are trained and prepared to get the calls that your marketing was helping to generate?

SPEAKER_00 17:50

It was really important. In fact, one of the things that we developed over the past couple of years was it was a QA process that I that I did. We would the calls obviously we recorded, we listened to calls, I shared information with the staff that was doing intakes. We had a specific person that was the intake specialist. However, throughout the day, that person's busy, other people were doing intakes. So anybody that did an intake, it was important enough for us to make sure that they were following, not necessarily the script, but touching on the points that we thought were important. And in the beginning, when I first started, actually I did intakes and I did some intakes and we had paralegals doing intakes. And so that kind of translated into we learned over the years that it was important enough to have somebody that that was their focus, that that's what they did. And so that's kind of the trend we moved towards. And so we had an intake specialist. That that that's what she did all day. She she took the calls out as they came in. Um, she also did any chasing that needed to be done for calls that either came in in the evening, in the evenings or the weekends. But again, one of the things that we worked on developing, especially with the the advent of AI and AI being able to digest those calls, one of the things that we used, we I had created a um a grading scoring system for the calls. And AI helped me do that. I had outlined, and of course, shared this with staff and they knew what they were being graded on, and they knew what they were. And so with the with the with the use of AI and this these this scoring sheet, the AI software could listen to the call and help me determine if they, yes or no, touched on this point. Like, did they affirm with the with the caller that this was a case that we could we could take? Did they say, hey, check out our Google reviews? Was Google reviews even mentioned on the call? Um were they empathetic in some form or sense? Did they did they allow the caller to ask questions? Um and those kind of things. And so AI allowed me to help to to grade and score these calls. And obviously, we shared that information with the staff so they can improve. I mean, we w obviously wanted them to improve, and we could see, I could see the scores going up. So obviously it was working once we focused on what what we thought was important in those calls to get that, to get the caller to the point where they wanted to sign the contract. And we were actually even taking one step further to have our intake staff or whoever was doing the intake to get them to get them the client to sign on the phone right then there. Because we learned that that was important, especially what as things happened over the, you know, for the past few years where everybody was transitioning to Zoom calls and e-signatures and things like that. That that wasn't new for us when it happened. However, it wasn't a focus. And so one of the things that because we we I measure everything, everything's measured. And we were realizing that it was easier to get somebody that was in person to sign a contract versus somebody that just wanted an e-sign. And so one of the things that we were training the intake staff or people that were doing intakes to do was to get them to a point where they were comfortable enough, the callers were comfortable enough, if it was a case we wanted, to sign an e-sign right then while they were on the phone. And so that that's that was the last iteration that we were working on.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

That's one of the learnings that we had coming out of COVID, is we we thought no one could be sold unless they were in-person in the office meeting with the lawyer, right? And then COVID sort of put a stop to all the in-person stuff. And we we discovered accidentally that people were perfectly willing and happy to e-sign, as you say, right on the call or immediately after the call without ever having been face to face with a lawyer. And sometimes without ever having been face-to-face with any lawyer in the firm. Like we have a good sales and intake team that you know reinforces a good idea that someone had to make a call to us. The other thing is, I don't know if you discovered this, but you know, one of the greatest uh, I think, technology advances of 2025 now are these phone systems that will do real time, just about real time automatic transcription of these calls. And then put them into your case manager. And we use a company called VXT. And I'm like, I said to Brian last year, there's got to be some company that will do this, right? Because we're losing too much information just in the listening and then the note-taking process, and then it gets too slow. And so that's that's cool. So anyone's not like, hey, you got to be recording everything. You got to be, as you said, Jace, you got to monitor it and measure it. And uh we have AI uh uh prompts that will uh evaluate, uh periodically evaluate the intake team and the calls, but now having real-time instantaneous translation uh transcription of the calls is it's just uh been another game changer uh for this old guy anyway, because I remember back in the day, like I started practicing pre-internet.

CRMs Lists Contests And Drip Campaigns

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah. Yeah, when and you don't want to lose information. And I think that that's along with along with our intake steps, getting people signed on the phone, they're getting all the information up front. And so having AI transcribe that and get that into your system, it also helps make sure that stuff's tracked. And so when when the paralegal or the attorney looking at it down the road, they they see what what what our in-take stuff was was told and what information was given. Because one of the things that we found is one once that the caller had said that went through their story and and said something to our firm once, they're assuming that everybody in the firm knows that. But that that may not be reality because sometimes there was no notes taken. And so they may have told our in-take staff, A, B, and C, but only A and B may make it to the lawyer, but with AI and transcribing, that that helped alleviate some of those problems.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Well, and that improves the client experience overall, right? I mean, you anyone that's ever dealt like with a new tax preparer, estate planner, wealth planner, like you get really sick and tired of answering the same damn questions and filling out these meaningless forms after you've already answered half the questions on the form, and that's a bad customer experience. Right. You've talked about managing vendors, and we don't have to name names, but I am curious, like over the years, what are some of the things that would make you and the team think, hey, we need to switch out a vendor? And then how would you go about vetting like the next vendor? Again, you know, we're not we're not here to criticize anybody. I I tell vendors if you do great for me, I'll talk about you from the stage. And if and if you treat me wrong, I'll talk about you from the stage. Um, but I am curious because it is a frustrating thing. A lot of lawyers complain, you know, whether it's whoever's managing, say, digital ad spend or print newsletters, or of course the website is always a big thing for lawyers. Yeah. But what are some of the things that would have caused you to go, hey, it's time to go shopping?

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Well, and I'll tell you, we one of the things that I learned rather quickly, especially with the SEO vendors, is I always kept reports and tracked things different than what they did because they could get access, like obviously we would always give them access to Google stats and that kind of stuff. And so, but they could always one of the things that I found, and I get it, they're selling a product. They they want to show you what's happening that that they've improved and what additional business them they may or may not have brought to you. I wasn't necessarily looking at that. I was kind of looking at it more long term. I don't know. I mean, when one of the things that we obviously that we learned is when you bring on a new vendor, especially an SEO vendor, they're gonna have low-hanging fruit that they're gonna grab. That's usually what they pitch you with. And so I always know that there's gonna be this immediate flurry, they're gonna have this activity, they're gonna, they're gonna try to impress us as much as they can in the first few months. But I always want to look at long-term. So I'm always always comparing them to what where we were when they started, where we are now, and where we were with previous vendors. So we all wanted to have a larger picture of that. And I think that that's just tracking, just tracking basically, you're tracking not only leads that are coming in from the website, but did those leads turn into cases? Were they good leads? Did we eliminate bad leads? Did we reduce the number of just junk that we were getting? A lot of different vendors would say, hey, we can bring you in this this many additional cases or this many additional leads, but I wanted to know what what what other just junk and time-consuming things we would be getting when they were giving us these new sources or new new leads. And so that was one of the things that that um I focused on specifically with SEO vendors. We did a lot of our other digital marketing, like social media marketing and Google AdWords, LSAs. When I was when I left, we handled all that in-house um because we were struggling finding vendors. I mean, that was one of the biggest um issues that I faced daily, especially with Google AdWords, because we were spending so much money and we weren't getting a lot out of it. And so we were trying, I was trying to find, always looking for for vendors that could help focus our account, um, our Google account on bringing in results.

Intake Training AI Scoring And E-Sign

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Like every vendor can go out and find the low-hanging fruit. I'm always curious about like what were the trust clues that you might be inclined to go, oh I because now you got four pitches from four new, let's just say SEO vendors. Right. And we're gonna we're gonna pick one. I know that a lot of what went on in the and still goes on saying the mastermind groups is just honest conversation about the different experiences with different vendors that people have. But then sometimes more importantly, Jason, the honest conversation about like who inside a particular company you needed to know their cell phone or their email address in order to get something done when it was when it was broken. But what were the big sort of trust clues for you? And whether it's SEO or you know, managing a digital spend or yeah, I we haven't even talked about this, but well, you mentioned like they're a big TV advertisers, right? And you you had to deal with the folks selling the ad time. Like what would you be looking for in terms of, yeah, I can trust you with the firm's money?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Well, I think as time went on, one of the things that that open and honest conversations with them. I mean, I went when we were looking for new SEO vend looking for a new SEO vendor, or even when we were reviewing Google Ad vendors, saying, hey, look, this is this is what I expect. This is what we're looking for, this is how we're gonna measure you. You can you can provide whatever you think that that you is gonna look good for you, but this is what we're looking at. And so people that accepted that and were okay with that, I was more comfortable with. People that that still provided a lot of fluff and we struggled with. But we I was always up front with them because there have because there has to be a level of trust. You have to, especially in a in a smaller firm where you only have one or two people that can you can rely on to track out, track these vendors. There has to be a level of trust because I can't can't learn everything that I need to know and keep up to date on Google changes, algorithm changes, SEO changes, and so I have there has to be some reliance on them. And so that relationship has to be built. And and and and it and it is a slow process because you get, I mean, like most firms, you get burned. And so you're going in, and that that's one of the reasons that you may let somebody go is your your numbers are tanking. They're not upfront with why they're tanking or how they can fix them. And so you go with somebody else, but you've got to start that process all over again. Then you're building trust again, how they're doing what they're doing, why they're doing what they're doing. So a lot of it was based on what information they would share, and then obviously what information I would gleam on the back end on my own. And and that that's kind of working for trust relationships. It it it is. And so what I tried to do and is be as consistent as I could with what I was looking at. And so, regardless of what the vendor was or who the vendor was, I was still trying to be consistent, like I said, long-term over a a large time span, what I was looking for and were our numbers going up or were they going down and why. There was a lot a specific example, there was there was a time period that we had realized that a lot of our traffic to our website was just junk traffic coming from um out of state. And so we made strategic changes with the vendor we were using at that specific time that helped us weed those that traffic out. And so to to somebody just coming in and looking at our data, it looked like our traffic was going down. But the traffic was going down on purpose. And so when we decided, okay, we need to transition into another, or or just with people calling us, because people call flaw firms saying, hey, we're a great SEO provider, we looked at your numbers and it looks like your website's tanking. I would say, well, there were specific reasons why it was tanking. We did it strategically because I wanted to eliminate junk leads. I wanted to eliminate people that were just hitting our site just for whatever reason they were coming from. And so we did that on purpose. And so we were up front with them about that. And I always tried to look at what their reaction was. They were pitching us that that that our website was tanking, but in fact, we did it on purpose because we were trying to build it back up into a stronger page. So that that again, looking at looking at SEO vendors specifically, that we were building trust and we were trying to meet our long-term goals. I didn't care what they were trying to pitch at us and what they thought our goals should be. We we established what we wanted. Well, that's trying to call them to it.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

And one of the things, you know, when we've talked to vendors and I specifically have talked to vendor, what I call vendor, my vendor partners over the time, is like, I want a partner. Like I want somebody that's gonna actually be interested in my business uh and ask curious questions and not just sell me what's on their slide deck and not just perform what's on their slide deck. Right. And it's it's it's hard. Like even for someone, you know, we we have a fairly significant platform. We have a lot of lawyers that pay attention to us. Like I'm surprised, often surprised, at how sloppy vendors who came to us to Ben Glass Law would be knowing that we were gonna talk about them, good the good or the bad, like later. Brian. So let's talk about the company Fractional Legal Marketing at fractional legal marketing.com. Like, what do you see your role would be? And by that I mean you know, Jace, there's uh there's fractional CMOs whose job is to sort of manage all the vendors. There's fractional CMOs for small firms whose job it is to do a lot of the work, right? Right. And so where do you see the need and where do you see you fulfilling the need now as we move forward?

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Sure. One of the things that that, like I said, my focus would be is the smaller law firms, the solo firms that are that are looking to grow and and are are not in a position, not necessarily not even to to afford a full-time marketing person, but they they still need somebody to help them manage that. I actually have, and and it's uh it is outlined on my website for actionlegalmarketing.com. I have three different uh programs, three different levels, so to speak. One of them is what I call vendor setup. It's a process where I would work with that firm to select two to three vendors for certain marketing channels that they're looking for, SEO, LSAs, whatever, and help them vet those different vendors and kind of help them establish that relationship. And that would kind of be a short-term thing. They would have to then at that point decide how they were going to manage them. I do I offer what I call a performance audit just to kind of look at where the firm is, where they want to go and how they can get there, and kind of help establish the steps. Again, short-term, not take that, take on any role long-term.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Aaron Powell That seemed to be a great service, frankly, because you're you're not biased. You know, you're not biased towards the product then that you are you are selling, like giving someone an honest review of where the opportunities are uh in their current processes. That would seem to be highly valued.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Yeah, and I think I think that that that it it you can do some self-reflecting, but it's always it's always decent to have somebody come in and say, hey, this is this is what's going on and this is what what what you could potentially improve on. Uh the main um offering that I have is um kind of as an advisory role um with weekly, you know, weekly strategy sessions with the owner, determine where they want to go, how we're gonna get there, help them establish 90-day plan plans, quarterly plans, measurements. One of the biggest things that I've found over the years is you've got to measure because that because you're gonna have limited dollars. You're gonna have limited dollars to spend. And so you need to determine what's the best way to spend that money. You need to find ways that that you can get your leads, I don't want to say at the lowest cost possible, but in the end, you want to in a in a ratio that that makes financial sense for the firm long term. And and for if they want to if they want to grow, which uh obviously most most firms do. There's some in that in that offering, there is some vendor supervision. There's there um to help supervise and keep vendors on track so that they're they're making the goals that we laid out in the 90-day plan. And then of course, campaign messaging. That's that's fundamental in in most marketing. And so that that program that that I I have is for is is a monthly program, monthly retainer program that would hopefully be a long-term relationship. However, with the understanding that at some point we've we've gotten that firm growing large enough to where they may want to bring somebody in full-time.

Vendor Trust Signals And Fractional Marketing

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Then you could probably help that that person is gonna come in full-time. Right. And um and I take it your work is not limited to the personal injury space, which is where the space you have been. I mean, you are helping solo and small law firms build, I th I would guess, consumer-facing practices across that spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Right. And and and and one of the things that I've learned the decade in in PI marketing is is personal injury marketing is probably more difficult in a lot of senses from most other service areas because you don't know who you're marketing to necessarily until something happens. And so that's always been a challenge that to overcome in messaging and in what resources we're using for for marketing. But yeah, I would be able to apply that across the different service areas.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Aaron Powell And the personal injury space is is probably the most competitive, uh at least on you know on the on the local and regional level. You know, maybe it's different, you're talking about mass torts or something, but for the automobile accident space, there's just a ton of money and resources, no matter where you are in the country, right? A ton of money and resources being thrown at those opportunities. And so I think you'll you'll be a great person. You know, I've always said, like, if you can be the biggest spender in your market, that go. Like that's gonna work, right? But if you can't be the biggest spender or the number two spender, then we, the rest of us, have to figure out how we develop relationships, how we do grassroots marketing, how we do direct response marketing, how we have a website that sells. And then most importantly, how do we have somebody on the phone who's smart and good and can answer the phone and can convert that prospect if the case is right, the right case for the firm, convert that prospect into a new client of the firm? And most lawyers and firms overlook those last parts and they go right to the lead generation part. And they play in a very expensive place these days in 2026 in the PI space. It's very expensive to do that. It is. So you're gonna be a great asset, my friend, to lawyers. So is the best way for someone to contact you to go to fractional legal marketing.com, look at the information on the site, and I think you told me you've got a scheduling there.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

They can schedule, they can actually schedule uh a call, a zoom call with me on the website. My email address is J Williams at fractional legal marketing.com, and I'm also on LinkedIn. I mean, you can find me on LinkedIn. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

Well, Jace, look, thank you, thank you for sharing those ideas with us today. Good luck on this stage of the venture. You've you've worked with a a good group of people. Obviously, again, I've known you probab probably for the entire time because I think you said you you came to Miley when they were in our groups. And so it was fun getting to know you over the years. And we wish you the best of luck, my friend. Thank you. Thank you, and thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

That's it for today's episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where we're rewriting the rules of what it means to build a great law practice and a great life. If something sparked a new idea or gave you clarity, pass it on. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who's ready to think bigger. Want more tools, strategies, and stories from the trenches? Visit GreatLegalMarketing.com or connect with Ben Glass and the team on LinkedIn. Keep building boldly. We'll see you next time.