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The LFG Show
Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself ⚖️ Eric Troutman x TCPA
🔥 *Welcome to The LFG Show!* Hosted by the one and only *Dave Stodolak, we’re here to take you deep into the high-stakes world of compliance and digital marketing! This episode is brought to you by our awesome sponsor **Ringba*, your go-to for powerful call tracking solutions. #LetsFreakingGo #LFG #Ringba
💥 Ever wondered how one tiny slip in compliance could cost you millions? Join us for a powerhouse convo with *Eric Troutman* from Trautman Amin Law Firm as we reveal the hidden minefield that is the *Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)* and the jaw-dropping financial risks that come from ignoring it. From *Quote Wizard’s $150 million* compliance disaster to personal stories of paying the “dumb tax,” we’re diving deep into why staying sharp on TCPA rules might just be the smartest (and most lucrative) business move you make this year.
*Heads Up!* The landscape is changing, and starting *January 27, 2025, you’ll need consumer consent for every communication touchpoint. This isn’t just a challenge—it’s a golden opportunity for cleaner data and high-intent leads. In this episode, we break down how ethical practices are the new *currency, why media buyers and sellers need to adapt or face penalties, and how to win by staying proactive. Eric unpacks his strategies, covering *real-life cases* like *Wells Fargo’s TCPA showdown* and his expert insights on dodging manufactured lawsuits. We go deep into the world of *pay-per-call marketing* and why express written consent is non-negotiable. Plus, Eric shares his secrets for building a *stellar legal team* and protecting your business in today’s evolving landscape.
Whether you’re a business owner, marketer, or media buyer, this episode is your playbook for *staying resilient, winning big, and thriving* in the compliance world. 🎧 Hit play, dive in, and grab the insights you need to protect your business, your assets, and your future in this new era of TCPA compliance. #NoMoneyNoHoney #RingbaRocks #TheLFGShow
🔊 Episode Timeline
0:06 - TCPA Compliance Navigation
9:55 - Telecommunication Compliance Regulations Discussion
17:45 - Industry Integrity and Compliance Strategies
25:36 - TCPA Compliance Strategies and Advice
29:57 - Navigating Pay-Per-Call Risks and Compliance
38:17 - Building a Talented and Committed Team
48:52 - Energizing Compliance and Business Growth
Get ready to level your shit up with the LFG show. We travel the globe to bring you heavy hitters from all walks of life. We've been talking some serious business, from the best digital marketers, government contracting experts to top athletic and celebrity doctors We've got it all covered. We're talking to guys with cash in for billions with a, b, and the best thing is we're just getting started. So hold on tight. We're about to crank it up a notch. Get ready for next level networking and masterminds within the LFG community. Scare money, don't make no money, or honey. Hit the subscribe button, drop a like, leave a comment and let's fucking go.
Speaker 3:Guys, I know we've been talking our show. We've done 30 something podcasts. We're always talking about how we can optimize campaigns, how we can make more money, but this is probably the most important show we've shot, because it's not about the money you make, it's the money you keep, and when you're not running in a compliant fashion, you're not doing the right thing by your clients Guess what? You're going to lose all your money. You're going to be out of business, and that's why it's an honor to have Eric Trautman with Trautman Amin Law Firm. These guys are doing amazing things, man. They've helped me out back in the day when I first started, with some sticky situations that I was unaware and, like a lot of you, are probably unaware. You're exposing yourself too. So great to have you on the show.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, david, what you're doing. By the way, let me just say before we dive in, man, you are a voice for this industry that this industry needs right, because people tune into me, they hear from me, I'm doing my thing, I'm doing the law, the compliance. But when it comes to getting the nitty gritty, like how to win not and I'm not talking about in the courtroom, I'm not talking about from a legal perspective I mean win in the marketplace You're the only one delivering the goods. I love it, I love what you do, I really do.
Speaker 3:It's a real honor, probably like three four, five months trying to get this done. We just kept missing each other. You know how it is at the shows man one thing happens and then an hour goes by, two hours go by and the day goes by Like, oh my God, we didn't get it done, but we're at the Solar Summit right now in Anaheim and I saw you walk in. I'm like we're going to do this today. Let it was, it was.
Speaker 4:It was in florida, tcpa tcpa summit in florida yeah, that's the contact center compliance things that they throw every year the summit. It's great show, one of my favorites. They do it every year.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I remember, I remember, yeah we met there and man, that was, uh, that was a time where my company started to grow tremendously. But, as, as you grow, you don't realize how you expose yourself, and I was doing things that I thought were fine, but I guess they weren weren't fine, and I had a couple of issues I ran into and they cost me a lot of money and I think in business they call the dumb tax. You're, by being naive, by being dumb, and I had to pay the dumb tax. And when I came to to to that show, I was like we got to buy and no, we need to sign up for active prospect. We got to do a time, we had to be. Well, I mean, look, saving money is what it's all about, but it's also about protecting a brand and, ultimately, protecting yourself.
Speaker 4:Right, because a TCPA, which is the number one, that's the number one cash cow in America. Right, those of you there in the outreach game? Right, you're out here making phone calls to consumers, texting consumers, reaching out to consumers. The number one statute, the law that governs what you do, is the TCPA. Bad news for you is that the TCPA just happens to be the number one cash cow, the most exploited, abused statute in America that the plaintiff's lawyers get rich off of. These guys are all millionaires, so they're hungry and they're out there hunting for you. And unfortunately, under TCPA, it's not just your business that can get sued. You can get sued personally you. You can get sued personally. Your personal fortune, your personal bank accounts can be taken by these sharks, these litigators, these scumbags. So you've got to just be so, so, so cautious. I mean you can call it a dumb tax and you know, from some perspective it is, but really it's a massive, massive risk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's huge, and you're talking about let's talk some numbers. I've spoken at a lot of shows. I've spoken at Philly Road several times and you find a lot of good media buyers internationally, but they're unaware of these laws. So I always a lot of what I do is a lot of rah, rah, rah. Yeah, let's make money, make money, but somewhere in towards the end I talk about tcpa, I talk about protecting yourself. I was a victim. I spent a lot of dumb money like out the window, which I at the time was terrible right, and then there's never a good time for that. But I will show examples. I mean, I think it was a greyhound, 30 million. There's like there's so many. You're talking about eight, nine figure. Yes, you know settlement, so let's talk about that so people understand the the magnitude of this oh yeah, so we can pick on quote wizard real quick right great brand people like quote wizard.
Speaker 4:Uh, they're facing, they've been certified in tcpa class action. Certification that means right now they're going to trial and they're facing minimum 150 million dollars in exposure. 150 million, right, uh, and, and that's quote wizard. That's a good brand, that's a sophisticated company that actually has lawyers, that knows what they're doing, and yet they're still in the situation. So I mean, and obviously that and obviously that's at the high level. Small companies get hit for this stuff all the time, right, you've got companies that have to go bankrupt. You've got companies that I mean, everyone knows about insurance. Those guys were in a heap right of TCPA trouble.
Speaker 3:That's public record. Now I'm not saying that. You know was one thing and a bunch of other amounts.
Speaker 4:There's just so much risk out there. And then you talk about settlements. I mean, you can't name a major bank, right, that hasn't had an eight-figure settlement under the TCP Act. $75 million settlement is Capital One, but even like last year, keller Williams had a $45 million settlement. All states had a ton of settlements, one of them over $40 million.
Speaker 4:So it doesn't matter what vertical you're in, that the big brands in every one of these verticals is getting hit, and so you know that's what I'm saying. Like from one hand, it is kind of a dumb tax, but from the other hand, this is an incredibly aggressively litigated statute with very, very good lawyers that are on the plaintiff's side. I mean, I can't emphasize this enough. These are like super sharks. These are the best, brightest, most intelligent and highly paid, sophisticated attorneys in the world are bringing TCPA class actions because there's so much money there, and that's literally why I exist, right, I mean, you've got supervillains out there, so you need I don't know if I'm Batman or whatever, but you need a better class of lawyer on your side, because people are just getting destroyed out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think the good thing is that you come to all the shows. You talk to groups like me, you talk to the media buyers, you talk to the brokers, you talk to the end installers, so you see the pain from all different angles and by being in the trenches. I know there's other groups. They got big names, but they don't go. You put in the work, you travel, you hustle. You know they got big names, but they don't go. You, you, you put in the work, you travel, you hustle. You got your team and we'll talk later on how you manage all this stuff. I think you have a good, a good system behind it, but by you understanding our pain, by listening, I think it helps you really. It helps you with the clients at the end of the day and helps you make sure that they protect themselves and you educate as community.
Speaker 4:I want to keep them safe, right, and you guys know I go out there. I hand out just dozens of hours, hundreds of hours of my personal work that I do free and just hand out to everybody every day.
Speaker 3:That's true. I don't care.
Speaker 4:Right Like you know, you go to my website, you go to tcpaworldcom. You don't have to sign up, you don't have to sign up.
Speaker 3:You don't have to enter your address. Great website, right, tcpworldcom. A lot of good information and you constantly update it too, which is awesome for free.
Speaker 4:And that's what I'm saying. You don't have to even give me your information. I don't do anything with your information, I don't mine it, I don't you know. It's ironic.
Speaker 4:I talk to lead generators that they don't get sued, like, not everyone's going to be able to retain me Right and I. Obviously I can't give legal advice from the stage, but I can help people to understand at the highest level. Like this is the law, be aware of it, it's out there. Please protect yourself, because I'm so tired of seeing good people just get destroyed by this horrible statute and the way it's abused so badly. But that's just one piece of it and the second piece is as you get out there. Obviously it's good for me from a lead gen perspective. I get clients out of it Sure, I do. But what it really also gives me is this really good visibility in terms of what everybody's actually doing, so that I as an attorney really really understand people's businesses and I can help them.
Speaker 4:And a lot of what I do kind of transcends just legal advice. I can give you strategic business guidance so that, if you know, you got to comply with the one-to-one rule. You want to go through one channel, you want to go through one kind of funnel, but it's not going to work Right and I and you don't know why, because you know you're not a lawyer and you're not supposed to know why, but I know why. But here's the thing Unlike most lawyers that can say, oh, you can't do that, I'm able to say you can't do that, but you can do this here's what you can do, right, no-transcript in the industry is just connecting people, which is really fun.
Speaker 3:I really enjoy that you guys. You guys are connecting me to people and home improvement Like it's a great thing.
Speaker 4:Always man.
Speaker 3:And you know, you know you're going to do it, because it's like you know my history, you know their history. It's like what we're doing here with Ruben he's getting good people, it's invite only. It's like select. It's a select network is what it is. So that's awesome, so I love that. And then I was going to say everyone's got to be aware of this stuff, because I think we just did a mastermind, right, pike, they don't, they hear about this one-to-one, they hear about tcpa and they think they're not going to get affected.
Speaker 3:And one thing I want to share a story is I, I get hit up. People look at me like it's you know some genius, but like I, I just certain things. I know certain things. I don't know a lot of things, experience making mistakes. But I knew a guy he was over like 75 000 by, uh, by by the, the company, the advertiser, and he's's like I don't understand. All I did was send them a call. It was a paper call thing. Da, da, da, da, da. That's what happens If your client is burned. You're going to get burned. Oh, absolutely. And this was a guy who just started. He started to make some money and, boom, that's 75,000. He's never been a C and I think people don't talk about that enough. It sounds like there was something wrong with it. He probably did without knowing, but you have to know this stuff. You can't skimp on this stuff.
Speaker 4:No, it's amazing. This industry is so amazing, kind of like backing up how innovative it is, how intelligent people are that work in this industry. How much money can be made so quickly and lost?
Speaker 3:even faster.
Speaker 4:Even faster. Right, and that's what you said at the beginning of this thing is hey look, it's not about what you make, it's about what you keep. Right, you do this the right way, man. You can still make gobs and gobs of money, but you got to do it the right way. If you do it the wrong way, man, you're just pissing in the wind. People are going to take that from you so fast and make your head spin.
Speaker 4:And even worse you're going to be. You know, in your own mind-one is coming out and there's no running from this.
Speaker 3:There's no escaping this as one-to-one consent, guys. If you know about, is that January 27th 2005? So you got it, you nailed it, you got it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I mean, hopefully you all know about this already but you can no longer have 5,000 names on a marketing partner list, right? You cannot get bulk aggregated consents any longer. Each and every seller that is not the lead seller, by the way, that's the good and service provider In our vernacular the buyer, the lead buyer Every company, every brand that the consumer is going to hear from, has to be individually selected on that form, and it's as simple as that, right that either it's a single form, single brand form and then one brand, and they accept, or you have multiple brands, but they have to be little check boxes, right, and the consumer has to decide who they want to hear from. There's a bunch of nuance to this. Obviously, I'm not going to break this whole thing down right now on this podcast, but it's a huge deal. And if you're not compliant with that, every phone call you make after January 27, 2025 is illegal.
Speaker 3:And what were the fines for this?
Speaker 4:500 bucks per call. 500 bucks. So you think about the scale at which people make these outbound calls and you can aggregate it. It's not just one person, understand, please. Please understand. It's not just one guy sues you for 500 bucks, right, who cares? We're talking about class actions, where every single call you make gets combined into one case, and so you're looking at 500 million, a billion, 5 billion, because there's four years statutory. Look back four years. Your conduct is at issue. I mean, it can cost you, it can cost major brands, right, their entire bankroll. And if you're a small company, obviously you can get swept up in that. There's personal liability, right, they don't have to pierce the corporate veil Like in most places. You can be sued individually. It's terrible guys. It's just a terrible statute, like you've really got to comply. And that's the amazing thing about this industry, right. So much opportunity and yet so much risk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think, too, media buyers a lot of our audience media buyers there's people operating the gray to get cheaper clicks right and then by doing that, they expose themselves, they expose their clients. I mean, this is a time your, your, your, your partner Pooja was just on stage, did a great, great, great speech, but she said in a way, there's like a cleansing yeah, it'll be more expensive generally, but the quality will be better and at the end of the day, that's what the, the end company buyer wants. They want better quality data. So I think it's going to force media buyers to, you know, clean up their acts, if they haven't done so already, and just operate in the right way, or else they're going to get, they're going to get destroyed, they're going to get kicked out of the business. I mean, they're not going to be able to withstand these fines.
Speaker 4:No, and look, I think this could end up being a beautiful thing painful at first. But. But I mean what should happen is the cpa should stay the same right the, the cost, the lead is going to go up and maybe even get better, right?
Speaker 4:cost of the lead is going to go up. There's gonna be less leads, right? So those of you out there selling just wrap your head around the fact that you're not going to be able to sell the same volume. It's just not possible, right? So you're going to have to make that revenue with higher prices, and so you just just got to start thinking. This is like, this is guerrilla math. Right? I'm going to sell half as many leads. I have to charge twice as much, right? I mean, it's not that complicated, it's arithmetic, and the lead buyers have to understand that too. Right? You're getting a superior product, meaning this consumer is very high intent. They just selected your name, for God's sake. They want to hear from you, and maybe just you.
Speaker 4:Obviously, now, if it gets in your hands, the hands of your inside sales guys, they can't close the deal. You got no one to blame but yourself, right? And so you've got to be able to pay for that lead and expect to pay for that lead. But at the end of the day, it really should all work out. There should be less unwanted calls, which is what the commission wants. The FCC wanted the small and mid-sized businesses that rely on leads. You know, I'm hopeful, knocking on wood, that there's still going to be opportunity, there's still going to be breathing space for them to have their names still appearing on these forms. But it's going to be interesting because obviously the big boys are going to do fine right If you're progressive, you're Geico, sure your name's going to be on plenty of insurance forms, right.
Speaker 4:But if you're a small insurer, you know you're Cincinnati insurer, you know. Are you going to get your name on those forms? I don't know. That's the challenge To me. That's the challenge. I don't know the answer to that question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think a lot of those smaller groups and this affects me. I've talked about it a lot. We have a company that does age data and we've never had issues. My partner is on the board of RE. There's no more. It kills that. So I think smaller guys would rely on that was how they would compete. So now they got to be, they got to build their own media buying teams. They're going to have to have the landing pages one-to-one. They're going to have to adapt and I think a lot of them don't. They're not even aware of this as the issue.
Speaker 4:It's going to be tough especially folks in the franchise models where you know, really these are separate LLC, separate entities that are providing the good or service to the customer. They might be a single person LLC, they might have four or five employees as a team, let's say in a, you know, in a franchise real estate environment. Uh, and you know these guys, their names have to be on the form right. It can't be X global brand that everybody knows. It has to be X globalglobal brand of Delaware 213 LLC. That's the one that's actually providing that good of service to the customer.
Speaker 4:What are the odds of these guys getting their names right? So these leads for many of these independents are going to start drying up. It's going to become a very underserviced environment. And if somebody can kind of crack that right, how do we, we get the names of small business buyers onto these forms? I mean, they're going to be someone's going to clean up when they can do it at scale. But it's going to be a real challenge, that's going to be real tough for people it is going to be and I want to talk about.
Speaker 3:How did this all start? And I just assume because there was just a barrage of BS calls, robocalls, right, washington DC got a lot of complaints. Is that how this all started?
Speaker 4:infinitely almost right and just keep monetizing it as if there's value to it. You know, if somebody fills out a form five years ago, technically that might still be a valid lead right. And if you've got 5,000 names on a website and you know how this works when something gets sold doesn't just get sold to you know the ultimate buyer. There could be three aggregators, three people in between that are taking these leads and maybe even they're reselling it, and nobody's even keeping track of what's happening to this inventory. And so the original publisher might sell it five times, an aggregator might sell it five times, another aggregator might sell it five times, the brand might get it not be able to convert. They remonetize and sell it five times, and you're in a situation where you fill out one form one time and you might receive a thousand phone calls from 20 or 30 different companies.
Speaker 2:No, guys that was unsustainable.
Speaker 4:It was always unsustainable, and it was no surprise to me at all that the FCC has come down and I'll tell you I mean, people don't know this, we don't talk about it enough. The FCC's original plan was to shut down the generation altogether.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to ask you about that they're original plan was to shut down the generation altogether. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. They were going to shut down Legion.
Speaker 4:That was scary Totally not, yeah, the original position.
Speaker 3:Round of applause for that. Look at that. That was a bad time.
Speaker 4:That's fantastic. No, the original plan for the FCC, for Legion, was to say you cannot transfer a lead at all. Now REACH Responsible Enterprises Against Consumer Harassment, lobbied hard because I believe in the lead gen industry, I believe in small businesses, I believe that these are the superpower, the hidden superpower of the American economy, connecting consumers with small companies that can provide goods and services. I love the story of lead gen and I wanted to keep it alive. And so Reach, advocated hard to the commission, said guys, you cannot, you cannot wipe out this industry. And the commission listened and they did find that there is benefit in comparison to shopping. There's benefit to lead generation. They saw the benefit to small business and they wanted to give an avenue, a little bit of breathing space. So they landed on one-to-one as opposed to wiping out the industry altogether.
Speaker 4:But you have to understand, like those who are concerned about the change, the industry brought it upon themselves and I say this with love, I love you guys but it was sloppy, it was abusive and it was dirty, rotten, tricks right. And now we're past that. We're in a new generation. It's going to be holistic, it's going to be clean and the future is Reach and the members of Reach, who have pledged to do things the right way and follow tight standards. We're going to be ahead of the regulators. We're going to ensure that this industry is going to last a long time and there's lots of money to be made but in a way that does not harass consumers, and that's what we got to get to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I love the mission and that it cleans up.
Speaker 3:It's an ecosystem you have as well, and if you're a part of the ecosystem, you know that that person doing the right thing is what it comes down to, and I think that's it's like self-policing and that's what any good industry eventually becomes right, and I think it's just. It's a maturation. There's a consolidation going on right now. The ones that are doing it right, they're going to survive, they're going to thrive, the one that's come up with solutions. And it really comes down to everyone getting better, getting better what they do. I had to do it. I started my company in 2016.
Speaker 3:I guess I was running a rogue. I didn't realize I was. I'm trying to make money. I'm seeing the numbers go up.
Speaker 3:Then, all of a sudden, I get a. I get a complaint from my client. Like what the heck is this? I'm like I need an attorney. What's TCP? I had no idea about this stuff. You know, and you don't think it's going to hurt. You Like, oh, I'm under the radar. No one's going to find out. You do the wrong thing long enough. It's like habits. It's going to come out, man. The truth is going to come out. So I say take the lesson from me and from other people. And people think I mean, you have a retainer, right, it costs money for this shit. Nothing's cheap. But if you want to protect yourself, whatever it is for the retainer, whatever it is for your advice, that's going to keep you in business at the end of the day, and then when you have that ecosystem with reach, I mean that could turn into profitability for you by making the right connection. So I think we got to, as an industry, look at these as necessary investments to keep ourselves going.
Speaker 4:I mean we really try very hard to not be a cost center. I mean we are, I believe. I'd like to think that Trump and Amin is an investment in really driving and scaling profit for an enterprise in a lawful way. And that's done both, of course, by us helping to guide you to understand. You know, not just tell you what you can't do, that's not valuable, sure, tell you, no, you can't do, that you knucklehead. But tell you what you can do right, give you that alternate Avenue, get you from a revenue and an outreach standpoint where you want to get, plus, supercharge that with relationships and partnerships and ecosystem where you can really, really thrive with partners that you can trust Right.
Speaker 4:So, like, we try to provide all that to people. But at the end of the day, I mean you don't have to come to me for help, right, and again, I give so much free resources out there. You can just Google tcpaworldcom, it'll learn so much. But if you don't get help from me, right, get yourself an attorney, I don't care who it is. Get yourself a lawyer that knows this area of law, that is specialized and really focused on it, and protect yourself. You, just, you just have to protect yourself, you have to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, any real company that's grown has. They got a good CFO, they got the bookkeeper, they have the good legal counsel, and it's just one of those elements. So if you're somebody maybe you're a one person group, whatever, one man shop solopreneur you still need good representation. I can't emphasize that enough and I can't, I can't emphasize enough. I think during that one situation, six, seven years ago, I reached out to you from the show in Tampa and you gave me some advice and it was good advice, and then I used that with my client and I'm still doing business with them to this day. We got through that situation. I bit the bullet, I was at fault, I lost a lot of money on that deal, but I learned my lesson. I got myself together. So that's what needs to happen.
Speaker 4:But you know what you just said, right, there is really important too, right? Because especially in the new ecosystem and integrity, yes, integrity.
Speaker 2:In this industry.
Speaker 4:It matters man. It matters and you might take a bullet one day and you might lose hell. You might lose a good amount of money right early on. But if people start taking notice of that and they're going to, people start taking notice of that and they're going to and I'll tell you what they'll notice. You do the right thing, but they'll really notice you do the wrong thing Exactly and you ain't going to last long and word spreads super fast. You're not going to last long doing the wrong thing in the same way especially now.
Speaker 4:Maybe you know five, six years ago you know it was kind of a different world, but these days the spotlight is on guys. Absolutely Everyone is paying super attention to this. You're not going to get away with it the way maybe you used to think you could get away with it. It's a different world.
Speaker 3:I know a lot of you guys do a paper call. A lot of you guys have call centers. We got AI in the house. We got Neil Billick. He's the founder and the CEO of All Rise AI. They're doing big things. I'm a user of his service.
Speaker 2:We are coming in immediately for XXing contact rates for clients. What we found in my BPO when I ran it and deployed the AI was we had 30 second wait times before the deployment between connections and my guys were making about 500 connections a day times 30 seconds. We were wasting 250 minutes a day per head in a call center. That's four hours, that's half their day.
Speaker 2:Half their day or half their wages being spent on them waiting for a call. The reason your wait time's high is when you're calling out, you have an abandon rate. You have to stay under 3%. That's programmed in your dialer. If the AI is weeding that out and I think that's the benefit.
Speaker 3:it's collapsing timeframes, helping your top producers produce which produces produce, which is what you want them to do People are afraid AI is going to replace cost and reasons and it may.
Speaker 2:But right now, use it to maximize your human resources, so leveraging it for the tools it can be to do exactly what you're saying Let the humans do what they can do best. Let the AI get cursed out.
Speaker 3:You just made me think of something back in 2019. And this is what really made me realize you were the real deal. You probably forgot about this, but there was a lady you told the story. It was Wells Fargo. She had all these burner phones Her real money. She had 30 MagicJack phones in different shoeboxes and she would bait the people to call her. You won that case right. I was like this guy's the real deal.
Speaker 4:I was Wells Fargo's national counsel back in 2015. And there was a lady and she had 85 cell phones. Her name was Melody.
Speaker 3:Stoof 85 cell phones.
Speaker 4:She was a former felon.
Speaker 4:She had 85 cell phones and her business and she testified under oath and a deposition that her business was to get cell phone numbers from Florida where there was at the time it was a tough economic time and she knew that debt collectors would be calling those phone numbers, looking for the previous users of those phone numbers, and she would collect those calls, make notes of who's calling right, answer the phone, who's calling, okay, thank you. Make a note, count how many times that number called Once in a while, chime in and say, okay, stop calling, just to see if they would stop or keep calling. If they kept calling, then there would be an additional enhancement that she would seek. And then she would call and send a letter to the caller and say, okay, now you owe me five grand. And the thing is there was like 150 calls that she would get Right and so really she could seek 50 grand, she could seek a hundred grand, but she was only asking for five and so most companies were just turning around and writing her a check.
Speaker 4:And so she collected 60, 70, 80 of these $5,000 checks. She was living like a queen. Right, they try it with Wells Fargo, and Wells Fargo is like no no, we're not.
Speaker 3:They want to set a precedent. We're not going to do it. A good precedent.
Speaker 4:So they hired, they could have paid five grand to,000 to go down and bring what's called a summary judgment motion and go down and talk to the federal judge about this and put this whole thing on display. And that was the first time ever, ever leveraging a Supreme Court case called Spokio, that a court threw out a TCPA case finding that a manufactured lawsuit. There is no standing, you cannot bring that suit. So I thought I thought I had cleaned up the industry, the industry right, because that was the first case on it. It was precedent, it was powerful, it was for wells fargo, everyone knew about it, it was in forbes. I was like great pat myself on the back, I just saved an entire industry.
Speaker 4:But other lawyers, man, they just couldn't get it done and so that case just keeps getting eroded and eroded and eroded, as other lawyers kind of bring these, bring these arguments or they don't do it right. And so now unfortunately, you still see repeat litigators, people making up phones, people like they have 16, 17, 18 phones filling out forms, still bringing lawsuits and these cases now are able to go forward, which is really depressing, because that Stoops victory was a huge victory. I really thought we changed the course of history, but unfortunately other lawyers. It was just couldn't, they just couldn't hold it up.
Speaker 3:You know the course of history. But unfortunately other lawyers, they just couldn't hold it up. You know, yeah, well, I think that's amazing, man. It's amazing that you did that and I'm like wow, that's why Wells Fargo is as big as they are. You know they'll spend the money they're protecting themselves and you got to protect yourself at the end of the day.
Speaker 4:Well, look, hired me to clean up their entire enterprise. They hired me to defend them. All their litigation these guys never get sued anymore.
Speaker 4:They never get sued yeah, uh, they were very smart and now, look, they spent a lot of money up front. But now I mean you don't, you can't find a tcpa class action against wells fargo. Good for them. I mean that's great, right, that's what they invested in. Uh, now, not everyone has the resources of wells fargo. Right, but you do have to think like a brand that's got the resources to try to fight the right fights and do the right thing. I mean that's good for everybody.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let me ask you what. There are some people, some companies I won't name names, but they won't. They won't have any TCP lawyers or anything. They're like listen, it's just a cost of doing business and I guess they fight it themselves.
Speaker 4:I mean I guess it's pros and it's not until it's absolutely horrible. Right, I mean, look, I'm not going to lie to you. If you can get it done, some guy, some troll, comes to your door and you get the case settled and you don't have to retain a lawyer, and he doesn't retain a lawyer, and you move on. There's wisdom to that. I'm not going to tell you. There's not wisdom to that. There's wisdom to that. But you can't count that that's going to happen every time.
Speaker 2:Right, it might happen once might happen twice, hell, it might happen 10 times.
Speaker 4:But then that 11th time when that guy goes and hires a boss, or the wolf Peronic goes off and just cracks companies like crazy. You know, you've got to protect yourself, you've got to be smart. Now I will say you know, just because you're doing everything the right way doesn't mean you're not going to get a knock on the door from a troll. Right, these guys still try to troll. But if you're not doing things the right way, you are going to be low-hanging fruit and your odds of getting popped I mean they're extreme Right now they're already high. I mean, you heard Pooja TCPA class actions are up 40% this year, unbelievable 40%, and they were already up 30% the year before.
Speaker 4:Every year they're going up, and this is before one-to-one. And I am telling you, man, the TCPA plaintiff sharks, they are licking their chops, they are looking forward to January. They've got these conferences they attend. This is all they're talking about. This is all they want is for the calendar page to turn so they can catch these companies unaware and just crush them. So, man, it is going to be a bloodbath in 2025. So just be smart now, get your ducks in a row and, uh, you know, don't think you're going to get away with just settling individually with people for the rest of your life. It's just not going to work that way, most likely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what? What? What's your advice to someone that's behind the trainer, maybe someone that just they're a smaller group, right, and where do you advise they start to start learning about this? Or what's a step-by-step guide to them?
Speaker 4:yeah. So I mean, if you're really small, you don't have money for lawyers. Let's say, like you're some kid in your mom's basement, you're really just trying to get started. All right, like, go to tcparorldcom, it's free, it's literally free. Google, do research right, follow our youtubeerve to Win YouTube channel. We've got hundreds of videos, like literally hundreds of hours of free information regarding the TCPA.
Speaker 4:We do our best again, it's not legal advice, but we do our best to help give you a high level understanding of the law so that you can, you know, act at least loosely in conformity with what the law is right. And then you know, maybe, if you're brand new or you have, you know, revenue is still in the six figures or something you know on an annual basis you probably can't afford to see, I'm not going to lie, there are other lawyers that do this work Right, and here I am right. An attorney telling you talk to another lawyer, but but that's what I'm telling you. Um, if you can't afford Trump in a mean right now, that's fine. You know, start off talking to somebody that does this. They'll give you good advice to get you off the ground right.
Speaker 4:When you get bigger or when you're ready to scale. Give us a call. They will give you that gold-plated advice that you can really rely on and really see your business get supercharged right. But do something. Please don't think oh, I'm small, I'm under the radar. Man, nobody's under the radar anymore. Those days are gone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and again. Man, nobody's under the radar anymore. Those days are gone. Yeah, and again. The point is if you want to hit certain, hit certain growth level, hit certain numbers, you have to get. You can't be under the radar. Hit there, you're gonna have to grow. Right. Then you gotta do it the right way. Yeah, I learned that the hard way. You know that's what it comes down to. So the next thing I want to talk about is paper call is growing tremendously. Right, it's. A lot of people are shifting towards paper call. They think that's one way to get around this because obviously it's a consumer initiated call and I know there's risks to that as well. I mean, I don't think it's as easy as people think, right? So what are some caveats to watch out for if you're on paper call?
Speaker 4:Well, look, from my perspective, the biggest risk of inbound is still outbound Meaning. You know, you've got so many people out there generating inbound calls through outbound action. They're going to be outbounding with a pre-recorded call, with the press. One consumer is going to press one. Come in as a paper call. Guess what that's on the inbound call. Guys, right, that's, that's an outbound call. You're, you're liable when you take that transfer and you see all kinds of that in the text message space as well. But let's assume that it's real or like a real consumer initiated. It's on facebook or somewhere else, where this really is a consumer that has done something. They haven't, they haven't received their own outbound communication, or they're just they. They really are just initiating that that inbound call. That's fine If you can close the deal.
Speaker 4:I mean there's always risks. I mean maybe your content you know creative is a lie, whatever. That's a whole different issue, right. But from a TCPA perspective, right, let's say you ingest an inbound call, you pay for that inbound call, that's great. And if you can close on that one call, you're in business.
Speaker 4:But what happens if you can't close? Right, well, you can't call that person back. You don't have consent and you don't in all likelihood have an inquiry or an EBR there as well, right? So pay per call is good as far as it goes, but it doesn't always go very far. You've got to put yourself in a position that you can either close on that first call or that you've got an additional plan to obtain express written consent through an inbound channel, which you can do via SMS. There's ways that you can do it, but it's actually pretty tricky. So I do have a number of clients that are, you know, essentially taking in inbound calls and then converting those using SMS or using email or using apps to get consumers to actually give valid express written consent. One thing you cannot do is get it orally, right, you can't have that consumer on the phone.
Speaker 3:That's a very big misconception in the industry. So many people firmly. I got the call recorded, I'm fine, and then they're not fine.
Speaker 4:Absolutely not. A recording of an oral communication is not expressed written consent, it's not a written agreement. And I understand people like oh, recording that's like a written document, it's like a written document, but under e-sign it is not a written document. A written document has to be a literal paper or a digital record, that is, a physical artifact in writing and that is not what a recording of an oral conversation is. So to me again, inbound at consumer initiated inbound if they're real, very valuable, very valuable, and there is going to be more those are going to go up in value right In one-to-one land. But you've got to be careful for the outbound to inbound phenomenon and you've got to realize the limitations that you can't call that person back. You've got to close on that call.
Speaker 3:So let me ask you something. This is something that we don't do a lot of inbounds in our call center, but I've trained our call center. I think I've trained them correctly. If you get an inbound call from one of these campaigns and because I know a lot of these litigators are very savvy they trick you and they make it seem like they're interested in what they're oh sure. It's like what do you call it? Catfishing kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I can't wait to sign up. Hold on, I can't hear you. And then let me write this. They get a pen and paper and they write oh, where are you located? All this stuff, there's certain buzzwords we look out for, right, yeah, and what happens? Like, if I get disconnected, do me. They hang up the phone. You call them back. You're screwed at that point if they want to go after you, right?
Speaker 4:Depending on what technology you're using to call back.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4:But David man, you are not wrong, these guys are smooth too. I mean, like I listen to some of these call recordings and I mean they've got these elaborate stories and like they just completely oh, they make you feel bad for them.
Speaker 4:Completely manufactured backstories that they're telling of which is true. They'll give you jobs that aren't true. They'll give you income levels that aren't true. They'll give you backgrounds. They'll tell you stories about things that never happened.
Speaker 4:I mean it is insane how committed some of these guys are to essentially committing fraud. I mean, what they're doing is fraudulent and there's an opportunity in some instances to actually soothe them for fraud when they're engaging this kind of behavior. But at the end of the day, you know you do need to have agents. I mean, it's really hard to train an agent around this. So I'm actually kind of curious, for your tips would be because, from my perspective, I just say you know these agents should be following scripts, following protocols, not misleading the consumer, doing their best to communicate with that consumer. If the consumer has to be called back, you have to understand either you have the right level of consent or you don't. And if you don't, it doesn't matter how hot the lead is, you can't call it back using regulated technology. You might be able to call it back manually, right, depending on the circumstances but you can't call it back using that regulated technology. You can't put them on a drip campaign to use AI. You can't do any of that.
Speaker 3:You've got to treat them as if you're in paper call, you're not immune to this, and or if you're a client a big, let's say, insurance shop, where we buy tons of paper call leads, that that's a good, helps minimize the risk, but there's still risk out there, depending, like you said, the type of technology you call them back from. Do you actually have the consent? There's so many nuances to this and that's where these are sophisticated people. They make their living off of this, like that, like that one lady with the 85 phones right. They know the law in and out. They know how to manipulate that to their own good.
Speaker 3:So you got to protect yourself. So, even though you may be just doing paper coin, you're not outbounding or you shifted. This is why you need, you know, someone like Eric Trauman and Amin Ampouja to work with you, because this is the stuff that you know could just wreck your business, like we talked about earlier, and people forget about. That is what it is. It's true they think people call it a silver bullet, which I love people. Well, they're gonna be wrong.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's not bad.
Speaker 3:But it's still not. There's no real silver bullet you got to. I mean there is. If you follow that, all the old trout, I mean 15, right, we'll talk about it.
Speaker 4:There's no specific channel that's going to be bulletproof, right? Every channel, every way you're communicating with the consumer, every funnel, is going to have its own risks. Some are greater than others, right? Obviously, if you're doing outbound pre-recorded calls on third-party data, there's risk, tremendous risk, right? If you're doing manual calls on owned and operated, you know, self-generated, the risk is much lower. If you're doing, you know, paper call assuming it's done right, the risk is low, but there's still risk. Right, and really, I think the point ultimately is is that you should have your eyes open. You should understand what your risks are. Right. Before you deploy any potential outreach program any any before you build a business practice around any form of marketing, you should understand what the risks are. You should understand what the good and what the bad is of that strategy, because everything comes with some warts, right? Nothing's perfect.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent Great stuff. Uh, we're. I want to shift into some some other stuff about you how you grew you've grown tremendously. Before I do, I want one last stuff. I want to shift into some other stuff about you, how you grew You've grown tremendously. Before I do. I want one last thing. I don't want to get off this topic until we talk about what's the worst, the biggest horror story you've seen since you've been practicing. I'm sure there's a ton of them. There's a lot.
Speaker 4:And I mean it's hard to measure what the worst is. I mean I've seen small businesses go bankrupt, right, what the worst is. I mean I've seen small businesses go bankrupt. I've seen, I've seen really just some, some very like heartbroken individuals that they have to, you know, sell their house. I mean I've seen some really frankly, pretty bad stuff, but those are actually kind of smaller scale from a judgment perspective. I mean, to me, you know, some of some of the most terrifying things are are shifts potentially in the law that affect everybody, right, uh, things that I really try not to publicize too much. You know, like some of the biggest. I talk about TCPA World every day, new decisions, but to me, you know, the biggest changes, the scariest things, I don't talk about on there.
Speaker 4:I don't want people, I don't want the plaintiff's bar that reads my material to know about this, right, and so I've got my own private newsletter that I send out to just my clients and my close friends, and so I'll only cover things there. I don't even want to talk about it here, right? But I mean there are some rulings that are so nasty and terrible that if they are followed, if they are expanded upon, I mean it puts everybody out of business. It's just stupid. You know what I mean. I've seen litigators that receive one call, get a tcpa case certified. I've seen people opt in multiple times and, you know, still earn eight figure settlements.
Speaker 4:I mean, you see really gruesome things out there, but but I don't like sharing those stories because sometimes people hear that and like, oh well, then there's nothing I can do, right? I mean, if, if I do everything right and some troll can still get through, and you know a brand can still have to pay an eight-figure settlement, then why even try? And that's my point. I don't like to talk about the really, really bad stuff. I like to talk about, actually, the success stories where people walk in, the wolf comes knocking at their door.
Speaker 4:I make a couple of phone calls to Anthony Peronic and boom, the case is gone. Those are the stories that I think people need to understand and hear, because I don't want people thinking, oh man, it's absolutely hopeless. I want them to understand like man, there's always risk in everything you do, and again here, big, big rewards. So you know there's going to be big risk, right, you know there's going to be big risk, but there is the opportunity to do things the right way. Protect yourself, comply with the law and don't make yourself low hanging fruit.
Speaker 3:And then your odds of walking out of here you know a rich person very high. Yeah, I love where he said don't make yourself low-hanging fruit, and the way you prevent that by check, having a checklist, making sure you're abiding by everything, doing everything you can minimizing your exposure. That's what it comes down to. That's all we can control. Yep, good stuff. I mean, we can talk about this for days. This is amazing. I can't emphasize off tcp award. Look to it, great resource. I forgot the YouTube channel, thank you. What's the name of the YouTube channel? Deserve to Win. Deserve to Win Good one, and we deserve to win at the end of the day.
Speaker 4:That's right.
Speaker 3:So we're going to shift now to you've grown tremendously. I saw you in 2019. And I mean you know Pooja on your team. That's such a great team and they all seem very, seem happy, they're willing to help. And, uh, you, what's advice for scaling a team like that? I imagine it's not easy. I've done this. It's tough, a lot of challenges, which you seem to have done in a very good way. And, uh, I want to talk about that a bit, yeah well.
Speaker 4:So I'm going to tell you if you're a businessman, don't become a lawyer. There is, there is no harder business to scale yeah than law I could imagine.
Speaker 4:Because our product is me, it's us, it's literally the billable hour. That's what we're selling. So we get to go out in a sales cycle to a conference, right, spend all day on the floor, spend all day talking to good folks like you, and then, guess what, at five o'clock everybody else is done. My day hasn't started Now. I and the rest of my team get to go to work, right. So it's an incredibly time consuming, like I, I, you know a hundred hour weeks every week for me, and that's fine, right. But but so when you're trying to scale, like, how do you scale that? The only way to do it is to go off and get another person, human being, that is going to perform that good or service, right, that service of being a great lawyer. Oh my God, how do you go off and find a great lawyer that does TCPA? You don't, you can't, they don't exist. If they did, they'd be working for me, right? So you have to bring in just talented, raw talent.
Speaker 4:But for us and for our firm, for our brand, it's not just enough to have the best lawyer from the best law firm. We also always are looking for people with great, incredible backgrounds, right, it's like Pooja, as you know, she's an elite athlete, right Spartan athlete. Brittany is everyone else. She's a Lakers girl, right? Tori was competitive cheerleader. Like.
Speaker 4:Every single person on our team has this incredible backstory. They did something just tremendous. This is what we look for, like. I want tremendous, incredible people and I want our firm to be a reward.
Speaker 4:Like, if you have worked your butt off your entire life, you've been the best, you've worked the hardest, you've demonstrated over and over and over again in your life that you are committed to being the best, then you deserve an environment where everybody else is that same mindset and that's what we're trying to create. And so far, knock on wood, we have created that and that's why, I mean, we are a firm of just 10 people and we are handling more multi-billion dollar litigation files than any other law firm in the country. I am convinced of that. I don't know that there's no like statistic that says that, but I am convinced that that is the case. Right, we handle more big, complex federal court cases than any other law firm we've got. I mean it's amazing what our little firm is able to do, because every single member of that team is handpicked to be and is entirely committed to the cause and the other thing I'll tell you is.
Speaker 4:You know, one of the things that turned me off of big law was there was just so much pretense, there was so much bullshit, Like people would just say one thing to your face and it was like always a different story behind your back. It was just garbage politics, nonsense. And you know, at our firm we are so blessed that everyone's just so firmly committed and focused on the same cause that there's none of that Like we're just so busy, we work so hard to our eyes are flying out of our head that, like we don't even pretend to not like each other. We all flip and love each other because we're all committed to that same objective.
Speaker 4:And so, like, when I look at Pooja, I'm like Lippin love you. And she looks at me and she's like I love you. And it's like that's the same for every member of a team, all the way down to my wonderful assistant. Like I could not operate without these people doing what they do, day in, day out. And so it's only natural that I'm going to be like man, you are incredible, I love you guys. Like I'm so appreciative of you. And that just exudes from every single person, because that's like the level that we push ourselves to every day.
Speaker 3:And I think they believe in the mission, right, the vision too. They have a mission, you have a vision and it starts with you, obviously, and Pooja, and they follow the mission and you got the right people. They're believers, man.
Speaker 4:Believers, we have a, and that's the other thing we look for at the end of the day before we hire anybody. The question is is this person a believer? That's huge. If they're not a believer, I don't care how good or smart they are. It's poison. It's poison To have somebody at an institution that does not believe in the mission. It's cancer.
Speaker 4:That's great you can't have it, you cannot have it. So you have to make sure that everyone you bring in has an extraordinary background, incredibly talented and is a believer, because a believer will give their all for that mission and others won't.
Speaker 3:Simple as that. That's huge. And talking about fans, fanatics right, yeah, people like go nuts for their soccer team, their baseball team, their football team right? You want them to do the same for the company that's feeding them, right? So they're fanatic of your organization. It's going to bleed. They're in a bad. They're selling all day long for you, right? So it's a good point you make. It's something no one's ever talked about on our show, or I never thought about. It's huge and it's a two-way street Understand right.
Speaker 4:You bring these people in. I tell people all the time and it's true, like I don't believe in exploitation, I don and then not rewarding them. And rewards it's multifaceted right. I just described people that are coming on this team are incredibly talented, they've worked their entire life to be in the best environment possible. So you've got to pay these people. I don't mean just money Sure, they make good money, but with opportunity, with the opportunity to demonstrate how great they are.
Speaker 4:And that means putting them up on stages, taking them to conferences, inviting them. Putting them up on stages, taking them to conferences, inviting them, putting them in front of clients, taking them out to dinner, putting them, obviously, on big trials, big cases, having them argue, giving them that opportunity to to show right, to showcase those talents, those gifts, those abilities that have made them so unique and successful in life. And I mean you, you put all that together. You take believers and you give them opportunities and you really throw them into the fire and let them succeed and help them succeed. Man, it is so beautiful, it is a beautiful thing that we've got and I hope, knock on wood, this thing keeps going and keeps growing the way it is. But, man, like I said, so hard to scale. So much energy goes into the selection process and the training process, so it's tough.
Speaker 3:I want to talk about that. Next right and we'll wrap up on this is that you talk, you work, a hundred hour weeks, you're traveling, you're going here, you're going there, and you mentioned prior to us airing today about your time management and focusing. There's so many shiny objects, there's so many opportunities out there, right, but you've been able to, seems like, narrowly focus and grow as a result. So can we talk about that? What is your process for that? How do you do it? Because it's a very strenuous workload, obviously.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah. So look, first of all, I'm blessed. Obviously, you know I love what I do. I love protecting. I mean I protect people for a living. That's what I do. I protect people, I share information, I educate, I bring people together around. I've done a couple of blogs, I've done a marketing piece. I've done a blast. I've read every case I need to read. That day I go on a jog, I get a little exercise in and by eight o'clock now I'm. Now I'm working Right and you know what I do every day, right.
Speaker 4:But, as I was telling you before, I am now very sitting right here, incredible team of assistants and staff that do everything that I need so that I don't have to think right. So I don't need to think about what I'm eating for lunch, I don't need to think about what I'm wearing, I don't need to think about how I'm getting someplace, I don't have to think about anything, and I would highly advise anybody that's trying to be a high level executive or operate and just have maybe their most productive life that they can have and they're focused on a major objective, whatever it might be. I mean, you've got to have the assistance to do this and most very successful people have figured that out right, like you know, you talk about, you know, the richest, most powerful people in the world. They've all got teams of assistants that are helping them out. And you know, I'm obviously not at that level.
Speaker 4:But for me, you know, in order to do the things that you see me do, that people see me do day in, day out, in addition to, of course, practicing law, which nobody sees me do, which is the ironic thing, right, what I do 13, 14 hours a day nobody sees. You only see the thing I do two or three hours a day, which is pretty interesting. But you can't do it without those great staff members at your side and that great team at your side. That's just a fact.
Speaker 3:Great advice and you know that's, that's amazing advice. And same thing with me. I can't travel, do all this if I didn't have the team operating the business right and having the right people in the right seats in the bus. So beautiful stuff and we we touched upon a lot here, incredible stuff. Is there anything else that we didn't touch?
Speaker 4:upon that you think the audience needs to. I started, which is, I think you're such a fresh voice, such a fresh perspective in this industry. David, I'm very impressed with what you've done. I'm watching very carefully. I know a ton of people are and it's just great, man, you keep it up. You keep energizing people the way you energize people. I think this industry needs it, especially now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I appreciate it. So, listen, and we've been a little bit, a little subdued energy, but this was amazing. Like I said, you got to protect your downside in business. If you're not protecting your downside, you're not watching your back. You know, I always say check yourself before you wreck yourself, right, it's true, check yourself. We're in SoCal, ice Cube is from SoCal, right? I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, check yourself before you wreck. Subscribe to TCP World YouTube channel. Do that as well. We'll put all these links here. And let's go, guys, let's protect ourselves, let's make some money. Let's go, let's go, let's go.