← Maximum Lawyer
Loading summary
Transcript9 lines
- [00:02]
A
The Chicago YouTube Accelerator is coming up and it's about actually getting it done. We've got our friends Jeff Hampton and Ryan Weber joining us to lead it because they're doing the thing. Ryan's biggest client, who happens to be his wife, is known as the real estate lawyer on YouTube and has over 95,000 subscribers. And Jeff's law firm channel, Hampton Law, is sitting close to 600,000 subscribers. These aren't people guessing at YouTube. They're in it and they're laying out exactly what's working and, and how you can apply it to your firm. You'll dial in your niche, map out your content, script and film your first video, and build the backend so it actually turns into a system. We're in the last month before this event. If you want YouTube figured out this year, this is the place. Grab your ticket to the Chicago YouTube Accelerator at Maxflot events.com.
- [00:54]
B
This is Maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix.
- [01:04]
A
Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Today we're sharing a session straight from the Max Lawcon 2025 stage. And today's presentation is from Gary Falkowitz, a law firm owner and intake expert who has coached and advised hundreds of firms on how to stop letting good cases slip through the cracks. Gary. In this talk, Gary makes a bold point right out of the gate. You may only get one shot with a potential client, so your intake process has to be built for speed, clarity, and conversion. He also walks us through the key metrics that drive intake performance. This is Gary Falkowitz. Max Lacon, Session Everything youg Must Know To Convert Better Than the Big Firms.
- [01:49]
B
So I can get started without this. I'm not too worried at the moment. I see a few faces that I know, which is exciting to see folks that I only see once or twice a year, once every couple of years. My first slide was going to be about my bio anyway, so I'm not worried about what the slide actually shows. I am an attorney. I My name is Gary Falkowitz. I've been practicing since 2005. I started my career as an assistant district attorney, a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York. Then I became a medical malpractice defense attorney. Then I became a personal injury attorney. And it was at the personal injury law firm where I realized that this is a business, okay? Whatever type of law firm you work at or for or created, you work in a business. And I realized that most law firm owners and most law firm employees didn't know that. So I jumped in. I remember going to my boss at the time and saying, and saying, I think it's my computer actually, so don't even worry about it. Let them do their. I got this for now. Thanks, Jim. And we're going to my boss and saying, hey, Jerry, if there's ever an opportunity to get involved in the business side of things, I'd really be interested. And he sort of gave me a look and basically said, gary, thanks so much for sharing that with me. Now please go back to your office and do what I'm paying you to do. Which is fine. And then about a year and a half later, I became the managing attorney of the intake department. I was on TV for the law firm, I was a voice on the radio. And I was involved in all of the referrals that the law firm took in, as well as that the law firm sent out. Created a lot of relationships and realize, shucks, everyone's improvising. Everyone's sort of just guessing this whole front end business of their firms. Now I'm going to take a. I'll pause that for a moment, right? Because if you're like, if you're wondering, shit, pardon my language, you know, Gary was a prosecutor. I'm going to get to the sad parts now, right. Just for a moment. Gary was a prosecutor. I also became a village, Village prosecutor in my village, where I live. And I was the person that if someone sped in my village and got a ticket, they'd have to come see me. And if it was a youngin a teenager, maybe they come up with their parent. I'd say to their parent, can I be stern with your child? Absolutely. And I'd say, Johnny, I think it's my computer, actually. Oh, there you go. How you doing? I think it might be a computer thing more than anything else. I'd say, johnny, I got kids in the neighborhood, can't speed, can't go 55 into 30, because if you hit a child, not only are you ruining someone else's life, you're ruining yours. I promise you. And I say it very seriously because I was also, as I said, an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York, where there's a lot of crime. And I've tried cases, I've tried cases against those who drink and drive, and I've been stern with them as well. So when you think about. And the tears will come down, so don't worry about that because I'm a human being. But when you think about the fact that I thought I played by the rules, my son Ethan was up here 14 years old, 8th grade. Sorry. He played in the. He tried out and made the varsity high school tennis team as an eighth grader. Intelligent, great grades, wanted to go to Cornell, like his mom. Went to a match they won against the best school in the. I want to say state, but I know it was definitely county, but it was a school that they were going to be competing for the states. Tremendous human being. I watched that match, of course, because that's the type of dad I am, and parents we are. I went everywhere after the match, gave him a pound. He didn't want me to go see him after the match because you know what? Parents go celebrate with their kids after a big match. So from a distance, I kind of give him like a this and I'll be at the car. I'll wait for you at the car. And I saw him walk by where my car was in the parking lot. Thank you for whatever you did. And I kind of yelled his name. I said, hey, I'm over here, in case you missed me. I think he saw me. He said, dad, he's. From a distance away, had to be about 50 yards away. He goes, I'm going with him. I'll call you. I'll see you later. Like, three, like, hand motions that I completely knew what he was saying. You got it. I texted him how proud I was, how amazing he played because he won the last match under the lights. Everybody was watching his doubles match and spoke to him. That night, he called me up. My last conversation with him, he called me up and said, hey, can I go to school late tomorrow? I got this project. He cared, man. He was hundreds or 99s and everything. I mean, loved. Stayed up late, did work, cared about people. Can I go so late? I said, ethan, don't ask me this question. Go celebrate with your team, the Buffalo Wild Wings. Go celebrate with your team. Please, Dak. I just go. Well, talk about when you get home. Don't worry about it. Last time I talked to my boy, I just got you one more thing, because I want you to talk. I want you to understand that I'm still trying to find the positives in the world, because that's how I live my life. That night now, I had consulted, I consult law firms on intake, and we're going to jump in and we're going to talk about a lot of things today. I'm going to get a lot, a lot concluded in the next hour and 45 minutes, I promise. But that night, I had consulted with a law firm about six weeks prior. And whenever I go out with a law firm or an owner. I always go, hey, so what's the recipe for success? That's my go to line, right? Starts a conversation. And this owner said, well, you know what? When my kids were young, I started a journal and I left the journal by my bed and it allowed me to. It allowed me to remember everything that happened. So sorry, guys. So I said, yeah, I'm not much of a journal guy, but. But I love that idea. Six weeks later, I talked to my son. I'm putting my daughter to sleep. It's the night of May 3rd. It's about saved on my phone. It's about 9:53 at night. And as I'm in my daughter's bed, I said, you know, I'm going to start a. I'm going to do a journal tonight. A journal entry about how good this day was. I got to see Ethan play his tennis match, putting my daughter to sleep. She just told me that 1 and 1 equals 11 and that when you yawn, it means that you're breaking. Brain's tired or needs oxygen, something. And Landon, I got to see Landon. My boy played basketball and he's a. My middle guy is a great athlete, very fast. Ethan was very technical at everything he did. Landon run through a wall, wanted to try to catch a football. And my wife was helping with the concession stand at the 10, you know, at the high school while my son was playing. Fifteen minutes later, I get a phone call. Bad accident. I don't know how you go from the highest to highest to the lowest to lowest, but I did and my family is the reason that I do everything I do. So I'm here today from being in the firm. I jumped out. I started consulting law firms on intake. By the way, I can't speak at a conference without talking about my son. So I hope I know you guys understand. I don't have to ask, but that's how it's got to be the rest of my life. I left the firm and I said, I'm going to teach other law firms how to do this. I'm going to fix this for them. I'm going to help them maximize the return on their marketing investment. So I left, started my own, ended up starting my own call center, which was ultimately acquired. Started my own law firm, the Falquitz Law Firm. Co counseled law firms throughout the country on mass torts. And then I started my own masterclass, the Intake Playbook, where I have a mastermind. And we talk about intake once a month. It's really Tremendously valuable. Wrote a book which I put in front of each of you. And then I started a company called Capture now, which is a voice bot. I'll tell you a little bit about that later. Point is, I'm shoulder deep with the front end of our business. Of your business. And whether just because I have so much experience in personal injury, I promise you, just like the seven part series I did with Jim, it is all transferable to what you do. Come on. Unbelievable. Okay, so we're going to have one of those days. I don't mind. I could probably talk for hours on this. So we're going to figure this out together. No, it's, it's, it's the computer. It doesn't, it hasn't done this a lot, but it doesn't like. Yeah, keep shutting down, Keep shutting down. So here's where we're going to start. Okay. Because I know what I know at the I know everything about this presentation. We're going to start with your folks, okay? Who you have picking up the telephone for you guys, you're being judged by what they say and who it is and how they say it. And I'm telling you right now that I'll tell law firms all the time that your window, how clean or dirty your window is dictates whether they're going to call you or reach out to you or consider you. Now, your window is your brand. Your window, your window is your website. Your window is your reputation. Your window is your folks out on the street, your attorneys that are going to dinners. If your window is clean, they're going to come into the store and consider your services. But here's the thing, that's where the gambling stops. The moment you stop spending money on marketing is where the gambling needs to stop. So I like to bring up lot during my presentations that when someone calls your office, they're already considering your law firm. You went out there, you're marketing. Maybe you do family law, immigration law, maybe you do personal injury, maybe you do employment law. You're out there, you're letting everyone know on your website, on tv, on the radio, wherever you are, on the billboard. This is what we're looking for. We're looking for these characteristics in our potential clients. Someone calls up, they meet those characteristics. Which means that in an ideal world, 100% of the people that call us that meet those characteristics we should sign. There's a statistic that we call them, go a little bit all over the place. Don't worry about that. There's a statistic I use a lot called conversion percentage. You need to be using this KPI, this statistic, but you need to define it appropriately. If you get 1,000 leads, leads are anybody who calls your firm and 500 leads are qualified, that gives you a 50% qualification rate. Now you need to know that on a month to month basis because it will tell you how strong your marketing is. For many law firms, a very healthy marketing campaign will give you a 25 to 35% qualification rate. That's good. That's good. Good enough if you're under 20%. Now listen, things like med mal that's going to be closer to 3%. Employment, that might be closer to 5% but in personal injury, you're going to be about 25 to 35% healthy. This is going to be great. Now, once you have your 500 qualified cases, you need to know how many of those sign. Obviously, if half of them sign, that means your conversion rate is 50%. If 400 out of 500 signs sign, your conversion rate is 80%. 400 out of 500. It is imperative that you look at these stats every single day, every single month, every single week, and you compare them. Now, needless to say, you want your conversion rate to be 95% or higher. Gary, that's crazy. It's not crazy at all. There were law firms that I've consulted with that have a 98 or or 99% conversion rate that are signing more than 500 cases a month. Now, there are a lot of factors there that maybe some of us can't capitalize on because their brand is so strong. So they get the benefit of the doubt right off the bat. But if our conversion rate, because I've also consulted with law firms that have a conversion rate of 65%. If your conversion rate is low, that means there's something we owe. Always got to look in the mirror. We are doing wrong. Trying to think if I should think of another option here, can you email that presentation? Yes. Love that option. Love that option. So now we talked about your want rate and we talked about your qualification rate. I mean your qualification rate, which is your want rate. And we talked about your conversion rate. Regardless of the CRM that you use, there are certain reports and dashboards that your team or you need to be looking at on a daily basis. Just by. Let's just start going through the room for a moment. Is everyone working within a CRM or are some people messing with spreadsheets? I got to ask it because every once in a while there's someone Going, I don't. I made my own CRM or I'm using, you know, this or that. Everyone has a CRM, whether it's litify, filevine. Great. Are there, how many reports or dashboards are you looking at on a daily basis? Anybody looking at more than five reports or dashboards on a daily basis? Anybody looking at three or more? Anybody looking at least one? Anyone not looking at any. Okay, let's start with the ones that are looking at one. What dashboard are you looking at on a daily basis? Back at back of the room. Sorry. Yeah, either one. I think both of you raised your hands for that one. I'm looking at new client calls. New client calls. Okay. And do you also have a website? Are you looking at the new web leads? Does that count? Within new client calls. Okay, and are you looking at, are you looking at the status of each of those calls or just trying to listen to those calls? What are you looking for when you look, Open up those calls. And. Okay, okay. So the more you know about your target audience, the more prepared you'll be. Okay. And that's where I start to crush it, guys. What's the claimants mentality? People are giving you a phone call, right? And I need you to understand that the folks, the more you know about the person that's giving you a phone call, the better you're going to respond. So I can give you, for example, an understanding that in this day and age, everyone's looking for instant gratification. So if you are in that seat of yours right now and in your process and for whoever picks up the phone, you're telling them, okay, God bless you, you're telling them, okay, let's gather some information. Your job right now is to gather information. That's not good enough. That's not good enough. Because if you think about the shoes of the person that's calling you that they're wearing, what they want to do is in their mind, they've already decided, this is the time, I'm going to call an attorney. It's scary for them. This isn't like, let me call a lawyer. I got a break right now. No, no, at lunch tomorrow when I'm walking to my spouse, I'm calling the attorney. That's how much thought they put in, because they've never had to call a lawyer. As a matter of fact, raise your hand if you ever needed a lawyer. Raise your hand. Half the room, half the room has not ever. And you're all adults, at least 30 years old has never needed a lawyer. Which means that most people that are calling you, it's the first time they've ever called a lawyer. How dare us think that we have time to just gather information. They're looking for instant gratification. Their interest level is highest on that phone call. If I went to the gym right now because I want to lose some weight, and I go into the gym and they show me their equipment, they. They show me other workers that work there, and they tell me how far they are from my house, and I feel really good about all of that stuff, and I walk out. The chances of me signing with that, going to that gym again drop tremendously because I walked out. It's our job to ensure that when somebody will walk, calls our office or walks into our gym. Right. And they convey some interest in working with us. I'm just looking at my PowerPoint here, so I can look at a few things. And they convey some interest in working with us. Then we capitalize on that moment at that moment. Here's the other thing. They're looking to speak with experts. Gary, come on, man. I can't be around all the time to speak to a new client. And I didn't say they're looking to speak to you. They're looking to speak with experts. The person that picks up your phone or makes a phone call on behalf of your law firm is an expert. They don't have to be an attorney, but they damn sure need to understand that. They're an expert at determining whether that lead qualifies for representation. They're an expert at answering frequently asked questions. And if our team, if we're not authorizing them, giving them the power, the authority, the resources, the know how to handle new calls, and we think that their job is just to pick up, retrieve information, and then someone else will make decisions. We're leaving money on the table. Thank you, my man. Now. Oh, this is yours. Perfect. The best. They're looking for clear and easy steps to take. The last thing we want to do is complicate it for new callers. What you're going to realize throughout this presentation is that I am going to hammer it in your brain today that you're competing whether you like it or not. Whether you like it or not, the more competitive you are or feel that the game you're playing is competitive, and the better you'll react. Thank you. Appreciate it. Tyson, you've got to understand that you're competing. The last thing you want to do is be entitled. So I hate the Yankees. They're so entitled. They Think they could win? Every year you got to compete to win. New callers don't want to be intimidated. They want to form a trusting relationship. They want you to listen if you have to repeat yourself or ask them to repeat themselves, and that's not a good relationship. They want their questions answered, which is why we need to make sure that our team has a list of frequently asked questions and the recommended answers for each of those questions. This is the whole gym analogy. They want to be reminded if the gym membership, I walk out, I go home, I'm still a little bit overweight. If they come to the conclusion, eh, he didn't sign. He's obviously not interested in the gym. That was a dumb conclusion to come to. Do they think I just took the miracle pill and lost £25? They've got to keep calling now. Yes. Was I most interested when I walked in? Absolutely. But now you got to remind me because I have other responsibilities. And just because all of us, all of us in here think, well, what could be more important than hiring me? Well, it could be more important than needing an attorney and making that decision. Sorry, guys, but for the normal person, it's not that they'll call. It's important at that moment. And then they move on to the rest of their responsibilities in life. Listen, I'm a victim, man. I needed a lawyer. It took me months to hire a lawyer. Months. And at the end of the day, I hired someone because based upon the personal feelings I felt about them, how we make somebody feel personally has a direct impact on whether they want to work with us or not. And for us to ever come to the conclusion, I can't tell you how many people stop following up with me, too. For us to come to the conclusion that someone doesn't want to work with us because they haven't called us back is silly. We've spent how much money on marketing. I'm going to tell you a little secret that someone told me once when I first became a personal injury attorney back in doesn't matter. 08091008 an older lawyer said to me, gary, your job now is to make sure that everybody. I didn't know anything about doing intake or consulting at the time is to make sure that everybody in your life knows what you do. Of course, that's right. Now, it's simple. It sounds so easy. But some of us need to be reminded of that. Your family, your friends, your old family and friends, neighbors, people you come in contact with, they all have to know what you do because how Pissy would it be? How pissed off do you get when you find out a cousin of yours hired a different lawyer for something that you could have done because they didn't know you'd do that? They want to make it about them, don't make it about you. You know what question you guys know this answer to? What question pisses me off at the beginning of every phone call. Give it to me. Someone knows it. No, I don't mind that question. Yes, thank you. Had to hear about us. Oh, let's make it about you, lawyer. Let's massage that ego of yours. Well, I was your beautiful photo on the highway is, if you really want to know. Oh, which one was it, exit 27 or exit 29? It was exit 27. Oh, that's great. Was it during the day? Are you kidding me right now? Is that where we're going here? It is about the caller. It is not about us. No matter the whole old statistic of, hey, 50% of my marketing works. I just don't know which 50%. It's just the way it's going to have to be for now until all that automation, which we'll talk about momentarily, is in place. Who cares how they heard about you? It's about the caller. They'll even tell you if they're not interested. Now you have to. Here's the thing. When somebody says, hey, listen, I'm no longer interested. Okay, thanks so much. Have a great day. No, no, no. That has to stop. That has to stop. I can't tell you how many calls I listen to when I hear. Okay, thank you. No. May I ask what happened? May I ask what happened? Yeah. I decided to take the insurance company's offer for $3,500. Wait, don't do that. Have you signed anything yet? No. I'm going to tell you why I don't think you should do that. I'm actually going to get a lawyer on the phone to tell you that. Oh. Because I asked what happened. Oh. I'm going to go with my cousin who does family law, but she's going to make an exception to employment law for me. No, no, no. These are big cases. You were sexually harassed at the office. You shouldn't give that to a family lawyer. Let me tell you why. Let me get someone on the phone for you. Ask. They will tell you. Sometimes they even tell you things you don't want to hear. Like, well, someone in your office told me that they didn't think I had a good case. They did. They must have been mistaken. You. Do you have a case we can help you out with? Ask. Ask. They don't believe that their case is large enough for you. Wow. You know, whether it's immigration, whether it's employment, personal injury. Do you know how often because of what people see on tv, whether it's commercials or movies or television shows, they think, well, not that much of an issue. It's just a little problem at work. You know, my boss keeps flirting with me. It's not such a big deal. They sent me some inappropriate pictures. No big deal. But that's what they think because they're so used to seeing all these large cases from these commercials or these movies. Now, it starts and ends with reassurance. If you're. If this statement, you did the right thing by calling isn't mentioned, isn't stated, isn't conveyed on every single phone call, we're missing an opportunity. Let me give you a quick story. My phone broke a few years ago, okay? When I say it broke, what I mean was every time I left my house, every time I didn't have. I wasn't connected to a WI fi similar to my damn computer, which is new, by the way. Every time I left the house, I couldn't make a phone call. Now I have three kids. I have a wife. They need to get in touch with me. I travel a little bit. So I called Verizon, I called Apple, right? I called the phone service provider. I called the phone provider, and every time I called Apple, and their technician said to me, oh, we've dealt with that issue before. We'll get this fixed for you. Now, granted, they lied through their teeth, and I understand that, and I appreciate that. But the fact that they said that I was willing to give them 45 minutes of my time each time they said that. Each time they said that, because they reassured me. They reassured me. If we are not. I got to tell you, if I were to change the word intake to a different word, and I've thought about this, I. I would change it to, like, a reassuring agent. I really would. I really would. These people that are calling our office, who I told you a few minutes ago, might be the first time they're calling, all they're looking for is someone to say, we do that. We handle that. We can help you. Because the moment you do that, they go like this, okay, great. Let me share my story with you. You need that. Otherwise. And you could hear it, because I've heard thousands of phone calls. You can. You can hear them answering questions like, yeah, and then this happened and then they did this and it's sort of like, hey, can you help me or not? I'm not even sure if I'm telling you the right information here. Get them to exhale by giving them reassurance. You did the right thing by calling. We handle immigration, employment, personal injury, workers comp, whatever you want. Cases every single day. I'm going to see if we can help you now. Empathy and compassion required. When you put yourself in your claim and shoes, you will be a better advocate. Compassion builds trust, gives them comfort to share, improves their communication, strengthens their relationship, helps to differentiate you from your competitors. Now you might say, gary, this is pretty simple stuff, man. I mean, compassion, yeah, we all know compassion. When's the last time you heard a phone call from either your team or your call center's team? I will tell you right now because what gets to happen when you use a compassionate statement is you get to actually add reassurance. Right afterwards. Someone calls up and they go, they call Jim's office and they say, listen, I'm having an issue getting into the states. I have to get to my child's wedding, it's tomorrow. And Jim says, wow, I understand completely. That's a pretty important day for you and your family. But you did the right thing by calling because we could try to help you right now. Now, I provided compassion with reassurance together. That's the goal. Put them together. People want to know A, that you care about them, B, that you think you can help them. And we can put them together. Share that with your intake team. Open ended questions are important. I know Tyson has tried to appease. Trying to appease me before by coming up with a how are you question. The truth of the matter is open ended questions make us look like we're not just following a script. So how are you feeling today? Can you tell me more about that? What happened next? What are they saying now? Ask them. I don't like speaking with someone who's just following a script. I like to have a conversation. Now I'm not saying every call needs to be 45 minutes. I, I'm certainly not saying that. But I am saying the more personable you can get on these calls, the stronger the relationship you create. The first few seconds matter. Now, one study, researchers found that people can accurately judge others personality traits based on their voices alone, with accuracy rates as high as 70%. How does your team sound on the phone? If you're coming to conclusions about how they sound on the phone, so are other callers. According to Another study, researchers found that people can form impressions about a person's intelligence, friendliness, and even attractiveness based solely on their voice. That's crazy. But I buy into it. I buy into it. The first sentence matters, right? I was talking to Tyson before. Actually, I think it was Tyson. And we were talking about how people answer the calls. Guys, it shouldn't be a free for all. I shouldn't have six intake specialists all answering differently. There should be a script that says something like, thank you for calling the Falkowitz Law Firm. My name is Michael. How can I make your day better today? You don't have to use that, but you certainly could. There's got to be something that's warm and friendly and introductory and W, hotelish. I think W is like a top notch hotel. Right? That's fair, right? It's got to be. It can't be. Falcons Law Firm. Gary speaking. Hello. No, we are not the pizzeria on the corner. Everybody has to follow the guidelines. Everybody. And we've got to make sure it's in our playbook. I use the word playbook, right? Because I created a playbook. You need a playbook. You need a playbook for every position in your firm. And the playbook, the more detailed you are, the less potential there is for mistakes. Warm, inviting, positive, upbeat, clear, attentive, confident. That's your first sentence. Avoid what I'm doing right now. Fast talking, because I'm trying to catch up my presentation. Right? Avoid the machine. Like, Gary Falkowitz. Nice to meet you. Cold intros, Multitasking, sounding uninterested, asking for repetition or a bad connection. These days and age, in this day and age, you would think bad connection. Gary. Yeah. People working from home, right? People working remotely. And all of a sudden their WI fi is not working or their phone service isn't working. I can't tell you how many calls I go. Are you kidding me right now? This is what's going on in a professional setting. You got to listen to the calls. Which we'll talk about in a moment. Am I speaking with the right person? We brought this up a moment ago. Strong introduction required. You meaning the person picking up the phone call is the expert. There's no need for them to speak to anybody else. Right. If they go, I was hoping. I thought I could speak to a lawyer. Okay, well, I'll have one call you back. No, no, no, no, no. We don't get off that phone call. Mrs. Johnson, don't worry about speaking to a lawyer. I'm one of the law firm's intake people here, and I'm the one that's going to help you whether we can let you know whether we can help you or not. Right now on this call, how can I help you? What happened? We need to authorize, empower our team to be experts. The moment that they're not, they don't think that they're experts. I promise you, the caller knows that. It builds rapport, establishes credibility, it gives context, shows courtesy, and provides comfort. Now, roadmaps, I believe that one of the major failures as us human beings in our relationships is not managing expectations for each other. I think there's a lot of miscommunication. People jump to conclusions, and what one person thinks happened, another person didn't mean it that way. All because we weren't clear. We need to use roadmaps in our calls and in our representation. So in our call, it's Mrs. Johnson. Allow me to tell you how the call is going to go. First, I'm going to gather some of your basic contact information. Then I'm going to ask you a few questions. I'll even let you know whether I think we can help. If we can help, I'll tell you how you can become a client. I'll tell you what happens after you become a client. I now know how this whole call is going to go. As the caller, I now know how the whole call is going to go. Going to remember that the whole time, as opposed to wondering what's going to happen next on this phone call, because I'm telling you, that's what they're thinking. Now, at the end of the phone call, first of all, what does it do? It sets expectations. It demonstrates professionalism and experience, helps guide the conversation, increases transparency, and results in a more productive conversation. But the roadmap doesn't start, doesn't stop there. When someone becomes a client, you have to give them a roadmap for representation. You have to be able to say, Mrs. Johnson, welcome aboard. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to be assigned a legal team, which means a lawyer and a paralegal are going to be assigned to your case. You may not hear from us every week or even every month because it means we're going to be working on your case. Here's the phone number you can call, the email you could use to get in touch with us. We. We'll reach out to you if we have any questions. We're going to start by ordering your employment records or your medical records. And if we have any. Can't get in touch with somebody or having a hard time getting any records. We'll let you know. But I don't want you to think that our silence means that we're not working on your case. To the contrary, it means we don't need anything from you and we're on top of it. If we don't say those things at the end of the first intake call, we get it signed, we're at the beginning of the representation. Then what happens is we get phone calls non stop from claimants who had no expectations, or maybe their expectations were way too high. They have no idea if their case is retained. They have no idea if someone's working on their case. They have no idea who's assigned to their case. They have no idea when to expect a phone call from someone in the firm. And they're only going to get upset. And what's the biggest complaint that callers have or clients have? They can't get in touch with their lawyer. Never calls them. Well, how do we manage their expectations at the outset of the representation? That would not be an issue. That roadmap. No one uses the word, start using it. I want your team to understand what that roadmap is. I want not only your intake team, your legal team. We must manage the expectations of the caller and end of the client question for the group. How many people here on a consistent basis are listening to recorded calls? Raise your hand. I'll say consistent, meaning at least monthly. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, Four, five, four, five. We have about just under 20 or 20 people in here. Is everybody else just crossing their fingers and hoping that we aren't saying dumb things? Is that fair? Yeah. Okay. So I hate to break it to you, and I don't want to come in here and yell at you. Sometimes I feel like, well, I'm a lawyer, I could yell at other lawyers. That's not my goal. It's not my job. But I will tell you that I think my gray hair started coming out when I started listening to calls. Okay. It's unfortunately not a very pretty thing to do. But it's so necessary. It's so necessary. The thing about listening to calls is every single phone call, including hours, could be improved upon. Every single phone call. Now, it's one thing when there's small improvements. It's another thing when you realize that we've been giving the wrong advice or the wrong conclusion or the wrong answers and we're turning people away. So I implore you, whether it's you or service or somebody else. You've got to listen to calls. How can we possibly improve if we don't know what we're doing wrong? There has to be the consistent intro is the personality being conveyed Right. We hired, remember this, when you marketed for someone at intake, you hired them because their personality was great. There's no way you hired someone who had a very bland personality. Lots of times this night had the call center. Lots of times you hire somebody and that personality that you have in person is not the same personality that they convey on the phone. And you wouldn't know that unless you listen to their calls or you're standing over them. But if you're standing over them, they could be nervous. You don't want to do that. You want to make sure they're giving the correct responses following the script, the three Rs I'll get to in a moment and that they're obviously conveying interest, compassion, reassurance, roadmap, and what to expect. When you listen, you won't ask for the call. When they. This is when your intake folks listen. They won't ask for the caller to repeat themselves. They'll clearly understand the problems and needs, be able to identify challenges or solutions. You'll have more questions to ask, follow up questions, and it shows that you are focused, your response will be appropriate. If they say they were injured, you'd be compassionate. If you have something in common, you let them know. If you know the street or the store, you let them know. And by the way, you put that information in the CRM, I'm going to get into that in a little bit. But we are in a day and age where every piece of data that we can collect from a potential client or client is only going to help us. Right? The idea that we can call a potential client and say, by the way, I know last time we spoke you were picking up your dog for the first time. How are things going with the new dog? Oh my God, it's really tough. She's pissing all over the place, right? I mean, you want to be able to put that note into the CRM to continue that relationship. So often, guys, intake, you know, intake is one of those things where I'm like, you know, remember the song Bringing Sexy Back? Well, I'm bringing intake back, right? So I'm making it really important and valuable for your firm. We may not undervalue intake. It is the lifeblood of our law firm. And the more attention, the more focus that we give to intake. I promise you it has a direct impact on our revenue. So we can't just assume and hope that the people we have picking up the calls are doing a great job. We said this earlier. I did. The gambling should stop after you pay your marketing invoice. Did you know that according to search engine watch, 19 of the top 25 most expensive keywords on Google are searches related to law firms? That's crazy. That's crazy. Now why is that? Right? Why is that? Why do we invest so much money in marketing? Well, one, our success rate to earn a fee from a retained case is and should be very high. We're really good at what we do. We help people. Two, the more we help, the more we earn, the more we invest. And three, we trust our intake. But. But we are not the only game in town. If we were the only game in town, then the cost on Google would be down here because no one is competing for that cost. The reason why it's up here is because everybody we know who's a lawyer is saying, I'll go invest, I'll go gamble. $2,500 for that type of lead. $1,000 for that type of lead. I think last I checked from mesothelioma. Mesothelioma lawyer. I think the PPC cost pay per click cost was multiple thousands of dollars for a click. For a clique. It could be a mistake. Everybody knows what PPC is, right? I mean, you all have your own law firm for a click, okay? So you have to remember that you may only have one, but bite at the apple and that you are competing. I like to use this analogy, right? Someone calls your firm, you're interested in representing them, maybe you say the right things. But here's the thing. You're not the only law firm that's interested in representing them. So what kind of bridge are you giving to them? What kind of bridge are you saying, hey, I want you to go from lead to client? Well, depending upon the bridge that you give to them, they're going to dictate whether they're going to work with you or somebody else. Right? If a desperate person needed to cross one of these bridges you to survive, which would they choose? I hope we all believe it's the walking bridge. I'll call it at the airport. Because the more attractive your bridge is, the easier it is to cross. The more desirable you make the destination, the more interested they'll be in crossing it. So let's talk about this for a moment. The easier it is to cross. I'm a claimant And I'm speaking to two different law firms. One says to me, gary, we'd like for you to come to our office. We're in downtown Manhattan tomorrow morning, 9:00am the other says to me, gary, we also want you to be a client of ours. Don't worry about coming to our office. I'm going to electronically send you our document to become our client. You do not have to leave your house. We all know where. I would think in this day and age, the majority of people are going over here, right? Because how many people are going to say, you know what? Sounds great? I want to see what your office looks like, if you have mahogany desktops or not, and how big, how many rooms or square feet your office really is. It's not happening anymore. It's not happening anymore. Now it's about ease. It's about instant gratification. It's about convenience. It is inconvenient for me to get in my car, get in the train, come to you 9am tomorrow morning when I have a job or I have kids or I have a spouse. It's just not going to happen. And how egotistical of you to think that that's so easy for me. You didn't make it easy for me. You made it hard for me. And the reality is, you could be the best lawyer in town. I don't know about it. You probably didn't do a good job of marketing yourself as the best lawyer in town. All I know is that there was a specific process that I need to take in order to become your client, and you made it hard for me. We may not make it hard for our potential clients. So when you're thinking about during break time today or tomorrow, hey, am I making it hard for my clients? Am I making them wait for me to give them a decision? Am I making them wait for them to speak with a lawyer? Am I not utilizing electronic signature? Am I making them travel or get documents? If you're making it harder for them, whether you like it or not, those are the factors that they're considering when determining whether they're going to work with you or not. The more desirable you make the destination. This goes with the roadmap. God bless you. If you're not telling them what's to come as a client, what to expect, who's going to be their lawyer, what, what their contact information's like, how many years or months this may take, what the cost might be. If you're not telling them all that in the beginning, well, then they're left with questions. And then when their spouse later on that night says, hey, by the way, did you end up calling a lawyer? Yeah, I called three. Only one gave me information about what the representation is like. The other two sort of didn't give me any details. They just said I should become a client. The more information we give, the better we look, the more desirable we make our destination. So how do we create the best bridge? Right. Raise your neighbor. If you played blackjack before at a casino. Most of us. Right. Okay. Blackjack, very simple rules. You want to beat the dealer without going over, you hit her stick. The thing about blackjack is you have to make assumptions. You have to make an assumption that the card that is face down for the dealer is a 10, has the value of a 10, and then you'd make the determination as to whether you're going to hit or stay. Same thing goes with our law firms, guys. I call it the blackjack mentality. You have to assume that the caller that reached out to you reached out to two other law firms. Okay, I said it early on with the whole competition. If you don't think you're in a competition, you will take a step back. And you know what? 15 years ago. 15 years ago, when you got a phone call, I. On a Friday evening, when you were at the movies with your spouse, and it was a new lead, and it went to your cell phone, and someone said, hey, I think I need a lawyer because of a, B, C, or D. And you told that claimant, you know what, Mrs. Johnson, I think my firm could probably help you out, But I'm at dinner with my wife. We're about to go see a movie. Can I give you a call Monday morning? Absolutely. Fifteen years ago, your chances of still signing that client were probably relatively high. You try that now. No chance. No chance. Because we're not 9 to 5 anymore. Our industry is not. No industry is 9 to 5 anymore. I mean, there are pizza places that are open. Domino's is probably open 24 7. You want pizza at midnight. Maybe you can't go to the corner place, but you can call Domino's. And if you're acting as an owner of a firm that is only open 9 to 5, or you're telling folks that, hey, sorry, it's Saturday morning, I'm with my family. I can't help you. That might be very well true, but you will lose money. You will leave money on the table. Okay, So I love this image because we know he's in a car dealership, and there's something I want to talk about that. Lawyers tend to disagree on sometimes. You guys are going to finish my sentence, okay? Here we go. Just like last time. But this time I think most of you are going to get it. So let me give you a story, and then you're going to finish my sentence. I'm in a car dealership. I need a new car. I sit down with the sales agent, feel really good about my negotiation skills. Brought them down $10 a month. Okay. And sales agent says to me, well, Gary, it'd be a pleasure if you would honor us as a client, our car dealership, and have one of these beautiful Lamborghinis. In my mind, that's where I'm going right now. And so thanks so much. But as any smart man would do, I'm going to go back and talk to my wife about this potential purchase. And the sales agent says, what do you mean? We talked about it. You're good. We got the numbers. You could do this right now. Yeah, I know, but let me go. I'm going to go talk to my wife. I start to walk out, the sales agent says, hold on, Gary, hold on. Before you go, allow me to talk to my manager. Introduce you to our manager, okay? Happens to all of us. Think back. It happened to you, too. Why did they do that? They did that because they did not want me leaving that showroom without a set of keys in my hand and a check in theirs. They did that because the odds of me walking down the block to their competitor Ferrari and looking at a Ferrari were very high. They did that because they may only have one bite at the apple. So if the car dealership knows how valuable that visit that in person visit is, we better know how valuable that phone call is. It's that simple. And if we let them hang up without making a decision, the chances drop from here to here. Tyson. All right, so you may not have an answer to this question, but you got me thinking about this. So I have been through that scenario most of the program. Sometimes they'll send you home with the car because I'm pretty stubborn. And I'll be like, no, I'm leaving. I'm gonna. But they'll send me home with a car. Is there an equivalent with what we do? Oh, great question. Yeah, I love that. So I have not been sent home with a car. So maybe because I am looking at the Lamborghinis, maybe. Maybe. I don't know. So, but I will say this. What they did is they let you test drive the vehicle a little bit, and they gave you. And they gave you something that you can touch and feel and think about and try. Now, what can we do in that regard? Well, you know what Gary could do, right? Gary could say, hey, Jim, I know you're thinking about my services. Take my book, my man. Read it, take some notes and let me know your thoughts afterwards. He just went home with something. If we can give them something physical, even if it's a link to something, it's going to help us because not everyone is doing that yet. So I'm going to jump to something else, Tyson, which is more geared for everyone in here. Text messages. Raise your hand if you are not using text messages in your follow up at intake. Thank you. I didn't see those two. Let's say. Let's say there were two people in here who raised their hand and were not using text messages. I would tell them, change that starting today. But I'm not. Thank God there's no one here doing that. But it's necessary. Absolutely necessary. Now go one step further, right? Because everyone here is already using text messaging. So let's go one step further. Text messaging isn't enough. Just a normal text that goes out that says, hey, thanks so much for your phone call, can't wait to work with you, isn't enough. Those texts should have links to videos. They should actually be in the text. There should be a branded video that goes out after. After the first call, every single time to remind them who they called. Do you think I know? Egotistically, we know that they remember who they called. Sorry, guys. They don't remember your law firm's name when they hang up with you. Which, by the way, when you think about listening to recorded calls. What? One of the things I have intake specialists do is make sure they say the name of the law firm at least three times as a reminder to the caller who they called. But I promise you, most of them do not remember. Especially if you don't have a really strong TV brand, commercial brand, they're not going to remember your name. So how do you remember their name? How do they remember your name? A beautiful video. Especially when you're competing with other law firms. How about a V card right there should be here. I love this little story. Okay, raise your hand if you've ever done this before. This is fantastic. Do you know what beats Google? What beats Google? Anybody know what beats Google? What's in your phone beats Google. Contacts in your phone beat Google. When I look for a painter, I don't go to Google. I go to my Phone. I type in the word paint and I have four or five painters in my phone. Granted, I don't remember who's who. That's fine. Hopefully there's a note in there that says, this guy's really good. Sometimes I do that, but I never went to Google. My air conditioning breaks down. I'm not going to Google. I have three AC guys. I need someone for some renovation. General contractor. I got four general contractors in there, some of which had never been used. How did I get them? Guys? How did I get them? How did I get them? From whom? Friends. How many of you have been in a group chat recently where somebody said, hey, does anybody have a blank? Anybody within the last month where you were in a group chat and somebody said, I'm looking for a blank. Any recommendations? Because it happens to me on a monthly basis. Sometimes I answer, sometimes I don't. Now, the only way someone's going to recommend your lawyer, you as a lawyer, you as their lawyer, is if you're in their phone. How do you get in their phone? You send them a text with a V card. This should go to every lead, every single lead. You should be in their phone, because then you beat Google in that person's mind. And here's the thing about the phone. Raise your hand if you've deleted any contact in the last three years on your phone. No one. We don't delete contacts. I got, I would say 30% of the people on my phone I haven't spoken to In 20 years get in their phones and you beat Google. So video in a text, a vcard on the phone. What else can you physically, potentially, potentially. If you have a book, send them a book. Granted, that takes us overnight sometimes things of that nature. You need to stand out. I want you leaving today with a competitive edge. Maybe you'll have four or five items that are specific, but generally I want you leaving with a competitive edge. I want you going back to your office and saying, hey, how competitive are we? How fast are we? Oh, we'll talk about that in a moment. The speed. But. But let's keep going. Ah, my favorite line in the whole thing. Your response time is more valuable than your resume and your results. I love alliteration. So There are my Rs. There are going to be more Rs. Your response time is more valuable than your resume and your results. When's the last time somebody called you up and asked you for statistics? Statistics associated with your results? It doesn't happen. We don't know to ask as claimants we don't know to ask that question. We wouldn't even know how to pose the question. When's the last time someone called your office and said, jim, by the way, what law school did you go to? No one's asking you. Jim, you could have not even gone to law school. You'd be lying to me right now. No one cares. They didn't ask where you got in your L sets. They didn't ask what your GPA was in college. They didn't ask what you did before your law firm. They didn't ask when you started your law firm. They don't ask how many people are in your law firm. Because this wins. Response time wins. Now, like it or not, response time wins. You could have the best brand, the best resume, and the best results pay. But if your response time is poor, you're in trouble. You could have no results. You could have a really weak resume. But if you're the guy in the basement of the mother's house that says, I can get that retainer sent to you, that agreement sent to you electronically right now and stay on the phone with you while you sign it, you have a chance of winning. Response time wins. Now here's an Ethan story for you, okay? Tears probably should not flow down, but when you have as much love as I do as a parent, they just come down naturally. So, Ethan, I can learn a lot from my son. All of us can learn a lot from my son. He was truly, truly a tremendous human being who cared about other people. It was as if he said. It was literally as if he lived his life and said, dad, I figured out my whole life, let me help everybody else. That's the type of human being he was. A few weeks before the tragedy, Ethan says to me, dad, I just watched all the Scream movies. I go, even the ones when I was a kid, because that's when the first one came out. He goes, I watched all of them. He was a big loved movies. He goes, the new one's coming out on Friday. This is on a Monday morning. Right before he said it to me on the way to school, I took him to school. New one's coming out on Friday. Can we go to the movie theater now? He had never. We'd never gone to the movie theater before because just, you know, not everyone's going to movie theater where I am. I said, absolutely. You kidding me? Let's go. I'll look at times because they have show times, and we'll go to. You'll tell me when you want to Go this weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Okay, great. I must have forgotten about it. He must have forgotten about it, about bringing it up. And then Thursday morning comes around, I'm taking him to school again. E, you never got back to me. I got a sch. You know, the weekend's starting to get scheduled. When do you want to go see Scream? Oh, no, I saw it last night. What do you mean? You were home last night? You didn't go out. I know it took a few hours, but some guy recorded it in the movie theater and I was able to find it and watch it. I go, let's remove the illegality of what just happened. Put that to the side for a moment. I said, the quality of that movie must have been horrendous. He goes, it was terrible. I go, let's go to the movie theater. He goes, I already watched it. What can we learn, guys? The quality is less important than the need to get what you want when you want it. Ethan doesn't speak for all 14 year olds. He speaks for the current society. That's the society we live in right now. You could promise quality. You go on Amazon. How often do we make a decision on Amazon based upon how quickly we can get that product, not based upon how many stars, which product is better, which one's coming today? Done. I'll try it. We are the same. What we offer is the same. Now, some of you might be going, gary, I'm not buying it, man. I know you're trying. You come from every different angle. I'm not buying it. Please consider it. Please leave today and if you're not already here, if you're here, go one step higher. If you're here, go one step higher. Understand that this is really competitive, that you are a commodity, that. That your resume is secondary to your response time, and that instant gratification from all levels is a top priority, not just at intake, but also as a client getting back Gary. What do you mean, as a client? Very simple. How many times I had. I once I recommended to a good friend of mine that I went to college with. His son got hurt. He's fine. Got hurt at. Actually, I think it was like at one of the stadiums, whatever. Wind and wood and something hit his eye. But he's okay. Needed a lawyer. I recommended a fine lawyer for him, Great lawyer, personal injury lawyer for him. But three months into it, he says, I think I'm going with another lawyer. What are you doing? Brett's a good. He's a great lawyer. I know him personally. Why would you Go to another lawyer. He hasn't responded to me. I called a few times, and then he gave me, like, the run around. He wasn't clear with his answers. I go, steve, I promise he's a good lawyer, but let me call him. Brett, what do I do for a living? Yeah, you're doing your intake thing. Then why can't you figure this out? Why would you give him the runaround? Why can't you respond to him? These are the things that matter. He doesn't know about depositions. He doesn't know about results. He doesn't know what to expect. He doesn't know about liability and the limits. He just wants you to give him five minutes of personal time and tell him that you're working hard for his case. And if you can't do that, he's going elsewhere. And to be honest with you, I feel like it was more like nine months or a year into representation, not three months, to be honest with you. My point, though, is that it doesn't matter how long into it it is. If you're not giving them what they want when they want it, you might lose, no matter how good you might be at being a lawyer. So that was my scream story for Ethan. Now, that was a little stopwatch. But here are my real three R's. These are my favorite three R's, and there's a fourth R. I want you to guess what it is, but in a moment, not yet. When we speak with a new claimant. By the way, I had a nice little recovery, right? Everything fell apart in the beginning. Here. Now we're all up, awake. Good. Perfect. When we speak with a new claimant and we have that conversation and we qualify that claimant, the goal for that phone call is. Is one of three Rs. Every single time we speak with a new claimant, we are either going to reject them, retain them, or refer them. What are we not going to do with the fourth R? What are we not going to do with that claimant? Say it. Review it. We are not going to review it. We are not going to sit on that lead for a day, a week, or a month before making one of these decisions. I recently consulted. Actually, it was brought up in my masterclass. There's a law firm in my masterclass that. Rejects post retention. So they retain cases and then they withdraw from representation on upwards of 50% of their signed cases. I kind of love it. Kind of love it. I'll say that again. For all the cases that they sign as a new client, they withdraw proactively based upon their investigation, post retention, they withdraw from upwards of 50% of those signed cases, and they do so within 30 days of representation of getting the retainer signed. Why do I love that? I love it because it shows to me that they realize how competitive this industry is. It proves to me that they realize, and this is true for all of your firms, that once you sign with somebody, you likely stop looking until you're given a reason to stop looking or to start looking. And you want. I'll use a sports term here. You want to sign them from the free agency block immediately. You don't want to give other firms the chance to sign them. So if you keep your criteria simple and loose. But, Gary, that's got bad review written all over it. Come on. Some of you are thinking about that. It's got bad review written all over it. Why? Why? Mrs. Johnson, thank you so much for reaching out to our firm. Based upon everything you just told me, I'd like to begin an investigation. Tyson, we talked about this. Momentarily or earlier. I'd like to begin an investigation on your behalf, but I can't begin that investigation until you sign our agreement. That agreement gives me permission to begin that investigation. Now, if we decide after we. After our investigation that we can't help, I'm going to let you know. Someone from my firm is going to let you know within the first few weeks of representation why we can't help and what other options you might have. But here's the thing. I want to begin the investigation today. So what I'm going to do is send you our agreement while we're on the phone. I'll even stay on the phone to. To confirm for you that I received it. Why would Mrs. Johnson, who gets a call two weeks later by Michael the attorney, or by a paralegal or by someone else. Hey, Mrs. Johnson, it's Michael with the Falquitz law firm. I just wanted to let you know, unfortunately, we got the police report. It does say you're at fault. And under those situations, the insurance company is never going to, you know, accept responsibility. The other driver's insurance company. We tried. We made a bunch of phone calls. We even called the police department. But unfortunately, I don't think we can help you out. Thank you so much, Michael. I really appreciate the phone call. Why would Mrs. Johnson be upset? I didn't make any promises to her that we were going to get her money. What I promised her was two things. I promised her two things. I promised her that we were going to begin an investigation immediately. And I promised her that I would let her know as soon as possible if I thought we couldn't help. She's not giving me a bad review. Shit. Pardon my language. She may even become an advocate. Because you know what? She didn't pay for me to investigate that matter. Not a dollar. And I'm going to remind her both in the beginning that it cost no money up front, and also when I withdraw from representation, I'm going to remind her it didn't cost her a dollar. So don't be scared by these bad reviews. There's a way to be human beings here and. And personable and respectful, whereby we might even create some advocates. This is the goal at the end of every phone call. Now, you might say, gary, it's too aggressive for me. That's fine, because I'm not here to convert you into a believer. I'm here to tell you that this is happening and you can either compete with it or not compete with it. But please don't rest on your laurels. Yes. That analysis change at all when it's a situation where the clients are paying money up front for representation versus contingency. Or are you the same mindset? Yeah, that's a great question. I had a call with someone recently about this. I think that as long as you're clear about what they're getting for their payment, then the analysis doesn't change. So I had a call recently where the way the law firm worked, and it was similar, Jim, to how you had it years ago, the way the law firm worked was they had one person gather some information. They actually had a basic document signed. Was not a. May have been like a representation document. And then they had someone else call for payment, a lawyer possibly to call up to get payment and to discuss that. I said to them, well, why wouldn't you do that all in one call? I don't understand. Once you need to make a determination on that first call whether it's worth your. Whether this person is worth your time and you're worth the cost. And if you need to do any. Any legal work for them, there's a cost for that. Now, if you want to say that the initial cost for the initial investigation is at an inexpensive rate or a lower rate, have at it. But what you don't want to do is say, you know what, let me go talk to my team. Let me see if it's something we're interested in, and we'll get back to you. Because again, their personality, their perspective, immigration for them is the Most. It is the issue in their life right now. They need a resolution for this. And if you can't give it to them. Unless you're the only game in town. I know you're not. Unless you're the only game in town, they're going to look elsewhere, so we can't play with that time. So my advice to you and anybody else who gets paid up front is the faster you can make that determination. If they're going to sign that agreement to be represented, for you to represent them, then they're sure as heck ready to pay you some money to get this thing started. Why would they want to delay the legal work? I'll tell you right now, as a potential claimant in any situation. If I need help and you ask me to get you paid today, as long as you tell me you're starting it today, I'm all in. Now, if you ask me to pay you today and it doesn't start for 30 days, that's a whole other issue. But your promises have to be equitable to what you're asking for. So if you're asking for money, get it started. Let them know you're starting today. If you need to have a lower rate to get them in, Great. Got to make it $100 or $200 just to get them in the door. Great. They're now a client. They're putting all their trust in you. And for those contingency law firms out there, we just talked about it. You don't have the time to consider or review as the fourth R is, or investigate. I would almost. I wouldn't really do this because I know there are always exceptions. But I hate that status when law firms have, oh, I have 25 cases and under review or investigation or attorney review. Oh, attorney review. I can't stand attorney review. Why can't I stand attorney review? Because the attorneys that get intakes take their sweet time. Let's talk about this for a moment. It's really important. Okay. Raise your hand if you have lawyers other than yourselves in your law firm. Great. Love it. Okay. Raise your hand if those lawyers are not putting $1 of their own into the marketing for your law firm services. Fantastic. Raise your hand if they come to the office with, on a weekly basis, new files happening to be on their desk. They didn't do anything with those files. They just happen to be lawyers. Right. I would go one step further. Raise your hand if they get even a small percentage of the attorney's fee if they're successful. Anybody have that 1, 2, 3, 4, go. Good. So you're telling me, wow, what a job, guys. What a job. Sounds so nice. Where's their risk? Where is their risk? I'm not trying to denigrate them or condescend them. I'm not. I was in those shoes. Okay? But my point is this. Why aren't lawyers doing intake? Because they want the easy stuff. They want the real stuff. They want the big stuff. They don't want challenges. They don't want a case where somebody says, hey, I was sideswiped, but I think there's no police report. And they said it was my fault. I said it was their fault. Eight out of ten lawyers would say, no, we don't want that case. What do you mean? You don't want that case because it's difficult, because you don't have evidence or proof yet that supports what you want it to support. Keep it simple. Sign more. Lawyers aren't doing intake because they'll leave you, you'll make less money. And lots of times you got to put a wall, proverbial wall, between lawyers and intake because lawyers are so quick to blame their intake. Why would you sign up this case? And the last thing you want is to have your intake team feel insecure because they'll leave. Do you know how difficult it is to find a good intake person? To be on the phones all day, every day and to have their type, their A personality, which is impossible, by the way, all day to speak with someone new who is excited to speak. Or excited is probably the wrong word, anxious to speak with a law firm for the first time in their lives. And yet for that intake specialist, it's their 75th call for the day. Do you know how difficult that is? How many of your lawyers ever want to be in a rotation in the evenings or the weekends? Never. It's like, oh, shit, don't look at me. Why am I bringing this up? I'm bringing this up because we've got to keep intake simple. Now, when you have a new client and you want to talk about what that case is worth and what the future of that case is, have your meetings all day long because it's a client, you could play with that time. You don't get to play with time with a new lead. You don't get to. And your lawyers have to buy in. When I go and I consult at a law firm, I'll tell the law firm I want the lawyers at my presentation, too. I want them to understand this. I want them to understand they're not putting $1 into marketing. I want them to understand that Jim is investing X amount of dollars in gambling to make sure the phone rings. We don't want to gamble when we pick up that telephone call. Okay, question for the group. Is your qualification standard clear and understandable or do you use a bunch of if but except maybe language? Right. So who here, and let's be very honest, who here believes that their qualification standard is not as clear as it could be? Okay, half the room at least. If you know that, I promise your intake team knows that. And they're guessing. And unfortunately, sometimes they're making mistakes when it comes to qualification criteria. I want you to think about this. Is it worthy of an investigation? Is it worthy of an investigation if the answer is yes? Now, every practice area, every case type is going to be different. So I don't want to sit here and tell you here are three questions that you have to get answered for each case type. And if it's yes, get them signed. I'm not here to say that, but I am here to say simplify, simplify, and then make sure that logic in your CRM. So when a new person gets hired and they answer the yes, no, yes, yes, no, they get a. Something pops up and says qualified, say the following language. Disqualified. Say the following language. Gary, that's pretty advanced stuff. Yeah, of course, not really, but yeah, it is. And your CRM needs to have. Can't all just be in a folder. Mrs. Johnson, hold on one second. Okay? And did. Did that happen? Okay. No, we can't help that. Can't be that way. We've got to keep it simple because qualification just means is it worthy of an investigation. That's all it means. It doesn't mean are we going to make money big time from this person. Could be something. Not likely to be something. The lawyers like the likely to be something at intake. Could it be something. And by the way, you don't have to believe me, you could be thinking it's very possible. This is the first time you've heard my name or met with me and you might be thinking. You could honestly be thinking this guy came off the street and he's telling us to be aggressive, but it's too aggressive and there's no way this works. I'm telling you, I've consulted with hundreds of law firms. I see what the best law firms do. This is the direction for success. No doubt in my mind. Need written guidelines. The real question is how comfortable. This is the real question. We talked about this. How comfortable are you withdrawing from representation Post retention. And that's the question, because if you're uncomfortable with it, then you're going to keep your criteria really tight and you're going to leave a lot of money on the table. If you're very comfortable with it, then the looser criteria you're going to use, that's what it boils down to when it comes to your qualification criteria. Just to be very honest, what you say goes. Not what your intake team says, not what your paralegal says, not what your lawyer says, what you say goes. So if you at the top say, hey guys, for all of these type of immigration cases, if these five questions are answered yes, I don't care about anything else, we could gather more information. But if those five questions are answered in positive, I want them signed up. I think we can help them. It starts at the top and everyone in this room. And if you think you're going to have some pushback from lawyers in your office, then sit them down and explain to them why. Because you're the one that's spending money marketing. You're the one. I'll ask another question. Okay. How many personal injury lawyers are there? Raise your hand. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Okay, honestly, how many maybe cases did you settle for at least six digits, Maybe meaning at intake. It may be a case, may not be a case. How many of them settled for at least $100,000? Have you had any? Absolutely all of you have had at least one, probably many. That's it. That's all I needed to hear. That's all anybody in here needed to hear. If it could be something, if it's worthy of an investigation, if you're comfortable with withdrawing post retention, then loosen your criteria. Make your want or your qualification rate not 18%, but 38%. Because even if you can't help them, you might create a client advocate. I keep coming back to that. Why are client advocates so important? Well, let's go back to something else. Because if you gave someone your V card and they're a client advocate, guess who's sharing your contact with other people, whether you help them or not? I've actually shared contacts with whether it was a painter or an AC guy or somebody else that I probably haven't even used just because he's in my phone and I probably saved it. He didn't send me his V card. I probably saved it because I kept texting with a no name phone number. Define qualified for the law firm. Explain your reasoning to your attorneys. Retain, then investigate. Not investigate, then retain. This is a Major issue for a lot of law firms. They want to get confirmation that they're going to be successful with a case before they sign it up. So what do they say? They say, Mrs. Johnson, if you could just get us that police report. If you could just get us those medical records. If you could just get us that employment document. If you could just get us your Social Security number. Let me tell you something about Social Security number. Who here asks for the Social Security number on the intake hole? Good. I was gonna. I was hoping no one raised their hand. There are some law firms that do. Here's what's really interesting. On an intake call, if you ask for the Social Security number, you're turning the client off. And the majority of the time they're not going to give it maybe the last four digits on the first welcoming call. Okay. The day, it could be the same day that they become a client, you ask. Mrs. Johnson, welcome to the law firm. We're so excited to work with you. I have some missing information here just to complete the file. If I could just get your Social Security number. Sure. It's 741-632-7411. Once they're a client, they're going to give you anything and everything. They're going to go to the end of the world for you. They're going to go to the police department and get a copy of their police report. They're going to go to the hospital and get a copy of their medical records. They're going to get you every document you need after they become a client. But if you ask for any of that before they become a client, well, you just made that bridge that you're supposed to create unappealing. You made them take one of those, you know, moving bridges above the water, asking them to cross that to become a client. No, I just spoke with another law firm. They didn't want me to get their police report. They just said they'll sign me up right now. Regardless of the type of law you do, do not ask your folks, your leads to do anything. Which also means, by the way, when you send them a document to sign, if you're adding a questionnaire in that little packet of documents to sign, you know what they say to themselves? I'll get to it later. Remove it. We need to figure out what's required information and what's additional information, what's needed, what's wanted. Stick with the needed. We need them to sign an attorney agreement. We don't need them to sign a medical authorization on the first day before they become a client, we need their first name, their last name, their phone number, their. Their email address. We don't need their cousin's phone number yet. Keep it simple, guys, because the more questions you ask of the caller, the less likely they're moving forward with you. Remember, I understand how complicated what you do is. That is not the question. The question is thinking about what the caller mindset is. Their mindset is, keep it simple for me or I think you're going to intimidate me. And I think you're going to hoodwink me. Which gets me to another point. There's a word I want you to remove from your vocabulary when you're speaking with a new claimant. Anybody want to take a guess what that word is? The word is retainer. The word is retainer or contract. Why would I want you to remove those words? That's. Gary. What are you talking about? We work with retainers, Gary. Yeah, thank you. I'm aware you work with retainers, but we're going to call them agreements, okay? We're going to make it a little bit subtle. We're going to soften up the relationship a little bit because I don't want to. I don't want someone to think that because it's the word retainer, they have to. Some of us don't get paid up front, but retainer certainly assumes that I do. Contract. Contract. Shit. What am I signing my. My life away with? It's an agreement. You agree to be our client, we agree to be your lawyer. That's all it is. Do not scare claimants away. I'm trying to bring you back down to what the claimants are thinking. I know we all went to law school, guys. I also know that who here. I did not. Who here went to business school? Awesome. Amazing. 2. Most of us, Most lawyers don't go to business school. We got to improvise. We got to figure this out. Retain, then investigate. Not investigate, then retain. Absolutely. No, go for it. We do all that. Send it out. But what we've done, I think we bury too many signatures in there because there's all the cya. Okay, but now we've been burned here, so here, sign. That's why the agreement's 84 pages long. I get it. What's your position on something like that? It's a one and done and tell them it's in the contract and don't let them sign every. So my position is think big picture and don't CYA on everything that could happen or on the Exceptions, Right. I am a firm believer that if you can fit a one page agreement, everything you need in a one page agreement, you do that. You gotta get a second page in there. I'm hesitating. Three pages. You're too long. Now, there are plenty of people who will walk away from your firm strictly based upon the number of pages that they have to read or sign or strictly based upon the number of signatures they have to put in. Think about it. When you are at a closing, if any of you have been in a closing for a house at some point, you sign so many documents you have no idea what you're signing, but you're already pot committed so you can't walk out. But if it was the other way around, if you had to sign all those documents before the process started, you would say, well, I don't know if I love the house yet, so I'm not doing that. Not doing that. So I'll walk away for a moment. You can't scare them. You can't scare them. Open to recently I've seen law firms have eight page questionnaires, six page agreements and five signature pages. Who's signing that while on the phone, mind you, because isn't that the goal? Isn't that the goal in this day and age? The. The goal is one call sign. The goal is one call sign right now. Yeah, please. By the way, everyone questions, throw them out there. I don't mind. I love the conversation on these kinds of like initial agreement. Are you putting in contingency? Is going to be what the flat fee. Hourly is later. Is this just an agreement like you said? Sort of. We're going to investigate. So your firm gets paid up front to represent somebody? No, but I mean maybe it's going to. We end up taking the case. We're going to do it on hourly or flat fee or contingency. Right. Are you putting the fee terms in that? You could, you could. I'm not against it. Unless you think, hey, Gary, it's pretty high number and they're going to, they're going to be scared away with that. So keep it out. Get them in the door. Get their one foot in the door. Right. Really appeal to them and then tell them to keep moving. Here's the next step. They may take us two steps back and walk away, but let's get one foot in the door. So I stopped looking. If you can help, many other law firms can help too. And you don't want your price at the outset to take you out of running. Right. So if you're able to bring them in either at an inexpensive rate or for an investigative purpose. You should. You absolutely should. Yeah, I've thought that I need to tell clients the price up front to get them to sign up. Yeah, we've always done that and that sometimes slowed us down. Am I wrong in thinking that they don't sign up, they don't know the price? So let's define sign up and price for your firm. Are they. In order for you to begin work, do they have to pay for many things? Real estate transactions? Okay, so for the ones where they. For those situations where you can't begin to start legal work on their behalf and they have to pay first, then absolutely get the price up there. But you have to make sure. See, we all know the term consideration. We all know we're lawyers. What do you get for what you're giving all this stuff? They have to know what the consideration is immediately. And it's got to appeal to them. So you're going to be able. You're going to have to articulate what the benefit is with them paying right now. And it could be as simple as today, we are going to do dot, dot, dot, but we can't do until you sign and pay we like. And you can even tell them normally this gets done the same day. We don't want them to think. We want them to follow the norm. We don't want them to think that they're the exception. Now, if you have other case type or practice areas whereby you don't get paid up front, then don't scare them with the price. Get them in under investigative purposes. It's completely ethical. Quite frankly, it makes all the sense in the world because then they get comfortable with you and learn about what you're going to do and. And decide whether it's worth paying you. Very few people in this room alone, let's say, are going to say yes and pay to a $5,000 fee on the first phone call. Not that I know what your fee is on the first phone call when I have never spoken to you before, at the end of that call, it's going to be. It's a tough sell based upon how desperate or how needy I am for that service. But the reality is, if you're able to for the other areas, other practice areas, get them in the door, warm them up, get them halfway over the bridge because they're really happy. You got to do that. We got to take them off the free agency. Mark. Yeah. I love this. Good. How do you deal with if there's a range of pricing. So, like, my minimum fee might be this. But unless I meet with them and get them to fill out a question, I don't know what they're really going to need. So let's say, especially, let's say estate plan, right. My minimum fee might be 1750. But I don't know if they need trust, I don't know if they want trust. I don't know if that fits their situation, which may end up being 3,500. Yep, yep. I think you explained that to them. But you don't tell them the actual. Because you don't know. You can't tell them what the number is going to be. But what you can say is that, listen, my originating fee is $1,700. What that gets you is the following. Now, during that assessment period, I'm going to let you know what else I think you might need, as well as the additional cost associated with it, which could be anywhere from A to B. But let's get started, because I don't want to charge you B if you don't need B. Right. Now let's get started with the assessment period. In order for me to assess this matter and have my team. Because we get paid by the hour normally and have my team begin that work, here's the originating fee. But you have to tell them what they're going to get out of it. No one's going to pay you. No one's going to pay you just to consider things. So what you are going to be able to do is you need to be able to tell them no matter what, after this assessment fee, I'm going to be able to give you some advice. Some advice. The advice could be that you should go talk to your, whatever, your cousin, your employer, you're this, and really this is how you should deal with it. And that's the advice because you're getting legal advice or the advice could be, let's bring it up another level because you need assistance with your estate planning or trustee, whatever it is. But they need to know what they're getting for their money. No one's going to pay just for you to consider it. Does that make sense? Yeah. So in PI, I've just got two pages, contingent fee and then hipaa. I'm think, Gary, don't even bother having the second page at the outset. Have that be an automated email that goes out the next day. I do, I do. I think that, you know, people get nervous. Yeah. But Gary, the HIPAA lets me get the medical Records. I need to do that right away. And what if I lose the client? Well, if you lose the client, you're screwed. No matter what. It doesn't matter. You spent money on the medical records, right? So to me, it's a one page agreement. And then you make sure that you're welcoming team and process for every sit. For every law firm in here, you need a welcoming team in process. You can't stop. Once they become a client, they'll leave you. They'll leave. That's when you get a bad review. You need a welcoming team in process that happens immediately after retention, hopefully. And by the way, you're right. There should be a drip campaign that goes out immediately after that case gets signed. Or it says, hey, great, we got you signed agreement. Now let's get these authorizations as hip assigned for you as well. Great, absolutely. But get that agreement signed by itself. And then you have someone call, welcome them to the law firm, let them know what other documents they need. Give them the roadmap of what's to come throughout representation. Who's on their legal team. Yeah, I also do exclusively PI and we also, we send them the agreement while we're on the phone with them. My question was, my team has gone back and forth and we debated like whether you ask them to like read it and sign it while on the phone with you. And there's like an awkward like few minutes when they're like reading this like legal document of silence or whether, you know, we confirm they received it and then kind of end the call there. And like we had, I guess, positive and negative experiences both ways. What are your thoughts? Yeah, great question. And I'll give you my. I'll give you the answer from my opinion. You stay in the phone. You stay on the phone and you actually, not only do you stay on the phone, but you do your best at summarizing each paragraph. So you give your team a one or two liner summary of each paragraph and they can actually say, you know, Mr. Johnson, if you'd like, I can actually tell you what's in each paragraph. The first paragraph here says that if there are any expenses, you know, the firm is responsible for those expenses. And if the case resolves, well, we get our expenses first and then we get a fee. Second paragraph here says we might be co counseling with another law firm. If we do, we have to put in an agreement so that you're aware of it. The third paragraph says this. And most of the time they're just listening and saying, okay, got it. Okay, got it, there's an awkward silence sometimes. No big deal. Let there be an awkward. I listen to so many awkward silences that end up with a signed agreement. That's fine by me. You want to stay there for that? I'm here for the awkward silence. That's my new T shirt. I'm here for the awkward silence. Right. You want to be there for the signature and whatever it takes, you get the signature. It bothers me at, at the core when I hear, okay, great, did you get it? Perfect. Sign it when you can and we'll start working for you. Because at that moment they're most claimants are ready to move forward. They're ready to move forward. I don't want them now on their own terms to say, let me get back to it tonight or tomorrow. There are things I was supposed to get two years ago that I haven't gotten to yet. Right. So I don't want them to be in that position. Yes.
- [93:25]
A
On a follow up to hire, we get a lot of push back on
- [93:29]
B
what I found in a law firm
- [93:30]
A
and they charge $500, $1,000 cheaper. So our intake specialist is not be able to come up with a rejection. They basically say, we just go in with somebody cheaper. We really like the attorney, but we just found someone cheaper. How do we get them back in?
- [93:45]
B
Yeah. Okay, so that's sales 101. Right. And it really, I shouldn't say that that came out actually pretty arrogantly. What I meant to say was that's a sales personality that you need to have on the phone. Right. So the more that you have someone who's intelligent, knowledgeable, sounds confident, can articulate, can explain why your services are more money, that's where maybe the resume gets involved. When you have to explain and justify that your costs are so expensive, maybe it's even getting a lawyer on the phone. Right. So you're going to have to in order to separate the yourself from your competitors. You're losing at the cost because they're less expensive. So now you've got to win at the quality. So your quality from the person that they're speaking with to the person that you're making available to them, to the answers to their questions, to the explanation of who you are and why you're worthy of whatever your cost is. Right. You could say, listen, I don't know who's charging $500 or $750 for this, but I've been doing this for 25 years or 5 years, however many years, and I have an excellent success rate in this exact type of case, you don't want to go anywhere else. Have you asked these questions? Right. And then you give, you tell a caller, well, make sure you ask these questions of the attorney, because then there are also lines. Well, if you're getting a discounted fee, you're going to get discounted services, little things like that. But you want to be able to explain or at least distinguish yourself from a quality standpoint, because you can't do it from a quantitative, which is numbers, math perspective. So that's what I would say. I'd make sure that there was always someone available, manager, attorney, someone with a title who can jump on the call. So you can distinguish yourself. Because not every law firm is doing that. Not every law firm is putting a lawyer on the phone. Not every law firm has the resources to put a lawyer on the phone. But I'll tell you, if you go to two different car dealerships and you met the manager at one and you didn't meet the manager at the other one, looks pretty good. You mean he stopped what he was doing just to say hello to me, Mr. Falkowitz. And he even took a few dollars off of the lease of the purchase. That was really nice of him. I'm going to go back to him with my spouse tomorrow. But I think it's going to be, if you can't win with the cost, you're going to have to win with everything else. Who are you putting on the phone? How are you answering questions? How are you distinguishing your services from your competitors? Services? Are you ready? You have more resources? Are you bigger? Do you have more people? Do you have a video you could send with your text and they don't? Do you have a video testimonial page that you can text out after you speak with them? Do you have a list of questions that you can give to them to ask of your competitors that you know the answers to and gave the answers to and they may not. One question could be, did you speak. Did you actually speak with the lawyer there? No. Well, I'm a lawyer here. We make sure we put a lawyer on the phone for every new lead. We've got to be thinking that way. This is sales. Absolutely, sales. So we got to remove entitlement. Yes, yes, yes. So criminal defense. Yeah. One way it's different. You've already touched on. You got to get the payment up front. Yeah, payment plan. Another way that's different from PI is post retention withdrawal. You have to assume that's impossible. Judges are going to be very reluctant to do that. Particularly if the only basis for the withdrawal is non payment. Yep. So how do you change this up? When post retention withdrawal is not really an option, then you make your qualification criteria simple enough where decision that, where the decisions that are made are mostly accurate. What I mean by that is your team needs to know what you handle. And you know, is it just diwis, is it felonies, Is it misdemeanors? Are there a specific type of misdemeanors? Is it violations as well? Whatever it is, your team needs to know and they need to have the criteria in front of them. The more you can remove the delay from investigating and reviewing to deciding, the more you can maximize your roi. Totally appreciate and understand the difficulty associated with withdrawing with criminal defendants. But I also know how competitive and how needed you are from your clients. And when they call, sometimes they're calling from jail, sometimes they're calling from their parents, house or a pay phone and they only have X amount of dollars to use. You've got to be able to make that decision. Your team needs to be able to make that decision pretty quickly. And that's going to be based upon their knowledge of what you're handling and what you're not handling. And, and if they don't know what you're handling and what you're not handling, then they're going to delay making a decision which obviously will have an impact on your ability to sign them. I don't know if that answers your question, but if there's any answer I would take from there, it's to have a very clear criteria and remove the guesswork. If you're not going to be able to withdraw. Yeah. Yes. I think your point is exactly right. That's all we did is criminal. Yeah. When we moved from lawyers to non lawyers, we empowered them. Here's the criteria, here's where we are, here's the decisions. And I can live if you guess wrong. If you put me in trial on a DWI that I usually make 10 grand on and I gotta try it for 1500, then so be it. Because you're gonna get me 25 other 10 grand cases where you don't guess wrong. So you just. That is what it is. If we can't withdraw, we can't withdraw. Then how do I leverage that to get something done? So my youngest lawyer goes, try something, learn something. 1500 and we get a video testimony. That's exactly right. Thank you. You said something in there I want to repeat. We can live with the decision that you made. Can you live with the decision that your team made based upon the criteria that you created. And if the answer is yes, then push a little harder even. How about now? Can we live with this one? I think we live with that one. Good. How about here? No, we can't live with that. All right, let's go back then. Figure out where that breaking point is and push the limits. Because the more your team can decide, remember, retain, reject, refer, three Rs. The more your team can decide on that first call, the more successful you'll be. And yes, it's directly related to what you can live with, what you're comfortable with, what you're comfortable withdrawing from, and what you're not. Answer that question for each of your case types, and you just made things a lot simpler for your team. Is there another question over here? No. Yes. Can you talk about deal velocity, the time between when they contact you and when they sign up? What's the right way to think about that? What's the good metric and what's a good percentage? Yeah, so when they contact you this day and age, they're contacting you via phone, via web, via social media, via friends, referrals, you name it. If you're not responding to a web lead during, I don't even want to say business hours, guys, between 8am and 8 to 10pm, if you're not responding within two to four minutes, someone else is. Do you know how easy it is to do the following? Because you've done it without even knowing it. You go to a law firm website, you type in your name into the web inquiry, you type in your phone number, you spend about two minutes putting a summary of why you need a lawyer. Then you highlight that summary. You right click copy and then go to another law firm name, phone number, paste, another law firm name, phone number, paste, another law firm name, phone number, paste. They're not scrolling on your websites. They're not even looking at your testimonials. They're not even looking at the firm name. The winner is the responder. The first responder wins. Now, do they necessarily create a client attorney relationship? No, but they have the best chance to. They have the best chance to. And I don't care whether you're the largest law firm and biggest law firm and most successful law firm in your state or you work from your mother's basement, if you're the first to respond, you have the best chance to create that relationship. Now, in terms of how quickly you should go from new lead, new to qualified, to signed, the goal is the same conversation, the same day, the same minute, the same 15 minutes. That's the goal. And I'm not telling you just from a perspective of, hey, in an ideal world, if everything was under our control, this is how it'd be. No, I'm telling you what your competitors are doing. And I want you remember what I want you leaving with today is just a competitive edge, right? If you get a few more tips, awesome. But I want you to have the competitive mindset. I want you to start being more aggressive making decisions. Understand that nothing tastes worse in your business world when you realize that it was under your control. You lost the lead because something you did, not something the caller did. Right. And if we're not looking into. If we're not looking into. I talked about earlier. I think I got distracted by my broken computer over here. We talked earlier about the conversion rate and what percentage of wanted leads do we want to sign. What we didn't talk about is the review of those that we wanted and lost. And oh, by the way, the moment you send that agreement out, I don't care what happens afterwards, if you don't get it signed, it gets marked as lost. Not why didn't want it anyway. I didn't like them anyway. They were mean on the telephone and they were going to be a high maintenance client. Baloney, baloney. If I sent that agreement out, Even if I 15 minutes later, I said, you know what, it's probably not even worth it. No, I lost it. I sent them the agreement, I wanted it signed. You have to be honest with yourselves because that's where we get, that's where we find the most improvement when we look at our lost leads and we start opening up the CRM and we figure out, okay, when did the lead come in? What time of day? When did we call back? Who was it? What was the summary of that conversation? Did we send the agreement out? Did we try to sign it while we were on the telephone? Do we answer their questions? And we go through this whole review and analysis and auditing of that lead. That's where we learned the most about how we could not repeat our mistakes. That's the whole point. We're running a business where we don't want to repeat our mistakes. And the only way to do that is to actually accept that we made a mistake. Right. There's a slide in here. I'll get to in a moment. But it just speaks right to it with its image. So what do we want scripting for? We want scripting for everything, right? Our team is not guessing. We want scripting for how we answer the phones, what the roadmap language is, what the web lead initial follow up should look like, what the follow up phone conversations when we qualify somebody are, what our rejected language is, referral language to claimants, what we tell them when we work with another law firm, what we tell other law firms, what our voicemails are and they should be a little bit different and what our text messages say. This is the image, right? We cannot be scared if we're looking to lose weight. We cannot be scared to step on this scale. We, we have to know where we are and we can't be scared to look into the mirror. We've got to be honest with ourselves. We can't say, well, made a few million last year doing really well. Yeah, but you could have made 20 million and you didn't look back. You didn't look at your mistakes. We've got to look at our mistakes. That's how you become a better owner and a better manager. So here are some KPIs that I like to make sure law firms are watching. We talked about your want percentage. We talked about your conversion percentage. When I say generally and individually, I mean generally as a law firm and individually, each intake specialist, how are they each doing your average time? Something Jim was referring to your average time to follow up on web leads. Guys, if you don't have a report or a dashboard in your CRM that tells you, here's your average time between when the lead was generated and when the first call or note was saved, then you're driving blindly. I want to know that. I want to know what it is on Saturdays. I want to know what it is on Friday nights. I want to know what it is Monday mornings. Everybody's Monday morning. It's crazy and hectic because they take all the weekend leads and they're getting back to everybody. When in reality, when in reality, the best law firms have resources whereby they're Saturday and Sundays, just like a Thursday or Friday, just throwing it out there. I'm not saying go invest a lot of money and hire three people for Saturday or Sunday. I'm just saying that your competitors, the ones that have those resources, that's what they're doing. So you've got to make sure you're not just ignoring your Saturdays and Sundays. Your average number of attempts before quitting. What do you mean quitting, Gary? Because some of us quit, some of us decide, well, I tried four times, Gary. They're not picking up. You tried four times? Is it possible that's Memorial Day weekend and they went away with their family? I believe that a new lead should get 10 days of no contact attempts before you stop. I will say that again. 10 days. 10 unsuccessful consecutive days of calling, texting and emailing and you could skip a day or two in the middle. That's, that's fine. But 10 unsuccessful contact attempts before I walk away. Why? Because I spent money to generate that lead. Why would I be aggressive in closing it out? Why would I not be aggressive in following up? It doesn't make any sense. There are plenty of law firms I've worked with that stop after three attempts. Why? Why are we aggressively closing leads as opposed to aggressively following up with leads? And by the way, for those that are qualified, where we send the agreement out, I want 20 consecutive non contact days. And the moment we, the moment we speak with them, it starts all over because I invested that money. And I'm going to squeeze the towel dry before I say there's no more water in the towel. I'm not going to do a little squeeze like this and go, ah, not much left in there. No way. Conversion rate by month by method of signup, by staff member, by case type. Average sign up time between lead and signing and between qualifying and signing. You retained then rejected percentage. We talked about that. That's your withdrawal. Post retention. Average number of qualified leads retained electronically in the first call. This should be incentivized, by the way. This should be incentivized. Your intake team should have the potential for growth. So when they, and if they are able to sign someone up on the first call, that is a huge congratulatory event. The whole firm should know about it. An email should go out, 5, 10, 20, whatever you're comfortable. Dollars or gift cards should be sent each time. You just made potentially the firm some real money because you were aggressive, you conveyed compassion, reassurance, urgency. You sold us and I want to reward you for that. Individual and outbound statistics with respect to picking up phone calls and making phone calls. Rejected post retention. Actually, we have them both here and then lost reasons. If nothing else. The best metric we've talked about this is conversion rate. So we don't have to talk about that at the moment. We talked about an example. Now let's talk about the CRM. Not sure why there's a little space there, but if it's not in. This is where it all starts. If it's not in your CRM, it did not happen. If I had to nitpick, there's not a lot of nitpicking required. If I had to find one area that most laws, most lawyers and law firms fail at. It's the inadequacy of documentation within their CRM. And there is a. I'll jump to the bottom here. There is a direct correlation between documentation in your CRM and results. Direct. And I need your team to understand that if it's not in your CRM, it didn't happen. Every follow up attempt, whether successful or not, every status update, every time someone opens the file. You know what I love the best? When I see a note that says open the file, realized I didn't need to make a phone call. Yes. Way to be transparent. Way to make sure that everyone else who knows when they open the file, what's going on in this case, every attempt at communication, a summary of each call. I can't stand when I just see spoke with caller, period. Save. What does that mean? What does that. What did the caller say? They interested? Is there an issue? How are things going at home? Are they in the hospital? The doctor's office? Did they get it resolved? Give me more please. Are you using the correct statuses? Do you know when a case hasn't been touched? There should be an alert in your CRM. You should have a reporter dashboard that says from the longest time period to the closest time period, here are all the leads that have not been touched in more than 24 hours. Gary, wait. What? Say it again. Gary. What I'm saying is there should be a report that you look at that shows you every lead that has not been touched in at least 24 hours starting with the longest time period. And unfortunately what some firms might see is that there are leads that are in there for weeks that haven't been touched. Maybe not on purpose. I'm not looking here to point my finger at anybody. But maybe it fell through the crack. Maybe for some reason the assigned intake specialist or person got removed and it's under no one's name. But we've got to have certain reports of dashboards to let us know when there's smoke because when there's smoke there's fire. Do you know if someone has been called back? Right. Some CRMs have tasks and due dates. Well we should have a report or dashboard that tells us all over due tasks for intake because there shouldn't be any. Do you know when to call someone back? Now this is interesting. Your CRM should automatically say when the next follow up is. It should not be up to the intake specialist to say okay, I'll call this one back tomorrow. No. Based upon the status, based upon the lead, based upon the number of days it's been in that status, there should already be a filled in or follow up cadence that we create that tells our team when to call back. This story be a drip campaign, a text drip campaign. Knowing when to text and what to text. I don't want that. Shouldn't be manual. None of this should be manual. All right, we're going to go a little bit faster here because we got off to a late start. So what's the standard for referrals? It's the same as it was for intake. Could be. Not likely. Very many law firms get nervous. Jim, is it okay we go a little past 2 o'? Clock? Okay. Many law firms get nervous about referring out leads to other law firms because I don't want to give them garbage. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's the wrong mindset. That is the wrong mindset. Be open to garbage. Send them garbage. That's the whole point of referrals. The whole point of referrals is depending upon the practice area and the location and the relationship and response time or intake end results or reputation. Maybe it happened in another state. Maybe it's a practice area we don't handle. Ask yourself, if our law firm doesn't handle this type of case, is it possible that another law firm does? I've worked with law firms that get 75% of their revenue from referral fees, all because they took the stance of, you know what, we have a pretty strong brand. We're getting all these leads. I know what our bread and butter is, but we're getting all these other types of leads. Why would I ignore them? I made it a personal goal of mine when I was at Park Awakeman. That's where I started. Because we had such a strong web presence, we would get leads for employment, for criminal defense, for Social Security, for workers comp, for immigration, family law. You name it, we got leads for them. And when I became a managing attorney there, I started to have conversations with other lawyers and I would say, hey, by the way, do you guys accept referrals for this type of lead? Yeah, we do. Do you pay referral fees for them? Absolutely. You do? Why aren't we sending you cases? Why aren't we sending you leads? This is crazy. Do you mind if I just send you leads? Because I don't know the qualification criteria. No, absolutely. Send it all. We, we would love that. Why would I. Why would you love that? Why Would they love it because they haven't spent $1 to get that lead. They didn't invest one $1 to get that lead. So quite frankly, if you're working with a law firm that says, stop sending me garbage, which, by the way, there was one firm that said, stop sending me garbage. I was delighted not to send them garbage anymore. I sent all my leads somewhere else who loved garbage because even with garbage, once every 10 times, they got some real value. Referrals are amazing. It's an amazing relationship for every. It's a win, win, win. It's a win for the client, for the lead that was looking for a home and may have given up if you couldn't help. It's a win for you because that's the closest thing you're going to get to passive revenue. It's a win for your referral counsel who didn't invest $1 but just invested in your friendship and relationship and made some money. It's a win, win, win. So err on the side of going back to that other slide. Could it be a lead that another law firm is interested in? Not is it likely a lead? I mean, I can't tell you how many times. And then, by the way, the new standard for referrals. I say new because I know what it's been the last 10 or 15 years. The new standard is. Anyone want to take a guess what I'm about to say? What's the new standard? 50%? No, forget the fee. But I like that too. That's out there. In terms of the how to refer a lead. What's the new standard? Warm transfer. None of this is just email stuff. None of this email stuff. Mrs. Johnson, it's not something we handle, but we work very closely with Michael Jordan over here who handles gambling cases. I shouldn't say that wasn't very nice, but right now. Sorry, I don't know why they came out. But hold on one sec, let me get them on the phone. Hi, Michael, you here? I have Mrs. Johnson, potential case. Great. We are not going to break the chain. No way. That's the new standard. And I want you to tell all the law firms that are sending you leads to consider that standard. And I certainly want you to consider using that standard when you're sending out leads. The last thing. I hate it, hate it, hate it. When I audit a law firm CRM and I look in their notes and I see sent email to law firm with summary. And then a week later, law firm writes back. Call the caller, call the claimant. They went with somebody else. Yeah, it's been a week. I shouldn't have sent it to you via email. And you should have been on top of it faster. We both screwed this one up and oh, by the way, it was a really high value case. Okay, let's keep going. Make sure you want your name on the agreement, guys. For referrals, you want your name on the agreement that gets signed by the claimant. In an ideal world you do. I know there's a trust factor. Some law firms unfortunately are not great at paying referral fees. And I think most of the time it's innocent mistakes. But you want to make sure your name's on the agreement. You want to make sure the process is clear, you want to have follow up standards, and you want to make sure that the scripting both to the caller and to the law firm is correct. A long ring time makes you look small time. Okay, so I talked about this earlier. Automation, integration, innovation, right? I got this whole vocab word thing, all right? Alliteration, it doesn't matter. We are no longer just 9 to 5. We discussed that, okay? That is where we are in society. You are free to ignore everything I said today and do wonderfully well without me. And that is totally cool. And fine, I will not be offended. But you are also. Now you now can't be stubborn or ignorant to what's going on in the real world. This is what's happening in the real world. Electronic signature is a standard. Okay? Call centers. So I create a company called Capture Now. Gary, what's Capture Now? I owned a call center. It was ultimately acquired and it was as good of a business and profitable of a business as it was. It was never going to be perfect because just like you know, with your own intake team, when you work with a call center, the folks that are picking up the call were not trained by you. They were not. This is not something where they pick up the call on the first ring every time. It was unpredictable, it's unreliable. So we created Capture now, which is a voice bot. This is not a sales pitch. I just want you to know where the world is going. We're not the first ones to do it, but I promise you, the world is going down a path of less reliability, less costly options and more. I'm sorry, more reliability, less unreliability. More reliability and ensuring that calls are picked up on the first ring every single time. Retrieving that information, putting it into your CRM. Follow up tasks should be automated. We talked about that. Web inquiries should have an immediate response via text. What I mean by that is this. Not just of course we should respond immediately. I mean, they should be automated. I mean, when a web inquiry comes into your firm, there should be an automatic text that goes out to that claimant. Not everybody has that. Not everybody has that. So if you don't have that, make sure you talk to whoever's handling your web increase and say, wait a second, why aren't we sending an automatic text? Here's what I want to say. Here's what I want to include. All leads should be automatically integrated. So many people work with third party lead generators, right? And if you have to manually input those leads, you're losing. You're losing because you can't. When on your time, when you're available, after this meeting, after this phone call, when your person's out sick. Everything this day and age has to be automated. So no matter what third party lead generator or marketer you, you might be working with, let's make sure they're integrating into your system. Text messages should include videos. We talked about that. Get your contact in their phones. We talked about that. Client portals are a game changer. I have no investment in any client portal and I'm convinced that they're going to be a big plus and advantage for us law firms because we can't call clients as much as we want to, but they can always check their client portal. Okay, we're getting close to the end. We. When should you consider growing or scaling? The reality is, for me, when we start to cut corners in our CRM, that's a clear indicator that either we're behind or we need more people or someone's not doing what they're supposed to be doing. That's a whole other issue. What you should look for in an intake specialist. Obvious. This is the obvious slide of the day, but let's get it out there. Communication skills, sales skills. Team player. Patient. Likable. Likes to help others. Rule follower. Reassuring, compassionate, articulate. Understands the subject matter. Comfortable. Improvising what's not here. What's the one that everyone's looking for that is not here? Almost. But yeah, legal experience. Experience in a law firm. Guys, that's the plus, right? When we get that, it's like, yes, we hit the jackpot. That should not be the requirement. There are plenty of people out there that have not yet worked in a law firm that are more than capable of crushing that job. Don't hurt yourselves by saying, well, do you have three years experience as an intake specialist? No, we'll train them. We'll teach them. They need these skills right here. Okay, now, people remember experiences. One more quick Ethan story. This is really. Towards the end, it's the last three slides when Ethan was in eighth grade, and he was wondering whether to try out for the varsity high school tennis team. They have a JV team, too, you know. He said to us, well, I don't want to not make the team, because then if I not make the team, I can't play tennis for school. And he was playing all these tournaments. So we said, no, you know, first of all, we think you're good enough. And B, you should get out that experience and go try out. He ended up making the team. And the first practice was right after a brief vacation. And we said, let's surprise Lynn and I. My wife Lynn said, let's surprise the kids. Let's go down to Miami for a few days, three or four days, and just wake them up that morning and pack for them. I mean, my wife's really doing all the packing, but whatever. We were packing for them and wake them up and say, we got to go to the airport. And that's what we did. And the kids loved it. And we went down to a hotel called the Aqualina. I don't know if anybody's ever stayed at Aqualina. And it was amazing. It was amazing. We got there, and they had a cake waiting for Ethan and said, congratulations. We have a picture of them holding a cake, and there are balloons in the room, things that we didn't even ask for. We get there, and I'm a big chocolate chip cookie guy. That's my addiction. It's been like, three months since I've had one. As you can tell, I've probably had ice cream. But the point is that they had cookies for us when we got there. They had water for us. We got texts all throughout of our stay about, hey, by the way, if you need help getting dinner reservations, we have this, need this, we have that. And it was just. It was constant, constant, positive, amazing experiences, which is why I'm here talking about it. I'm an advocate now. They're not paying me. They don't even know I'm doing it. But I had such a good experience that I became an advocate. And I want you all to understand that you are giving an experience from the second they reach out to your firm, whether you reach out to them or not. They're getting a text from you. They're getting a response from you. They're speaking with your intake team. They're speaking with a lawyer. They're represented by a lawyer. It is all an experience. And based upon the experience you give to them, not the results based upon the experience you give to them will dictate whether they become an advocate or not. And that's really the ultimate goal. Okay, so this is really the end. I'll show you one more slide which happens to do with my son. But I have my master class. Come visit it, check it out. It's a once a month meeting of like minded lawyers and owners. We have some of the largest law firms, small law firms, not just personal injury. I mean, Jim's in it. It's just, it allows every firm to focus on intake and, and I like to equate it to CLE for lawyers. Right. CLE Lawyers have to do cle. Where's our intake? Cle where's their constant training and focus, knowing the law firm is investing in them? There's my contact information if you want to take any photos of that. I'm sure Jim will share it, but it's Garytakeplaybook.com that's my cell phone number. I'm pretty good at responding. And then only because I made a promise to my son or to myself about my son. That's Ethan right there. It's my boy, my son Landon, my daughter Reese, my wife Lynn. It's taken probably two years ago, we created a foundation, really proud of the foundation. We created something called the E Pledge. So the E Pledge is something where schools do 100 days of kindness. Elementary schools and middle schools where the kids promise to do 100 days of kindness. They have all these activities every week. Because Ethan was a kind soul. So proud to really make his legacy all about kindness. We partnered with the USTA promoting tennis and we're teaching children the value of being mentally strong. But guys, I know it got off to a rough start, but I hope that you're leaving here when I leave here today. You leave with a competitive edge about how important intake is in the front end of your businesses for your firm. And I thank you very much for your time today.
- [126:39]
A
Max.com is this October in Atlanta and early bird tickets are live right now. If you've ever wondered what we actually cover at this event, it's nearly everything that goes into the business of running a law firm. It's because at this level, it's about putting all the pieces together the right way. If you've got a vision for your firm that's bigger or just better, better systems, more organized, more profitable or more self sufficient. This is the room that helps you make those shifts and build momentum in the right direction. Go to maxlawcon.com and grab your ticket today.