← Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
289. Cross-Industry Secrets: 1K+ Reviews, 2.5M+ YouTube Views, Building Teams That Scale
00:40:03
Criminal defense attorney Adam Rossen reveals how looking outside your practice area can revolutionize your firm's growth. From amassing over 1,000 five-star reviews in a sensitive practice area to building a YouTube channel with 2.5M+ views, Adam shares how cross-industry innovation helped scale his firm to 8 locations.
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- [00:01]
Adam Rossen
You need to go deep to get oil. But once you grow, why can't we have 50 different oil rigs, you know.
- [00:10]
Manny
All drilling deep in their own respective.
- [00:12]
Adam Rossen
Regions or areas or disciplines? Right.
- [00:20]
Chris Dreyer
Let's face it. The personal injury landscape is more competitive than ever. You're up against aggressive advertising from big firms, ever changing digital trends, and the constant pressure to stand out in the sea of attorneys all promising the same fee structure. Sound familiar? What if all the solutions you're looking for aren't within the PI world at all? That's why we're stepping outside our comfort zone and onto the world of criminal defense. Our guest today has faced similar challenges in his field and found innovative ways to overcome them. By looking beyond our usual horizons, we can gain fresh insights and new perspectives that could revolutionize how you approach your practice. Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind, the show where ambitious attorneys come to learn, implement, and get results. We break down the proven tactics to separate the best firms from the rest each week. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings IO. Today we're sitting down with Adam Rossin, a criminal defense attorney who's cracked the code on innovative marketing and firm growth strategies. From amassing over a thousand five star reviews to building a YouTube channel with millions of views, Adam's approach offers fresh perspectives that can revolutionize how you market your PI firm. In today's episode, we cover how to structure your org chart for accountability and transparency, how to build trust and gather powerful client reviews, even insensitive legal matters, and the secrets to creating video content that not only informs, but converts viewers into clients. All right, let's get on with the show.
- [01:46]
Adam Rossen
My third year of law school at.
- [01:48]
Manny
Miami, I was able to do a.
- [01:50]
Adam Rossen
Certified legal internship, a cli, and I.
- [01:52]
Manny
Had five jury trials before I ever.
- [01:54]
Adam Rossen
Graduated law school and absolutely loved it. So I didn't know what I was.
- [01:59]
Manny
Going to do until I worked there.
- [02:01]
Adam Rossen
My very last semester. And I was like, yes, like, I'm.
- [02:03]
Manny
In the courtroom now. I get to have fun.
- [02:05]
Adam Rossen
This is amazing. I actually won one of the trials, and so I was like, all right, this is what it's meant to be. And so I became a prosecutor. And at the time, I wanted to. I had certain goals. I wanted to get to homicide within 10 years. I wanted to be one of the best, you know, homicide prosecutors in South Florida.
- [02:22]
Manny
And I only ended up working there for about two years.
- [02:24]
Adam Rossen
So I ended up switching, but I really didn't enjoy my time. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a ton about Being a lawyer and a trial lawyer, you got.
- [02:35]
Lauer
Right in the ring, right out of the gate. So you got some experience, you know, not. Not a ton of people get that opportunity.
- [02:41]
Adam Rossen
I was doing real law stuff. You know, I wasn't making money, but.
- [02:44]
Manny
My friends who are making triple what.
- [02:46]
Adam Rossen
I was making in big law, they.
- [02:48]
Manny
They were law clerks.
- [02:49]
Adam Rossen
They didn't, they weren't real lawyers. So, you know, it just depends on what you want to do. So the money wasn't there, but the experience was there. And it was really amazing.
- [02:57]
Lauer
You've been coaching high school basketball for over 10 years. I coached basketball for about five years now as a JV basketball coach. So I didn't get the, I didn't get the top seat there, but, you know, so. And you had a story about securing a managing partner due to that experience. So I was just wondering if you could give me, give me a little bit of background on the coaching and this partner.
- [03:20]
Adam Rossen
You know, I'm six two, so. So I was a little too short, a little too slow to play higher level college. I was good at everything, not great at anything. And I was always like a coach on the floor. So I could have gone somewhere like.
- [03:36]
Manny
D3 and chased the dream, but I.
- [03:38]
Adam Rossen
Really wanted to go to UF and be a kid and play, you know, join a frat, play in the frat leagues and just be a kid. So that was my choice.
- [03:45]
Manny
And then I went to Miami for law school.
- [03:47]
Adam Rossen
And I hated my first year of law school with a passion. I was so miserable. And that summer I was like, I need to do something because I'm going crazy here. I'm just unhappy. And I ended up for two years, I was the head JV basketball coach. And my first year, our team captain was Manny. It became a lifelong friendship. Actually, 20 years ago this year was when I was his coach and when I started coaching and then he became my Internet, he went to uf. You know, we still are really good friends.
- [04:17]
Manny
He was a public defender. He left to do some civil work.
- [04:19]
Adam Rossen
He came back to be my associate and now he's the managing partner and.
- [04:23]
Manny
Pretty much runs all of our lawyers and runs the operations of the firm.
- [04:26]
Adam Rossen
He's also the integrator we run on eos. And so Manny and I are like brothers. And it's just funny. I mean, I. So many different stories about how coaching basketball has been one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. It's opened so many doors and I've learned and grown so much from it. But yeah, it's just. It's incredible.
- [04:44]
Lauer
That's amazing. I know my experience was, you know. Cause I was kind of the same. Right. I was one of the better players or local school and, you know, got the D3 scholarships too. And I was. It was like a. I needed that competitive side. And then so coaching. I kind of got that through the players and just had a lot of fun with it.
- [05:03]
Adam Rossen
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, since I ended up, that was.
- [05:07]
Manny
Those were my only years coaching jv. Then I moved to varsity.
- [05:09]
Adam Rossen
But as an assistant, I couldn't be a head coach and run even. Even back then when I was me and my old partner and it was just the two of us and we didn't really have much of a firm. It was just two guys doing, you know, getting some cases occasionally and being good lawyers. I could do that. I don't coach high school now because the commitment, I just. I just absolutely cannot do. But I was fortunate enough in 10 years ago, in 2014, won a state championship. I've coached some very talented players. I've coached against a few NBA players. So it's been one amazing journey. I still coach in the Maccabi Games, which is the Jewish Olympics. Won a gold medal for the very first time. I think I've coached seven sets of games. Finally won my first gold medal in Houston this year. We had an amazing team and it's been a great experience. But that.
- [05:55]
Manny
That for me is three, four weeks.
- [05:56]
Adam Rossen
Out of the year in a few weekends, so I can do it.
- [05:58]
Lauer
That's amazing. We'll have to chop it up more offline. Talk about coaching. I want to jump ahead. I mean, you've got. You're across eight locations. You've completed over 2,000 plus cases. I want to dig into some of the nuts and bolts of how you run your firm because you have an amazing, amazing practice. Amazing firm.
- [06:15]
Adam Rossen
Thank you.
- [06:16]
Lauer
I think it's interesting to dive into, like, team structure. So I was just wondering if you could just talk to us a little bit about team structure and your approach to the criminal defense practice.
- [06:27]
Manny
Sure, yeah.
- [06:28]
Adam Rossen
And keep in mind, we're always evolving. What we're doing today could easily be.
- [06:32]
Manny
A complete 180 from what we're doing.
- [06:34]
Adam Rossen
In two years or three years. We're always looking to kind of burn.
- [06:38]
Manny
It down and rebuild as we grow.
- [06:39]
Adam Rossen
And not just for the purpose of doing that, but for what is best for the firm. But we grew quite a bit. We had six people right before. We had grown from about three and a half people in 2019 to six right before COVID two lawyers, three legal assistants, three, like catch all, do everything. And we had an internal marketing director we exploded from after Covid. We, you know, we had a nice little practice, right? We, we were probably top 10 in, in at least Fort Lauderdale, Broward county in size and cases. And we just had had rocket ship kind of, you know, growth because of.
- [07:13]
Manny
The decisions that we made during COVID.
- [07:15]
Adam Rossen
Which, that we can talk about that a different day. But we hunkered down and we just worked really hard.
- [07:19]
Manny
And we grew from 6 to 13.
- [07:21]
Adam Rossen
Employees in one year and then from 13 to 20 in the next year.
- [07:26]
Manny
So we had massive growth.
- [07:27]
Adam Rossen
And I've always been focused on the marketing because that's exciting to me, but not so much of the system. So everything kind of broke.
- [07:33]
Manny
Luckily, we were on eos, so we had our safe space to figure it all out and talk and learn and.
- [07:38]
Adam Rossen
Try to get better. But for what we are now, we have six attorneys. We have four, four and a half in production. Manny's maybe, you know, half in production. We have pods, we have virtual assistants. You know, maybe we're 5, 13ish people in house, and maybe 10, virtually something around there where we have, you know, two, two and a half years ago, when we really explored it, we, Manny.
- [08:04]
Manny
And I debated for a long time.
- [08:06]
Adam Rossen
Can we get virtual employees to be legal assistants, not just do a little.
- [08:10]
Manny
Intake or do some marketing or graphic design.
- [08:13]
Adam Rossen
And he was very against it at first, but we thought it through and talked it through from some of our mastermind groups and in EOs and ultimately said, let's do it, let's try. And it's been one of the best decisions we've had. So we have pods where two lawyers have one in house, legal assistant, we.
- [08:31]
Manny
Have a VLA one that has a bunch of set of duties and a.
- [08:34]
Adam Rossen
VLA2 that has a bunch of set duties and that we believe can run about 150 to 180 cases. Really. 150 to 175 is kind of optimal.
- [08:46]
Manny
Cases at a time.
- [08:48]
Adam Rossen
And that's the way currently we're structuring our pods. So it's, you know, and then we.
- [08:53]
Manny
Have our intake, obviously team separate.
- [08:55]
Adam Rossen
Our legal assistants are always backup because, you know, when. Sometimes when our phones are super hot, like, it's like, all right, guys, we are segmented, but at the same time, we're not, you know, if the phone's ringing, just pick it up. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of the basic general way that we, that we've done it.
- [09:09]
Lauer
I like digging into this conversation. The pods versus the, you know, the cross functional pods versus like the top down teams. And I think I first heard Mike Morris book Fireproof. He was talking about, you know, how they went from a team top down hierarchy to the pods. Have you seen like what's been the main benefit? Is it the communication? Is it the, is it the kind of managing each P, L kind of from, you know, from a profit perspective?
- [09:37]
Adam Rossen
Well, we haven't even got that far with the P and L. We're, we're, you know, we're still progressing forward with the finances, but yeah, that, that's on. Our goal is to look at profitability by lawyer, by pod and all that. It's been really good because, you know, in 2021, we hired three lawyers. In eight months, we went from two lawyers, me and Manny, to five lawyers by August. And at that time, the, you know.
- [10:00]
Manny
The two lawyers that came on in.
- [10:01]
Adam Rossen
January and then April, they're like, well.
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Manny
How do I know which cases are.
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Adam Rossen
Mine and who do I go to?
- [10:06]
Manny
We just have three legal assistants. Do I have my own.
- [10:08]
Adam Rossen
Is it you? And I'm like, I don't know, we all just kind of, you know, do it all together and talk. And you know, we use, we used my case at the time, which was fine, but then we quickly outgrew it. And I was, you know, and he's like, well, I kind of need to.
- [10:20]
Manny
Know, like, are these mine? Are these yours?
- [10:22]
Adam Rossen
You know, how do we. Right. And we're like, okay, we actually need to have a real system instead of. Yeah, Adam and Manny just divvy things up and talk about it every day. Cause we share a wall together. So it really helped in that regard about having better clarity as far as who's doing what, which legal assistants are working on what cases, who you can go to looking at capacity analysis, skew analysis, all these different things. We're still working on the financing, right? So that's something we're working on to really real data and metrics for profitability per employee, per pod, per lawyer. But yeah, it's been really good overall. And then it's also, it's.
- [10:59]
Manny
I think it's good for the client.
- [11:01]
Adam Rossen
Because for so long we have so many clients that were attached to me and in a great way because we've always given Ritz Carlton level customer service. But now it's. You're still going to get that, but.
- [11:13]
Manny
In the context of big firm strength.
- [11:16]
Adam Rossen
And power, but you're still going to have that personal Connection to your pod. It's not, it might not be with me directly anymore, but I want people to have that personal connection and be like, okay, my team is Augustina, Carlos, Grechel and Scott. You know, and that's my pod and that's my team. That's really important to us.
- [11:36]
Lauer
You know, there's a lot of ways, I've seen different ways to different approaches and thank you for sharing that.
- [11:42]
Adam Rossen
Yeah. Well, Chris, I'll say one other thing too. What the PI lawyers do, which we're always looking right. And we're always trying to take from them.
- [11:49]
Manny
Some PI lawyers that I know, the case managers run the pods. And so our in house legal assistants, we're talking about rebranding them as case.
- [11:58]
Adam Rossen
Managers because that's kind of what they do because our VLAS talk to our clients as well. Some of them can do anything that they can in house except for notarized documents and just greet somebody in person.
- [12:11]
Manny
Right. But we're, we're even toying with the.
- [12:14]
Adam Rossen
Idea of the two in house legal assistants that we're going to brand, you.
- [12:17]
Manny
Know that kind of run or at.
- [12:18]
Adam Rossen
The, on each pod, putting them at the top of the pod on the accountability chart and saying, yeah, Grechel and.
- [12:25]
Manny
Nikki run the pods. They're the case managers, they run the pods.
- [12:29]
Adam Rossen
Lawyers, you report to them. So we're toying with that. We haven't rolled that out, but that's kind of my next iteration that we'll see if it works or not.
- [12:38]
Lauer
Yeah, I like that idea. You're like, hey, they own the communication and the lawyers work up the cases. And so everyone has their responsibility just briefly on those virtual legal assistance, if you don't mind sharing. I mean, is that a, you know, there's a couple organizations. Is there a particular company that's helping you with that?
- [12:56]
Manny
We, we have a few different ones that we've tested.
- [12:58]
Adam Rossen
You know, we, we have a few with Get Staffed up. Get Staffed up has been generally pretty good. We have a few with virtual Latinos and our ones with virtual Latinos have been pretty good.
- [13:09]
Manny
Not everybody's perfect.
- [13:10]
Adam Rossen
You know, it is what it is. We've had a few direct hires that.
- [13:13]
Manny
We'Ve done as well.
- [13:15]
Adam Rossen
We'll go on.
- [13:16]
Manny
We use wise hire just to kind.
- [13:17]
Adam Rossen
Of as like the back end. They pump it out to.
- [13:20]
Manny
Indeed.
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Adam Rossen
And LinkedIn and all the different stuff. But I really like their back end. And if anybody uses disc, which we don't use disc anymore, but you get a free disc profile with it. So if you're paying 20, 30 per disc. It's free through wise hire. Or should I say include it in what you pay.
- [13:37]
Manny
Wise hire, right. Because nothing truly is free. It's been good. And what we've done recently is we've just set it to remote and we've set the country as Columbia.
- [13:45]
Adam Rossen
We've gotten a lot of great people from, from Colombia.
- [13:47]
Manny
We've looked into Argentina, Mexico, but really we found, we found a great sweet spot in Colombia.
- [13:53]
Adam Rossen
And so we have even had a few direct hires ourselves. So we're trying it all.
- [13:58]
Lauer
You talked about that Ritz Carlton experience, that extreme white Glove experience. You've got over 700 five star reviews.
- [14:07]
Adam Rossen
And we're actually pushing a thousand. I mean, well, 750 or so on Google, but between, you know, even the old ones we have on AVO and everywhere else, we're, we're, I think we just probably broke a thousand. So.
- [14:20]
Lauer
Yeah, that's incredible. So I, I wish I could push.
- [14:23]
Adam Rossen
Them all to Google now.
- [14:24]
Chris Dreyer
Yeah, yeah.
- [14:25]
Adam Rossen
Because are pretty worthless now.
- [14:28]
Lauer
Well, this is what I tell people.
- [14:30]
Chris Dreyer
You know, like if Google for organic.
- [14:32]
Lauer
SEO is going to look at 200 ranking factors, they're going to count the other review sites and not just Google. So they're going to count Yelp and BBB and AVO and what have you. So I think it's good actually. Of course we want the Google first. But you know, I've always heard this and maybe I'm incorrect, but it just seems like criminal defense would be even harder to get reviews. Like, it's like, you know, that's what they say, right? Because it's like, do people want to talk about their DUI or their drug offense or what have you, you know. So how would you counter that?
- [15:06]
Adam Rossen
Well, it's about building the trust and the relationship. So everything is about the trust and the relationship with our clients.
- [15:13]
Manny
And yeah, we have a lot of people that say, adam, I love you.
- [15:15]
Adam Rossen
To death, but I'm not going on video for a video testimony. Okay, no problem.
- [15:19]
Manny
And I tell people, please tell me.
- [15:20]
Adam Rossen
No, we have a lot of people that say, hey, look, I don't really.
- [15:23]
Manny
Want my name out there associated with it.
- [15:26]
Adam Rossen
And I say, well, look, you don't.
- [15:27]
Manny
Have to talk about the facts.
- [15:29]
Adam Rossen
You can just say we're great people. Or if you don't, if you want to talk about your experience but not about the case, talk about how we made you feel, talk about the relationship that we had. Talk about when it was maybe a bad time for you personally and how we helped you, without saying, yeah, Adam beat my domestic violence case or my sex crime or my, you know, my.
- [15:53]
Manny
DUI or my, you know, whatever.
- [15:56]
Adam Rossen
And so we, you know, and what I tell people is I say, look, you had nowhere to turn to.
- [16:02]
Manny
You had no referral.
- [16:03]
Adam Rossen
You didn't know where to go.
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Manny
You found us. And, you know, however you found us, maybe it was a referral, but maybe it was online.
- [16:09]
Adam Rossen
And at some point you read our reviews and it gave you the courage to either call us or to know that we're the right ones for you.
- [16:16]
Manny
Like, imagine if you hired the wrong lawyer or the wrong law firm. Imagine, imagine where you'd be today.
- [16:23]
Adam Rossen
So can you, you know, by doing this, it really helps us because we do 100% believe that we have a moral and ethical obligation to grow our firm to help more people.
- [16:34]
Manny
Because we are a mission based business. We are, we do have very well defined core values.
- [16:39]
Adam Rossen
And if we want to grow and help more people, you know, you are helping us.
- [16:45]
Manny
And I want you to think about the next person who would have been.
- [16:48]
Adam Rossen
In your shoes who, you know, God forbid they hired the wrong lawyer. And it's a little bit of guilt in there, but really it's about making them understand that, about how they can really, truly pay it forward and that it's. They don't have to talk about the facts, right? They could talk that there was a bad situation, or they can say it.
- [17:07]
Manny
Was their family member or something and.
- [17:09]
Adam Rossen
Just talk about how, how we helped.
- [17:11]
Manny
In the emotional aspect of it.
- [17:13]
Adam Rossen
And generally that helps people feel comfortable to write a review.
- [17:17]
Manny
And we have some clients like Adam.
- [17:18]
Adam Rossen
I'll say it all, do it all, I don't care. My life's out there anyway.
- [17:22]
Manny
And you guys are so amazing.
- [17:24]
Adam Rossen
So. But it all starts with the relationship. And a lot of people, the old curmudgeons, say, well, I'm a great lawyer today when I get the case dismissed, and when I can't get the case.
- [17:34]
Manny
Dismissed tomorrow, I'm a terrible lawyer and they hate me.
- [17:36]
Adam Rossen
And I say that's just not true.
- [17:38]
Manny
It's not true.
- [17:39]
Adam Rossen
It's all about the relationship and how you make your clients feel and that they trust that you and your team are doing everything for them, you know.
- [17:46]
Manny
So it's just not true.
- [17:48]
Lauer
I love that. Is there tech? Do you have your legal assistants asking, is the attorneys asking, Tell me about just the overall emphasis of the reviews for the firm?
- [17:59]
Adam Rossen
Yeah, so I mean, we do have a lot of tech.
- [18:02]
Manny
Just in general, we're very tech focused.
- [18:04]
Adam Rossen
And we're always getting better. We have our own custom Salesforce build. When we left my case I was like I could go to the next software that will be fine, maybe until 10 million revenue but I'm like I want the thing that I'll never grow out of. So let's just rip the bandaid off, pay a little more money now and have it. We're still getting better at that. Of course it's Salesforce is difficult, it's been a work in progress but we're on the right track and it's just.
- [18:30]
Manny
It'S a combination of things.
- [18:31]
Adam Rossen
You know, I automation's great. There's nothing worse than when automation goes wrong. And it's clear as day that this.
- [18:39]
Manny
Was not a genuine request or genuine conversation.
- [18:42]
Adam Rossen
Same thing kind of with AI stuff, right? So in some of those instances it would be better if you did nothing at all than to have the fancy automations because then they actually detract or lower from the lower the customer experience. So we're very aware of that.
- [18:57]
Manny
Sometimes a lot of it's just good old fashioned calling.
- [19:00]
Adam Rossen
And you know, we have one of our marketing vas who maybe 10, 15%.
- [19:05]
Manny
Of her job is helping get reviews.
- [19:07]
Adam Rossen
Our lawyers are very involved in getting reviews. You know, our intake team's very involved. We have contests, competitions, we tend to be competitive here. So we gamify it and especially the reviews because the reviews matter a lot and it's one of those things where the week's over. We got five reviews, 10 reviews and it's like I always say, it's like Greek mythology. Sisyphus, who is the one who is rolling the big ball up the, up the mountain and at the end of the day the ball rolls down and he has to do it again. I'm like that's Google reviews. That's it. It's every day. And last week is this done, you know, short memory.
- [19:45]
Lauer
That's incredible. And, and yeah, it shows. I mean like you said, over a thousand and you know, more and more each each week. And I love the competition, the gamified method of doing that. You know, everybody wins or you got a winner and a loser and keeping it front and center.
- [20:03]
Adam Rossen
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
- [20:05]
Chris Dreyer
Let's face it, being a great lawyer.
- [20:07]
Lauer
Isn'T enough to succeed.
- [20:08]
Chris Dreyer
You need to generate consistent leads. Personal injury is the most saturated niche. Competition is fierce and differentiation is everything. When the deck is stacked against you, you need a comprehensive resource to beat the competition. My latest book, Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing is your roadmap to consistent leads and exponential Growth. It is a masterclass on marketing for personal injury firms. It's packed with actionable strategies on where to invest your marketing dollars for maximum impact. No more guesswork, no more wasted ad spend, just clear, proven methods to transform your firm from good to go. Grab your copy of Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing on Amazon. Link is in the show notes.
- [20:46]
Lauer
So, you know, we got to talk.
- [20:48]
Chris Dreyer
About bringing in the cases, we talked about the team, we talked about client.
- [20:51]
Lauer
Service, and you've embraced omnichannel marketing. In fact, you know, you attended pimcon, you went, and you're learning what the personal injury attorneys are doing to market their practice.
- [21:02]
Chris Dreyer
Can you walk us through just your.
- [21:04]
Lauer
Overall thoughts on marketing and just your mix of channels and how you think about it?
- [21:09]
Adam Rossen
Yeah, I mean, I love marketing. So if I had to choose between marketing and finance, I'm always. Or systems, I'm always going to skew to the marketing because that's fun and I like being creative. We built the firm on the back of GBP and SEO and more of the long tail search, you know, like the real, like, what do I do.
- [21:29]
Manny
If I have a second DUI in Florida kind of thing instead of more.
- [21:32]
Adam Rossen
Of the vanity searching. But that, that direct response is only going to get you so far. And now we also have grown quite a bit from Google. I'm sorry, from YouTube. We have a really cool YouTube channel. We have over two and a half million views. We're doing a ton on there. That's been been very successful as well. Social, we, we have fun with, we use it more for the branding aspect. We want prosecutors, defense lawyers to see what we're doing. We actually, I think it actually helps with people wanting to work at our firm, which is great. We haven't gotten too many new cases from social. But I'd love, you know, we're exploring that. When LSAs came out, we jumped in hard and then it got much more difficult and we pulled back and now we're doing it again with you guys.
- [22:17]
Manny
And so now as we're growing, we.
- [22:19]
Adam Rossen
Always still need cases and direct response.
- [22:21]
Manny
But now we're really starting to explore the bigger level, the branding.
- [22:25]
Adam Rossen
And that's why I want to be around the fancy PI guys, right, and see what they're doing because also they.
- [22:30]
Manny
Tend to be ahead of the curve. The most creative, the ones that are.
- [22:33]
Adam Rossen
Embracing AI and different things. So really it's for us, you know, working with you guys and having our internal team as well, I think we.
- [22:43]
Manny
Can really hit a lot of things.
- [22:45]
Adam Rossen
At once because we're at the point now where it's like I want to open up all the other channels because it's like drilling for oil. You need to go deep to get oil. But once you grow, why can't we have 50 different oil rigs, you know.
- [23:04]
Manny
All drilling deep in their own respective.
- [23:06]
Adam Rossen
Regions or areas or discipline. Right.
- [23:09]
Manny
So, you know, that's what we're trying to do now. But really we picked initially we picked maybe three and we just dug deep in those three.
- [23:16]
Adam Rossen
So now we're trying to expand, I.
- [23:19]
Lauer
Think in the professional services space, which is what we're in. You know, I could go to a Cairo, you know, marketing convention or you know, a dental, which dental is super competitive and be able to apply something I learned to, to, you know, my practice, your practice. And I think that's a super smart approach to do. And it also maybe gives you an opportunity to do something that other criminal defense attorneys aren't doing and.
- [23:45]
Adam Rossen
Exactly.
- [23:46]
Lauer
Because they all kind of copy each other. I wanted to talk to two things here. First, let's, let's dig into the YouTube channel. The amount of views that you're getting, the contents resonating with with the audience. Let's talk about why you kind of leaned into YouTube and went that direction.
- [24:03]
Adam Rossen
Right. I mean, I always wanted to. So Even since like 2015, I wanted to. It just didn't have the time. Didn't know how to do it. But during the pandemic, we finally said, you know what? We got nothing better to do, so we're going to do it. And I'm friends with Robert Govea, who is, was a criminal defense attorney in Arizona doing really cool big things, especially on YouTube. And now he's pretty much not even with his firm anymore and he's full time hosting a political YouTube live show every day. It's like he's his own Fox News or cnn. Really cool stuff that he's doing.
- [24:42]
Manny
But he had a little coaching group.
- [24:43]
Adam Rossen
And I know he was a bigger name in the criminal law space very quickly and at a young age grew.
- [24:49]
Manny
A multimillion dollar criminal practice.
- [24:51]
Adam Rossen
So I joined his group and we became buddies and during the pandemic and just started following some of his processes and procedures. And you know, we, we have the.
- [25:01]
Manny
Two different types of video, we have.
- [25:02]
Adam Rossen
A few different types, but really it's the more of the, the low searching.
- [25:07]
Manny
You know, low views.
- [25:08]
Adam Rossen
But we're doing a whole series on.
- [25:10]
Manny
Assault and battery or on sex crimes.
- [25:12]
Adam Rossen
Or on domestic violence or dui and.
- [25:15]
Manny
We'Re gonna get like low to Medium views.
- [25:17]
Adam Rossen
But we're gonna have people go through deep dives and watch us and want to hire us from those videos. And it builds the know like and trust. It sees that we're happen to be, I think, pretty cool. Pretty cool nerdy lawyers. But we're still pretty cool, right? And it makes the sales process easier, has people find us more of the direct response style. And then we have the body camera.
- [25:39]
Manny
Videos where with client permission we post of the cops beating up our clients.
- [25:43]
Adam Rossen
Or being caught in lies. And those are more the shock and awe. And those really help build the whole channel.
- [25:50]
Manny
We don't really make money off of those.
- [25:52]
Adam Rossen
I haven't wanted to monetize the channel because I just. Even from that I just. That's not our intention. Maybe I'd set up a separate channel that would only be body camera videos, ours and other people's where I'd analyze it. Haven't done that yet, but if I was, that's what I would do and I would monetize that with Google. You know, with The Google and YouTube ads, you know, one brings in a lot of eyeballs and rises up, you know, kind of tells YouTube that the channel is good and popular and the other stuff is more of okay, you want information. It might be three in the morning and you can't sleep. Watch our 10 videos or 15 videos on DUI that a bunch of our lawyers have shot. And we're getting cases, you know, even federal cases from it. People want to hire us. So it's been very good.
- [26:35]
Lauer
That's awesome. That's amazing. Are you doing it all organic? Are you pumping a little bit of ads to do some of the select videos?
- [26:43]
Manny
No, YouTube, we're doing, we're doing all organic.
- [26:45]
Adam Rossen
We're starting, you know, it's funny, we.
- [26:48]
Manny
Built the firm without much paid ads at all. LSA has been the only things we never did.
- [26:53]
Adam Rossen
Ppc, we haven't done much paid social.
- [26:57]
Manny
Now we're starting to look into that.
- [26:59]
Adam Rossen
From, you know, even like retargeting we've never really done before. So again we really truly mastered like.
- [27:05]
Manny
Two to three disciplines very well. And so now we're really starting to.
- [27:11]
Adam Rossen
Expand our marketing and doing some more, you know, retargeting, doing some more ads, maybe some.
- [27:17]
Manny
I still, I love to do some.
- [27:19]
Adam Rossen
Branding on, even on YouTube, like the 6 second or 30 second, you know, unskippables and, and those. So there's a lot that we've barely scratched the surface of what we can do and what we want to do. And for Us, we want to dominate.
- [27:33]
Manny
We want to absolutely own South Florida.
- [27:35]
Adam Rossen
And then decide from there if we're going to expand. So there's so much more that we can do. We just, we haven't had a really good digital partner and we haven't been able to have the internal team either. We've just had a lot of like, look, we grew during the great Resignation, and we grew so fast so quickly. So we've learned a lot about ourselves over the years that I feel like where we're at now in 2024, we're. We're really on the cusp of just blowing up what we want to do and just totally like, you know, double tripling, quadrupling it.
- [28:07]
Lauer
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I, I see it, I see what you guys are doing. You're building the brand. Just, you're hiring the right people, you got the systems. And, and I, I just, I don't see your guys growth slowing down. And I think, you know, the going deep on the YouTube and on the search, search engine marketing side and, and what you guys are doing. And you, you also have, you know, a podcast. You got success in the South. You know, how does this platform align with your target audience? You know, what unique benefits do you see from podcasting?
- [28:35]
Adam Rossen
Yeah, so it's, it's. We have success in South Florida. I could do the Adam Lawyer show, but there's so many people that do.
- [28:43]
Manny
That and do it really well.
- [28:44]
Adam Rossen
So we really thought it through and I wanted this as a relationship, community and referral plan. So that's how we do it. Which, of course, you know, you have some people say, well, Adam, what's the ROI on that? And I go, well, I really don't know. But I think there's some things, when.
- [29:00]
Manny
You'Re talking about branding and relationships and referrals, it's more of a long play.
- [29:04]
Adam Rossen
You maybe can't give a direct roi, but you can also see, are we.
- [29:09]
Manny
Getting more referral relationships? Are we strengthening our relationships?
- [29:13]
Adam Rossen
Because it's.
- [29:13]
Manny
Referrals are also a lot like dating.
- [29:15]
Adam Rossen
You know, if. Yeah, right.
- [29:17]
Manny
You may think somebody's referring you cases.
- [29:19]
Adam Rossen
But if you haven't talked to them or dated them in the last year, they got a new boyfriend, they got a new girlfriend, so they got a new criminal defense lawyer or PI lawyer that they're sending cases to. It's just the way it is. So when I, you know, I'm in.
- [29:34]
Manny
Different groups and organizations, I'm in entrepreneurs.
- [29:36]
Adam Rossen
Organization, EO of South Florida. So when I meet Somebody new.
- [29:40]
Manny
It's, hey, you said you seem really cool. I'd love to learn more about you.
- [29:44]
Adam Rossen
By the way, I got a podcast.
- [29:46]
Manny
Come on my podcast. Let me interview you. So it's also a way for me.
- [29:49]
Adam Rossen
Who is a natural introvert, to force me to get out of my comfort zone to meet people and then give.
- [29:56]
Manny
Them value, where we say, yeah, we'll.
- [29:58]
Adam Rossen
Cut up all the, we'll cut up the video, we'll give you clips for Instagram for all your stuff, you know, please promote it.
- [30:05]
Manny
And, oh, by the way, we can.
- [30:06]
Adam Rossen
Even write up a press release, you know, if you want to put that on your website and give us a cool backlink. So there's so many different things, and I've been able to meet a lot of people now.
- [30:17]
Manny
The first six months to a year.
- [30:18]
Adam Rossen
It was mostly people I already knew, so we can get content rolling. But already it's forced me to meet new people, build new relationships and do cool things. So I'm enjoying it a lot. You know, from a pure ROI perspective, it hasn't been the most successful yet.
- [30:36]
Manny
But it's building and growing and I.
- [30:38]
Adam Rossen
See it and it's just a great way for that. We wanted the local flavor and we wanted really to, you know, create new relationships. So I'll give you an example, Chris.
- [30:49]
Manny
We have a new friend who we met at pimcon, Amanda Demanda. She's amazing.
- [30:54]
Adam Rossen
And her, you know, her speech was amazing.
- [30:57]
Manny
She's an amazing human being. She's in South Florida now.
- [31:00]
Adam Rossen
She's, you know, there's a difference between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, right? So she is all Miami, but Lauer and I. Lauer is our chief revenue.
- [31:08]
Manny
Officer and marketing director.
- [31:10]
Adam Rossen
You know, we were at pimcon. We became very friendly with her. And so of course, after talking to.
- [31:15]
Manny
Her for two, three days at pimcon.
- [31:16]
Adam Rossen
I'm like, I want to have you on our show come up to our video studio. And she goes, well, Adam, how about this? She goes, do you want to do it in my video studio so you.
- [31:24]
Manny
Can see my firm in my ops?
- [31:26]
Adam Rossen
And we were like, absolutely. We're going to take the show on the road. So next month, Laura and I are.
- [31:31]
Manny
We'Re going to film in her studio, in her office.
- [31:33]
Adam Rossen
We're going to film my podcast, and we're going to spend the day, meet.
- [31:36]
Manny
Her team and see how her ops work.
- [31:38]
Adam Rossen
And, you know, she's a fast growing PI firm, so I want to be.
- [31:42]
Manny
Around her and see all the cool things she's doing.
- [31:44]
Adam Rossen
And we got A whole day that.
- [31:46]
Manny
We'Re spending with her.
- [31:46]
Adam Rossen
So I'm so excited.
- [31:48]
Lauer
That's, that is exactly. I love hearing that. That makes, that makes me super happy. And I can't wait to tune into that episode. Yeah. So that's, that's going to be exciting to listen to, Adam. You know, where can our audience go to connect with you to check out your website to get in touch?
- [32:05]
Adam Rossen
Yeah.
- [32:05]
Manny
So, I mean, I think I'm easy to find.
- [32:07]
Adam Rossen
You know, we do a lot on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, the website, email. You know, my email is adamossenlawfirm.com I've had so many people that have helped me along the journey and what I tell people is never be afraid to reach out. And you don't, you know, I don't care what type of law. Like I always, my new thing is, you know, I, well, it's not really new, but I want to be the dumbest person in the room.
- [32:30]
Manny
I want to be the firm with the least amount of people, the smallest revenue around the big movers and shakers.
- [32:35]
Adam Rossen
And look, I'll give you one more example from pimcon, Chris. So John Berry gave a fantastic speech to open. It was awesome. And so, you know, Lauer was talking to him there and she goes, hey, I, in the spring, I want to.
- [32:51]
Manny
Come up to Nebraska and spend a.
- [32:53]
Adam Rossen
Day or two at your office. And he goes, sure goes. Get in touch with my people. So Lauer and I, I think in February or March, we're going to Nebraska to spend a whole day at his.
- [33:03]
Manny
Office to see his three silos and how his ops work.
- [33:06]
Adam Rossen
You know, one of his silos is criminal defense fence. And what was the worst that can happen? He says no, he blows us off. Right? Big deal. So we're always willing to take those shots and try and to ask for people that are doing amazing big things. So anybody that wants to get in touch with me, I'm easy to get in touch with.
- [33:28]
Manny
I love, absolutely love helping people. I learned so much from helping other.
- [33:32]
Adam Rossen
People and so many people have helped.
- [33:34]
Manny
Me along the way.
- [33:35]
Adam Rossen
So Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. My email's adama austinlawfirm.com There were a.
- [33:43]
Chris Dreyer
Ton of insights in today's episodes. Let's review the takeaways. It's time for the pinpoints. Pinpoint one. Trust is everything. And nothing builds trust quite like positive reviews from real clients. Adams firm has amassed over a thousand five star reviews across various platforms. It's an impressive feat, especially in a sensitive field of criminal defense. They've made gathering reviews a priority, turning it into a fun, competitive process for their team. But here's the key to explain the clients how their testimonials can genuinely help others in similar situations. For personal injury firms, this approach can be a game changer.
- [34:17]
Adam Rossen
If you want to talk about your experience but not about the case. Talk about how we made you feel. Talk about the relationship that we had. Talk about when it was maybe a bad time for you personally.
- [34:29]
Chris Dreyer
Pinpoint 2 if a picture is worth a thousand words, then video content is priceless. Adam's YouTube channel has over 2.5 million views and it's bringing in cases. Create content that not only informs but also resonates with your audience. Show your expertise, but also demonstrate your impact. Video content can significantly boost your firm's visibility, credibility, and ultimately your client acquisition. Remember, every view is a potential client, so get in front of as many eyes as you can.
- [34:58]
Adam Rossen
We're doing a whole series on assault.
- [35:00]
Manny
And battery or on sex crimes or on domestic violence or dui.
- [35:04]
Adam Rossen
People go through deep dives and watch us and it makes the sales process easier. We have the body camera videos where.
- [35:11]
Manny
With client permission, we post of the.
- [35:13]
Adam Rossen
Cops beating up our clients or being caught in lies. And those are more the shock and awe and those really help build the whole channel.
- [35:21]
Chris Dreyer
Pinpoint 3 Learn from other Industries Alexander Shinara looks to corporate America for inspiration. Adam Rossen, a criminal defense attorney, attends conferences like pimcon, an event primarily for personal injury lawyers. Why? Because he understands that innovation often happens at the intersection of different fields. By stepping outside his comfort zone, Adam gains fresh perspectives and cutting edge marketing strategies that he can adopt for his criminal defense practice. By broadening your horizons, you'll discover new ideas, novel approaches, and the innovative strategies that your competitors might miss.
- [35:53]
Adam Rossen
I want to be around the fancy PI guys and see what they're doing.
- [35:57]
Manny
Because also they tend to be ahead of the curve.
- [35:59]
Adam Rossen
The most creative, the ones that are embracing AI and different things.
- [36:03]
Chris Dreyer
That wraps up this episode of PEM with Adam Rossen. You can learn more about him, grab his contact info and the resources mentioned today in the show Notes. While you're there, pick up a copy of my new book, Personal Injury Lawyer Marketing from Good to Go. If you like the book, head on over to Amazon and leave me review. All right everybody, thanks for hanging out. See you next time I'm out.