← Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
431. Engineering 2970% Growth in One Year: Systemizing Your Law Firm for Maximum Value w/ Josh Wood
00:24:17
Josh Wood reveals the operational systems and bold rebranding that fuel his firm's explosive growth.
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Growing a law firm by nearly 3,000% in a single year doesn't happen by accident. It requires a fundamental shift in how you operate. It takes a relentless focus on the quality of your cases, extracting maximum value for every client, and having the guts to completely rebrand your marketing to capture an audience. Today, we're breaking down how one attorney managed to pull all of the right levers to see that nearly 3,000% jump in a single year.
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this is Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm Chris dreier, founder and CEO of Rankings IO, the elite performance marketing agency for personal injury law firms. My guest today is Josh Wood of Wood Injury Law out in Arizona. Josh is finding success with bold branding, an insider's defense perspective, and airtight internal systems that send his firm's growth through the roof. Let's get into it. So we got to start with some numbers. I mean, you're putting some numbers on the board. 2,970% growth in 2024. I mean, that's just huge, you know. So just as a part of that growth, what do you think? One of the items. Obviously, there's a bunch. What's one thing that just comes to mind of that?
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We really focus on, like, the quality of the cases instead of just trying to get them out the door, really maximize every settlement that we can get. And it just kind of really comes from just getting to know the client. And I think that's what's really helped us. I mean, in terms of, like, new matters that have come through the door. We haven't really skyrocketed and, like, jumped, but I think our average case values just really climbed. Just spending that amount of time with our clients, those kind of things.
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Let's go. So I kind of want to dive into marketing. A lot of the attorneys listening want to know, like, how you're picking up the good cases, you know, how you're. You know, that's a component, obviously, of the growth. And, you know, I noticed that you're using a lot your background as a defense attorney. And I'm just wondering, first, you know, I. I've. I've talked to other former defense attorneys that have went to PI. Like, how does that land in the consumer? Is that, like, the hook? It's a big conversion item. Like, how did the consumer see that?
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Yeah, I think they really like it because they're like, oh, man, this guy knows what's going on. He's familiar with kind of what the other side's looking for. And I. I think that just has a Lot more credibility to having that. Not just trying to like, you know, always going opi. But hey, we know both sides of the coin here. So.
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Yeah, and then I've always wanted to ask this, I say this, and I kind of wanted you to agree, disagree. It's like, you know, the insurance side, they like, share the data. Like, it's not as fragmented and, you know, it seems like every, you know, PI attorneys, everyone's on their island. And I feel like there should be more in certain aspects of the business, you know, more collective teamwork in opposing the other side. Like, is there something to that or is it not? The insurance companies are kind of, you know, or who knows, maybe that's the wrong question.
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Yeah, well, I think insurance companies, since they're all. They're almost all on the same team and they're getting paid by the same person, where, you know, the personal injury side, we're all our own individual businesses, so you got something to work in, they're like, oh, do we want to keep it a little closer to the chest? Or what if this person takes what I'm doing and they make it better? And then. Did I just lose out on that? I mean, I think that might be some of the thoughts. I try not to. I feel like I'm fairly open with what I'm trying or what I'm doing. And if somebody can replicate it, then good. I mean, there's a lot of cases out there for everybody. So I think it's probably better if more people talked more about what's working and what's not working, because it always comes out to like, can you replicate it as well as I'm doing it or whatever, whoever is sharing it.
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So I always think of that. I don't remember where I heard this, but if I wanted to be a good three point shooter, I couldn't just watch Steph Curry and expect to be a good three. I'd have to actually shoot some threes myself. So I think even this podcast, people get these ideas, but it's a different thing to execute them. Some of them are incredibly challenging. So talk to me about your marketing, your tactics to try to bring in cases. Are you digital? Belly to belly referrals? Talk to me about that.
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So we are in Arizona. We're in like the east part of the valley in Mesa, so we primarily focus on that. A lot of the bear guys are like central West, Phoenix for everything. So I came out here after kind of working for one of those firms. 1. Cause I lived out here and I didn't want to drive an hour into town every day. But two, we just really focus on the community around here and like the local providers and just letting people know that we're here and that like everybody we talk to that hey, this is what I do. It's not like a sales pitch. And then you know, then once you get to know you're like, oh, you're not like those other guys or what the stigma that is unfortunately been created in the personal injury world. So it's a lot of heavily referral based. Whether it's local providers or just people we know in the community, the neighborhoods, church, we just try to make sure everybody knows that whether it's me or just our staff like that what is that we do and then we're available for them and we're like, you know, if we hear somebody gets an accident or like my daughter's in dance and like my wife or I'm like, well just like you don't have to sell them. The firm just be like, hey, do you have any questions? Like most people never got through this. She's like just a resource here to be available. There's no heavy sales pitch. Honestly, I think my salesman, I don't do intake really as much anymore, but it's really kind of like, hey, this is what it is. This is what you're going to expect from the insurance company. Take it or leave it. And I feel like not selling approach is our best sales approach.
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So I think that's great. I think you're right. I think most people, you know, they're not looking for a personal injury attorney until they're in that accident. And hopefully they never, you know, it may be the only time they're going to go through that experience their entire lives. You know, most people overcomplicate marketing and you mentioned that one of your biggest breakthroughs was simply being willing to do different things, especially with marketing AI. Talk to me about like there's, there's so many MTMPs going on right now and out of all the vendors probably half of them are AI based, you know. So how are you approaching AI and new tech at your firm?
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So in terms of operations, we're trying to really embrace it, especially just early on. I met with the company two weeks ago and I was telling them what we were doing with this and we're so open to this and anything we can use and I still feel like we're barely using it. And he's like, oh you're like way further than most people because I mean these things are just great tools to just help us focus more on the client instead of just not necessarily replacing jobs, but just making jobs better and easier. In terms of marketing. Yeah, I'm still, I know we dabble in some of the AI stuff and those kind of things, but in terms of like thinking different. So in Arizona, where I, I feel like we're kind of like your atypical wood injury law where there's nothing really that's popping up, you know what sets us apart. You know, I know what sets us apart. But that's always hard to advertise because everybody's going to say that we're client focused. We're client focused. When they have their case manager has like 200 cases, you know, we don't do that. But we recently rebranded out in New Mexico to be a lot more, I hate to say gimmicky, but that's what it is. And that kind of came about when.
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Memorable. Memorable, right, Memorable.
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That sound. That kind of just came about when I've had a couple intakes and they've sat across from me and they're like, well, might as well sign with you. Like, you guys are all the same, right? Again, we know that we're not and probably the average firm like is not. But they don't know that. You can't really advertise that, like I said. So we're trying to be a lot more memorable out there. Specifically out there, we're focusing on the Hispanic clientele. Wife, her family's from Mexico. So we feel like we have more of a connection. So out here in Arizona, you know, we're in the suburbs, we probably have like less than like 10 Spanish speaking clients and but I tell others, they're like, that's it. That's all you have. Because here, at least in Phoenix, the market's like heavily targeted towards. Well, not heavily, but there's a lot that goes after like the Hispanic market share of that. So I don't see that out in Albuquerque. So if really rebranded out there to catch attention.
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Smart, smart connected. I'd say a lot of less, less competition there than compared to other markets. And certainly Arizona is becoming super saturated.
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Yeah. Even specifically in our office. So out there it's called El Gringo law. Like I said, we're going, we're going all in. Out there in our, where our office is. There's literally only one other person up the street who's like, he's leaned into the Hispanic community for a long time, gives out turkeys out Thanksgiving. So like he's well known out there. So we're trying to do some of the same really community based out there as well as like running some ads on like television and two billboards in the local area.
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So, you know, one of the things that I've just rando idea if you'll entertain me here that I've wanted to do is if you Google, you know, holidays today, there's four or five random holidays. I don't know what holiday is today, but there'll be donut day and pizza day and what have you. I've always wanted the a. PI Firm to say, you know what, we're, we're going to own national donut day and then just, you know, we'll do that every year or just pick one of the rando holidays. I think that would be a lot of fun.
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Yeah. Oh, it's a good idea. Yeah. Because it's again, you got to just be different. Especially if you don't have that million dollar a month budget or whatever it is that you can never compete with that. So how are you getting people's attention? You know, whether it's come on over to wood injury law or else we go for national donut day. Like we know every year that he's given out a dozen donuts to whoever shows up or whatever it is. I thought about it. Yeah, write that down when we're done here. But I mean, so we're kind of focused on that. So in New Mexico there's the same with like a lot of Hispanic or maybe more Mexican holidays. So apparently there's a, we know, the day of the dead. There's also a dia de los ninos. I didn't know. I asked my wife, I was like, do you hear? Do you guys celebrate that? She's like, no. She's like, but they have a day of everything. So we have an event going on on May 2nd out there that's celebrating day of the kids. So come to the community, those kind of things to really find those kind of random holidays to just like kind of own. So everybody knows the Thanksgivings, the Christmases and those, you know, what about all the other days of the year?
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So great. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Even up is a specialized proactive AI Built for personal injury law firms. Personal injury is in their DNA. Visit evenuplaw.com to learn more.
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Cases in the door with creative marketing is only half the battle. If your operations are a mess, you're not only burning cash, you're also burning out your team to maximize case values and actually handle Explosive growth. You have to transform from running a disorganized practice to managing a highly efficient system. Let's look at how execution happens under the hood. So let's talk about execution. You stated your, your absolute biggest breakthrough was treating the firm like a system, not a practice. I love that framing. Let's dig into that. You know, what is treating the firm like a system? What's that look like under the hood?
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Yeah, I mean, just from every kind of part of the process, from intake down to settlement, everybody, their roles are very clear, they understand what it is they're supposed to do. We really utilize the task flow in our case management system to make sure that, you know, all along the way, everybody knows, like, what my job is. And we also were very. I always tell this to my folks, like, don't ever tell me, like, that's not my job. Very, like, I was like, that's gonna. One thing that's gonna make me mad. But with the system in place, everybody knows their job. So there's not a lot of, oh, hey, I need you to help out over here, I need you to help out over there. But occasionally, you know, they're more than willing to do that when we do need help. For example, we had a meeting yesterday. We needed some. A little help on with our intake over the weekend. We brought in a couple folks, we said, hey, this is what we're looking to do. Not every weekend, you know, you be compensated, so on and so forth. You know, immediately they were like, oh, yeah, no problem. You know, it's nothing. So I think the, the system though, really comes down to also the people. You have a really good system in place, but you don't have the right people in place, then I don't know if any system really, really matters. I mean, the idea is, though, like, we have it laid out, really laid out with our policies, procedures that. The idea is somebody can come in like, hey, here's the, the procedures. This is how you should be following it. And then again, it mirrors our task flows to make sure they're staying on schedule and on task with it. So things are getting done in a timely manner.
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So, I mean, you mentioned earlier that, you know, some firms, they'll have 250 cases per case manager, right? And you, you really work up the case and communicate. And you talked about, one of the differentiators is you get a lot more value. Talk to me about what goes into that. Like, is it from the initial inception, are you already working it up? Or is it like, you know, because a lot of firms, they'll have pre lit. And then it's like, okay, now we gotta treat this serious. Like, it's time to bring it to lit. Like, talk to me about how you're extracting maximum value for the firm.
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Sure. I think the biggest thing is just our communication with the clients. Like, we build that relationship with them. I think of like one case a couple years ago, she was like, oh, I'm done. I'm just, I'm tired of treating. You get that like treatment fatigue where like you still have issues, but like, you're just done. Because it's a lot. Going to chiropractic physical therapy now, like, oh, I gotta go to a pain management doctor or whatever it is. And because of the relationship she had with me and our case manager, we're like, hey, just go to this doctor, listen to him. And again, the relationship we have with the doctors that we know are going to take the time to talk to him, she was able to, you know, I think she ended up pocketing like close to $30,000. You know, had she not done all that, it would have been obviously significantly less of that. And I think just that communication with the clients, because if you get too many, they're kind of just left up to the doctors or even with their lingering issues, they might just be like, I'm done. The doctor's like, okay, well if you're done, then I'm done. And. And that's kind of the end of it. Stuff like that. It's not necessarily the inception. I mean, we try to get them to people that we know are going to treat them well, but it's that kind of concept communication throughout the case, just because every case is different. So, I mean, sometimes they do just go to that few appointments and they're like, honestly, I'm good. I'm like, okay, you're good. Then we're good. And we just don't want you. In two years, right before the statue, it's like, oh man, I've had these headaches ever since. And it's like, well, we want to make sure that's pretty much contacted or take care of at the front end.
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So, yeah, you know, I'll say from firsthand experience, I got in a. My president, Stephen Willie and I were traveling to St. Louis and we got in a rear end collision and went into the hospital, checked out, you know, and he's really hurting still today. He didn't really take it serious, go get the treatment and do everything.
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And here we are.
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We do personal injury marketing, but it's just different when you go through it firsthand and kind of everything that's going on. But yeah, so I could see like the communication, like, hey, really, go check this out, take it serious. Because it could have a long term effect.
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Yeah, yeah. I think as a result of that, I mean, they trust us. Then we get referrals from down the road because we've taken that time. When I worked at one of those firms that had those kind of cases, I remember a couple situations where I talked to a client and I'm like, well, how are you doing? He's like, fine, you know, whatever, trying to negotiate his case. And I'm like, well, since I haven't been able to get to know you, like, I don't. If you don't care about your case, I can't really care about your case. And we don't have a relationship, so it can't really go anywhere. There's only so much you can do on that.
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So yeah, you know, and if they tell the truth, and in all those scenarios too, you're putting client first. You've got a 4.9 rating out of 120 reviews. I mean, excellent rating. And a lot of the reviews mention, you know, Ryan or Rika or yourself, you know, or Lisa and these individuals, you know, so, you know, how do you train the team to buy into the system, to deliver this five star experience to go the extra mile? Is it just the culture, the core values, or are there processes to keep everyone like this is what you have to do?
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Well, I would probably say first just go side hiring. You know, a few years ago it was like, oh, we just got to get people in here. And then you end up hiring people that they're just looking for another job, you know, maybe a step to something else or whatever it may be, they're not as invested in currently where they're at. And I get like, can I say this? Probably at every meeting a new employee, like, I would love for you to be here forever, but if this is just step to the next place, I totally get that. But we want to find the right ones that when they're here, you know, they're all in here. And I think like those ones like the rise, Marika, Lisa, Carissa, any member of our staff who have been in one for a few years, they're able to really buy in. And we really try to treat them like not just like another job here. We want them to be able to like, oh man, I not dreading here because sometimes, you know, going to Work is just work. And you're going to have your good days, your bad days. And if you hate the place where you're going to, in addition to, oh, I got to deal with these clients that are sometimes difficult, it makes it harder and then nobody wants to stay and nobody. Then it kind of rolls over and then how you treat the clients, those kind of things. But then I want to mention that once we kind of really got our full system in place, probably all of 20, 25 and the end of 24, I mean we were able to shave off about two months of our average case life from 24 to 25 and with our highest average case value as a result of it. And this year, and we've been able to shave at least off the first quarter another month, you know, also without, you know, jeopardizing the average case.
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That's incredible. When you experience massive growth, the systems that got you here will eventually break. You fix one bottleneck and another one appears right around it. Whether it's running out of office space, expanding in a new territory, or maintaining your firm's culture across state lines, scaling is an ongoing process that demands constant attention and honest self reflection. So you've had this explosive growth and I know you're tinkered with the systems always like looking ahead, like what do you think, like a next operational hurdle constraint or that you're going to focus on solving.
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And it seemed like for a long time that's what we were doing. So we, I don't really see. Well, there's no immediate bottlenecks in here, current system like that. But as we continue to grow, yeah, there definitely will be. And I think it's just going to be. Continue to find the right people and then where do we put them? Because now we're. Our office space is actually a little, a little bottled up. So it's like we find a bigger office, we just find a satellite office to then, you know, focus on a different part of town. Do we move people to our new or not move, but find people out in our New Mexico office. That'll be our next kind of bottleneck. And then if you expand offices or secondary office, then you're under the bottleneck of how do we create that culture and get those folks to buy in and those separate offices if I'm not there every day, or firm administrator Madison's not there every day. How do you get them to buy into that stuff like that? And I think that will be the next bottleneck. Like, okay, if you open another office, how do we we have the system, but how do we replicate the culture in that system?
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So that makes sense. That makes sense. Being an SEO guy, I'm going to push you for another location just to get that second gbp, but.
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Right, no, that's what we've been talking about. Yeah. You know, whether I live in a town called Queen Creek, it's like a suburb out there and. But there's no office space. But there's other attorneys. But there's also no office space. So that or we go far west. You know, it's other things to consider and think about our growth.
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So fantastic. You know, so also for the vision, you know, if you had to give one piece of advice for a firm owner who's struggling to break out. Right. Maybe they've been coasting, you know, like, what's the first thing that just comes to mind?
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I think only because I just had this last week. I was at like a kind of a mastermind and I got called out myself for just half assed things. You know, you feel like you might be working hard, but are you really, are you working as hard and do you want more? I mean, I think those are two questions that you really have to ask yourself. Like, do you really want more? And if you do, are you putting forth the effort? So I mentioned my. Our El Gringo brand out in New Mexico. So I was at the sig, I'm telling him about it and he's like, well, you're projecting to get this many more cases. You're not getting it. I'm like, what are you doing? I'm like, well, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And he was just like passively. The guy leading it was just like, Josh is half assing it. He's not as serious as he thinks he is about it. And then I really stepped back and I was like, Otto was putting effort, but then you look at the effort that you think is required and it's like, oh man, not at all. My. You're right. I think I am kind of half assing it because we already have a really good permanent place. So do I really need. I'm not driven by need for that second location or that new brand to really take off. But I think I found the idea that I already have this really good system in place now I can just take it and put it over here and it's just going to go, you know, but it's not, it's worth that effort that getting your name out there because, you know, it's a new brand, so my people may see it and they're like, well, is this serious? Are they even here? Because, you know, some markets are very different than others.
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That's incredible. And first, congrats to you to being in the room with the mastermind and having the friends that will give you the radical candor and kind of push you. And that's a lot of times we talk about the benefits of coaches and masterminds and all those things, and I think it's great to surround yourself with those type of people. Like me. I live in Marion, illinois. There's like 30,000 people here. Right. I don't know of another agency around here. So I've got to go to these masterminds, go to these different things, and then I feel like I'm with my people. Right. I can talk about the real pains and the struggles. Josh, this has been amazing for our audience listening that has some questions for you and maybe wants to refer a case to you in Albuquerque or Arizona. You know, what's the best way to get in touch?
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Yeah, I mean, you can just call us directly or just an email. Joshood Injury Law. Keep it nice and simple. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions. I'm always more than happy to talk about this stuff. I actually really enjoy talking about business growth and like, strategy or those kind of things or new ideas, how we can, one, get more cases and then two, like, how can we be better for our clients and have better businesses for ourselves? So that's awesome.
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Amazing.
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Josh.
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Thanks for coming on the show, Chris.
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Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, it's good stuff.
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Josh's massive growth is proof that playing it safe doesn't win the market. You have to stop treating your firm like a disorganized practice and start engineering it like a high performance system. Whether that means taking a calculated risk on a bold new brand or having the humility to admit when you're coasting, the results speak for themselves. If you're ready to get serious about your growth and want a marketing partner that delivers proof over promises, head on over to Rankings IO. We can help you get the right leads and dominate your market. I'm Chris Dreyer. Thanks for listening to personal injury Mastermind Mind. We'll catch you next time.