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Personal Injury Mastermind w/ Chris Dreyer
468. Why “Intake” Is the Wrong Word — and How a $5K-Per-Case PPC Lesson Forced a Full Firm Rebuild | Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez, Sepulveda Law Group
00:22:30
Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez of Sepulveda Law Group shares how he rebuilt intake as a dedicated sales team, cut tech bloat, and grew referrals after learning a costly $5–6K-per-case PPC lesson.
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- [00:02]
A
I even hate that word intake. It's sales. Whoever's answering that phone to get that lead going, that person's got to be a salesman.
- [00:09]
B
It's a hard pill to swallow, but if you're dropping massive capital on digital marketing and treating your intake team like a glorified message taker, you're literally lighting money on fire.
- [00:19]
A
I think I learned a very expensive lesson quick. I was like, you know what, it works. But it's very expensive to get a case online.
- [00:25]
B
Today's guests learned the hard way that to scale a massive PI firm, you need to tighten up your tech, ditch the bloat, and turn your intake department into a high performance sales team. 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. Today's guest is Gabriel Sepulveda Sanchez of Sepulveda Law Group. Operating out of California and New York, Gabriel has successfully transitioned from a solo attorney answering his phones to the CEO of a multi state firm. Today we cover why he treats recruiting like a marketing channel, the dangers of tech float, and why you need to completely redefine how your firm handles intake. Let's get into it. Gabriel, welcome to the show. I like to start off things celebrating a win. So what's something recent that comes to mind, something you'd like, you're excited about?
- [01:13]
A
Oh, man. Honestly, I think just really rolling out our new marketing strategies, getting my hands real dirty into the digital marketing. Google pay per click SEO. You know, we've had a lot of. It's a big learning curve. Sometimes you, it's a new language, but really just like really understanding what digital marketing is is to its core, the top of funnel stuff, the bottom of the funnel stuff, just really getting my hands on it. I haven't mastered it yet, but I'm also, I've learned a lot of what to do, what not to do, how much you're willing to spend and what you're being, acknowledging that, seeing what the competitors are doing with that. So just kind of educating myself with the digital marketing. I think the relationship stuff, the business development, I've really been doing an awesome job getting the community to send us cases and serving the community, getting other attorneys. So really just like taking a step up with the marketing, the rainmaking, that's what I'm really happy about.
- [02:05]
C
How has intake evolved? How you treat it like, what's your tech stack look like?
- [02:10]
A
You know, I even hate that word intake. And I'm sure you're going to Agree with me on this. Right.
- [02:14]
C
Sales.
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A
And I hear so many attorneys that you're going to intake person. And intake just sounds so bland and like. And the truth is it's like it's a sales position. Whoever's answering that phone to get that lead going, that person's got to be a salesman. And they got to know what they're selling and they got to know how to handle objections. Because the legal space, these. If they're finding you online, they're looking. There's a five other law firms on your block that are going to take that. They can take that case too. So you have to have someone answering that phone that's representing the business well, that has. That is a good salesman that. Or if they're not a salesman, they need to be able to sell or be trained on that. What we evolved from was. I mean, if you go back, way back, back, back when I. We started the firm, it was me, you know, and I wasn't a bad. Yeah, I think I was good at that. I could get people. I was an attorney. I was answering the phone, intake sales. You know, I get the information down and get the client assigned. But as, you know, as you scale, you can't do that anymore. You got to hire people and all this stuff. So, I mean, fast forward years later, we were at a point where a couple few years ago, we would have a reception person. She would handle our, you know, client calls coming in. Any incoming clients, potential clients, she would do in that she was doing reception work, doing that. And we had to. We had to stop that because I'm like, hey, yeah, this is. We're getting so much traffic now. And we want. We need someone that's special, especially skilled at, you know, selling the firm, really getting the clients to come in the door and sign up cases. So, yeah, that at a certain point we had to evolve and really just create our own sales team. And so now we don't. Our, you know, there. It's more niche down. Everyone's got their position. So it's important. You're spending a lot of money. If you're spending a lot of money in marketing, you want to make sure those leads are handled right. And it's hard to do that when you got a team member that's playing four different positions. If you're serious about scaling the firm, you got to have a sales team and you got to invest in that. So that was the big evolution. You know, I think we made some good progress there. We usually docket.
- [04:03]
C
We.
- [04:03]
A
I like the docket A lot able to get my, you know, I really want to see tracking where these leads are coming from, seeing the data. If you're spending a lot of money in marketing and you're really making that investment, you better know how many qualified leads are coming in per channel. You got to know where the better cases are coming from. You got to know what your cost per acquisition is, you know, if you're really serious about, you know, making that investment and scaling your firm that way as you evolve. I think where we've, now, where we're at is I really want to see numbers and data. Like, it's really important now. There's too much at stake. There's a lot more money involved in the decisions we're making. So you gotta have numbers and data to rely on. So I think that's the biggest thing I, that I've seen evolve. With us and me as a entrepreneur, it's been the numbers. You know, I'm not a numbers guy at all, but I've learned to like, love numbers now. And if you're not a numbers guy, you better get someone on your team that that is.
- [04:56]
B
To actually manage your firm by the numbers, you need the right tools. But in the PI space, it's incredibly easy to fall victim to Shiny object syndrome. There's a new app or an AI integration for everything. A tech bloat can quickly paralyze a team. Gabriel's approach, keep it simple, keep it rigid, and only use what actually moves the needle.
- [05:14]
C
One of the roles that I see more emerging in the PI space is the rev Ops role. So a lot of times firms will hire like an IT and it's like across everything. And I'm not talking just like their email and Outlook stuff, right? And now I see the rev ops because there's so. There's so many components of tech on the front end. It's like now you got AI to listen all the calls and then you have sequences on lead docket. Then you have, what are you going
- [05:39]
B
to do to transform the data in lead docket? Are you going to use Domo? You're going to use Zoho? You're going to use like, what are
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C
you going to do?
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B
Take that apart?
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C
It's like, it's so complicated. So how have you pulled out the data, built your dashboards? What are you looking at?
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A
Yeah, I'm sure we're getting more efficient. I mean, our main, the main tech things we use in. We have lead docket, we run. We still run with casepearer. I looked at Other things. And I'm like, you know, I think Case Peer has been. They evolved and they've got some of the things that they used to have issues with, they fix. So I'm very happy with them. I try not to get too crazy around the tech stuff. I think what happens is like, a lot of people, what I'm seeing is like, they're running too much stuff. And I think that you have to do enough to where you can get the information you need and be efficient. But you can also overwhelm your team with a lot of this tech stuff. So I think for me it's just like we have the domo thing. We want to integrate, you know, we try to get the data from the different stuff we got going on, different apps and really streamline that into, you know, dashboard. We can, we, you know, we have that going on. But I would say for me, I want to keep it. I don't like when we're running with too much tech stuff. I think you need enough of it. You don't want to be manually, you know, you don't want to like have a hundred Excel sheets for reports. I think that's an issue too. Some people are more techies. Like, you might. You like, you want. You might. I know there's guys out there that want a different app for everything. I'm not like that. I don't. I want to know if I can. How to operate things. So I get frustrated. If I had some new app and my, everyone knows how to use it. I'm not. I'm like, how do I, how do I even get in this thing? So everyone's different. It's. It's like what works for you. I think there's no one way or right way. Some people like stacking up a bunch of tech stuff. You know, we did the headspot stuff. We got lead docket, we have Case Peer, obviously we run with Dropbox and I had to stop all that. We were starting to get too crazy with that stuff. So I have, I keep it basic.
- [07:20]
C
I agree with all that. And even on the agency side, I
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B
mean, we don't, we don't have like
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C
Case Peer and Filevine and stuff that like that for case management. But we have project management tools, you know, Basecamp, Trello, Notion, ClickUp, et cetera. And I like the complete customization where I can do everything. But what I found was so challenging
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B
was like, okay, well now I got
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C
a hundred plus people that I gotta,
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B
you know, get on it. So I like, now it's like I like things that have, that are a
- [07:46]
C
little bit more rigid, that you can't make the modifications because then they can't deviate from the system. So you know, I get that. And there's so many new AI tools around the corner that do this or that.
- [07:59]
A
Yeah, you even mentioned, I think we, I forgot AI we are using. I forgot what. I can't remember the name. So that's the thing. We're using some AI. I forgot what it's called. Something basically, you know, it saves us time by incoming mail and documents. We're able to. Instead of us looking at it and typing in like okay, this title in it basically reads what the document is and full. It organizes, it organizes it for us and labels everything. So that's, that's cool. It saves some time. A lot of us, thankfully my team's very accepting of technology. You know, a lot of them have, we have chat, GBT enterprise that we leverage here and stuff. So I think we're, thankfully we're not running into a lot of resistance with, with implementing AI at the firm. Nothing like that.
- [08:39]
B
What were a couple of those mistakes? What were so did, was it a capital allocation? Was it a wrong channel? Like, like what were some of the.
- [08:45]
A
I think with a lot of entrepreneurial attorneys and entrepreneurs we like to like do a little research and jump into it and I think what I, I had, you know, big spin budget in my mind and then I, we executed in January and then all of a sudden I'm like whoa. Like we're, you know, we're spending a ton of money on this Google pay per click stuff really without knowing to really what to monitor, what to expect too much. I, I got some advice from other people I, I look up to, but kind of just blowing a lot of money the first couple months with Google pay per click and, and just realizing I knew that there was, it's a saturation in the market with the, the big firms out there, the Morgan and Morgans and all that stuff. But really experiencing that firsthand. I'm like okay, you don't want to neglect digital marketing but you know, be careful. You got to manage that really tightly, make sure you have the right vendor or someone in house to do that. But more importantly, it really inspired me to like really just focus on the hand to hand combat the relationships driving business in through our referrals and our relationship marketing. Because that stuff it's, it doesn't cost that much. It's pretty much free. Just takes your time and effort to put in getting face to face with your referral partners and stuff. But I think I learned a very expensive lesson quick. I was like, you know what this is, it works. But it's very expensive to get a case online that's really focused on driving that business in, not totally relying on digital marketing. So I kind of had to learn, kind of learn it the hard way a little bit.
- [10:05]
C
Yeah, yeah. And look, and I think that's, that's true. Right? Especially I know the pay per click space in California very well. And I mean, you're, you're like a Target is like 5,6K CAC.
- [10:18]
A
Yes.
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C
And I mean, and it's, and then,
- [10:20]
B
then the fees gotta be commensurate with that. And then it's like you got the cash acceleration of like when that money comes in. So when you're spending five, six thousand
- [10:27]
C
dollars a case, and that's every level of case, you know, the good and
- [10:32]
B
the bad cases, that adds up quick.
- [10:34]
A
Yeah, definitely. I mean, you don't want to neglect that, that space. But know, when you're getting into that, like, hey, you're, you're competing with guys that are, you know, big, big, big, big budgets. You got private equity coming into that space. You know, people aren't saying it, but it's out. It's, it's already there. So, you know, I think when you're a firm of our size, you, I think the big thing was just like, hey, you know what, let's, let's play this game. Let's play it smart. Let's be efficient, be real tight around it. We got to manage our budgets really, really carefully. But really what's been working for us, double down on that. And that's just, you know, clients coming back to us, repeat clients, driving those referrals in through our community partners and all that stuff. That's, that's the way that I'm realizing I'm going to keep focusing and scaling that way.
- [11:15]
C
So talk to me about, you know,
- [11:18]
B
boots on the ground, belly to belly,
- [11:19]
C
the community building, just some general tactics for a PI firm that wants to grow that side of the biz.
- [11:26]
A
Yeah. I mean, it's no secret. I think when it comes down to, it's just trust. And what I. When we really looked at our data as we scaled you, you really have to, like, you have to have a handle of data. I think a lot of my time is spending looking at data now and managing by numbers. And because the numbers don't lie, if you have good, accurate reporting, you can make good decisions on that. And what we've seen is like most of our files, the bigger percentage of our cases are coming in through repeat clients, clients, former clients that referred their family and friends or someone they knew. It got an accident and then just basically a lot of local service ads, a lot of people who have good reviews were popping up a lot in our, in our Stockton location, LA location. So we're getting a lot of just cases through people seeing our good reviews, word of mouth referrals, and then just our clients being our brand ambassadors for us.
- [12:10]
C
So.
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A
And I think all that comes down to is, is trust and giving them a good client experience, doing your best for them. You can't make everyone happy, but you know, the people you can. There's lot most people you can and those are the ones that are growing our business. And I think, you know, I think it all comes down to, you know, trust and having a personal relationship and really trying to like make something memorable for the clients that you do.
- [12:33]
C
Sir.
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A
I think a lot of law firms, they take, I think as we get, we scale. Sometimes we, you know, people can lose touch of that and it becomes a numbers game. And you see these people, numbers and you want to know leads and client signups and all this stuff. But you got to remember each one of those persons, those are potential lead referrals, partners. So you want to make sure that you leave a good impact on them and do a good job and try to make things right if they don't go right. But I'm seeing that more and more. I think, you know, really focusing on that and it's really comes down to just they trust you, they like you and they're going to do business with you. And it's really simple. Having relationships with your clients and the referral people, it comes down to that. That's what I'm seeing.
- [13:09]
C
I think there's a lot of truth in that especially. Look, I trust people more when I meet them in person. I have breakfast, lunch, dinner, shake hands, I'm in the same office. It makes me feel like I can trust them more. And, and there's, there's a lot to that.
- [13:31]
B
Trust and community relationships drive the business forward. But you cannot scale that personal touch without an elite team operating behind you. Attracting top talent is one of the hardest challenges in personal injury right now. And relying on expensive third party recruiters will bleed your margins dry. Gabriel troops recruiting just like a marketing channel. And he's built an internal farm system to develop a players from the ground up.
- [13:53]
C
How has the team evolved? How do you think about hiring and retaining top talent.
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A
Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me, you know, I think there a lot to talk about with that. I think you have to evolve in order a players want to be with other a players and it all starts from top down. You know as a, is a leader, as an entrepreneur, you have to share that vision with your team and you have to show up in how you show up and it all, it goes from top down. You know my leaders here, the way I, I, you know, it's, it's. They want to be around a players and we have to raise our, the world. Whatever my standards are, they're going to come up to that. If I have low standards things they're going to meet that and, and they're not going to want to. If a players you're, if you're only way, the only way you're going to attract that type of talent you want is to become that type of talent. That's how I see it. So what I, I'm able to, I was able to get, you know, I have a good operations person here, got a good coo, I got a good litigation operations team. I have a great accounting team. I think for me it was just, you know, kind of knowing what you want and attracting that. I think when you're recruiting people you the same way you, your mindset is when wanting and attracting high quality cases you have to have that same mindset when recruiting people. I think of recruiting just as it's another form of marketing. When you're creating your job postings you really have to set forth like hey, what are our core values here? This is what we want. This is the type of people we're looking for and making sure they're aligned with your vision. I think as a leader, in order to retain what I've seen is as you get bigger you really have to share that vision and communicate it consistently with the team. So every, every quarter we do a town hall where we go back to our, you know, our five year vision, what we're doing, why we're doing it and really sharing that with them so they can, so the team's engaged in what you're trying to do. So I think as the team has evolved, now that we're a lot bigger than we were, you really have to make sure that vision's communicated with and that they see a future with your firm. To retain them, you have to think like a business owner. I think a lot of law firms, they're stuck in the legal practice kind of mindset, you know, yes, we are a law firm. It's a legal practice, but you're a business first, and people are investing their time in your company, so you want to make sure that they have a career path or vision for them. So I think our operations, one of our big projects, was building career paths for each one of our team members. I want everyone here to know where they can go, what they need to do to get there. We've done a lot more. What's really interesting is, you know, we were having trouble getting solid paralegals for a while, but what we've done is we started to look like internally and promoting people within people that had. Were really good case managers or excelling in another department. And we, we say, you know what, let's just promote them and actually train them to be a paralegal. And. And they're. That's. It's awesome. So I think there's a lot of taking, like, it's almost like a baseball team bringing up your farm system and bringing it up to the big leagues. I think we've done a lot of that and it's been really effective. Instead of just paying recruiters to help you find talent, and then they're not that good. And, you know, so I think that, hey, you got some solid people, you know, are proven here at the firm. Like, let's move them up, let's get them and show them the ways. And they've been. It's been really helpful for us. So I think there's two pieces. Obviously, there's the hiring, the attracting the talent you want and hiring the top talent. You have to really become that talent. You have to really share that vision and let these people know why they want to work for you, like, why you got to be able to sell your firm, like, and get those people to come here and then also retaining them. That's a whole nother thing. The whole nother thing. It's got. It's not just compensation. You got to. They want to see a vision here. They want to see where you're going. They want to be challenged. You know, the right people that want to be challenged. If you got people in here just don't care, and then that's probably not the people you want for your team. So. Or just, you know, clock in and out, you know, that's not what I. How I am, and that's not the type of people I want. And I don't. Thankfully, right now, I don't see that going on. So retaining hiring and retaining, two different things, really. I. We Learned that sometimes promoting within the firm is the best way to get you've proven talent they know and you can put them in another position, they're happy about it. So I've been noticing that's been the evolution of my thinking. As for hiring and retaining talent right now.
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C
Well, I see it from your values and the standards that you set. And that's clear. And I agree with you on the recruiters, right? It's. I used to. Especially when we go through these different cycles of, of needs, right, where you got to get a bunch of bodies or not. And it's like you carry a recruiter sometimes and it's like you're not hiring very many. And so you go through these ebbs and flows, but the recruiting costs are just wacky. They're so. It's just insane. I mean it's like I remember last year I recruited a couple director plus positions and the, the placement fee was like the equivalent of like a full time salary after like two hires. And then I'm trying to justify it in my head.
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B
I'm like, well, are they worth. You know. And it's like you have to be
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A
really on top of the hiring thing. And these guys can come into perfect resumes. They have writing samples and sample work and you know, it's like blows your mind. You're like, man, this is like. And then like, you see, it's like it's something either they AI'd that or they had someone else that they. People are really slick about selling the. Putting the best foot forward in the hiring process. So you really, really got to be tied around your. Who you're hiring. References are big. I used to kind of whatever they said they'd get, interview, you know, get like references, do background checks. You got to go really hard on who you're bringing because you know, that's a big investment you're making. And it's so painful to, you know, spend a couple of months with someone to train them and you're like, man, this person's just like not what they represented themselves to be, you know, so we, we definitely experienced that. It's growing pains we dealt with, but you know, for the most part we're doing better now.
- [19:31]
C
So thank you for sharing that. What's the future? What's the next thing that you're excited about for the future? And then, and then, then final just how can people connect with you?
- [19:39]
A
Yeah, I think for the future right now, I mean I like seeing us evolve as tr. We got a lot of really, really good, good Cases here, people have trusted our families, people have lost their lives, serious incidents. I've been very blessed to have the opportunity to advocate for these people and obtain these files. We're seeing a lot of, you know, big cases come our way. We're getting a chance to try more cases and bettering ourselves as trialers too. So I think the future is really continuing to build on that and really get our reputation, the good reputation we have, even showcasing that more and really showing the community the amazing things we're doing with our clients. So we're really scaling up our volume in California. I think the future is continuing to do that, really building out that trial team. And I do have a practice in New York. You know, I don't have a ton of files there. I got, you know, I got a good amount but not nothing like California. And I like to spend more time out there too. I like to come out there and, and, and kind of hand pick my, my favorite cases. I do have a place in New York that I travel a lot to so I'd like to kind of just do that. I would say that for me, my vision is for myself is I like to focus more on the business, try a few cases a year that I'm really, really care about and I'm really invested in and really just focus on developing the team and leaders we have here and kind of seeing them grow. That's probably where I'm at in my, my career right now.
- [21:02]
C
Amazing, amazing. And then for our audience that has questions, wants to connect with you, maybe has a case for you in California and New York, what's the best way to get in touch?
- [21:09]
A
Yeah, definitely. So you can contact our email at Gabriel my email at Gabriel at sepulveda law group.com. you can also contact us it's intake@seputvedalawgroup.com and then you can also send me a direct message at G. Sanchez esq and that's my Instagram handle. Our business handles at Sepulveda Law and yeah, that's the best way to get
- [21:33]
C
a hold of me. Amazing.
- [21:34]
B
Gabe, thanks for coming on the show.
- [21:35]
A
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you.
- [21:39]
B
Gabriel is building a powerhouse by focusing on the fundamentals. Treating intake like a specialized high performance salesforce. Keeping his technique tech stack lean and cultivating a culture that demands excellence. If you want to pull yourself out of the day to day grind and focus on trying to cases you actually want to try, you have to build a farm system of a players and manage by the numbers. Gabriel also talked about the brutal reality of Google Ads. And how expensive it is to acquire a case online if you don't know exactly what you're doing. If you're ready to stop lighting money on fire and want to build a brand that commands authority, then over to Rankings IO, we deliver the elite SEO and professional performance marketing that puts your firm in the front of high value cases you actually want. Let us battle it out in the digital trenches so you can focus on winning cases. See yourself over@ Rankings IO. I'm Chris Dreyer. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. See you next time.