← The Law Firm Marketing Minute
The Law Firm Marketing Minute
Best Of: Building Your Law Firm One Relationship at a Time feat. Lisandra Matos
00:28:04
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- [00:00]
A
If you do all those right things, trust me, you're not just doing well by one client. That client will probably send you 20 other clients. That's better than any commercial out there.
- [00:10]
B
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Law Firm Marketing minute. As always, I'm your host, Smike, and I'm here with Lasandra Matos of Matos Law Firm, located out of Denver, Colorado. Very happy for you to be on the show with me today.
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A
Well, we're big fans of your page, so I am really excited to do this today.
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B
Well, I appreciate that, appreciate that for a little, little context for everyone out there listening. I had linked up with Matos Law Firm on social media a while back and you know, really formed into a great social media connection. I mean, they have great content themselves on their page pages, I should say, because there's, you know, a couple of them and it's just been such a great back and forth. So I'm very excited. I think, I think just based on the notes that I have from, from Matt, your marketing guy over there, I think that your story is really, this episode is really going to inspire a lot of people. So, so very much looking forward to it. And let's, let's just, let's just get right into it. So first and foremost, I would love to know, you know, how you became a lawyer, why you decided to become a lawyer. What's, what's the background behind all of that?
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A
Well, when I was a little girl, my family members would say, you talk too much, you should be a lawyer. But I didn't believe them. It wasn't until I moved to America. I'm from Cuba. My family, my family and I moved to the United States when I was 14 years old. And of course I didn't speak English. My parents didn't speak English. We didn't know how to drive. We didn't understand how America, the American system, how it worked, you know, the just $7, that was our net worth back then. And you know, there's a lot of hustle and struggle that that comes with that experience. And my experience was not as bad as other immigrants experiences, but language was always an issue. So I would be the translator for my family. So anytime my mom was trying to sign a lease or whenever she went to the bank and she was ask questions like, what is this like $35 fee or whatever, I ended up being the interpreter. And I was like this shy 14 year old, could barely speak English, but somehow was better than my mom's English. So my mom being the powerful Latina that she is, she would be like in the background just yelling. And I'm like, trying to translate all of that. And that's what inspired me to be a lawyer, basically. Speak for on behalf of others.
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B
Oh, okay. Yeah. So that, that, that aligns perfectly. I mean, I can't even imagine, like, was it, was it much of a culture shock coming from Cuba to America at 14? Because obviously, you know, I know of, of some people who immigrated here and they, but they were like very, very young, so they couldn't even remember, you know, the, the. Their life before immigrating. For, for you, was it. Was there much of a change that you saw?
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A
Well, the day that I moved to America was the happiest day of my life. It was something that I really feel like we manifested. I remember being a little girl, like just in Luyano, just like looking out the balcony and imagining I was in Disney World. Like, I would look up the clouds and think, oh, I'm in dis. I'm at Disney World, like hanging out with Mickey Mouse or whatever. And then I look the other way and then there is a big trash can with like overflowing trash and, you know, a place that was the opposite of Disney World. But I remember also thinking, oh, I'm going to be sitting in a pool with my nice orange juice. This is the image I had in my brain. And when my family got the opportunity to move to America. And I just remember everything was amazing. Like, the, the streets were so clean. The minivan. Oh, the minivan. It felt like a spaceship. Because of course, in Cuba, I don't know if you've seen the pictures of the transportation in Cuba.
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B
They were very old vehicles, weren't they? For the longest time. Yeah.
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A
Or the bus that has like, I don't know how many people. 100 plus people, like, crammed together. So to me, I was just so, so happy to be here. So that first I was really happy. And then reality struck. Hey, we can't speak the language. Where do you live? How do you get a job? Even to go to school, I had to do like all these vaccines, all the paperwork, and I was just a very shy kid. I was just always hiding. I would not be doing this. I was always hiding in the back of the class.
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B
Do you think that's really what drove you to become a lawyer?
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A
It was. And also seeing that when you don't know what's going on, you really need help. You need someone to guide you and explain things in your language is so important to actually help people. Because for us, we just didn't know anything. We didn't even know about car insurance or very basic things that if you grow up here, you're like, duh, you get a car. You get car insurance.
- [05:22]
B
Of course, to effectively market your law firm, you have to know your audience. You have to know what irks them, what they like, what they don't like, what makes them react or take action, or better yet, trust you. And if you don't, well, we have a free resource to help you along. It is the ideal client checklist. You can find a link for it in the description of this podcast, download it, fill it out, see who you really want to target, and then go from there. All right, let's get right back to it. So let's talk about becoming a lawyer for you. So what was that whole process like? And, like, where did you go to law school? And how was that for you?
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A
So I wanted to go to Harvard when something that. And I credit my parents for this. I had big dreams that they never told me. No, you can't do that. So I remember one day I woke up, I guess I watched Legally Blonde, and I was like, I want to go to Harvard. And the next day I. I woke up and I said, I want to be President of America.
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B
Wow. Hey. Hey.
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A
No one told me it was unconstitutional, which I appreciate. So my parents were like, okay, well, you just have to work really hard. If you work really hard, you can make it happen.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So I had this. I had this need to prove myself. Because, of course, when you come to America and you go through all that shock of leaving your family, your friends, your house, everything behind, you feel like you have to hustle and that your friends back home don't have the opportunity. So I'm not going to go to class and waste my time. So I ended up becoming a lawyer because I wanted to be a politician and again, help people. I saw how politics really influenced my life. Why Cuba is Cuba and why America is America's. I wanted to be more in charge of how the law was made and things like that, but ended up being a lawyer, and I absolutely love it.
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B
Well, I mean, I love the fact that, you know, coming over here, obviously you face some adverse adversity, but yet you didn't. You didn't let that, you know, you know, keep you down. You didn't let that. You were like, you know what? Here I am, you know, Mickey Mouse can wait now, because I got big. I got bigger dreams than Walt Disney World. Now. That's awesome. That's awesome. So let's talk about, you know, starting your own law firm. How long has Matos Law Firm been around?
- [07:46]
A
So we've been around for eight years. I worked at a prominent law firm here in Colorado. I knew that's what I wanted to do from the moment I. From my first class in law school, it was torts. And I was like, wait a second. So you can represent the poor people and you can get them money and you can make money doing that. Oh, my goodness, this is a dream. Tell me more, tell me more. Holding people accountable for being jerks. I can totally do that. I always wanted to go into the personal injury law space and that's what I did. That was my first legal job and of course an employee. I had a bad day. I was crying in the parking lot. Once I called my mom and my mom was like, mija in her high pitched, Latina powerful voice. I didn't come to this country so that you can be crying in some parking lot. You get it together. What do you want to do? And of course what I wanted to do was to start my own law firm and basically create Matos Land and just create our own little world where we make up the rules.
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B
Okay, so you started your law firm and obviously you had to market it in some sort of way in order to grow it. This is what the main topic of this podcast is about. The marketing and marketing, particular marketing towards Spanish speaking individuals. What was your philosophy for marketing your firm? Like, where did you first start in that realm?
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A
First, I was really bad at it. Like, really, really bad. But I had a few key concepts. I knew that if I didn't have any clients and again, I didn't have family who were lawyers. I didn't have any family in Colorado who said, hey, my friend crashed here. Here's our number. I had zero help. I was a new lawyer. So I, I knew hustle and I knew that if I was working 40, 60 hours a week for somebody else now my new 40 hour week job was going to be to get clients. So that was my full time job, was to market. First time I went out, it's a very funny story. I went to work out and I heard, I knew that I was different because I was Latina, I spoke the language and I needed to meet more Latinos. I go work out. I hear some ladies speaking Spanish. I ran to them with my brand new business cards. I said, I'm Lisandra Matos. Here's my car. Call me if you're involved in a crash that is not the way to do it. But I learned, I took action. I learned that you can help people work with their workout that way. That's a good training exercise. They ran away as fast as they could. And then I went home and I said, how can I do this better? I picked up some marketing books, I educated myself and I ended up saying, okay, I can't talk to thousands of people. I don't have billboards, I don't have commercials. What can I do? What if I meet one person, one Latina, and that Latina knows 500 people because she already has a business. If I talk to one Latina and I actually work on that relationship Now I have 500 people in my network and that's what I did. And then I did that over and over again and I made my little Latina army where Maybe I knew 10 people, but really those 10 people knew a lot of people.
- [11:24]
B
Yeah, I mean it's, it's, you know, it's as they say, it's not about who you know, it's about who they know. Right. I mean that's, that's, that's awesome because that's, that's right. You know, up the alley of what we preach all the time here is, it's, you know, don't forget your current network. Don't forget, you know, many times people have this, this idea that, you know, marketing is all about just going out and getting new leads and lead gen this and lead gen that. Well, that's great. You know, that's awesome. But at the same time, you still have a great network, most likely that is willing to refer to you, is willing to help you get business. And to be honest, they're the best salespeople. You know, they're the ones if you help them and you do good things for them, they're the ones that are going to go out and promote you and refer to you. So that's awesome. That's awesome.
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A
The conversion rate was at 100% back then when it was my friends referring me cases. They were sold by the time that.
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B
They called me awesome. So, okay, so let's talk about. You've, obviously you have clients, I believe you have clients that are English speaking clients. Correct. Is the focus more so on Spanish speaking individuals.
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A
So we've marketed a lot in English where I go on Fox, like there are local shows here where I go on Fox TV and the Latinos are calling me and even if they don't speak Spanish, but they'll say things like, you remind me of my mom. You remind me of my sister. Psychologically. People trust people who look like themselves, so that's probably it. I don't know. I really, you know, it doesn't make sense to niche down. When you don't know anything about marketing, you think you need to talk to a lot of people. And that's what I did for a while until I figured out my formula, my Latina army formula. But at some point you realize that it's that quality, that relationship. And for me, it happens to be the Latinos, because in Colorado there are not many bilingual attorneys who do what I do.
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B
Real quick, this is a little off, a little tangent. Why did you choose personal injury to get into out of all the areas of law?
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A
It's that factor of I hate bullies. And because I've always been a little person, I'm still a little person. I just love defending the people against big corporations and the fact that I could make money doing that. Like, we, I, I, I, that's like my dream job. I make money actually helping other people. Awesome.
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B
That's awesome. And then obviously you, you have the ability to, you know, tap into something that your family went through, you know, not having, you know, the, the coming over the, from Cuba and not necessarily knowing how everything worked. So that's, you're just, you're literally being that person that you guys needed back when you came.
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A
Exactly, exactly. That's Mato's law world. If you and I hope you come visit us sometime, I would love to.
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B
I've never been to Denver, but I would love to get out to Denver. So sign me up.
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A
So we go, Come on over. We go all in. You know, when, when people come over, I feel like they're coming to my house, to my mom's house. What's the first thing when they come to my mom's house? My mom's like, hey, get, do you want some coffee? And you know, we, we sit down with people, we talk to them, we make them feel at home. Latinos like myself, we always have a big family support system. And when something goes wrong, you usually bring your family members with you. So we have a really big conference room out there where, you know, people are like, oh, I brought my cousin and my, and, and I'm babysitting my grandkid. And I'm like, no problem. Here are some toys for your grand. If you let them have candy, here's some candy for them. And it's more like when they come in, they don't feel like they don't belong here. They Feel like this is where you belong. You're the boss here. We're here for you, not the other way around.
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B
Yeah. So it's really all about that personal experience. Would you, would you say it's very much the cultural experience as well, in terms of, of that culture versus people who didn't immigrate here? Would you say that that's like, that that's the idea behind having toys in the candy and big conference room and all that?
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A
It's like I expected, because that's exactly how my family is. I know that if somebody comes to my house, it would be so rude of me to not offer them some snacks. Some food. It's kind of bringing home to the office. We designed the lobby. I almost called it a L room to look like a living room. So that when you go in, you feel like you're at home. And also, you know, understanding. Like, my clients are not going to come here by themselves. Some of them do. But I gave a settlement check to someone the other day and there were like five people in the room. And you would think, hey, you want all your family members to know how much money you're getting? And I kept repeating myself. Just so you know, this is a confidential meeting. If you want, if you want your family members to wait outside so that I could be the bad guy, so I could be the one kicking people out. And my client was like, no, no, no, we're in this together. And I was like, okay, well, let's do it. I guess you guys get some free lunch today. But the difference is that in other law firms, people be like, perhaps, I don't know. But it will be like, oh, little kids can be here with us. Oh, you want to really make a Latina mad, Say that their kids are not welcome, Right? For me it's like, great, I have a two year old. Come on over. No worries. We got some toys for them. Oh, your kid is starting to draw on the wall at some point. Yeah, I may be a little nervous, but I'm like, whatever, I have more pain. We'll paint over that. Don't worry about it. Because I know our culture is about family. And if you disrespect someone's family, then forget it. They don't trust me anymore.
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B
I gotcha. I got you. So that that makes absolutely 110 sense that, you know, you have those features of the office. I love it that you call it. Was it Matos World?
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A
It is Mattis World.
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B
That's awesome. You, you, you were dreaming of Disney World. And you got your own even better.
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A
Manifesting.
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B
Manifesting, that's right. So obviously, let's. Let's talk about, obviously that content has a role to play in marketing, you guys. Like I said at the beginning of this podcast, you guys put out fantastic social media content, so you know the importance of it. So let's talk about that, because I know you guys have your Matos law firm accounts and then you have the Matos Espanol, correct?
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A
Yes.
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B
Yeah. So you have the two separate accounts. Have you seen any kind of differences in terms of doing content for one versus doing content for the other?
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A
I see that people engage a lot more with my Spanish content because it's more authentic. It's more. I sound more like myself in English. I sound like I'm trying to be from here in Spanish. I just sound as loud as I actually am in real life, to be fair.
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B
To be fair. You're sounding good on this podcast. I couldn't tell. So you're doing a good job. You're doing a good job.
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A
It's just in Spanish, I'm just like a very novella. Like in English, I'm more professional. So I guess the difference is the topics can be a little bit different. We may talk more about people's rights. Reminding people you have rights. Just because you're an immigrant doesn't mean that you don't have the same rights as other people living here. So it's more catered towards the topics that we know they want to hear.
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B
About when it comes to translating the content over. So real quick, let me preface this with half of our team here at Spotlight Branding. They work remotely from Mexico and twice a year they get to come up here and do quarterlies with us. So it's great. It's a good time having the whole team together.
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A
And.
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B
And it's funny because sometimes some things I'll try to say because I think I'm like, oh, like it's, you know, I know how to say this right? In Spanish. And then I'll say it and then they'll like, just laugh me off stage, basically. Because the translation, the direct translation doesn't necessarily correlate, you know, Totally. So for anybody, any law firms out there that are doing content for both English speaking and Spanish speaking, I mean, Google Translate's probably not the way to go, I would imagine.
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A
I mean, it's pretty good. We use Google Translate, but then we edit heavily after that.
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B
That's the key right there. Edit heavily. There's the key right there.
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A
AI is getting better and better. It's just being authentic. And you just have to, if you say your office looks this way, make sure that when the client shows up that they're getting that same experience that you're selling them. And the cool thing about the Hispanic market, the reason why my law firm has done so well is because Latinos, we are so loyal. If you like this person for me, my clients call me my lawyer years after the case closed. They say, oh, you should call my lawyer. And they're like, hold on, she's gonna answer me. Hey, hey, I got a friend here who got involved in a crash. Can you help them? Because if you actually take the time to understand the culture market the right way and then actually do the things you say you are going to do, you set up your office to not just be like Google Translate, to actually talk to them as people. If you take the time to let people vent and Latino culture is incredibly rude to cut people off. Somebody's mad, they're going, don't say, okay, I have another appointment. That's it. You lost that client forever. If you do all those right things, trust me, you're not just doing well by one client. That client will probably send you 20 other clients. That's better than any commercial out there.
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B
Yeah. And honestly, I think that that marketing makes sense to anybody out there who's marketing that. Hey, if you want to appear some way on the Internet, you better appear that way in person. I can't tell you how many times where some sort of family activity place and like, oh, only smiling employees here. And you go there and everyone's grumpy and you're like, all right, well, you know, because you guys lied. No, I'm just kidding. But, but still, you know, that's. It's very, it's very. You got to be authentic. Like you said, you got to be authentic through and through. Is. There's no time for bs. People don't have time for bs. And plus, people tend to have a BS meter. You know, they can kind of see through when you're being fake and stuff like that. So you got any. You got any particular success stories that you'd like to. That you like to bring up? That, that, that just make you super proud of your work.
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A
Yes. I always tell my team members every case is a one million dollar case. And, and here's the reason. I had a client. And of course I can't say her name. Let's pretend her name is Maria. And she was referred from another attorney's office. And it was a bad case, really bad case. I ended up making $2,000 on that case. Small case, took me forever. Client was super, super grateful, and I'm beating myself up. That was the first year in business. I'm a terrible business woman. I spent all this time, all this effort, and I made $2,000. All that. Well, then she had a co worker and her co worker was walking to work and got hit by a commercial vehicle. And the driver was drunk or intoxicated, I would say, but he was high. And guess what? That case settled for $850,000. And then she also sent me her sister in law, another coworker. So when you add up the math, it ended up being a million dollars out of my case, my one case, another law firm did, one I took it on because I had nothing else to do. I had no clients. But I did my best. I followed those rules. I treated her like the, like I would treat my mom. I did everything I would, as if she was my mom. And, and it turned into a quote unquote, million dollar case.
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B
How long ago was that? Within your, your eight years?
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A
Well, well, the, the first referral came to me eight years ago. It was, she was probably like client number two or number three, to be honest.
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B
Oh, wow. Wow. So it's kind of cool that you get to reflect on that case, which turned out to be a great case for you and helping your client and then looking at where you're at today, I mean, just to see the connection there. Personally, I would love to hear more about your mindset of just grinding out, hustling, as you said, and just like, even though, even though you might be in a place that's, you know, very. Feels like the bottom of the barrel, like, what's the mindset? What, what do you, what do you, what do you have to think about.
- [25:23]
A
And do for everyone out there who's starting to do marketing for their law firms? Don't get discouraged is really the compound effect. When I started out again, I had that time block. I said, I'm going to spend 440 hours a week and guess what? Nobody called me. It took months before I could actually get good cases and what I would do because it's very discouraging when you're working so hard and no one's calling and it's easy to give up and go get a quote unquote, real job. That's. That, that's what I could have said. Oh, I'll get a real job with a real paycheck. But what I would do during that time And I still do this today is just, I would write down every single marketing action I did. And I would have goals on what I was doing, not the results I was getting, but what I was doing. I would have the goal to go to four events this week and talk to 100 people this month. And I had a spreadsheet and I would just write down everything I was doing because I knew those were seeds that I was planting. And the more seeds I planted, the more trees I was going to get. And just because the phone is not ringing, give it time. So it doesn't work like I learned really fast. It doesn't work like you give somebody a business card and they'll trust you and call you. You have to see that person. I don't know how many times you have to build relationships. And even today when the phones are slow, I go back to my list of referral sources and I go one by one. That's how I got another million dollar case. I went one by one. I called somebody I hadn't talked to in eight years. Hi, how are you doing? And then she said, you know what? My friend's kid just got involved in a crash. Can they call you? Sure. Don't underestimate the, the power of relationships and doing it the right way. Don't expect quick results. Work hard and don't give up.
- [27:14]
B
Don't give up. There you go. You folks heard it. Don't give up. That's awesome. What a great story. Really appreciate you taking the time to, to share it with us. This has been an awesome episode and I'm very excited for, for the people to, to hear it. So appreciate you taking the time to spend with me.
- [27:35]
A
Appreciate you guys and can't wait to see the, the next batch of content out there for you guys.
- [27:41]
B
I appreciate it. All right, everyone listening. Thank you for listening and have a great weekend. We will see you next week. Thanks for listening to the podcast. You can find the links to the Matos law firm in the description description of this podcast. Go check them out on social media. They've got some great content. Again, thank you for listening. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.