In the latest episode of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, host Darren Wurz sits down with Brian Glass, an injury lawyer and co-founder of Great Legal Marketing, to discuss effective strategies for attracting high-value clients to your law firm. Glass shares his experience and insights on how to build a thriving law practice without relying solely on search engine tactics and pay-per-click advertising.

Key Takeaways from this episode:

1. The Power of Referral Marketing: Solving Problems for Potential Clients

Brian Glass emphasizes the importance of marketing to “centers of attention” rather than solely relying on client referrals. By addressing the concerns and challenges faced by potential referral sources, such as chiropractors and physical therapists, law firms can establish strong relationships and generate a steady stream of high-value clients. Glass’s team focuses on providing efficient, transparent service, keeping referring doctors informed throughout the case, and developing a superior referral system that goes beyond the traditional transactional approach.

2. Defining Your Ideal Client Avatar for Targeted Marketing

To attract the right clients, law firm owners must identify their ideal client avatar. Darren Wurz, host of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, stresses the significance of having a marketing system independent of search engines to increase the value and profitability of a law firm. By targeting specific types of cases and clients that align with the firm’s expertise and values, lawyers can create a “polarizing” effect that attracts ideal clients while actively repelling those who don’t fit the firm’s criteria.

3. Embracing the Power of Social Media for Credibility and Client Attraction

In today’s digital age, maintaining a strong social media presence is crucial for law firms. Brian Glass highlights the importance of using platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to provide social proof, establish credibility, and attract younger clients. While an extensive social media presence isn’t necessary, providing helpful information and answering potential clients’ questions can significantly impact a law firm’s online reputation and client acquisition efforts.

4. Nurturing Client Relationships Through Consistent Communication and Education

To maximize referrals from past clients and other sources, law firms must prioritize ongoing communication and education. Brian Glass emphasizes the value of staying in touch with clients even after their case is resolved, offering personal insights and interests beyond legal content. By incorporating client psychology and decision-making processes into marketing efforts, lawyers can build trust, demonstrate expertise, and ultimately secure future referrals.

5. Authenticity and Specialization: Keys to Success in the Legal Field

In the legal profession, authenticity and dedication to serving specific clients are paramount. Brian Glass advises law firm owners to be comfortable in their own skin and focus on attracting ideal clients rather than trying to cater to everyone. By creating a unique personality and consistently communicating targeted messages, law firms can attract clients who align with their values and expertise, leading to increased profitability and long-term success.

Conclusion

To thrive in today’s competitive legal market, law firm owners must adopt innovative marketing strategies that go beyond traditional referral methods. By targeting the right clients, developing a strong referral network, leveraging social media, and nurturing client relationships, you can attract high-value clients and grow a profitable law practice. Implement the proven strategies shared by Brian Glass and Darren Wurz on The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast to elevate your law firm and achieve long-term success.

Resources:

• Book a Call with Darren
• Wurz Financial Services
• The Lawyer Millionaire: The Complete Guide for Attorneys on Maximizing Wealth, Minimizing Taxes, and Retiring with Confidence by Darren Wurz
• LinkedIn: Darren P. Wurz

Connect with Brian Glass:

• Linkedin: Brian Glass
• Youtube: Great Legal Marketing
• Instagram: Brian Glass
• Facebook: Brian Glass
• Tiktok: Brian Glass
• Podcast: Life Beyond the Briefs
• Website: benglasslaw
• Website: GLM SUMMIT 2024
• Website: Great Legal Marketing

About our guest:

Brian Glass is a partner and personal injury attorney at BenGlassLaw. His practice is limited to the representation of injured people against insurance companies and the people who hurt them. Insurance companies have endless sums of money to throw at the defense of these cases and he enjoys the David vs. Goliath challenge.   

Brian grew up in Fairfax where he still lives with his wife and three sons. He attended Robinson Secondary School and James Madison University. After college, he attended law school at the College of William & Mary, where he was named a Benjamin Rush Scholar for excellence in Health Law & Policy. 

Brian is licensed to practice in Virginia and Maryland. He is a member of the Fairfax Bar Association, the Virginia Bar Association, and the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association. He was recently named as one of the Top 40 Under 40 in Virginia by the National Trial Lawyers Association. He also holds the distinction of being designated as a Rising Star by SuperLawyers magazine each year from 2017 – 2023. This award recognizes only the top 2.5% of lawyers in the state. 

In April 2022, a Fairfax County jury awarded more than $4M to Brian’s client following a head-on collision with a drunk driver, including an extra $1,000,000 in punitive damages. This was the sixth largest settlement in Virginia for 2022, and the punitive damages awarded were one of the largest for a drunk driving case in the history of Virginia. But more than these accolades, Brian is most proud of the reviews that the team receives from our clients.   

Brian is a thought leader on the topic of building great businesses and helping people live epic lives. He has been interviewed by Forbes, Injury Experts, and has been a guest on podcasts such as Tribe of Millionaires, Dreamcatchers, Millionaire Mindcast, and Law Firm Movers and Shakers. 

Outside of the office, you can usually find him on a field somewhere coaching his son’s soccer or baseball teams, traveling, creating memories with his family, or seeing how far he can run. His proudest running moment is finishing the Umstead 100-mile race in a time of 23 hours, 18 minutes, 25 seconds. Afterwards, he immediately fell asleep. 

Inside the mind of Brian Glass:

Favorite thing about your role: I get to find simple solutions to complex problems on a daily basis.

Favorite thing about working at BGL: The ‘lightbulb moments’ that occur when the team is collaborating to solve a problem and someone comes up with an idea that we hadn’t thought of yet.

A highlight of your career at BGL: Winning a $4.24M Verdict on behalf of a woman hit by a drunk driver in a case that we tried 5 courtrooms down from the Johnny Depp trial.

Interesting fact about yourself: In high school, I had bleached blonde hair and played in a ska band.

Best vacation you’ve ever been on: Mediterranean Cruise for mine & my wife’s 10^th wedding anniversary – we saw Rome, Venice, Croatia, Montenegro, and Greece.

First meal after getting rescued from an island: A burger and a cold beer.

Favorite movie or tv show? The Shawshank Redemption

What is your guilty pleasure? Reality TV

Transcripts:

Darren Wurz [00:00:15]:
Could you possibly ditch Google pay per click ads and other search engine tactics and maybe have a more profitable practice? Well, that’s what we’re talking about today. Welcome to the Lawyer millionaire, where we help ambitious law firm owners expand their businesses, maximize their profits and grow their wealth. You know, in today’s digital world, we are so dependent on web and Google and search and using those tactics to try to identify and find clients. But maybe there’s a better way. Maybe you could build a system of attracting clients to you through a more organic method, through a more organic strategy. Today we’re talking with Brian Glass of great legal marketing, and he’s going to tell us all about how he has done this in his own practice and how he helps other law firm owners do this as well. He’s also going to provide some great actionable tips on how you can improve your marketing and position your business as one that magnetically attracts the right clients. Stay tuned.

Darren Wurz [00:01:26]:
You’ve got to spend big money these days, right, to be number one on Google or get that coveted ad space. That’s the only way to grow exponentially. Is that right? Well, Brian, tell us why this is dead wrong and maybe even harmful.

Brian Glass [00:01:42]:
Well, I don’t know that it’s wrong, right? I mean, to be number one on Google, you do have to spend a ton of money to show up at the top of the ad space. You do have to spend a ton of money. But the thing is that it’s not the only way to grow a law firm. And in fact, if there’s only so many firms that can be number one on Google for whatever your practice area is and whatever your locale, there’s only one of those spots. And there are, at least in my neighborhood in Fairfax, Virginia, there’s dozens of firms that do what I do. You have the option of spending a lot and doing SEO really well and doing pay per click and LSA’s really well and being up there. Or you can try to build organically and through referral relationships and maintaining relationships with past clients, which is what we’ve chosen to do. Frankly, I’ll tell you, it’s harder, but it’s different than, it’s a different way to build your firm than spending a ton of money and getting up there and spending a ton of money has its own challenges, right? You’ve got to do everything else right.

Brian Glass [00:02:44]:
If you’re going to spend a bunch of money to generate a phone call. And we’ve tried that in the past. But if you are not unbelievable at answering the phone, and especially in the personal injury world, getting the client to sign while they’re on the phone with you on the first call, they’re often on to the next one. And so for us, for the pace of play that we play at, playing a longer game just makes sense.

Darren Wurz [00:03:10]:
Okay. Yeah. You’ve got to have the structure, you got to have the systems, the intake systems to bring on those clients. And if you’re going to go into the big ad world, it’s like you can’t go a little bit. You’ve got to go all the way, or it’s just not worth it. Am I right about that?

Brian Glass [00:03:31]:
That’s been my experience. And one of the things, Darren, that we did this year is that we shut off all of our digital marketing, spend all of our Google local service ads, all of our pay per click ads, because we were playing kind of in that lukewarm middle where we weren’t spending enough money to be number one, but we were spending enough money that it was aggravating us every single month. And we looked down and go, man, it was like 2000, $2,500 to acquire that one client. So we turned it all off and we reinvested it into a referral relationship management position to an actual human being. And the reason that we made that decision is because we got really granular on our data and we looked at where our case is coming from, and we recognize that in our practice areas, in both the ERISA long term disability space and in the auto accident space, which I manage, like, 60% of our clients came from referrals from actual human beings. But 80% of the dollars, 80% of the dollars in any given year were coming from cases that were referred by actual human beings. And so we said, well, what if we doubled down on that and instead of spending nickels and dimes with Google and with Facebook to boost the ads in the hopes that that might work, you know, for somebody whose attention you’ve grabbed, what if we devoted that money into a person who could help us nurture these relationships? Because as lawyers, and if you have an intake or sales team doing this, like, you only have so many hours in the day. Right? Yeah.

Brian Glass [00:04:54]:
And if you’re doing casework, and if you’re in a small firm and you’re also managing the team and you’re trying to raise a family, see your wife for dinner every once in a while. You know, it’s hard to also keep up with all those referral relationships. And so we took all of our digital marketing spend, and we just put it into a person.

Darren Wurz [00:05:12]:
Wow, this is hypocrisy. No more Google pay per click. What? So, on your website, great legal marketing, you talk about trying to create a firm that magnetically attracts the clients that you want. Why is this approach, instead of going big in tv or billboards, why is this approach particularly vital for small law firms today?

Brian Glass [00:05:41]:
Yeah. So here’s the idea of the magnet, is you attract what you want and you repel what you don’t. And so your marketing, when you’re going out into the world, should be polarizing. You should say things that turn off a certain number of people. And if you’re turning off your competitors, even better, right? Like, if one of your competitors looks at your website or looks at some of your videos and thinks, oh, that’s silly, that’s even better, because that’s creating blue ocean for you to go into where nobody else is going to be there. But at the same time, you have to be speaking directly to people. I mean, there’s that saying that if you are for everybody, then you are for nobody. And so what we’ve done in our firm is created what I call the buy box.

Brian Glass [00:06:24]:
Right? Here’s the category of cases that we will take 100% of the time. Here’s the category of cases that we will never take. And then here’s the fringe category of cases. Right? And so the intake team, now, they’re empowered to sign up the always cases. They’re empowered to reject the never cases without talking to us. And then we talk, you know, it’s maybe 15, 20% of the cases that are on the fringe that they have questions about. And we answer those questions, and it’s either a client that we want or it’s a client that we don’t. But when you’re constructing the marketing that speaks magnetically to those kinds of people, you know, you should not be afraid to say, if you want x, we are not for you.

Brian Glass [00:07:04]:
And so in my world, that would look like, if you want an aggressive lawyer who’s going to scream at the insurance company, I am not for you, not because I haven’t done that or because I’m not willing to do it, but because the kind of clientele that has that image of the lawyer who’s the hammer comes to mind, right, the back of the bus lawyer, that’s just not who we are. It’s not who we’re comfortable being. And so we’re happy to say, like, this is not, we’re not for those kinds of clients.

Darren Wurz [00:07:33]:
Yeah, I never thought about it that way. As the magnet you think of the attraction, but there’s also the repelling and pushing away the things that aren’t a good fit. That’s a very interesting way of looking at that.

Brian Glass [00:07:47]:
Well, God, I mean, Donald Trump just got convicted yesterday and so maybe it’s too soon, but he’s the perfect example, right? He’s absolutely polar. There’s nobody who’s thinking, yeah, maybe he’s for me, right? Oh, yeah.

Darren Wurz [00:08:02]:
You’re either with or against. Completely.

Brian Glass [00:08:04]:
You’re either with or against. And it’s a, it’s, listen, it’s, it’s okay to be like that now. It takes a little bit of gravitas or whatever to be like that. You have to be very comfortable in your own skin and you have to be dedicated to who you are for and be, be fine saying, like, listen, I’m not the lawyer for everybody and most lawyers won’t do that. But if you’re willing to do that, that’s how you create personality and that’s how you attract more of the clients that you want and rid yourself of the clients that will drain you of energy and keep you from doing a great job for your best clients.

Darren Wurz [00:08:37]:
So you’ve done this and you’ve worked with law firm owners who are doing this. I’m curious if you have like an epic success story you can share with us of how this has worked in real life, of maybe somebody who moved away from the Google and the big marketing tactics into more of this client attraction method.

Brian Glass [00:09:02]:
Yeah. So the thing in our world, in the personal injury world, is speed. And again, if somebody has no idea who you are, you’re just the number one rank on Google and they click and they call because of that and you don’t solve their problem immediately or you have to call them back or God forbid they hit a phone tree. What do you think is going to happen? They’re going to hang up the phone and go to number two and number three. But our best clients are clients that have been kicking around our ecosystem sometimes for six or nine or twelve months. Because when you contact our firm, you get put on the email newsletter list, you get put on a physical mail newsletter list. And while it may not be the right time for you to hire a lawyer right now, you kick around the system and you kick around the system and you keep getting messaging from us until you hit the roadblock with the insurance company that finally makes you pick up the phone and hire a lawyer. And so the example, I don’t know that it’s a gangbuster example, but we were retained two, three months ago on an 85 case that ultimately settled for $85,000.

Brian Glass [00:10:08]:
The first time she’d ever call. This was a year ago and almost exactly a year prior. And at that time, we told her, case is kind of too small for us right now. It’s not something we can help with. But she stayed in our ecosystem, and our messaging to her was at the time, you know, if. If you get better, you don’t need a lawyer. Right. And so she didn’t call anybody else, but she continued to get our newsletter, continued to get our email marketing, and when she hit a problem with the insurance coming in, she couldn’t settle it on her own.

Brian Glass [00:10:37]:
She came back. And so, appreciating that there is, in many areas of the law, a very long tail. Right. It’s not the case that everybody who doesn’t hire you then either goes and hires somebody else or solves the problem on their own. Some of them just punt the problem down the road. So one of the things that we started doing recently in our firm is every six months, every three months, but certainly every six months, we just go back through the list of clients that didn’t retain us and call every single one of them who didn’t tell us, number one, stop calling me. Or number two, I hired somebody else.

Darren Wurz [00:11:11]:
Yeah.

Brian Glass [00:11:11]:
And we. And it’s just a friendly call. Hey, you called us about three or six months ago. I’m just checking in. I don’t know if maybe you solve your problem already. Maybe you had a lawyer solve it for you. If you haven’t, is it worth us having a continued conversation about whether or not we’d be a right fit? And listen, there’s not a real high hit rate on it, but it generates every time we call that. Listen, ten or 15% of the list retains us as clients.

Brian Glass [00:11:34]:
And so what would that do for your bottom line? If, let’s say, you have 100 people in a six month period that goes somewhere into the ether. Well, that’s ten or 15 more cases, and our average fee value is about 20,000. So, doing public math, it’s $200 to $300,000 of revenue that we wouldn’t have had if we had, like most lawyers, just assume that the client had gone off and solved the problem on their own.

Darren Wurz [00:11:57]:
Yeah. Oh, gosh, I’m so glad you mentioned having an email list and keeping in contact with people, it’s so critical. I talk with law firm owners that are been struggling for years with business development, and I’m like, well, do you have an email list that you’re keeping in touch with? And they’re like, no, I’ve been meaning to do that. I’m like, what? Get your email list together. Stay in touch with these people. Because you’re right. If somebody has an issue, it may not be that they need you right at that moment, but maybe they’re kind of starting to explore. And the other thing I love about this concept is when you are attracting the clients, they want you, and so they’re not going to go somewhere else.

Darren Wurz [00:12:45]:
They’re not going to look for a different firm to go with necessarily. They know they want you. They’re already sold. You don’t have to sell them. Right. They’re calling to get you specifically so you don’t have to.

Brian Glass [00:12:55]:
Well, here’s the way. The way to do that. Is that your email and your, or your physical newsletter, it can’t be about the law. It’s got to be something personality wise about you. Okay, so I run ultra marathons. I run spartan races. I talk about that. My dad referees soccer.

Brian Glass [00:13:11]:
He talks about that. I have a paralegal who fosters kittens. She talks about that. Right? Like, probably less than 15% of our newsletter is actually anything having to do with the law. Because people do business with people they know, like and trust. They don’t do businesses with. They don’t do business with businesses. Right.

Brian Glass [00:13:32]:
So if it is pointless, in my view, to have an email newsletter, if what you’re then sending people is seven tips for how to handle your auto accident case or may is whatever safety month, you know, you could put that stuff in there occasionally. But really, the only way to get that thing open on a consistent basis is to talk about something that’s interesting and give somebody an opportunity to generate some kind of a connection with you outside of. This is the guy who emails me safety tips every once in a while. Yeah.

Darren Wurz [00:14:02]:
Yeah. And if you don’t have those extracurricular activities and pursuits, maybe you need to go get some and maybe you have a work life balance problem.

Brian Glass [00:14:14]:
Well, I think everybody has them. Right. The thing is that we think that what we do is, is not important or less sexy than what other people do. Okay, so it might be. I mean, it might be barbecuing. It might. Yeah. It could be something that simple.

Brian Glass [00:14:27]:
Yeah. But there’s something in your life that you’re passionate about outside of the law, probably.

Darren Wurz [00:14:34]:
Yeah.

Brian Glass [00:14:34]:
And that’s the thing that you can write about.

Darren Wurz [00:14:36]:
Yeah.

Brian Glass [00:14:37]:
If nobody likes it, nobody likes it. Right. But somebody will. Right.

Darren Wurz [00:14:41]:
I was gonna say that’s good because I don’t do ultra marathons. That’s not gonna be me. Absolutely. Well, beyond the email list, what are some specific things that law firm owners need to do to set themselves up where they are attracting folks.

Brian Glass [00:15:00]:
To do attraction? Well, yeah. So I don’t think that you have to do social media, but I think it’s helpful because especially the younger crowd. I mean, I’m 40 and the crowd under 40, especially. Even if all your business comes from referral relationships. Right. And I’ve heard that from all my business comes from referral, so I don’t have to do any marketing. Well, what do you think is happening when somebody is getting your name as a referral? They’re going to your website to look at you. But more and more often with the younger generations, they’re going and making sure that you have Instagram seeing if you’re on TikTok, they’re seeing if you’re on YouTube, because they’re looking for social proof that you’ve solved problems for people like them before.

Brian Glass [00:15:48]:
Right. And these are all easy ways to put that information out into the atmosphere and let people find it. Now, I don’t ever expect somebody’s going to come across one of my Instagram posts or YouTube video about how to handle your Virginia auto accident case and go, that’s the guy I want to hire a. But it’s there because when they’ve heard my name from somewhere else and they put it into Google, it’s gonna come up. Right. And I, and if I would rather law firms just not do social media at all than have, like, the Memorial Day post and the 4 July post and the National Women’s Day Post, and that’s it. Right. You know, put.

Brian Glass [00:16:30]:
Put a little bit of your personality into those things or don’t do it at all. But in terms of attracting clients, like, you have to be for something, and then it’s okay to put that stuff out in the world, because again, I don’t think people are, as a primary attribution source, finding you off social media and hiring you off social media. But they are looking.

Darren Wurz [00:16:51]:
Yeah, I think that lends itself to your legitimacy. They want to see, like, maybe they look you up and they don’t see any social media presence. They’re thinking, is this person really out there? Are they really doing this work? And it may not mean anything, but I think a lot of people are thinking that way. If they don’t see you, then it damages your credibility, I think, in their eyes.

Brian Glass [00:17:15]:
Yeah. And this doesn’t mean you have to go learn TikTok dances. It doesn’t mean you have to post every day, but it is helpful to have people, people are looking. So you need to give some information out there that they can find about you.

Darren Wurz [00:17:29]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk a little bit about client psychology and the client decision making process. How do we incorporate that into this client marketing and attraction process?

Brian Glass [00:17:48]:
So the best way to do that is to answer questions. If you are looking to post things on social media or on YouTube and you are stuck and you don’t know what to write, just go and ask your intake team. Or think back to the last 20 questions that you were asked by a potential client about cases. We had a case recently. The guy had already retained us. And as happens many times more and more, our new client phone calls are about 15 minutes long. Like, gone are the days when people are taking off of work, coming into our office, sitting down with us, going over the case. 15 minutes long conversations.

Brian Glass [00:18:30]:
The problem with the 15 minutes long conversation is I can’t impart all of the information that I used to be able to in the hour long consultation. And so people have a question, three days later, they call and they ask questions. And this is such a great call. It went on for about 30 minutes. He had a great questions about what happens if. What happens if? What happens if? And they were hyper specific to his case. And so what I did is I downloaded the call, I sent it to one of our vas. They said, just make me a list of every question that this guy asked.

Brian Glass [00:19:01]:
And then I took it upstairs to our video studio and I sat down and I answered all the questions on video. Right. Because when you put that on YouTube, YouTube is like the number two search engine in the world, and it’s owned by the number one search engine. And so if there’s anybody else looking up those hyper specific questions, and this was the old blog strategy, like, every client question, just put it into a blog. If there’s anybody else looking for those questions, now they can find the video and now they can come through. So you asked about client psychology. You know, especially with these compressed consultations that we’re now doing, you have to tell people again and again and again. And so it’s, it’s almost not so much.

Brian Glass [00:19:43]:
What do you tell them before they hire you? Because one of the strange things about personal injury work is no money ever changes hands. I don’t ever have to convince anybody to pay me. It’s very different than, it’s very different than estate planning, criminal defense because you’re not stroking a 15, 2100 thousand dollars check to get me to work on your case. And so the decision making process is much, much faster, but then we’ve got to do all the education afterwards. So we’ve associated with a software company that every time the case moves to a new status, client gets a push notification that takes them to a video of me explaining what’s going on in that status to a number of frequently asked questions about that we get from that status. And then, you know, always a reminder, like, if you ever have any questions, call the team and we’re happy to answer them for you. So people have to be reminded a lot with this stuff. You know, we used to think, oh, I put the social media strategy in the retainer agreement.

Brian Glass [00:20:40]:
They know not to post about their I crash in their back injury on Facebook, and then we get mad at them because they would post a picture of themselves bungee jumping. But nobody. Now with docusign, you could tell clients read the retainer agreement for like 17 seconds before they sign it. Nobody’s reading that stuff. So you have to educate them after they’ve signed on. And you have to do it repeatedly.

Darren Wurz [00:21:04]:
Yeah. Wow, that’s good. Now, lawyers are not that way. I work with lawyers and when I send an engagement letter, they read every single sentence. So. I know.

Brian Glass [00:21:15]:
Let me ask you though, are they giving you money up front?

Darren Wurz [00:21:18]:
Uh, not up front. Well, there’s, the way we work is a subscription fee. So it’s, um, there’s a little bit of money up front, but it’s giving you money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian Glass [00:21:27]:
People, people read all the details. Part with their dollar.

Darren Wurz [00:21:31]:
That’s right.

Brian Glass [00:21:31]:
You know, when you part with a, with a third of the claim, you don’t always read all the detail.

Darren Wurz [00:21:36]:
Right, right, that’s, that’s very true. You mentioned referrals earlier as being a part of this process. What are some ways you can really maximize the referrals that you’re getting from past clients?

Brian Glass [00:21:51]:
Yeah. So past clients is tricky. I actually don’t think all that much about past clients. The way to maximize with past clients, and I’ll answer your question, then I’ll answer the other question. The way to maximize from past clients is to make sure they remember you right. If there are injury lawyers listening to this, everybody has had this experience where you have somebody who hires you, they were in a crash in 2000 and you go, huh, I wonder why they didn’t hire the lawyer from 2000, who was the lawyer that handled the earlier crash? And they have no idea, right? Because most lawyers do no follow up marketing after the transaction is done.

Darren Wurz [00:22:30]:
Okay.

Brian Glass [00:22:31]:
And so the way to get Pat, no matter how good of a job you did, you get somebody a half million dollars, right? Did a fantastic job. They might leave you a five star Google review and then they forget you because life happens, right? But again, coming back to like having the email newsletter, having the print newsletter to remain in front of them and remain interesting enough to get the thing opened up is really important. The thing with past clients, though, is it’s still kind of random chance because I’m hoping that I’m marketing to you and you have a friend or a family member who’s in a crash, or better yet, you know, you’re a member of a local Facebook group and somebody says, I need an injury lawyer who’s the best. And you go and you say, Brian, right. That’s still kind of random chance. So I think about referrals not so much as from past clients, but as from who else has sources of my clients already in front of them. So our best referral sources are chiropractors, physical therapists, insurance agents who get the call after somebody’s been in a crash. On the ERISA long term disability side, where we’re looking for a high net worth, high income people, our best referral sources are guys like you, financial planners, medical malpractice lawyers who have dealt with doctors before, because doctors are often our avatar client.

Brian Glass [00:23:51]:
And so we spend much more time marketing to those centers of attention than we do ever, hoping that a past client is going to refer somebody again.

Darren Wurz [00:24:01]:
Hmm. Okay. Yeah, that’s interesting.

Brian Glass [00:24:05]:
Yeah. And the way to do that is to figure out what kind of problems they have, right? Because it can be very transactional. You send me a client, I send you a client. You send me a client. But you have to be generating the number of leads to be able to do that, right? You have to be number one on Google, back to number one on Google. Unless you could figure out how can I solve that person’s problems. So, for instance, what do chiropractors and physical therapists hate about lawyers? Case takes too long. Lawyer never tells me what’s going on in the case.

Brian Glass [00:24:38]:
By the time I finally hear from the lawyer, he wants me to cut my bill by a third or half, and I never find out why.

Darren Wurz [00:24:45]:
Right?

Brian Glass [00:24:46]:
And so we just started marketing. Those are the problems that I’m going to solve. My team works really fast. Our average time from end of treatment to demand gone out is 27 days, which we think is really good. We always keep the doctor, if you refer to the case, informed on what’s going on in the case, what stage it’s in, and then when we go to settle the case, if I’m asking you for a reduction, I’m always showing you the work, showing you why I’m asking for reduction. And mine is always deeper by percentage and first than yours is. Right. And so when you go to the market with that message, they start to care less about the transactional.

Brian Glass [00:25:24]:
I’ll only send cases if he’ll send me one, because we built a better mousetrap. Again, it doesn’t work with everybody because some people go, well, I’m not sending you cases if you’re not going to send me cases. This is back to that magnetic thing. Here’s who I am. I’m never going to send you a case, but here’s the service that we’ll provide that we think is the best one in the market for people like you. So that’s how we do that.

Darren Wurz [00:25:53]:
I like that. So you’ve developed a different way to reach out to those centers of influence where it’s not that they’re expecting business back from you, but you’ve really solved the core problem that they’ve had and maybe made it easier for them to work with their existing clients. And maybe more profitable, too.

Brian Glass [00:26:12]:
Certainly more profitable for them. Right, because money’s coming back faster and there’s a larger percentage of it usually coming back to them.

Darren Wurz [00:26:20]:
Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. Well, Brian, you’ve given us a lot to think about today. Great insights, really good ideas. I love this idea of attracting more of the very specific clients that you really want. Would you share with our audience a little bit about your background and the work that you do with other law firm owners and tell our audience how they can find out more about you?

Brian Glass [00:26:46]:
Sure. So, first and foremost, I’m an injury lawyer. I’ve been practicing for 16 years. Now. It’s starting to get longer and longer. So I’m in northern Virginia. I have an auto accident practice. I represent people who’ve been hurt against insurance companies.

Brian Glass [00:27:00]:
It’s really the only thing that I do as a side business. My dad and I run a company called Great Legal Marketing. We teach solo and small law firm owners how to market and how to compete with the 800 pound gorillas, the Morgan and Morgans, the people that can spend the money on SEO to be number one in the market, because most of us can’t. The reality is most of us have to find a different way to acquire clients because we don’t have that spend or we don’t have that spend yet. So the best way to get in touch with me is probably to find me on LinkedIn. I post there almost every day. That’s Brian Glass. Simple.

Brian Glass [00:27:40]:
And then I’m also on Instagram and TikTok at the Brian Glass very good.

Darren Wurz [00:27:46]:
Well, Brian, thanks so much for joining us today.

Brian Glass [00:27:49]:
Yeah, man, I appreciate you having me.

Darren Wurz [00:27:51]:
Absolutely. Well, a big thank you to Brian Glass for joining us today on the Lawyer Millionaire podcast. If you want to learn more about Brian, head on over to greatlegalmarketing.com. and of course, all Brian’s contact information is in the show notes as well. So check that for the links. I want to challenge you today if you have not thought about this concept and maybe you’re relying on some of the bigger marketing tactics. First of all, my big takeaway is really hone in on who your ideal client avatar is. Who exactly is that Persona? And get clear on that and you will start to attract the clients that you want, maybe repelling the ones that you don’t want.

Darren Wurz [00:28:36]:
And that’s okay because that process will make you more profitable, generate more revenue, generate more profit. As a law firm owner, you know, this is all very closely related to what we do here at Wurtz Financial Services and the lawyer millionaire in helping law firm owners grow the value of their practice. We are certified exit planning advisors and we help law firm owners through a process called value acceleration methodology to grow the value of their enterprise as an asset, as a financial asset. And part of that is thinking about marketing because your branding and your marketing is a key, valuable piece of your business. So I think that really makes you much more valuable when you are focused on a particular audience and you have a marketing system that is maybe independent of relying on search engines and other things where you could easily be displaced. When you have a process, an email list that is well built and you have great relationships, those make a business very, very valuable and also more profitable. Anyway, if you’d like to learn more about how we work with law firm owners in that capacity, feel free to grab some time with me on my calendar. I’ll put my link down below in the show notes and you can book a call with me there.

Darren Wurz [00:30:05]:
This has been the Lawyer Millionaire podcast. I’m your host, Darren Wuertz. Here to help you expand your business, maximize your profits, and grow your wealth. Thank you so much for listening. Come back and join me next time.