How do you speak directly to your target market? For Chris Dreyer, CEO, and founder of Rankings.io, the key is specialization–In other words, “niching up.” After discovering his passion for digital marketing, Chris has built a successful SEO agency for personal injury lawyers. He found his niche.
In this week’s episode, Chris joins Grace and Liel to discuss the main takeaways from his upcoming book “Niching Up: The Narrower the Market, the Bigger the Prize” and the perks of building a business with a specialized market focus. They also dive deep into Chris’s journey as a digital marketer, an unexpected turn of events, as you will soon find out.
Listen to the full episode to learn from Chris’s expertise. While he doesn’t claim to be a professional gambler, his marketing strategy hits the jackpot!
Resources mentioned in our episode:
Let us know that you enjoy the show by subscribing and leaving us a review! Don’t forget to send us your questions and comments at ask@incamerapodcast.com.
Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] Consumers are exposed to thousands of messages each day, be too generic or too broad, and you’ll be talking to no one to stand out. You need to craft a message that speaks directly to your target market, making them stop what they’re doing and pay attention. This can only be achieved through specialization, also known as niching down, or should we say up? I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media and author of Beyond Se Habla Español How Lawyers Win the Hispanic Market. And this is In-camera podcast, where we sit down for a conversation with a king of analogies. Welcome to in camera podcast, Private Legal Marketing Conversations. Grace Welcome back. How are you.
Grace: [00:01:08] Today? Good. How are you, Liel?
Liel: [00:01:10] Grace Everything’s great, and I’m excited for us to jump into our conversation for today because we have a really exciting guest to talk with. So please do the honors, introduce our guest and just jump right into it.
Grace: [00:01:27] Ladies and gentlemen, we are lucky enough to be joined today by Chris Dreyer. Chris is the CEO and founder of Right Rankings i o an SEO agency specializing in elite personal injury law firms and a5x consecutive member of the INC 5000 during the years of 2018 and 2022. In addition to owning and operating rankings, Chris is a real estate investor and podcast host and was included in the Silicon Review’s 30 Best CEOs of the Year 2021. He is a member of the Forbes Agency Council, the Rolling Stone Culture Council, Business Journal’s Leadership Trust, Fast Company, Executive Board and even Newsweek’s expert forum. Chris, welcome to In-camera Podcast.
Liel: [00:02:09] Chris, welcome. We’re thrilled to have you. Where does this podcast find you?
Chris: [00:02:14] I’m in Marion, Illinois, so Southern Illinois.
Liel: [00:02:16] Wonderful. Chris And again, thank you so much for being here. Congrats on the release of your book. Niching up. The narrower the market, the bigger the prize, which is coming out this week. So of course, links are on the episode notes. And you know, Chris, by what we’ve seen of the book so far, it looks like it’s kind of like a little bit the journey and the lessons that you learned, which helped you build the foundation of your success.
Chris: [00:02:44] You’re absolutely correct. It is both the things I did write and the things I did wrong. So I don’t mind poking a little fun at myself. There was a lot of hard lessons learned and and that’s what I share. It’s kind of my journey, but also the pros and cons of niching.
Liel: [00:02:58] So why don’t we start a little bit talking about the early days? Like how did your career as a professional, your adulthood started?
Chris: [00:03:07] It’s a good question. I went to college and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I told my parents I was like, I’m going to go to college because you want me to and you’re paying for it. And I’m so I’m so thankful. But just so you know, just so we’re all on the same page, I’m going to start my own business. So I said that and they’re like, Yeah, that’s perfect. You’ll have something to fall back on. Well, I ended up with a history education degree, partly because I wasn’t the best student and also because I was really into sports and potentially thinking about coaching collegiately, got a teacher, got a job at a high school as a detention room teacher, and the reason I took.
Chris: [00:03:42] It.
Chris: [00:03:43] Is because it had the same track. So if I did that for a few years and then taught for a year, I would have done it three years. Teaching. It was the same track for ten year and that year I had so much downtime and I typed in the worst query ever how to make money online. It’s the worst one ever. And somehow I found a course to to learn digital marketing. And by the end of my second year teaching, I was making about four times the amount I was that I was teaching doing affiliate marketing. And it was a very easy transition because I had a steady source of revenue and income as opposed to many individuals that got to raise capital. They’ve got to figure out how they’re going to make money. But I already had an income on the side. I had a side hustle, I hear.
Liel: [00:04:33] And so you search how to make money online. And so I’m not surprised that digital marketing online courses came up. That is expected with a query as such. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if some sort of online gambling or or online poker also came up. And I believe Chris’s story has it that you also had some some experience and exposure to that. So tell us a little bit about that side of you.
Chris: [00:04:58] Oh, that’s some digging with the research. I my roommate is who got me into digital marketing, who was a mentor, was phenomenal digital marketing, had tons of affiliate websites and really taught me the basics of coding and Dreamweaver and all these things. I’m not a developer, but I can code a little bit and he kind of switched trajectories and went all in and to poker. He was not a casual gambler. He was had a coach. They reviewed hands. He was very serious. It’s a full time career and he still does that to this day. And what’s funny is he did end up marrying a PokerStars player. So a whole different story. But it was his birthday and we went out and had a lot of fun. The next day. We’re we’re being honest, a little hung over. We’re at a at a breakfast spot. And I was like, I’d really like to play this Sunday Millionaire tournament on full, Full Tilt Poker. And he’s like, I was like, I don’t want to spend 200 bucks. There’s this, you know, I got to get I got a place really well to get any money, it’s like, I’ll stake you and you give me 50% of your winning. Well, just so happy. There’s 14,000 players and I ended up getting third. So it was $234,000. And I’m like, Here’s half of it. Ryan.
Liel: [00:06:11] Really good. Good job staking me. Wow. Wow, wow. That’s mind blowing. What? I’m not ignored. Chris, let’s go back into the digital marketing, right? So we have you. You’ve majored in history there. You are trying to get a career into coaching and sports, but then all of a sudden digital marketing comes through. And so what’s the connection between that part of your career to you becoming the owner of one of the most successful digital marketing agencies, not just in the legal space, but in the United States? Tell us a little bit how did your career in digital marketing evolved? Where did you start it and how what the trajectory was?
Chris: [00:06:51] So lots of ups and downs and I’ll be really transparent here. And I like there’s this saying that Alex Hermosa has been saying recently, it’s you only lose if you quit. You learn from your mistakes. You keep improving. That’s how you win. You just stay in the game. And so in affiliate marketing, I was making a really good income. And that first ping one algorithm hit around, I think it was around 2012 and my sites were not good enough. The content wasn’t good enough. The link profile, the backlink profile was a little spammy and my income went from very good to basically nothing overnight. And at the time I wasn’t the investor and the saver I am now. I had all these added expenses, a new car, a nice place I was living, I was spending a lot of money and so I had to get a job. I got on at the time where you went to get a job with Craigslist. That was where all the ads were for jobs. I typed in SEO and I shot off so many resumes that the filter actually triggered and they wouldn’t let me go to the website for like a week. I would go to the site and it would block me and I ended up getting hired for three companies. And I know most people thinking you would say, take one of them.
Chris: [00:08:09] I actually took all three. Now bear with me. I had a team and they were all remote jobs, so I knew I could do the work and I knew I could do it at a very high level. So I took all three jobs. One of them was an agency and I rose to be their top guy and I learned the agency life. And it’s the classic story of I saw kind of what not to do. I felt that I could do it better. And that’s that’s how I get in the agency space. And again, my risk tolerance when I was doing my own work, marketing was very high. I was willing to to explode it and go to zero. But for my clients, when I started the agency, I knew from learn from my mistakes that I always saw it from an evergreen perspective that I wanted to think longevity. And that’s what I’ve really concentrated on for the agency, not not the extremely quick wins, but the ones that are going to stand the test of time. So when these algorithms occur, we just had the Google helpful content update. None of our none of our clients bombed out. Our clients actually did better. And in most algorithm updates, I’m not saying all, but most of them we benefit.
Liel: [00:09:19] And really interesting that you mentioned, right? How did you differentiate it and compartmentalize different approach to taking on strategy? Chris I think what would be very interesting here before we move on to talk a little bit more about niching up is what industries did you first started creating websites for? And like at one point did you started to work on the legal space?
Chris: [00:09:46] That’s a great question. My very first website was Lose a Double Chin, and at the time I didn’t realize I was I chose niching and to go narrow at the very beginning, I didn’t just choose weight loss or health and actually rank number one for double Chin for like three or four years. And so it was a ton of industries. You can you can I was basically in every industry you can imagine I mean everything awesome fruit staying, concrete generators, everything you can possibly think of for legal. When I worked at the agency, I worked with a lot of legal clients, and when I chose to start my agency, I wanted to look for a niche that had been around for a long time that was more insulated to just changing environments. And that’s why I chose legal.
Grace: [00:10:33] That’s fantastic that you chose legal for us in particular, because then we get the benefit of this information.
Chris: [00:10:40] So this is great.
Grace: [00:10:41] Yeah, No, it’s just wonderful. Thank you so much for the information so far. So your book is focused about focusing on the niche, right? But you also advise, you know, I guess contrary to what you did, not going niche right away. Why is that?
Chris: [00:10:58] Yes. Great question. I’m so glad you asked this because. As so many coaches and consultants will come out of the gate and say you need to niche it immediately. I greatly disagree with that. I think you have to have these experiences and identify and find who’s right for you. Who do you work best with? And it could be totally different if you just choose. There’s there’s this book called Rage by Epstein, and he tells the story of Nadal, the pro tennis player. Will his parents put him in all sports, basketball, baseball, soccer and tennis. And he had a natural talent propensity for tennis. So he went all in. But imagine if he just chose basketball. Where would he be? So I think you have to have these experiences. And also when you when you choose, sometimes you don’t understand where there’s opportunities. So when I chose legal, I had no idea that the personal injury space was so saturated with competition. And that’s where a lot of the advertising dollars went. And so I found that I found my niche and it went further and further. And I think you can do that in most categories.
Grace: [00:12:10] That make sense, you know, that niching, you know, at the high level and then niching even further into something makes sense to to do. Like you said, you need to experience it, right? So you mentioned a couple of them, but what would you say some of the high level or even specific cons of going niche right away, like what could happen to somebody, you know, as part of what you’ve experienced? If they do that immediately.
Chris: [00:12:37] The icon that everyone’s most familiar with is shrinking your total, total addressable market, less buyers. The issue with that is when you’re when you’re not specific, you’re already losing because on conversions and being just like everyone commoditized. I would say there are other cons, you know, industry specific things as it relates to the industry. I mean, look at COVID 19. If you were on a cruise line attorney, how bad that impacted you? Right. So there are cons based upon the industry and definitely a lot of risk there. In my opinion, the biggest con is increased effort and sacrifice. I’ll use myself as an example. We only do SEO. So if a law firm doesn’t really care about marketing and they find us, but they find they understand that we don’t do pay per click, that we don’t do social media. They may not want to work with us because it’s more effort for their part. They’ve got to go work with a social agency and then they get to work with a PPC agency. They have more points. It’s more effort to me in most cases. The biggest con to niching is an increase in effort and sacrifice.
Liel: [00:13:49] You cannot just bring a statement like that and not expect for us to address. The question is how do you actually deal with it? Because I have no doubt, no doubt, that with the client base that you have every so often, even though that you are as niched as you are and you’re known for only doing personal injury SEO, that the question may come up there, Right. Would you be able you know, we are trying to diversify and open a law firm that is going to be just, you know, a sidekick of this one. But and so what do you tell to to those clients? How do you how do you how can because these are your clients, these are your friends. These are people you already work with, right? You don’t want to turn them off, but you’re also not the fit for the new project that they have. So how to go about it?
Chris: [00:14:34] Understanding that that is a downside, a con of niching, then you want to be prepared. So I try to identify individuals that can help them. Who’s the best at pay per click? Who’s the best at social media? Who’s the best at sales or ops or coaching all of these different individuals that can help them. They don’t have to go through this discovery process. So I am saving them some time and some pain and finding the best. It’s also my reputation that I put at risk by making these recommendations. And when every con can be a pro. So we can think of all these cons as a pro, even the one that the cruise line attorney being in that space, you may identify because you’re in it, you may figure out a solution that other people wouldn’t be aware of because you’re so in in that space. And so you just you just find solutions. And what you can do is you can set up referral relationships so I can find the best pay per click agency that only does pay per click. That just is an expert there. And there’s a symbiotic relationship of referrals that can happen naturally. Naturally, even though that’s the case, there’s still an issue. Having said that, because I’m aware of this, it’s also the avatar on the prospect that I go after. I’m not going after a solo practitioner that’s practicing the law, doing his book, you know, as accounts receivables and probably going after a firm that has an in-house marketing director. So it’s the owner can have them go spend the time and look at the data and all these different things. So that’s how I approach it is all of these cons can be overcome. You just have to be aware of them.
Liel: [00:16:17] Absolutely. One one of the things that you that you touch on the book is pricing, right? Knowing your value when as you are deciding to I’m only going to serve and going to specialize. I’m going to become the best at serving this profile, this type of law firm or take only this type of cases. Right, is because you’re very comfortable and confident that the quality and the level of expertise that you bring to the table is second to none. Do you feel that this is the value that can be easily perceived by by the market in your case as an agency owner, by the law firms? If you’re a lawyer, by the people who are considering hiring you against hiring a better known lawyer that is doing more marketing and more noise and just takes everything.
Chris: [00:17:07] What a fantastic question. This is One of the true benefits is perception. Remember, every brain surgeon had their first brain surgery. They weren’t an expert at the time, but when you line them up against a general practitioner, then they’re still perceived as an expert and. Also, when you do niche, when we’re talking about sales, you understand what you’re worth, you understand the value that you bring and you understand I understand how much cases are worth. So it allows me to charge an appropriate amount that still has that everyone’s agreeable upon. So there is the perception the conversions help the increased chance of conversions and you actually understand value significantly more. And value is the key thing you’re selling here.
Liel: [00:18:03] Right. And obviously, because also this very close understanding and experience that you have in your area, your families, and I’m sure this happens to you right now, you’re you’re going beyond just being the agency that is fulfilling one need right now. You you are also seen as a thought leader in an area and questions may be coming your way about points of view and that sort of thing. And have you’ve experienced that being one of the things that have put you on a position to allow you to strengthen the relationships that you have with clients?
Chris: [00:18:46] Absolutely. And it’s just these conversations these day to day conversations, people like yourself that’s in the game. You get to hear what’s working. You get to hear what’s not working and hear other people’s pains. And you have these feedback loops. We have podcasts, I have my podcast, you have your podcast where you learn a lot from these experiences so many people talk about, and Einstein has this quote that talks about the the eighth wonder of the world is compound interest. I believe that’s his saying. And everyone always equates that to finances. But I’m going to talk about something significantly more valuable. It’s relationship equity. Relationship equity compounds. If I was brand new to the legal answer legal market, am I going to just pick up my phone and call? Mike Papantonio No, like I’m not. Or Joe Freed or, you know, John Morgan But the the longer you’re in the game and the more value that you have yourself from, from an educational back and forth standpoint, you can have these conversations and learn from them. You can you can learn from other individuals pains and experiences.
Liel: [00:20:01] Interesting you bring up Mike Papantonio and John Fred, both who have give you some very nice blurbs on your book. So yes, actually, yeah, it’s actually very relevant now. And it’s interesting because of course, I mean, at least from my mind, I’m just I cannot not look at it from an agency standpoint because I’m also an agency owner. Right. And we’re also very niche in what we do. We only do Hispanic marketing. And so for law firms and so obviously I can relate a lot to to what you’re saying, but this is also something happening in the in the legal space, right? I mean, the aspiration for many lawyers is to is to be able to narrow and narrow and narrow and narrow their case interest or their case acquisition to what they feel. It’s their area of interest. It’s not rare now to see lawyers who only do you know, catastrophic personal injury. It’s not rare to see people who only lawyers are only do trucking accidents. Right. Or they only do litigation for experts, like in the case of Papantonio. So this is this is real and alive across all industries legal non an exemption. Right?
Chris: [00:21:06] I couldn’t agree more. And it’s particularly important if your strategy is pure referrals. If you’re a trial attorney because you’re top of mind, you’re going to be invited to speak on these topics. You’re going to be in these different associations and masterminds, and you can also get maximum value for the cases. So it’s even better in most cases to to refer to one of these individuals as opposed to maybe even taking the case yourself. And you’re right, it is I would say there’s there’s multiple approaches. And I think, again, I’m not saying that niching is the only solution. There’s many approaches to the game and this is just one and it has pros and cons.
Grace: [00:21:50] So you’ve had obvious success, right? And him and I both know who you are on different levels, and I’m sure multiple people do as well. And I’m glad that your book’s coming out because now even more people will get exposure to your knowledge. I call myself me personally, I’ve kind of followed a similar trajectory in terms of being a little bit of a coder, understanding, you know, design, you know, split AB testing, all that fun stuff, right? So you have a very successful SEO agency and building out that know like and trust where they understand that you are a thought leader in the personal injury SEO space. With your experience, how does efficiency because I’m all about operations, right? I mean operations are the key to make or break a lot of times your your business. How does it differ in a niche organization like yours versus someone that does it all, let’s say?
Chris: [00:22:46] I’m the king of analogies, so I’m going to give I’m going to have you paint this picture in your head. Imagine back in the day, Henry Ford had his Model T in every fourth car. We’re like, oh, let’s make a truck here. Oh, let’s make this one red. How would that affect their throughput? I mean, it would be. Terrible, right? It would really it would. They would have all kinds of bottlenecks there, Prefabrication, all their stuff that they did to speed up their throughput would be all thrown off. So you do you gain efficiencies through repeatable actions. It does lends itself to some of that product innovation. It also doesn’t. A lot of times you can have less experienced and I’m not saying because you have very specific things that they’re doing that are repeatable as opposed to having someone that’s been around the business for 20 years. It has to have this wide scope of knowledge on a topic. So there’s absolutely the other thing about that is you’re eliminating waste. So the Six Sigma folks listening will love this. It’s there.
Chris: [00:23:51] Are.
Chris: [00:23:52] Areas of the law just aren’t aren’t profitable or areas of your business. You’re eliminating those too which which is an increase in efficiency.
Grace: [00:24:00] Yeah, I’m all about productivity. I’m actually Lean Six Sigma certified. So when you’re mentioning nice, it made me very, very happy. I’m also ISO 9001 risk management certified. So when it comes to risk management, I’m jealous. I definitely want to ask you just a little bit about that and how you view that kind of side of things, because you mentioned Lean Six Sigma. So I got to I got to bring that question out.
Chris: [00:24:22] Well, don’t hit me too hard. I’ve only read Jack’s book. That’s about it.
Grace: [00:24:26] That’s all right. It’s good enough. So with that in mind. Right. What processes besides niching out? Right. Because there’s like you said, there’s repeatable processes that you’re able to kind of follow. But is there something specific in what you do that you learned that, you know, you can actually apply? Let’s say, you know, obviously at the end of our podcast, we have our takeaways and all of that, but I kind of want to pull one out right now. Is there something that you learned in running a niche in the personal injury space, in particular an SEO agency that has helped you with your process? Like define it to a point where I think, you know what I’m saying, You’re right. Where you define it to a point where it just it bulb kind of went off in your head, like, that’s the process I needed. That’s something that helped me right away to figure out where I needed to go with my agency.
Chris: [00:25:17] There’s so much let me think about where to start. So marketing, we’re talking about efficiencies. I’m eliminating waste because I’m not going I’m not throwing paint against a wall. I’m throwing paint right in my personal injury. Attorneys faces, right going after them directly. There is other scenarios and sales and your proposals and the copy and the words that you’re using, you’re talking about motor vehicle accidents and injuries as opposed to, you know, being very generic. And then they’re in terms of repeatable processes, one of the biggest for an SEO agency’s keyword research and ideation and topics, there’s thousands upon thousands of topics and understanding which of them are truly transactional versus being fake transactional, which ones actually convert cases, for example. What what do I mean by that fake transactional? So, so many people have brain injury lawyer pages, right? How many people are type? Not not very many people converting from that. You know who’s typing that in your peers for referrals. Right. Most of the individuals are typing in the types of brain injuries, things like that. So. There are scenarios like that. But I would say for us, one of the biggest was keyword research and just how important content is and truly understanding what content a firm needs to create. And there’s just there’s little nuances, right? Are they are they a settlement firm? Are they a litigating firm? Are they going after catastrophic? Do they want soft tissue injuries and the strategies that are as it relates to that? So I would say that’s probably the most impactful thing for myself that’s occurred. But there are little things in every step that go into this.
Liel: [00:27:07] That actually creates that. You’re saying they’re like getting to all of these insights is so valuable. And I think we are in an era where collecting data or having access to data, it’s not necessarily a problem, it’s not necessarily a challenge also. But to actually have the time to analyze that, to dissect that and to understand and to compare it, that that that requires resources. And I think when you’re not hyper focused on a particular type of in this case area of law practice area, then you’re may not be measuring and putting the effort to understand things to the level that in your case you are capable of. Right. Because this is your laser focus on this. And so you’re not you’re you’re dedicating you have the ability to dedicate the time and resources to dig very, very deep in all the different data points that you’re getting to really see and understand what works, what doesn’t work, and what are the real drivers to results. And I honestly don’t see how you can be good at it and have that level of expertise if you’re just covering it all. And even in the legal space if you’re just doing all.
Chris: [00:28:22] I completely agree. Malcolm Gladwell, and I’m not sure which book this is from. And he talks about how you have to have 10000 hours doing something to to be an expert. So imagine you’re spending 5 hours with this other category of industry and, you know, ten here or you’re spending all of your time focused on one particular industry. And not only that, maybe one specific service offering. And that’s that’s what focus can do. And I think it was Warren Buffett was asked like, hey, what’s what’s the secret to your success? And he said, focus. And there’s just so much power to it 100%.
Liel: [00:29:05] Chris, we’ve mentioned here just a few minutes ago, right, that you have a podcast, Personal Injury Mastermind, by far one of the best and better known legal marketing and Business of Law podcast out there, and one that I was very lucky to actually be a guest for one of the episodes. And one thing I really love about your podcast.
Chris: [00:29:25] I was going to say episode 116 folks would be me.
Liel: [00:29:29] And that’s tremendous. That’s tremendous that, you know, that type of information. Right. So, Chris, one thing I love about your podcast and you do it, you did it for me and you do it for every single guest, is that you always have a final question. And that question is what is next for them? So, Chris, I would like to ask you, what is next for ranking SEO and Chris Dryer?
Chris: [00:29:53] What is next? So. To be completely transparent and a little vulnerable here. We’re really trying to improve our sales department and we’ve been being Todd Steger have been holding down the fort and, you know, maybe some sales development reps, maybe some MDR, maybe a little bit more better data. So that’s one thing that we’re focused on the agency. We’re always trying to add more value, improve our services, things like that. And the big one is so already I already went through the pain of creating niching up and I signed a second book deal. So I I’m going to write a book on personal injury marketing mastery, and I’m really focused on that and just setting bigger and bolder targets. A lot of times my, my team get a little uncomfortable, but I think that really lends itself to growth. So it’s just pushing forward and setting new and higher goals and challenges for myself.
Liel: [00:30:46] Well Chris, increase all that sounds super, super exciting. So thank you very much for sharing them while on already just, just your book just coming out this week and you’re already thinking and working on book number two. So that’s commendable. Very, very cool.
Grace: [00:31:01] That’s great. We have so I don’t know if you know the pillow masterminds, but there’s a something that we talk about in there along with Ken Hardison, Right. Who runs it. He talks about big, hairy goals, you know, pie in the sky, because you probably might not reach it. But the idea is that you need to aspire to that because otherwise you’re just settling, right? So I like I like what you said that that’s, you know, you’re trying to work on your sales and move on to what’s next because that’s what it always is. Right. And SEO, it’s what’s next.
Chris: [00:31:35] I couldn’t agree more and I like the big B had goals and I we truly set some crazy ones out there even for the book I will tell you, and I don’t know that this is going to happen and I didn’t sign an NDA, so I can I believe I can talk about this. Hopefully I don’t get in trouble. So we reached out to I was thinking, you know, for the audio book, I don’t know that people want to listen to my nasally voice, like, do they really want to hear me? So I was like, Well, who would be the number one person that I would want to do my book? And I’m like, And I started jotting down a list of a whole bunch of people, and I’m like, Okay, Samuel Jackson, That’s who I want.
Liel: [00:32:09] So wow.
Chris: [00:32:10] So we reached out to their agent. He’s got several agents, actually, and we’re in about the fourth or fifth points of conversation about this. So I’m really crossing my fingers that we get him for the audiobook.
Liel: [00:32:23] Wow. You’re going to have the baddest stars legal marketing book out there. That’s, you know, no questions asked.
Chris: [00:32:30] That’s crossing my fingers.
Grace: [00:32:31] Oh, yeah. I’ll definitely listen to.
Liel: [00:32:33] Well, keep them crossed also.
Grace: [00:32:35] All right. So unfortunately, that does bring us to the end of this fantastic conversation. And so you know what’s coming. What are three actionable takeaways? It could be more than three. It can be two. Whatever you feel that you think our listeners should know, you know, something that they can take action on today in the future, whatever you’d like to let them know.
Chris: [00:32:57] Three. I would say that the first one was determine how you’re going to be different, whether it’s niching, niching up or how are you going to be different. I have this story of imagine all businesses were eliminated stands and we’re all on the same street because that’s the day and age we live in with a mobile device. How are you going to be different? You’re going to sell ice lemonade. It’s your lemonade going to be green. You can have Christmas lights around your lemonade stand. You’re going to bring the lemonade directly to the car. That’s how you have to think about your law firm and your business is how are you going to be different? Because we’re all in the same street. And the street is the mobile device. So number one, think about how you’re going to be different. Number two, think about leverage. It’s not talked about enough people think about people as leverage, but think about leverage for distribution. There’s a reason why there are so many nine figure firms that blew up around TV as they figured out leverage and distribution. What’s today’s leverage? And then third, I would say that businesses that thrive have a disproportionate number of marketing and sales employees than they do operations and delivery. It can’t be an offer, an afterthought. You have to get out there and market and generate business.
Liel: [00:34:13] That’s it. Excellent takeaways, Chris. I think any race where we’re super ready to agree with all of them.
Grace: [00:34:21] Definitely.
Liel: [00:34:22] And Chris, well, again, thank you so much for your time. Congratulations on the new book. We’re definitely going to be having hear links on the episode notes and most importantly, we hope to keep the conversation going and have you some time back again to talk about all of those exciting projects that you have going on and continue hearing about Chris winning in everything that he does. So all best of luck and thank you again.
Chris: [00:34:46] Thank you so much for having me.
Liel: [00:35:00] What a great conversation. So glad that we had an opportunity to talk to Chris about his book and just in general about everything.
Grace: [00:35:07] That was exciting, you know, because you and I, like you said, we’re both marketers. We both enjoy anything having to do with marketing. And his perspective is novel in the sense that, you know, just the way he went about it and he’s so humble and so wonderful to have spoken to. I’m excited to bring him back.
Liel: [00:35:24] So, I mean, we already got really great takeaways here. So I don’t think there is much point here in trying to add to it, but let’s just revisit them those. Right. Determine how you’re going to be different differentiation Grace such a you know. Such an obvious, such an obvious thing, but one that people tend not to put a lot of thought into it. And I think, you know, just going back to the conferences that we’ve recently been in and such, and it’s particularly in the illegal industry, there is this fixation of always trying to copy cut the other law firm. They’re saying we’ll fight aggressively. We’re going to say we will fight aggressively. They’re showing up with a hammer in their hand. I’m going to show up with a hammer in my. Is that kind of like, let’s just do what’s working for the other for the other party as opposed to us to how can I be different? Right. And I think Mike Morris is probably one of the best examples that come to mind when it comes down to find your own voice, have your own persona, and just embrace that. So I love that one. I think about leverage, distribution, race.
Grace: [00:36:32] That’s huge.
Liel: [00:36:34] Yeah, huge.
Grace: [00:36:35] He’s right. One of the examples because I love how he uses analogies and true examples to help people apply these things, right? For me, it’s when you think about leverage. Nowadays, digital marketing is generally the leverage for people. But to say that just digital marketing, what is that? You know what I mean? Like, are you, are you going to have are you the content? King You know what I mean? Are you the speaker? King or queen? Are you you know what I mean? Like when you talk about distribution of your information and making sure that people understand that you’re a thought leader, think about leverage like that is a term. And that phrase is so much bigger than just that sentence. Right? Yeah. And like you said, TV firms, I really thought that was awesome. And I think people need to think about how they they handle distribution of their information and who they are and their thought leadership. It’s a big deal.
Liel: [00:37:28] Yeah, absolutely, Grace. And I think his last take away is invest as aggressively as you’re dreaming. Right? Like, is there any other way of saying it?
Grace: [00:37:39] No, there isn’t. Go big or go home.
Liel: [00:37:43] Yeah.
Grace: [00:37:44] And I truly believe that what he was saying about business having a disproportionate sales and marketing team, if you want to be a big firm right, and you have the staff to handle it up to a point, you need to invest in your marketing. You need to invest in your sales as a company, as a business to operate. If you’re not growing, you’re atrophying. And in this day and age, if you’re not growing, you’re going to close. And that’s because people aren’t thinking about the business of law. Unfortunately, they’re thinking about potentially just being in law. Right. And being a lawyer, you have to think about the business of law, and that includes. To thrive, you need to spend. It’s as simple as that.
Liel: [00:38:29] Spend smart, Grace.
Grace: [00:38:31] Yes.
Liel: [00:38:32] I love this conversation, and I’m just looking forward to our next one. There’s plenty more to talk about.
Grace: [00:38:40] Thank you, Liel.
Liel: [00:38:40] All right, Grace, Take care. Bye bye. And if you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your coworkers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at: ask@incamerapodcast.com, We’ll see you next week.
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