Andy Stickel Tells It All: How Build Trust and Attract Clients

Law Firm Growth Podcast Episode 24: Cracking the Facebook Code for Attorneys with Andy Stickel

“Facebook is a total waste of money”. It’s a sentiment you’ll hear from attorneys all the time, but the reality is most people are using it wrong. Andy Stickel of Social Firestarter joins us for a breakdown of a system his clients have been using to generate high ticket personal injury cases, family law retainers and more within weeks on this weeks’ episode.

Narrator: [00:00:00] Welcome to the law firm growth podcast, where we share the latest tips, tactics and strategies for scaling your practice from the top experts in the world of growing law firms. Are you ready to take your practice to the next level? Let's get started.

Jan Roos: All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the case fuel podcast.

Jan Roos: I'm here today with Andy Stickel from Social Firestarters. So Andy's got a really interesting background. He's been doing marketing for attorneys for quite some time and he takes a very different approach to it, including some new channels that I'd never heard about that I think are really exciting for anyone who's looking to grow their law firm in 2018.

Jan Roos: So thanks for coming on the podcast, Andy. Hey, thanks for having me. All right. Awesome. I like to start off these conversations talking a little bit about where people came from. So would you mind kind of explaining the origin story and how you got to where you are today? Sure. I'm

Andy Stickel: 35. I've been in marketing since I was 19.

Andy Stickel: I started my first business. My, it was actually a concert promotion business. And I started that when I was 19 and basically just figuring out unique ways to market concerts. Which a lot of times you have to be [00:01:00] really creative and try not to get arrested a lot of times for that stuff. And that kind of led into starting a full fledged marketing agency.

Andy Stickel: So I got really good. I worked with a lot of major brands like Sports Clips. I'm sure you've heard of those, the haircut place. I worked with Sports Clips. I worked with, LA boxing, who has now become UFC gyms or whatever they're called. And then after that I started a digital agency. I sold my full agency.

Andy Stickel: I got it. I started a digital agency and my new partner used to be national sales director of one of the largest lawyer marketing companies out there. I'm not going to say their name, but I guarantee you they have probably called your office at least once this month as they call every attorney. And she used to be national sales director and She left after kind of having a moral epiphany, realizing that what she was selling was really just ripping lawyers off.

Andy Stickel: And we set out to start a company that did really good work. Didn't have a lot of client turnover. You know, we don't have 10, 000 attorneys that we do marketing for, and we just do a really good job for our clients. And as a result, we [00:02:00] really don't, our agency is completely full and we don't necessarily lose that many clients.

Andy Stickel: We lost one guy not too long ago, cause he retired and sold his firm. I guess that's a good reason to lose a client, but I'm constantly getting emails and messages from lawyers that need help with marketing. And, you know, they, maybe they have a marketing company that's not doing a great job for them or they're in a contract or, or whatever it is, but they just haven't had luck with search engine optimization or they just don't have budget.

Andy Stickel: So what I started doing is I started putting out a lot of content that teaches lawyers how to understand marketing and how to do marketing for themselves. And I cover all kinds of stuff like anything from search engine optimization to pay per click to social media and everything in between. I even have strategies about how to use Uber to market your law firm and how to, you know, use promotional products to market your law firm and different things like that.

Andy Stickel: So lately I've really been Big on social media, because I truly do believe that that's the future of marketing for lawyers and the advantages is that really no one's doing social media correctly. And I've figured out the way that, that lawyers can do social media. And I'm kind of been, [00:03:00] you know, I put on a course that, that teaches how to do that.

Andy Stickel: And we've been getting some really good results. So that's kind of been my big focus as of late is, is kind of trying to convince lawyers that that social media is the way to go and you know, teaching them

Jan Roos: exactly how to do it. Andy, that's super interesting. First of all, you're definitely the first person that I've ever heard bring in Uber as a marketing channel.

Jan Roos: So definitely hats off on that. I guess you're definitely you know, putting the, your money where your mouth is when it comes to creativity in the channels and that's really how you can do stuff that other people aren't. So I kind of wanted to touch upon a couple of different things. One being the abundance of.

Jan Roos: People that are more or less taking advantage of attorneys market. You know, this is the thing, you know, you mentioned kind of having the retention rate being a focus in your practice, which I think is awesome, but you know, there's just so many bad marketing companies out there. It's really a shame, but you know, the reality is there are good people that really care about the stuff and are looking to move their clients forward.

Jan Roos: And, you know, it's, it seems like a really good way that you guys going, but you know, another thing I wanted to kind of ask was being in the game. As long as you have Andy, you've definitely seen the rise and fall of some different things. You know, there was, you know, a lot of the, you know, some, [00:04:00] some go go days with SEO, some go go days with pay per click and basically any other channel that you could talk, you know, that somebody could use.

Jan Roos: So where do you kind of see the state of the union? I mean, obviously social media being a focus, but you know, what are the real opportunities here in 2018 and what are people missing out on?

Andy Stickel: I think that social. is the most underrated opportunity for any lawyer. And I think the reason for that is most attorneys are intimidated by it.

Andy Stickel: And they think there's a couple of things. First of all, they're afraid of the bar, you know, is it advertising? Is it not advertising? And a lot of them are afraid of that. The other thing is that they think they just don't have time for it. And I'm kind of an example. I'm not an attorney, but I own a marketing agency where I'm doing marketing for about 50 lawyers.

Andy Stickel: At any given time. So my days are pretty busy and I can still crank content out all the time. And the key is systemizing and finding, I always tell lawyers, listen, you get paid to think, let other people get paid to do so, you know, even if it's pulling out your phone, recording a quick video for social media, just something that provides value, you know, everything you do, if you just continue to provide value, [00:05:00] you know, the word will spread, people will find your content.

Andy Stickel: And if you help people solve small problems. Then they'll hire a lawyer for the bigger problem. And that lawyer is going to be used. So that's the opportunity right now. And like I was saying, a lot of lawyers are intimidated or afraid of social media. And that really is the best news because nobody's intimidated of search engine optimization.

Andy Stickel: Everyone has a website and everyone's trying to get to the first page of Google, but there's only one number one spot on the first page of Google. And Google is pushing everything down. So, I mean, I think right now, even if you're number one, Organically in Google, you're still like sixth or seventh on the page, you know, but if you do social, you have no competition.

Andy Stickel: And that's the whole thing I'm telling all these lawyers now. I'm like, you know, why pay a hundred dollars per click for personal injury attorney on pay per click? Or, you know, why try to fight with all these, all every other lawyer in your market? On search engine optimization, just go to social. Nobody's doing it, you know, and I think that's

Jan Roos: the biggest opportunity at the moment.

Jan Roos: Yeah. No, that's also like kind of an interesting point. So, you know, we have these things and I feel like a lot of these boom, bust cycles on new channels that are coming out are kind of defined by the competition. [00:06:00] So, I mean, this is kind of the you know, the scary reality to somebody who's trying to market a practice, be it a law practice or anything else.

Jan Roos: Is that you know, oftentimes the stuff that has the highest ROI is the stuff that's the least proven. And, you know, it's really that lack of competition that allows people to get so far so fast. I wanted to kind of circle back to one thing you mentioned too, with you know, the being afraid of the bar organizations.

Jan Roos: So you're calling us now from right side of Tampa, Andy. So you know, I understand Florida is one of the most stringent bar organizations in terms of the advertising policy. So how do you usually broach that subject when it comes to the clients and what you recommend for them?

Andy Stickel: Well, I mean, and I've talked to attorneys about this before.

Andy Stickel: So obviously you have to use some common sense. If you're getting on there, giving personalized legal advice, that's obviously not a good idea, but there's nothing that says you can't get on camera and discuss the law. You know, you can't discuss different scenarios that could happen, different things you could do in different scenarios.

Andy Stickel: You know, I would say is be general, don't be absolute and talk about the law, you know, so you could say, or tell stories that that's another really, really effective tool. I try to tell as many [00:07:00] stories as possible, but so, so for example, you know, a family law attorney could tell a story about here's why I tell all my clients to stay off social media during any family law issue.

Andy Stickel: I heard about somebody not too long ago, it was another attorney's client and they got very upset about a judgment that was placed against them or, or something. And they went on online and they posted about it where they could say, you know, it was their week with the kids. And what they did is they went out to a bar and they had all these pictures taken of them partying.

Andy Stickel: And then those pictures were used in court. And then the person had all kinds of, you know, had X, Y, and Z happen, you know, tell, tell stories about things that prove points and just get on and just kind of be general about things. Obviously the biggest issue in Florida that I see as an advertiser is typically if you're calling yourself an expert or a specialist or different things like that, obviously don't do that.

Andy Stickel: But, you know, it's mostly about. Just using common sense and

Jan Roos: being general, and I don't think you're going to have a problem. That's definitely, definitely good to know because that's something that comes up on a lot of calls that we have with attorneys. And it's you know, the thing is, if [00:08:00] people are kind of afraid of the bar organization from doing any sort of marketing, then, you know, we kind of go back to 1950 where it's just, you know, who can you look up in the phone book and who's got the best reputation out there.

Jan Roos: So at some point you kind of have to put your, your neck out there and do it. But, you know, having reviewed the bars, I'm sure you have, it's, it's definitely possible for to figure this stuff out and then end up getting clients because of it.

Andy Stickel: You know, I always say, I'm like, look, at the end of the day, you know, you're an attorney, be creative and figure out how to make it work within the guidelines, you know, I mean, because, and I don't study every bar association, because there's, there's 50 bar associations, or there's 50 sets of rules that I would have to know.

Andy Stickel: And obviously I can't know all that, but they're all pretty similar. And a lot of it, some of it isn't, but a lot of it's based on common sense. And if you kind of stay within those guidelines, you're probably going to be all right.

Jan Roos: Yeah, segwaying a little bit. So you mentioned kind of the importance of having a system.

Jan Roos: I understand that you guys have done this really successfully for more than a couple of different clients. So what kind of process you're usually recommending for attorneys who are looking to get their case files up over you know, using, you know, specifically social media online to get that stuff in their pipeline?

Andy Stickel: Well, the biggest thing, like I said, [00:09:00] is helping people solve small problems. And I always equate it to when you go to like a mall food court, for example, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but But the places, the food eateries, like other restaurants, I don't know what they're called. The places that have the longest lines are typically the Chinese food places and the Japanese food places.

Andy Stickel: And the reason is, is because they always have somebody out passing out free samples, right? And it's the same thing. Like if you go to like Costco or Sam's Club or any of those other wholesale places, they're always passing out free samples. So what they're doing essentially is they're giving out value.

Andy Stickel: They're letting you. Sample their value first. And as a result, they get most of the customers. Cause they let people try it first. They like the, you know, they, they say here, try some chicken. And then they like the chicken and they buy more chicken. I mean, if I go to Sam's club, that's what my kids look forward to.

Andy Stickel: They know that they're going to go, they're going to get all these samples. And I know that I'm going to end up buying at least one of these things. Cause my kids are going to like, you know, whatever it is, and they're going to sneak it in the cart or they're going to put it in the cart and I'm going to end up buying it.

Andy Stickel: You know, So there's something to be said about that. When you give something for [00:10:00] free, like a sample of your value. And obviously you're not, you're a lawyer. You're not going to give out free chicken, but if you give out, if you help people solve a small problem first. So for example, let's say you're a bankruptcy attorney.

Andy Stickel: And if you think about what's the big problem. That's somebody facing bankruptcy has, they obviously, they need to handle their debt, right? But what's a small problem that they have that maybe we can help them with. So maybe one of the issues that they have is they want the bill collectors to stop calling.

Andy Stickel: So maybe you can create a piece of content that says, here are four ways. That you can get bill collectors to stop calling today, right? So what you're doing is you're helping them solve a small problem, but they still need an attorney to solve the bigger problem. You know, obviously they're not going to say, Hey, thanks for getting those bill collectors to stop.

Andy Stickel: I'm going to take my bankruptcy from here. You know, I'm not going to do that. So what you can do, if you provide some sort of value and you can do it via like a cheat sheet, you can do it just with videos, using social media, anything like that. But once you prove your value and people see the value that you provide, then they're more likely to hire you for the big problem.

Andy Stickel: And that's what I do for [00:11:00] lawyers too. I provide a lot of content, a lot of value. And as a result, lawyers want to, you know, I help them, you know, here's a way to get more reviews for your law firm. Here's a way to get your clients to leave you more reviews. So they see that they see that I provided value cause I provided this free guide and then they contact me and want me to do all their marketing form, at which point I tell them my agency is full and that's the biggest thing is just.

Andy Stickel: A lot of people kind of want to just they put these ads out and they say, Hey hire me. Cause I'm a lawyer and I'm here. And that's not the way the world works. If you provide some sort of value and you'll differentiate yourself from all your other competition.

Jan Roos: Yeah, that's a really good point. So, I mean, I think part of the challenge of social media is kind of finding the time to make this.

Jan Roos: So like, what kind of recommendations are you making for the, you know, the busy attorney to, you know, not only create this in the first place, but get really consistent about delivering enough to the point where, you know, it's making an impact in their marketing efforts.

Andy Stickel: What I tell attorneys. And this is the motto that I have to live by as well is, is you have to remember that done is better than perfect, right?

Andy Stickel: So a lot of times people get hung up on, I don't have the right lighting or I don't have the right camera. I don't have the right microphone, or I don't have, you know, [00:12:00] I don't have this or that. And the reality is, is that whatever you have is going to be better than all the other attorneys that aren't doing anything.

Andy Stickel: So everybody now has a smartphone, my iPhone shoots in 4k, you know, I mean, everyone has an iPhone in their pocket now, and that is the best video camera that you can get. So you don't have to have a fancy video camera and lighting and elaborate setup and a backdrop and all that type of stuff. What I do sometimes truthfully is I have a cell phone holder that clips under the air vent of my car.

Andy Stickel: And there's sometimes when I'll just. And I do this when I'm not driving, but what I'll do is I'll set the phone up and I'll hit record. And then wherever I'm going, I'll drive and I'll just start talking to the camera and I'll, I'll get, you know, two or three videos filmed when I'm just driving. You know, it's just a matter of when you have an idea, something will pop in your head, just pull out your phone and talk about it for two minutes, you know, and then what you do is you get smart about it and you hire, or you have a team that can help you syndicate the content.

Andy Stickel: I teach this in depth. I have a course at a lawyer, masterclass. com. I actually have, it's an hour and a half. Course that teaches you it's completely [00:13:00] free, teaches you exactly how I do this, this entire strategy. But what I do for myself, and this is what I teach lawyers to do is you take one video and from that video, you syndicate it on Facebook and YouTube, and you send it out to your email list and you turn into a blog post and, you know, and Instagram and all these different places from one single video.

Andy Stickel: And the key is that what you do is you record the video and then you pass it off to a team and you're finished with it. So they do all the syndicating, they do the blog posts, they do everything else, you know, because what I always tell people is that, or what I tell lawyers and everyone is, you know, you get paid to think and let other people get paid to do, because if you have to do all this, it's not going to happen.

Andy Stickel: I'm realistic. I understand that. But if all you have to do is record a two minute video and then upload it to Facebook and then, you know, your team takes it from there, that's a lot more realistic.

Jan Roos: Yeah, no, that definitely makes it seem like it's more manageable. Now we've got a lot of videos. Like we'll have like, you know, let's say that somebody has this implemented.

Jan Roos: They've got the big base of videos. Now, how are you guys solving like the challenge of distribution? Because obviously, you know, if you have a mailing list, that's great. If you have a social [00:14:00] following, that's good. But like, how are you getting this out to people? You know, especially, you know, I guess familiar people, how are you getting people into that world?

Jan Roos: And how are you getting into the front of people that might not already know you?

Andy Stickel: So there's three types of traffic. Right. And traffic is one of the most important things that you can really pay attention. Like when you kind of really start looking at marketing, everything's about traffic and there's free traffic, which is like search engine optimization.

Andy Stickel: And like when you share a post on Facebook, so that's traffic that you don't really control. Like search engine optimization, for example, you don't control that because if somebody goes to Google and searches, you know, divorce lawyer, and then ends up on your website. It's great that you're there. It's great that that happened, but Google could change tomorrow and then all your traffic goes away.

Andy Stickel: So, you know, what I focus on is traffic that I own. And the way I do that is I typically do it with Facebook ads and I try to get people to opt in and usually it's with a cheat sheet. So for example, for lawyers, I ran ads for a cheat sheet that I created and the cheat sheet was called how to get law clients.

Andy Stickel: Without getting screwed by a marketing company. I think that's what it was called. So I ran ads specifically for that cheat sheet to [00:15:00] lawyers on Facebook. And the way that you get the cheat sheet is you have to answer your email address and then it gets emailed to you. So once that happens, now they're on my email list.

Andy Stickel: So what I always tell lawyers is, A mistake that lawyers typically make is they run ads for themselves and they don't run ads for the solution or the desired outcome. And once you start running ads for the desired outcome, you're going to get a lot better results. So for example, if I would have run ads for Andy Stickel, the lawyer marketing guy, nobody would have downloaded my stuff.

Andy Stickel: But because I ran ads for a cheat sheet called how to get more law clients without losing time or money and getting, or, and without getting screwed by a marketing company, you know, that's exactly what lawyers want. They want more law clients. They don't want to lose time. They don't want to lose money and they don't want to get screwed by a marketing company.

Andy Stickel: So why wouldn't they download that? You know, and what ends up happening is I ended up getting a lot of email addresses from that. So once they're on my email list, then I email them every single day with daily content. And the funny part is, is that emailing every single day you would think would annoy people, but it actually doesn't because the daily content that I [00:16:00] provide, every single piece of content is high value.

Andy Stickel: You know, every day they get an email from me and I'm not selling anything. All I'm doing. Is I'm just providing, you know, another tip to solve another small problem. Here's how to get reviews. Here's how to hire a marketing company. You know, here's how to advertise using Uber, you know, different things like that.

Andy Stickel: So what ends up happening is people actually would email me and they would say. Hey, I didn't see your email today. What happened? You know, if I, if there was a day that didn't go by, it was actually kind of weird and inherently what happened was people would contact me and they would say, Hey, listen, I'm a big fan of your stuff.

Andy Stickel: I've been watching all your videos. I read all your emails. How much do you charge to do marketing for a law firm? Right. But the interesting thing is, is that never would happen on the first email or even the second email. It was more like the 30th email or the 40th email, you know? So it's kind of like you have to build a bond and provide so much goodwill For people, and then they trust you enough to reach out, you know, because a lot of times people, you know, like somebody that maybe is thinking about divorce, maybe they're not ready for a divorce attorney yet, right?

Andy Stickel: But you keep [00:17:00] providing all this content to them, then in a month or two months when they actually are ready to pull the trigger on this thing, or maybe their husband finally did, you know, the last straw that broke the camel's back or whatever. Now they've got this attorney who's been providing all this great content to them for a month and a half.

Andy Stickel: Now, who do you think they're going to call? They're not going to go to Google and search for somebody else. They're going to call the person that they trust. Now.

Jan Roos: Yeah, no, that's really interesting. The thing too is like, you know, when we're talking about those earned channels versus the stuff that's, you know, kind of like free or even the stuff that's paid for, for pay per click, you know, you're only catching them at the last, you know, five yards of the whole football drive.

Jan Roos: Right. And then, you know, that's why that stuff is so competitive. So in addition to kind of being able to cast a wider net in terms of how long, you know, the time that you'd get somebody that's willing to do it today, or you can get somebody who's willing to do it in a month and a half or six months or a year from now, you're also paying a lot less for that traffic.

Jan Roos: Right.

Andy Stickel: Oh yeah, absolutely. The funny part about Facebook is that it's a lot of people say that I know so many lawyers, actually almost every lawyer that I talked to says Facebook ads just don't work. They've tried Facebook ads for their law firm and all it was was a [00:18:00] waste of money. And then I go and look at their ads and what they're doing is they're advertising themselves or they're running Facebook ads the way that they used to run TV ads.

Andy Stickel: Where they're just putting up something that says, if you've been in a car accident, call me today. And that's not how Facebook works. That's not how social media works. And what ends up happening is, you know, Facebook is all about relevancy. If you look into a Facebook ad, every ad, once it gets 500 impressions, gets assigned a relevancy score.

Andy Stickel: And it's kind of like the quality score on Google AdWords and the higher your relevancy score, it's basically based on if people interact with your ads. So that's why writing good ad copy is really good, is really important. But the higher your relevancy score, the cheaper your ads. So basically, if you have a relevancy score of a 10, it's going to cost you way less to advertise to people than if you have a relevancy score of a three, you know, so when people run those ads that are basically saying, if you've been in a car accident, call me today, people don't want to see those, you know, again, you have to think about the potential client when they go to Facebook, what are they they're doing?

Andy Stickel: They're they're looking at Transcribed You know, news, [00:19:00] and they're, they're looking at pictures of their friend's vacation, and they're looking at cat videos and all this type of stuff. They're not there to look at your ad, your personal injury law firm ad, you know? So what you have to do is you have to write content that is actually going to interest them.

Andy Stickel: I mean, I, I hate to say clickbait, but almost clickbait in some cases where, you know, instead of running an ad that says, If you've been in a car accident, call me today. You need to run an ad that talks about the three ways car insurance companies try to trick people after they get into a car accident, so they don't have to pay out like different things like that, where people are like, Oh, okay.

Andy Stickel: That's interesting. You know, cause people go on Facebook to be entertained or informed, you know? So you kind of have to think about their goal. And when you actually meet the goals of the users of what they're trying to do and you fit into that world, then it actually does get really cheap. You know, it's really not that expensive when you do it correctly like that.

Jan Roos: Yeah, and basically, at the end of the day, Facebook's trying to protect their user experience. So, you know, that's the thing. No one wants to be thinking about some potential grievous injury or somebody dying or, you know, a loved one passing away and having to deal with their [00:20:00] probate and stuff like that.

Jan Roos: So, you know, when you're playing a Facebook's game, they reward you with the cheaper traffic, right?

Andy Stickel: Yeah, that's true. And you also get better results. You know, I mean, at the end of the day, like, if there was a way that you could figure out how to use those personal injury attorney ads and get them cheaper, it still wouldn't be good, because you're gonna get better results when you actually think about the goal of the person on Facebook.

Andy Stickel: You know, they're not there to be advertised to. The best ads are the ones that don't feel like ads.

Jan Roos: That's super interesting. And it just kind of shows that like, you know, these different channels that people could have potentially access to, it's not just a matter of knowing it's out there. It's like, you know, also have to like, understand like, like how these things work at a deep level to play to the platform and how people like to interact with it.

Jan Roos: And that's, that's really what that kind of really looks like. It's winning the day. So to that point, if you're willing to share numbers with us, Sandy, do you have any kind of success stories for people who have implemented these different strategies and what kind of results it got for you?

Andy Stickel: We actually have a bunch of attorneys that have gone through the course that I did.

Andy Stickel: And a lot of them have gotten really good results. I don't actually have numbers on everybody, but I know one guy that I work with in particular is a personal injury attorney and what we did [00:21:00] for him. And personal injury is always the hardest one because it's just difficult. You know, how do you target people that have been injured?

Andy Stickel: And it's really hard because especially like car accidents, different things like that. So what we did is we niche down and we figured out, how do you find a group of people that could be injured? So one thing we looked at was motorcycle riders. And we created a Facebook group targeting motorcycle riders and his cheat sheet that he created.

Andy Stickel: We created a cheat sheet that was all about motorcycle safety, and we targeted motorcycle riders in the entire state of Georgia, then we created a Facebook group and we created all kinds of information about safety and riders rights and all types of stuff about, about motorcycle accidents. And what's interesting is that he's actually become.

Andy Stickel: The authority on motorcycle accidents or motorcycle safety and laws and rights in Georgia. And I mean, I think within 11 days he got his first lead, which is a good case. And he got a wrongful death case within like eight weeks of doing it. And I mean, he's still going. It's, it's been like four or five months right now and it's just exploding.

Andy Stickel: It's amazing how well it works. And it's a simple formula where basically we thought about. [00:22:00] Okay. Let's define a user or let's define the avatar of a potential client, you know, and then what are they interested in? So we figured, okay, motorcycle riders and they're interested in safety and motorcycle riders rights.

Andy Stickel: And we basically just created content on that subject as a result. Like he gets speaking engagements. Right. He's got a bunch of leads. And like I said, the wrongful death case and it was all kinds of stuff. And it's all just because he just goes on and films a two minute video every day, talking about something else that motorcycle riders are going to be interested in.

Jan Roos: Yeah. It's interesting. You know, it's so simple, but you know, when people are actually And you're getting results like that, you know, it's, it's hard to think that something like this can't work now. Yeah. Yeah. It's,

Andy Stickel: it's crazy.

Jan Roos: Yeah. Now as far as like, you know, so you mentioned personal injury being a particularly difficult practice type.

Jan Roos: Is there any kind of practice type in, in your guys' experience that's done particularly well with this kind of marketing? You know, ,

Andy Stickel: my favorite one that we ever did is for a divorce lawyer. So we created this free cheat sheet and it was, it was a guy in Orange County, [00:23:00] California, and the cheat sheet was.

Andy Stickel: 13 ways children benefit from divorce. And the reason that that worked so well is one, it's a bit controversial because people look at it and they're like, what are we talking about? But then the logic behind it actually made a lot of sense and it actually worked really well because it wasn't meant to be, you know, a bad joke or anything, it was basically talking about how children are happier in an environment where the parents are happy and where everyone's not fighting and how they get more quality time with each parent, you know, and things like that.

Andy Stickel: And what our target was. We were trying to target people that were kind of on the fence of the stay together for the kids type mentality, you know? So we did that and we got, I don't even know, I think we got like 15 or 20 leads in like a week. It was crazy. Wow. Just for that one. And yeah, I mean, that just Like stuff like that, that's a little outside the box, you know, like everyone, everyone's seen the, if you've been in an accident, here's how to know if you need a personal injury attorney, you know, everybody's seen it and nobody cares.

Andy Stickel: But when you do stuff like that, that kind of makes people think about, about [00:24:00] some views that they personally hold and kind of challenges some of those views and introduces a new way of thinking or a new opportunity. That's when you have a lot of success, you know? So, and I mean, we've done it with, we've got a couple of guys that are doing brain injury.

Andy Stickel: Groups right now, like they're just providing a lot of content on traumatic brain injuries. And the thing is, is that we're not creating a group called the brain injury, you know, brain injury group. We're calling it, you know, the support group for victims or people who have loved ones with traumatic brain injuries.

Andy Stickel: Cause nobody wants to join a traumatic brain injury group, you know, but they'll join a support group for caretakers of people with traumatic brain injuries. You know, same thing. Like our motorcycle group is not motorcycle accidents. It's Georgia bikers United. You know, so it's like when you just kind of like, don't be such a lawyer, I guess.

Andy Stickel: I tell lawyers all the time, I'm like, yeah, you got to stop writing like a lawyer because your target audience is not a lawyer. You know, it's just kind of taking a step back and thinking about the client or the potential client and thinking about what position are they in, or what do they want? You know, even before they know they need a lawyer, what the [00:25:00] situation and what's their mentality, you know?

Jan Roos: Yeah, and it's definitely tough to get yourself in that headspace, but it seems like, you know, when you're thinking outside the box and you get that, you know, the results seem to speak for themselves. Now as far as anyone who's kind of considering maybe going down this road, what kind of advice would you give for somebody who's just, you know, You know, considering this are going to be starting out with this for running their own law firm.

Andy Stickel: Well, the biggest thing that people make mistakes of is you have to remember that everything you do just provide value, you know, just provide as much value as possible and don't pitch things, you know, and the other thing is also talk about topics that would be interesting to people, maybe right before.

Andy Stickel: For they need an attorney. So for example, we have a construction accident attorney in New York who he wants construction accident cases. And what we're doing is we're creating a lot of content and we're providing it to construction workers. It's not all designed for construction workers who have been injured.

Andy Stickel: Because our idea is what we want to do is we want to provide a lot of content for construction workers about job site safety and what their rights [00:26:00] are as workers and what their employers should be doing and different things like that. Because, you know, somebody that was injured next week is not injured today.

Andy Stickel: So if it's all about here's how to get more money for your injury. The person who is injured next week and not today doesn't care about that. But if we can talk about, you know, how to make sure they stay safe and how to make sure that their jobs are in compliance with OSHA and even other things that aren't even necessarily related to that, but just things that, you know, they want, like how to make sure you're paid a fair wage, different things like that, if you could provide.

Andy Stickel: On those types of things, you know, on information that's still related to the law, it's still related to kind of the bigger picture of what you do, but it's going to be interesting to the people that you're trying to get in front of now, rather than the people that, you know, have already been injured.

Andy Stickel: That's the best way to do it. And that's the best way to target the biggest group of people and to get the most attention because it's kind of like, if you create all this content on, you know, like for, in the construction accident case, If you just talk about here's how to win your injury case, most people don't want to think about getting injured.

Andy Stickel: You know, they're not going to pay attention to that, especially if they're not injured because everybody has this. It won't [00:27:00] happen to me mentality, you know, so you're only going to be reaching people that have been injured and the likelihood of you reaching someone at the perfect time where they were just injured and they don't have a lawyer or they haven't filed for workers comp or whatever it is, is slim to none.

Andy Stickel: But your likelihood of reaching a construction worker that's interested in staying safe on the job site is much higher. And when you think about who's getting injured, It's construction workers. So if you can target all the construction workers and have a little bit of patience, then you'll have much better results.

Andy Stickel: Does

Jan Roos: that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And it's kind of amazing how simple these things can get because, you know, it's really interesting to see how you found some success with this, Andy, because it's like, you know, a lot of the obvious stuff, you know, and I'm sure part of the reason why this doesn't work for, you know, Hey, this is what you do if you get injured stuff, because that's, you know, that's the obvious thing.

Jan Roos: It doesn't take a rocket scientist. To, you know, think that that's something that might be relevant, but, you know, that's also what your competition is thinking of. It's very elegant to have you been able to define what really is that, that holds a step for, for what people are doing before. It's super fruitful.

Jan Roos: You know, people that are producing months and months and months of content of this daily [00:28:00] videos. You know, it can't be that hard for these people to, to figure this out. So yeah, this has been an awesome conversation, Andy. Now, as far as like, you know, where people can find you, what's a good place for people who might be interested in getting in touch and getting some of this stuff started for themselves.

Andy Stickel: I have an entire web class that, that I put out. It's completely free and you can sign up for it at lawyermasterclass.com. And it shows my entire strategy of how I do social media marketing for my clients. That's probably the best place to start. Another really good. place to go is on Facebook. I have a Facebook group.

Andy Stickel: It's just called lawyer marketing, and that's a really good place. I put a ton of content in there. I think almost every single day I put up a new video that just shows something about how to market a law firm. Some aspects, those are probably the two best places to get started, especially lawyer masterclass.

Andy Stickel: com. That's a really good, it's probably the best training I've ever created. And I've gotten a ton of really good feedback from it.

Jan Roos: All right, guys. Well, I mean, you know, provide a ton of value on this podcast, but you know, if anyone's interested, I definitely recommend you, you know, take the next step and get even more value from Andy by taking that out.

Jan Roos: That sounds awesome. It's awesome that you put that out.

Andy Stickel: Yeah, no, [00:29:00] it's pretty cool. And I've actually had people that have just watched the video and before it was even over, we're actually running Facebook ads. Yeah, that's awesome. Some real go getters.

Jan Roos: Okay. That's fantastic. All right. And so thanks again for taking the time.

Jan Roos: Really appreciate it. And then so yeah, so anyone who's interested in this kind of stuff, absolutely go ahead and take that next step. Thanks again for taking the time, Andy. And for the rest of you guys we'll have another episode of the CaseFuel podcast coming up soon. Awesome. Thanks for having me.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to the Law Firm Grove Podcast. For show notes, free resources, and more, head on over to casefuel. com slash podcast. Looking forward to catching up on the next episode. Bye

bye.