Turn Calls/Inquiries into Signed Retainer
Agreements and Cash in the Bank… Remotely
Richard: Well, it may explain to me…
Ray: I need to give you a counterpoint. Two hours later, if I may because it’s important, then please don’t forget where you’re at – But two hours later I get a call from an attorney who was in for the first time that fourth addition and she says, “I got ten new clients from the addition, four of them recommended somebody else, so I got 14 cases from my first addition with “Crime Justice in America.” I asked her what is the difference and low and behold she happen to know the guy and she says listen, this is the difference. If somebody says; if I quote them $5,000 as a retainer and they have $4,000, I’m going to take it and I’m going to say bring another $500 at our next hearing, two weeks, three weeks, whenever it is. Then bring $500 at the one after that. If I don’t get any other money, I still have a good case and I made money on it, but this other guy says I quote you five, I don’t care if you’ve got $4,750. Go get the other $250 and he’s not going to do it. I said well that’s just plain dumb. (Laughs) She said yes it is.
There are other attorneys that say hey, I would like you to talk to my parents, I would like you to talk to my wife, I want to hire you, can you call them and then they say no I can’t call them. You have to get them to call me. Wait a minute. The client just says I want to hire you, the relative or the friend or the mother, wife have the funds, and you’re not going to take the proactive step to call. What’s wrong with that picture?
Richard: Well I was going to tell you kind of the same story. I used to run a website that was advertising for attorneys for DUI and there were attorneys that would go through 100 leads and retain nobody and they would always say ah, your leads suck. Then there were attorneys that would get one and three, typically one and ten, but the best were one and three and they were like I love you. You’re amazing in the global goose. I saw that, the ones that are proactive, hungry, they answer the phone right away. They follow up. They work with people without cutting their own throat and having too low of a fee. All these characteristics is what makes advertising successful, whatever kind of medium it is. It sounds like same applies here, right?
Ray: Absolutely, it’s consistent versus your website versus Yellow Pages versus a list on the wall. It all comes down to what are you going to do when that person calls you. It’s how many phone calls are you going to get and that’s the true value of the marketing I believe, of the marketing medium, whatever you’re going to be using. The advertising medium is can you make my phone ring and if you can do that, I should be able to take it the rest of the way.
Now you hit on something that I wanted to touch on here about one out of ten calls will result in a piece of business and you’re absolutely correct. That is consistent with the magazine, “Crime Justice in America” also because we have learned over the last 11 years it’s one out of ten to at worst one out of twenty.
Richard: That’s pretty good.
Ray: I always say this next statement to the attorney and 90% of the time it goes right over their heads and they don’t get it. I said listen, the magazine works if you want it to work. The Yellow Pages will work, internet will work, Google Ad Words, everything will work, but nothing beats word of mouth, absolutely nothing but the key thing here Mr. Attorney is how are you going to create your word of mouth because you only have so many clients, because of course you only have 24 hours in the day, and how do get them to go out and champion you. Now that’s a whole separate matter and they need to that, for doggone sure they need to do that, but my point is if one out of nine or if nine or nineteen calls do not result in a piece of business from the magazine, yet these guys are inside custody. They’re being held in custody and so if they get off the phone with that attorney, both the caller, the inmate, and the attorney know in the first three, four, five minutes, at the most five minutes, if it’s going to go anywhere. Do I have any money, where I’m at in the case, they both know if they’re going to be able to work together.
Richard: Yes.
Ray: If that inmate leaves after two, three minutes, leaves that phone call saying this was nice guy. He took a little time to talk to me, can’t help me, too expensive, I’m too far down in my trial, whatever, if he leaves that phone call feeling good about it two hours later, 30 minutes later, six hours later somebody says man do you know a good attorney. Who is he going to say?
Richard: Oh okay. Huh. I see so word of mouth is concentrated and amplified because people are in this literally confined space. If you treat well even the people that didn’t hire you, word of mouth is amplified because of where they are, right?
Ray: Exactly and the leads are constantly refreshed and in my opinion, those nine or nineteen calls that do not result in a piece of business are even more important than the one that does because that’s going to create long lasting effects for you, for the attorney.
Richard: Got you. Yes, your name gets known in the pod or in the area that they’re in, right.
Ray: Well not just, remember these guys get transferred around.
Richard: Oh, that’s a good point.
Ray: A lot of the trustees get to walk around all the time and a lot of the trustees actually take the magazine, take it around, anything to separate me from anybody else and if I’ve got a piece of information, if I’ve got some documentation that’s going to help you and you ask me for it, I am going to be able to say hey, what do you got for me. They move the magazine around. They take things with him.
Richard: If it works, who is calling the attorney? I know it’s the person in prison, but what type of cases are typical. When you’re in jail and you’re in there for any length of time to see that magazine, what kind of cases do attorneys get through this?
Ray: Well, out of the all the cases that are misdemeanor and felony, 60% are still drugs.
Richard: Okay.
Ray: It really is. It’s very prevalent, 60% are drugs and you have a common mix from domestic to probation violation to assault, battery, robbery, theft, and then of course the much smaller is the higher end cases of sex crimes and murder. You raise a good point because I had an attorney several, well many years ago actually, guy by the name of Wally Farrell in Riverside County, was practicing for 47 years, crazy guy. He had never advertised before. He said you know, I saw your magazine. One of my clients brought it to me after he got released and I thought this thing is cool, but I don’t want to get run of the mill calls from attorneys. I only want to focus on murder cases. I spent a little more time talking to him and I realized that he had a great marketing hook. You understand that phrase, a unique selling proposition right, a USP. I just call it a marketing hook because common people on the other side, non-marketing people will not understand unique selling proposition. The marketing hook that he had was that he had more not guilty verdicts than any other attorney; excuse me. More not guilty for death penalty cases than any other attorney in Riverside County.
Richard: Wow.
Ray: Well hell, that’s a beautiful marketing hook.
Richard: Yes, when the stakes are the high, you definitely want the person that has the best record.
Ray: Exactly. I couldn’t resist that one. I said you know what, I’ve never done this before, Wally, but let’s focus in just on that type of cases but even though we build the ad around that, I guarantee you’re still going to get calls so go get an associate that you can refer; bring into your practice and that you can have them do the probation violations, the domestic, possession charges and all that because it’s stupid to have send them down the road.
Richard: Right, I got you. Well you know, in a way I’m curious about who’s calling because I know the common concerns attorneys have. In their minds they’re just going to say well I’m just going to get high junk cases with this.