Turn Calls/Inquiries into Signed Retainer
Agreements and Cash in the Bank… Remotely
Ray: It is my belief that I’ve had since day one that the answer is no. You create by limiting it to only three criminal defense attorneys per county. You create a sense of exclusivity. That’s number one and number two, you create a sense of urgency.
Richard: Right. Here’s another question. We know what kind of cases will call, but literally who is doing the hiring? Is it the inmate or does the attorney usually have to call the family and say hey, Joe told me to call you, he wants to hire me?
Ray: Absolutely, you’re correct. It’s a very good question. The inmate is actually the attorney’s client, but he is not, rarely – In rare circumstances this may be the case – But he is not the person who is responsible for the financial obligations of the case so that has to come from family or friends. A lot of attorneys mistakenly believe I have to reach that family and friends and the answer is yes and no. Yes, you have to because they’re going to be looking to solve this problem also right, but here’s my point. The inmate is the driver of that decision and that’s the key thing with the magazine. Having this guy inside, again captive audience, and he has nothing else to look at. There is no other information vehicle like “Crime Justice in America” inside the county jails other than a couple of criminal attorneys that have attempted to do it themselves. Well good luck. I spend 80 hours a week on the magazine. You spend how many hours a week on your criminal practice so how are you going to fit this in? (Laughs)
Richard: Well not only that, you had to file a federal lawsuit and spend years litigating the ability to even to do it, right?
Ray: Yes. They’re not going to do this. When they say well, I can go print it and I can do it myself cheaper than the ad price, well first of all they’re nuts. They know nothing about business and I’m not being discriminatory against attorneys. It’s just a very myopic viewpoint here when they say that and I’ll say hey listen, there’s nothing I say I can say right now that is going to dissuade you from doing that. Go for it. I understand, I wish you the best.
Richard: Yes. We’ll move on to price in a minute, but before that just take me through the sequence of literally when someone decides to call. Is it a collect call? Is it a regular call and the attorney takes it? Do the speak to the family afterwards? Take me through a typical sequence of how a lead comes in and what happens.
Ray: Well, it all depends on I say the decisions by the inmate. Many times the inmates will call the attorney to talk to him and I would say that’s the majority, but other times the attorney will talk to their family or friends first and say hey, I found this guy here. I just saw his ad. It says some really good stuff. Would you call him for me? We need to pay him or something. That happens also.
Richard: Oh okay, okay. The ways people can respond are they can collect call the attorney or if they may be able to afford it and direct call the attorney or they may call their family and tell the family to call the attorney. Right?
Ray: Right because there’s so many variables in play here. How large is his bail? Did somebody say hey, go get an attorney and try to get a bail reduction or he has no bail because there’s an old probation violation hold on him. Well if there’s no bail, they’re going to need an attorney or a PD and you’re going to wait for them to be able to resolve that issue.
Richard: Okay, got you.
Ray: There’s a number of variables and it all depends on their circumstances, but a collect call to the attorney saying hey, I’ve got a problem. Obviously you know where I’m at, but here’s my situation. Can you help me out? Well yes I can, but it’s going to cost you X and who do you got to pay for that? Well, my family or friends and let me give you their number, you can call them.
Richard: Okay.
Ray: It is. It simply goes back to – I repeat myself so many times a day I should just use a voice recorded – It is a numbers game.
Richard: All right.
Ray: They don’t want to believe it’s a numbers game. They actually believe, if I can get them – And I hear this all the time – If I get them sitting in front of me, I can close them.
Richard: I know, everyone says that. I know.
Ray: Here’s the point. What does it take? How people do you have to talk to? How many people have to see your message before you get that one person sitting in front of you?
Richard: Well, let me speak to that then.
Ray: What you need, Mr. Attorney, you’ve got to keep feeding that kitty.
Richard: Let me speak to that. I have a lot of experience in that. A lot of marketing now is done online so paper clicks, it could easily be 1 in 400 people and it’s amazingly working well, it’s 1 in 100. Jailer Mailer that you spoke about, sometimes that’s 1 in 400, 1 in 200, 1 in 100 at best and you’re talking about 1 in 10 and 1 in 20. That’s a much better; that’s a whole order magnitude better. That was online lead providers, same thing. Yes, you’ve got very good ratios and people need to understand that. How much does it cost them to get a retained client?
Ray: You’re absolutely correct. Here’s what really bothers me. Attorneys, obviously they spend years in law school. Then they start out and they go to the PD or the DA’s office or a firm and then they may end up on their own or with another firm where they’re a partner, but the point is they know the law. They know how to practice law. They’re a criminal attorney, they’re a civil attorney and I’ve asked them for years and years and years, they teach you anything about business in law school? Not a damn thing. Right?
Richard: Yes.
Ray: I’ve had attorneys tell me I ask every single time where the calls come from. I ask. I know down to the fine-tooth comb, down to the hairs on a fine-tooth comb. I heard this from one attorney in northern California years ago. He’s indicative of how false that statement is. I’m sitting in his office. I’m sitting in front of him. We’re talking about doing something, a couple of interesting things with his ads, and he gets a phone call. He talks to the inmate, accepts a collect call, talks to the inmate and then he hangs up. I don’t say a word. Fifteen minutes later, he gets another collect call from a different inmate, talks to him, hangs up. I said wait a minute, you didn’t ask them. Where did he get your name?
Richard: Mmhmm (affirmative).
Ray: He says well I don’t ask them unless they hire me. (Laughing)
Richard: Oy, well that’s a bias if I ever heard one, but okay.
Ray: It’s horrible. No. Where is your stuff coming from because what I’ve learned is that people call up, well a friend gave it to me, a guy in my pod gave your name. Where did he get it? He got it from the damn magazine, but you’re never going to know it came from the magazine.
Richard: Yes. It was online, here’s what attorneys hear. How’d you find me? On the internet. Where on the internet? I don’t know, the internet or I found you in Google. Where in Google? I don’t know. I saw you on the internet, I saw you in Google. It translates to the same thing and people don’t know how to track, they don’t know they should track, they don’t something.
Let’s wrap this up because it’s gone a long time. Let’s go down to like the…
Ray: No, no. I understand, but I want to make one comment. My solution to that is just to make their damn phone ring so they know it’s me.
Richard: Right.
Ray: (Laughs) You know? That’s the only solution. You put enough copies in there, you’re going to get calls.
Richard: Okay. Well, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. How do people contact you to advertise? How much does it cost? How long will it get them? How many issues or how many weeks?
Ray: Well like I said earlier, we publish a one edition, the same editorial content, for three months and with holidays it might end up being three and a half months, so anywhere from 13 o 15 weeks we actually end up distributing the magazine.
Richard: Okay.
Ray: That’s each week. That’s number one. Number two, from 2007 to 2009; we started in 2006. I said 2006; 2002. In 2002 to 2006, we slowing increased our rates because it doesn’t matter. I’ve told attorneys this; it doesn’t matter whether you’re paying a dollar or whether you’re paying $10,000 if you get a 4/5 to 1 ROI.
Richard: Right, exactly.