Interviewer: Do attorneys fear marketing or fear losing their licenses?

Richard: It all gets wrapped into one. I understand. Here I am talking about Google, SEO, pay-per-click and all of this other stuff. A lot of people don’t even know what that is. You know attorneys know what that is now. This is because they get calls every single day by companies promising, “We’ll get you on the first page of Google for a Kentucky DUI lawyer. You’ll get all these leads. You’ll have a great business.” Well, that is a bunch of BS.

A lot of people are telling them this story. It’s like a siren song. They’re saying, “Let’s do Google pay-per-click. That’s going to get you all these leads. All you do is pay when somebody clicks on your ad.” This is all new to them. They don’t trust it because they haven’t had experience with it.

Unfortunately, most of them have been burned. They’ve had companies say they will put up a website and the website never gets put up. Companies say they will do SEO and nothing happens after a year. Companies say they will do pay-per-click. Attorneys spend $20,000 over a year, and they get two clients.

You’re dealing with all of these factors. We are dealing with all of these factors swirling around in their heads. It’s just a bunch of factors combined that make it difficult for them.

Interviewer: Are these the instances you refer to when you say attorneys are advertising victims and easy prey for marketers?

Richard: Yes, I am. If you don’t know about marketing, it’s likely you’re going to get burned. Here’s the attitude the public has. They don’t like attorneys. They make jokes about them. They all think attorneys are very wealthy. So companies want to come and take that supposed wealth.

They plot, “We’re going to sucker this guy. We will say we will do this and that for them and charge them $3,000 a month.” These companies think attorneys have plenty of money and the attorneys won’t even notice. I know that is how a lot of people think.

It is not true. A lot of the lawyers are struggling. They may gross $100,000 – $120,000.Their take home is $70,000 – $90,000.That is not a lot for the amount of work they put in. In today’s world, that’s maybe a little bit above middle class; but not really.

They’re not living these glamorous lives. They’re really not. A lot these guys are struggling. Early on, I tried to survey a lot of them. I asked, “What’s the average a lawyer makes?” I thought it was $300,000 or $400,000, and they laughed at me. A bunch of guys cracked up laughing. They said, “No, you don’t understand.”

What happens is these guys get pitched all the time; literally every day. You can ask any of them, and their secretaries. After a while, someone’s going to break through and get you to work with them. These companies have account reps who promise you this, that and the other. They say they’ll set up dashboards and track all the results for you. Then, they get their money and that’s it. Nothing happens.

They don’t get any results. The attorney gets pissed after three, six, nine months; or maybe a year or two if they’re locked into a contract. They’ve blown all this money and now they’re burned. They’re back where they were, having trouble.

Interviewer: Are attorneys then tainted by the whole experience and unwilling to try marketing again? Are they open to trying someone new?

Richard: A lot of them are burned but they will keep trying different people. After a while though, they get pretty cynical. The problem is attorneys want to buy this widget called marketing. They want to put it on the shelf and they want it to work. They want this black box to turn on and make their phone ring, and clients will be there on the other end of the line.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. You have to be a part of the process. It’s not just something you can buy that works for you in the background. It has to be your whole person. It has to be your whole firm. It can’t be just this thing that either works or doesn’t.

Worse, attorneys just don’t want to learn about marketing. They don’t want to deal with it. They want to go to court. They just want to have clients. They don’t want to have to fight to get them and talk to them. They just want clients. That is what they ultimately want.