The Expensive Piece of Advertising That Really Works​​​​​​​

By: Ben Glass, Esq.

Craig Proctor is a very successful residential real estate agent turned marketing guru in Canada. He latched on to the power of direct response marketing, differentiating himself and his processes from the rest of his market (he did not want to be sitting in open houses all day Saturday and Sunday, hoping that people would drop by) and being willing to say “no” to anyone who didn’t want to play by his rules.

When times are good in real estate, more agents come out of the woodwork to join the crowd and home sellers become much more demanding and aggressive, often insisting that agents come out and do a dog and pony pitch for their business.

Craig always resisted this because it didn’t suit what he wanted his business, and, more importantly, his life.

Craig was one of the inspirations for what was for us at the time one of the most expensive pieces of marketing we had ever created, The Truth About Lawyer Advertising book. (We are in the process of revising and updating the book and at the end of this report I’ll also give you a look over my shoulder at something similar but shorter that we are going to produce next.)

This piece was and remains controversial. Our new piece that I’m showing you will also be controversial. You might not like it.

It has worked magnificently for us. Our potential clients tell us that they like the “exposure” we give to typical say nothing lawyer advertising.

Whether you like it or not it is important to understand the philosophy of the message we are sending.

1. Originally, we were mainly making fun of the ads in the Yellow Pages, thus the “look and feel of the original cover. At the time we first published the book there was no consumer guide to finding a lawyer that also took on lawyer advertising. There was plenty of tort reform materials about lawyer ads, but we the first lawyers to publish the material.

Being first at something can go a long way.

2. Even though I had not fully articulated the philosophy at the time, this was all about seeing the world through the consumer’s eyes. What do they see/hear when they embark on the journey of finding an attorney?

3. This list came from years of talking to clients who had been represented by other lawyers who were screwing their case up. (We no longer handle any case that has been handled by another lawyer. Our lead flow is such that we don’t need to take on the risk, even if the potential client would be really well-served by our work. In those early years I ended up with one bar complaint and one lawsuit against me after I had, feeling sorry for a potential client, stepped in to try and rescue them. Both the bar complaint and the lawsuit went away on summary disposition but those experiences were the foundation for one of my “rules:” we don’t handle your case if its already been handled by another lawyer.)

4. In 2012 we changed up the cover. I think I had just come back from a Dan Kennedy event where he talked about the importance of really standing for something and being bold(er) with your marketing. I sat down with Kia Arian and together we scratched out the most outrageous images and “ads” that we could think of. Later, Dan Kennedy actually showed the “We Do Wills” image in a newsletter. I’m not sure if he knew we were joking or not!

5. We then developed the system that any consumer could use. Of course, if you use all parts of the system (ask for info package, visit Avvo.com, check Board Certification, etc) then you ended up with us. At that time no one else was using an information package. Even today, the only lawyers in my market area using it are Great Legal Marketing members (and some former members.)

6. Anytime you can use something real in your marketing to make a point, do it. In our ERISA practice there are plenty of judicial opinions that talk about how people who try to do their cases without a lawyer are going to get screwed. It wasn’t hard, and still isn’t, to find articles/disciplinary opinions of lawyers getting in trouble because of their advertising. That’s all fair game. We even heard from some of the lawyers “featured” in the book. That’s OK with us.

This was a fairly expensive piece to produce the first time around. It was a larger format that our previous “Five Deadly Sins” books and took a lot of time. However, it still goes out in every shock and awe package we send out today and the electronic version is one of our most downloaded pieces of content.

Now, I’m going to give you an over the shoulder look of something we are working on to add to the arsenal of marketing that we use. The philosophy here is that it is still very hard to differentiate yourself from your competition based on your respective skill levels and that type of messaging is probably the most likely to get you in trouble with the bar.

I was sitting at home reading one night and came across an Internet ad that said something like What Working With a Stockbroker Should Really Look Like. I realized we had never done something with that title before and thought a short, hard hitting piece that actually highlights some things we really do differently in our firm would work.

Here is the draft. It should be finished soon and when it is I’ll share it with you. As with everything else I show you, please be inspired but don’t use this word for word. As I said in the beginning, you might not even like it!

What Finding, Hiring and Working with a Virginia Personal Injury Attorney Should Really Look Like

If you are like 87.9 percent of all of our personal injury clients, this is the first time you’ve ever had to find, and perhaps work with, a lawyer in a contested matter.  If so, you likely have three questions:

1. Do I really need an attorney for this case?

2. If I need one, how do I go about finding one?

3. What should I expect from my attorney (and what should my attorney expect from me)?

The expectations and goals that people have for their personal injury claims vary. If you are like most, you want to be able to:

1. Maximize the amount of money you will actually put into your pocket.

2. Make sure that all of your medical bills are paid and that your credit rating is not affected by the accident.

First Question: Do You Really Need An Attorney For This Claim?

Despite what you see on TV ads and in most attorney advertising, not all claims need an attorney. Thousands of small claims are paid, and paid fairly, every day to unrepresented claimants.

Based on over 33 years of practicing as a personal injury specialist, here are my recommendations:

(1) If you expect to have less than $10,000 in medical bills, miss less than two weeks of work, and have no herniated discs, broken bones or permanent scarring from the accident, then this is a case you can likely settle yourself and you will end up with more money in your pocket than if you hired an attorney.

(2) If your medical bills are expected to exceed $10,000 and/or you have a documented broken bone, torn ligament, herniated disc or permanent scarring, then you will likely benefit from hiring an experienced personal injury attorney to handle your case.

Keep reading because at the end of this report we tell you exactly how to get your small case settled without giving up 1/3 of your settlement.