Smart PI Marketing Tactics

00:03 Speaker 1 Welcome to the Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda and I'll be your host. Hey everyone, I'm Jack Zinda, founder and lead trial lawyer at Zenda Law Group. Today I'm here with a new guest on the show, our Chief Marketing Officer, Kevin Tully. Kevin's going to tell us a little bit about his background and walk through some ideas and tactics that young attorneys, people that just opened their practice or people that have had their practice for a while can use to help generate more business. Well, Kevin, tell the audience a little bit about your background. 00:45 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. Thanks Jack. So I joined the firm in 2021. Prior to that I worked throughout Austin, Texas at startups and high growth companies such as indeed Siete Foods. And prior to all that, had a startup of my own and also went to law school. So it's great to be able to come back to the legal space after far too many years of not being involved there, but being involved in other interesting opportunities and so far loving my experience at Zindala Group. 01:25 Speaker 1 Tell the audience a little bit about the company that you ran for a while because I thought that was a really interesting concept that you had. 01:33 Speaker 2 Yeah. So if we rewind back to the start. I was in some terrible rock bands in high school with my friends and was really interested in guitar. And I decided to pursue a career in the music business. Not as a performer, but more on the business side. And oddly enough, through playing in bands is where I first started to be a marketer. You know, were promoting our shows and making band flyers and posters and stickers and all that kind of stuff. And so I worked for Atlantic Records in New York City for a few years after graduation. And this was right around the time that Napster and all the digital downloading was happening and the music industry was struggling to figure out what to do with all of that and how to monetize it. 02:26 Speaker 2 So I was there, I was working in the marketing department, I was working in the A and R department a little bit and realizing that all my co workers were packing up their desks and leaving for other opportunities outside of the music business because it just wasn't headed in the right direction at the time. But there was a guy who'd show up every once in a while and talk to my boss and he wore a suit and he looked like he was doing well for himself. So I picked his brain and I said, hey, you know, what do you do? Will you take me to lunch? And tell me all about it. And I was able to learn about this gentleman's career as an attorney in the entertainment space. Those conversations inspired me to go to law school. 03:13 Speaker 2 And then when I was clerking for him in the summers, he ended up kind of shifting his practice a little bit to represent music instrument manufacturers on IP issues. So trademarks, copyrights, patents, and that reintroduced me to the music product space, which I loved as a musician. And then by way of that experience, had an idea to start a business that would build your dream guitar for you. So there was a website where you could go on, you could pick all your colors and your sounds, and you could put your band logo on it, or you could dress it up however you like. We were building them in Austin and shipping direct to the customer. So through that, I learned digital marketing, e commerce, you know, a lot of different skills that are still in play for me today. 04:13 Speaker 2 And then after that, Experience went on to work at Indeed in the new product development section of the company, and then onto Siete Foods after that, which is a healthy Mexican American food brand based in Austin. 04:30 Speaker 1 So that's really interesting. So you went from your own company to then working indeed's new product division. What was that like? What was that position like at Indeed? 04:42 Speaker 2 So I was a growth marketer for the incubator team, and the incubator team was a really interesting concept that basically was a startup accelerator program within a larger company. So an accelerator program is typically a group of startups that are getting some coaching, maybe a little bit of funding, and it's kind of a safe space for new ideas to be born and tested out. And so Indeed was, I think, ahead of the curve on that and had that group internally. Anyone at the company could pitch ideas for the incubator. So if you were a product manager that worked one of the big products, or you were a marketer or a developer, you know, any of the roles that they had there, you could go up in front of the executive team with your. 05:43 Speaker 2 With your slide deck, obviously, and make your presentation for whatever idea that you had. And if it was approved, you'd be given a little bit of money and a little bit of Runway to go and execute on that idea internally. So you were getting some budget, a little bit of a team as well. So you'd get a developer eventually, there'd be a growth marketer on your team once you had a product that was ready to be marketed. And then there were other roles within the group, program managers and such, to kind of help make sure. Everything was on track and trending in the right direction. So it was really exciting. You get to see a lot of really interesting and different ideas, and then you get to see how those things were built out and which ideas stuck versus those that didn't. 06:38 Speaker 2 As the growth marketer, it was my role to take that product to market in a small way where we could test some marketing spend to see if people reacted to it, and if were getting a good reaction, then we would scale it and grow it from there. 06:58 Speaker 1 Yeah. And I see a lot of similarities with the type of things we try to do at our firm, so I can see where that background could be really helpful, you know, to back up a little bit. Was it a difficult decision to not take the traditional attorney approach after, you know, spending a lot of money and time in law school? 07:17 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question. It really. It was, and it wasn't. I. The. So I mentioned earlier that I met this lawyer while working atlantic Records, and went to lunch, and the first thing he said to me was, you don't want to be a lawyer. And I. I kind of laughed. I didn't know what to say to that. But he had a very straight face. He said, you don't want to be alert. And I said, no, I want to be a lawyer. And he said, oh, you don't want. And he tried to talk me out of it, but I couldn't really tell if he was kidding or not. And so I went. I loved school. I loved law school. I loved the experience. It was a grind, of course, but I really appreciated it. 08:01 Speaker 2 And as I was developing the idea for this business, I went to him and I said, hey, I've got this idea. What do you think? And he was supportive of it. And he said, you're gonna have a lot of fun. You're gonna learn a lot, and you can always come back to the practice of law. I'm still not sure about that third prong. There's a path there. I think for a lot of people, that is fairly traditional. You come out of law school, you hopefully get a job at the place that you clerked, and then you're on a path. And I stepped off the path, and I haven't. I haven't ever tried to go back to becoming a practicing attorney. I think that would be a little intimidating at this point, and I'm happy where I've ended up. 08:49 Speaker 2 So I think it was a big decision. It was an intimidating decision. But when he dangled that support out there for Me and told me it was going to be a lot of fun and I was going to learn a lot along the way. It felt like I was stepping outside of my comfort zone in a way that I would grow and was positive ultimately. So I was inspired to give it a shot. 09:16 Speaker 1 Well, and I think that's. That's something that is a good thing for a lot of people that are in law school and young attorneys to remember. You know, a law degree is a means to an end and not an end in and of itself. And I see a lot of attorneys that are unhappy in the practice of law. They're working in or in their positions or jobs, and they feel stuck. And I think it's really cool that you took that risk and found your own path. So I thought that takes a lot of courage. And that was really interesting to see how you took that. 09:48 Speaker 2 There was another pivotal moment for me, which was a class in law school that we had that was about alcoholism and drug abuse in the industry. That was a real awakening. 10:03 Speaker 1 Well, I bet. Did you find things in your early career where actually going to law school made you better at what you were doing? 10:11 Speaker 2 Oh, absolutely. It taught me how to think critically. It taught me how to problem solve. I think issue spotting is something that I use every day in. In all of the different companies that I've worked for. And I think that's a big difference between lawyers and non lawyers is the ability to distill something that's complex down to the crux of the issue and to be able to tackle that as a way of solving the greater problem. And I see people who haven't gone to law school often struggle with that. The whole where do we start? Kind of thing. So I use that all the time. 10:53 Speaker 2 I. I think I've also been overconfident in certain situations because I went to law school and thought that maybe that prepared me to do my own contract review or do some of these other things that I think, in hindsight, I didn't have enough experience there to really do it as well as a trained attorney would, obviously. So it can go in both ways. But I've never once regretted going to law school and having that experience. 11:28 Speaker 1 Yeah, I remember when we bought our first house. The closing agent was when I told him I was an attorney and just graduated. He kind of sighed. He's like, you're gonna read everything, aren't you? I was like, yeah, of course. And then when we bought our second house, I just signed everything blank. I remember that after law school, overconfidence that you know what you're doing in every sit, right? 11:55 Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that was certainly true as were doing things like raising money and signing agreements there and entering into vendor agreements and all the rest. But again, I don't regret any of it. 12:13 Speaker 1 Then what made you decide to take a position at a law firm and be our chief Marketing officer? What interested you in maybe shifting gears from a place like Indeed or CF Foods, where you were, to maybe looking at working here with us? 12:31 Speaker 2 Yeah, I. I loved my time at both of those other organizations, but I think what was really inspirational about coming back to a firm was. 12:46 Speaker 1 A lot. 12:46 Speaker 2 Of the conversations that you and I had early on. They were. It was clear to me that I was going to be back in a realm where the level of conversation was going to be really high. I loved that about law school. It was stimulating in a way that I think I missed a little bit since leaving. And I just felt like this was going to be a great group of people that were really driven, really smart, highly motivated, and I wanted to be in that kind of space again because I felt like it was going to make me better as a person. 13:27 Speaker 1 That's great. And I'll tell you, we've been very lucky to have you join the team and have someone at your caliber to want to come work with our organization. And it's funny, once people come and work for us and other personal energy law firms, they see what a great calling this area of law can be. But it has such a tough stigma from people on the outside. It can be tough to convince great people to even give us a shot. 13:53 Speaker 2 I think that's especially true as a marketer because a lot of times that's where that stigma comes from. Right. Is the marketing that you see out there in the personal injury space. But what it helped me overcome that was meeting you, meeting the team, seeing that you all have your hearts in the best of places when it comes to helping the clients. And that was an easy mental shift for me to make, to see that at the end of the day, you know, we're serving others who are in need. And that was. That felt. That felt really good. That was a reason to get out of bed every morning and come to work, for sure. 14:35 Speaker 1 Well, let's talk a little bit about, you know, what your approach is to helping us get business. And I thought maybe we could go big picture and start off with, you know, some general concepts that maybe not all of our listeners are familiar with, such as how do you go about putting together, you know, A marketing plan that you're going to execute on to help us hit our client targets. Do you have an approach you like to use for that? Is it just, you know, give me all the billboards you can find, Put Jack on top of an army tank. What. What's your best approach for putting together a plan? 15:13 Speaker 2 The army tank. We're saving for Q1 of next year. So, no, I think I'm a big believer that frameworks are helpful starting points anytime I've ever had to learn anything. The aha moments have been seeing the frameworks that others have used to organize your thoughts. And so in marketing, there's some really great frameworks and you could. I think there's a joke in marketing about you can't have a marketing presentation without a funnel in it. The funnel is kind of the way that marketers start to think. And there's flywheels and other things now too. But the basic one is you've got a wide end to the funnel and you've got a narrow end to the funnel. And at the wide end you have your awareness level marketing. You're letting people know that you're out there. 16:10 Speaker 2 And as you work your way down the funnel, you're getting them interested in the service or the products that you provide. You're letting them know the benefits of yours over the other competitors. And then you're hopefully capturing some information about them along the way so you can keep the conversation going. And then you've got that moment where they're ready to engage you for what you provide. And then hopefully they have a great experience, which I also consider part of marketing. And then hopefully they want to continue to work with you and do business again. So using that framework, we think about how that kind of maps to who the customer or the client is, getting that Persona down and understanding how you can be helpful to them as they go through that process. 17:11 Speaker 2 And if you're not providing value in your marketing, you're doing it wrong. It's the than just kind of advertising. And I think the difference is if you can provide value and you can be helpful to people and you truly believe in the service or the product that you're offering, it's a great feeling and it's great work to do because you can get them to that finish line quickly, know that they end up in a good place, take care of them, solve their problem. And so at a very high level, that's kind of one of the frameworks that I use. 17:44 Speaker 1 I love that, you know, and you brought up some really Good points. That I think is really helpful for people that have their own firm, are thinking about starting their own firm, or are part of a firm to think about. One is, you know, thinking through who your ideal client is going to be. And one approach to doing that is you can look at cases where you've had a lot of success, and if you're new to the practice of law or new to opening your own firm, look at what your competitors, what types of cases that they have had a lot of success with that you want to try to imitate. So if you are a family law attorney, who is your ideal client? What do they do for a living? Where do they go? What do they read? 18:26 Speaker 1 What websites do they go to? In our case, we are a personal injury law firm, so we're there to help people in difficult situations who've been injured, had a loved one injured or killed, maybe they were hurt on the job. So we think about what sort of questions that type of client may have and put out information that would attract that client. And so that idea of your ideal client is a tactic that allows you to then figure out what sort of approaches do I need to take to try to attract that business. 19:04 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. And one of the interesting nuances about marketing for personal injury specifically is that accidents and injuries can happen to anyone. So there really isn't the classic marketing Persona of a client or a customer. You know, at. At other places I've worked, we could. We could say that it was going to be somebody in this demographic, with this geographic. You know, there was those types of psychographic things that you could apply to the person. We don't, we don't. We don't have that. Our clients are from all over. They're diverse, and really the only thing they have in common is that something unfortunate has happened in their life. 19:54 Speaker 2 So it's a challenge that I think helps focus in on what you described, which is just being there to provide information and resources for people who need help and to show them that you're going to take care of them and get them across the finish line and get them back to being whole. I think another interesting nuance of it is when somebody recognizes that they need a personal injury attorney, they're usually pretty quick to act and to find someone. So some of the traditional marketing levers that you would have, such as retargeting ads or email drip campaigns or these things that take time to kind of develop, you don't really have that lever quite as much in this particular industry, which is interesting. 20:51 Speaker 1 No I completely agree. And what do you think about the idea of brand when it comes to a law firm? Because one thing I notice is there's a lot of follow the leader approach. And I sometimes see attorneys that they'll try to portray a brand that doesn't seem to fit with who they really are. And I don't think there's necessarily good or bad brand. It's just, you know, are you being true to yourself? So what. What has been your thoughts or approach to how you establish or even advice you could add to how a law firm should look at establishing their brand and setting themselves apart from other law firms that they compete with? 21:34 Speaker 2 Yeah, I think a brand has to be authentic. Customers or potential clients are smart. They understand when something is not true or not authentic. And so I think it needs to come from the leaders within the firm. Like what? What are they good at? What are the areas they're strong in? What are their personalities? How do they think about the work that they do? You have to find something unique in there that helps you stand out from the competition, but it needs to be real. And then you need to take that and you need to augment it in a way that it's really clear to somebody who maybe has a short attention Spanish, as we all do in this day and age with all our devices and everything else around us. It just needs to be made really clear, really simple. 22:32 Speaker 2 This is the value we add that's different than someone else. And, you know, Kelsey, who's. Who's our brand manager, we talk often about brand being more than just a logo, more than just a color scheme. It's about how you treat people. It's about the care that you provide, the value you provide through your marketing. Even as we talked about, it's a sum of all those things. And so it really does need to be. If you're picking something that you don't think you can uphold every day, you're. You're probably going down the wrong path. And you need to be honest with yourself about finding something else that comes naturally. It's a promise that you can live up to day in and day out. And then, of course, you hope to be unique across the competition. 23:29 Speaker 1 I love that. And I think it also makes marketing a lot easier because you're being yourself. You're not putting on a Persona. And I've seen attorneys that just nail that. And sometimes they're quirky, sometimes they're off. They even can be off putting to some clients. And one thing you want to keep in mind is you're not necessarily trying to appeal to everyone, because that's going to be impossible. You're trying to appeal to a certain segment of your clients. You know, for attorneys that can't afford to have a big team, what advice would you give them on educating themselves on how to market any books? You know, any way to educate themselves to really get up to speed on how they could increase their marketing capacity themselves? 24:20 Speaker 2 There's a. There's a great book on branding called Story Brand by Donald Miller. It's a really interesting approach that kind of flips branding on its head a little bit. I think the analogy that helps describe the book is he talks about the movie Star wars. And in Star Wars, Luke was the main character. Yoda was the guide. And in your branding, you are not Luke, or you should not be Luke. You should be Yoda. You should be the guide. The star of the brand is your customer. The star of the brand is your client. It's Luke, and you're Yoda. And I think that's something that a lot of companies and entities miss. They all want to be Luke and portray themselves that way and not Yoda. 25:23 Speaker 2 And I think showing clients or customers that we can identify with and resonate with is a great way to attract us to something. So if I were to encourage people to pick up a book, I'd say pick up that one. Think of yourself as Yoda, not as Luke. Make your client the star of the show. Make your customer the star of the show, and show that you're there as a guide, not as the center of attraction. 25:56 Speaker 1 Have you ever read the book Purple Cow by Seth Godin? 26:00 Speaker 2 I love Seth Godin, and I've read several of his books. I know that's the big one. I unfortunately haven't read that one yet. 26:08 Speaker 1 Well, I think that's a great book that I would advise listeners to check out. Along the same lines about being unique in setting your brand. And he has a great way of. Of explaining it in a way that makes it actionable. And so one objective that I would, or one thing that I would advise new attorneys and people have started their own law firm to do is just immerse yourself in the idea and concepts of marketing in general and then jump into the tactics of what you might do to get business, because it really is a large part of what you should be focusing your time on. When I started the firm, it was myself one other attorney, a staff member. And so I was the marketing director, chief marketing officer, you know, chief revenue officer, everything. 26:59 Speaker 1 And you have to look at that as an important part of your job. If you're working at a law firm, generating business can really set you apart from other attorneys you're working with. But you don't have to have a big department, you don't have a big budget. You just have to be intentional about learning about how to market and then going out there and executing your plan. 27:20 Speaker 2 Yeah. One of the partners at our firm said to me that the goal should be for everyone in your circle to know what you do specifically. Not just that you're an attorney, but the types of cases you handle, the types of clients you work with. And what he was saying in that moment was be a marketer. You know, put your. Put yourself out there in a way that people know you, they know what you do. I think if everyone does that at any firm, then it's amplifying your marketing and it's a really easy way that's free to do that. 28:01 Speaker 1 Well, I remember my law school professor told me one time for one of the classes he taught, I thought it was alternative dispute resolution, but he loved to tell stories and he had worked at a big law firm for a long time. And he said one day held up a coin. He said, do you. Does everyone know what this is like? It's a bronze coin. And at a law firm you get a bronze coin if you work the hardest and you bill the most hours. This is a silver coin. You get the silver coin at a big law firm, which is better than bronze coin. If everybody loves you and you bill a ton of hours, this is the gold coin. You get the gold coin if you generate the business. 28:43 Speaker 1 You can be lazy and everyone can hate your guts, but you'll get the gold coin. And that story has always stuck with me that if you're not generating the business, you're not going to have any clients to practice law with. And it's really important that I think attorneys realize that, especially if you're going to go out and start your own firm. 29:03 Speaker 2 What are some of the best techniques or tactics that you've seen attorneys use to generate business that are kind of in line with that low budget approach? 29:15 Speaker 1 I think one of the things that I tell all of our attorneys to do is get out there and network. If you do one networking event per week for the first year of practice and are intentional about going out and meeting people that can refer you business, you will get clients. And that's a very low budget. You can take people to have a sandwich, you can go to a cle. You can go to a happy hour, you can go to other law firms, Christmas parties, holiday parties. But it's important to surround yourself with other attorneys that don't compete with you, that could refer you business. Our law firm started in Williamson county, which at the time was one of the most difficult places to be a plaintiff's lawyer, personal injury lawyer. 30:03 Speaker 1 And there was only a couple attorneys in town that did exclusively personal injury law. All of the competition was in Travis county because that was a better venue to practice law in. And we got a ton of referrals because were the only Williamson county personal injury lawyer. And so were in a unique spot, going and meeting with attorneys that other people were not networking with. And if you do that one thing, you will have enough business to stay in business. And I know lawyers that don't do anything other than that. And over time, they build up a reputation and they get as much business as they would like. 30:41 Speaker 2 That's. That's amazing. That's great advice. 30:45 Speaker 1 Well, Kevin, I really appreciate you spending so much time with me today and talking our audience through all these interesting ideas. If people want to get ahold of you or ask you more questions, how can they do that? 30:58 Speaker 2 Yeah, you can Find me on LinkedIn. My name is Kevin Tully. Or you can email me@ktullyndalaw.com. 31:07 Speaker 1 Well, Kevin, I really appreciate all your time today. I know that I get a lot of great insights from you every single day here at the office, and I'm sure our audience did as well. So thank you. 31:18 Speaker 2 Thanks for having me on. 31:18 Speaker 1 Jack. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode of the Effective Lawyer. If you enjoyed this podcast, please take a moment to rate it 5 stars and leave us a review. To get notified about new episodes that are upcoming or been released, go to zdfirm.com/podcast Sign up for our mailing list.