How to Leverage Google to Help Your Firm Scale Faster
Unknown: And we're recording.
Hi, and welcome to the wealthy
woman lawyer Podcast. I'm super
excited today to have Ronnie
dever here with us because
Ronnie is the CEO of noble
marketing. And they actually
specialize. They're a lawyer
exclusive marketing agency that
specializes in generating leads
and increasing potential new
clients and turning them into
paying clients. And they are so
confident in the work that they
do that they actually have 100%
guarantee which is very, very
rare in marketing industry. So
I've got lots of questions for
running today. And he's got lots
of answers for me, I'm sure. So
welcome, Ronnie, we're so glad
to have you here.
Oh, thank you so much. I'm so
thrilled to be here as well.
As I have a coughing fit.
I've had that happen while
recording before it's the worst.
We're just gonna roll with it.
Everybody's just gonna have to
live with it today.
Unfortunately, I live in
Florida, and right now
everything is gold down here.
And it's a health problem, not a
monetary goal. Alright, so
Ronnie, tell us apologize for
that. Tell us a little bit about
you. I want to know how you kind
of got into marketing and what
made you specifically focus on
lawyers?
Yeah, so I got into marketing
like 10 years ago and a very,
it's a it's one of those fun
young stories. But looking back,
it's kind of crazy. But
basically, I was like, young and
broke. I just moved to the city
of Boston. I chased a girl. The
girl didn't work out. But the
city did. Now of course not. I
was 19 thinking I was in love,
right? Like, I was like,
anyways, so the girl didn't work
out with the city did and was
broke, right? And so I went on
Craigslist, and I found a gig
where somebody said, Hey, I need
a website built. And I was like,
I can build a website. I got
this. So I met with a guy, Adam
McDonald's, right? And the first
thing he says to me is he's
like, Hey, man, I want a
website. But what I really want
is just show number show up
number one on Google, right? And
of course, young and broke. I
was like, You know what, man,
pay me 400 bucks a month. And
I'll make it happen right, now
that I had any idea how to make
it happen. All right, I spoke a
good talk. I kind of knew the
terms, you know, content
marketing, and on page SEO
optimization and whatever,
right. But anyways, I ended up
giving me the gig. And that's
when I learned about Google My
Business and actually succeeded,
we actually did get him number
one on Google, he did start
making money off the campaign.
And then I got started in
marketing. And then 10 years
later, found my way into working
with lawyers, which is really
where I found my passion and
love for it. And main reason
being I mean, lawyers, y'all are
some amazing, inspirational
people, all of you, I don't care
what industry you work in,
because you guys voluntarily
decide to get involved people
during their most emotional
times their lives, like you're
just like, yeah, those guys,
they're the worst of their
lives. Do what I'm gonna go help
those guys. Right? And I'm like,
wow, whoa. So I love I love
lawyers. I love what you do. And
for me, I love the marketing
because it works. Well. It's
very direct people either have a
need for a lawyer, or they don't
need a lawyer. There's not a lot
of in between, there's not a lot
of convincing,
you're just hanging out one day
and saying, You know what, I
think I'll go hire a lawyer. No,
you
don't, right? You don't run a
Facebook ad says needed divorce.
Right? Like maybe you don't like
your spouse as much, right?
Like, you're not doing a lot of
awareness marketing about
divorce as much right? Or a lot
of it's very direct. It's very,
and of course, there's, there's
time and space for other types
of marketing. I'm not saying
they have no role. But it's also
a very direct industry where
people are like, Hey, I have a
need, can you fulfill it? And
that's a style of marketing that
I really just love.
Yeah, a lot of different
industries don't have the kind
of urgency already built in
baked in because urgency is a
huge factor in successful
marketing, is if your
prospective client doesn't have
a need for what you do and
doesn't have an urgent need for
what you do, then they're less
likely to hire you. But it's one
thing that's for most attorneys.
There's a built in urgency. If
somebody's hiring a lawyer,
they're doing it because they
have a need. Not some want just
mocks they haven't prepped for
estate planning. They've got a
little harder. Probably a little
bit harder. Yeah. But I do think
that I do think that even then
there comes a time when it
becomes a need. I just think
that there are a lot of people
don't realize that they have a
need. And so you might have a
little more education that there
is any but talk to me about
Google Google ads, Google Local,
because I really love to get
some clarity around the
difference. And so because
Google so first of all, Google
for most most of us out there
probably realize that Google is
a page ranking site. A lot of
people think of it as a search
engine. That includes everything
that's out on the internet
internet out there so we could
find it. But it the thing that
kind of differentiated is it
came out as a page ranking
service. And it actually goes
out and crawls the internet and
says, Okay, let's, there's all
these different sites of, you
know, tag to this keyword, let's
put them in order what we think
is the most important right now.
So when we're talking about
doing Google advertising, Google
has rolled out different things.
They have Google ads, and then
they have Google Express was
something that they came out
with, you know, to get people to
do their own Google ads.
And never use Google Express, by
the way.
So I want to talk about That's
why I brought it up. And
basically, the only one making
money when you use Google
Express is Google. They're
making a lot. And then they have
and they have Google Local. And
I want to get dig into sort of a
little deeper into what each of
each of those are. So why don't
you and anything I'm missing
here? So why don't you sort of
give us just a little brief
primer to kind of sort these out
into buckets for us? So we have
an understanding that we're not
always talking about the same
thing. We're talking to people?
Yeah, well, I think the easiest
way I found to kind of parse it
out is really just based on
like, if you do a Google search,
say any search, say criminal
justice lawyer, Kentucky, right
or criminal justice lawyer,
specifically Louisville,
Kentucky, pick a city, right? If
you do that search, right, and
anybody watching this, I
encourage you to do that search,
you'll immediately see at the
top our ads, right? Well, you
might see or one or two things,
you're gonna see local service
ads, right. Those are the things
that have like the image of the
lawyer, the actual attorneys
face. All right, that's a new
form. It's basically, basically,
since you mentioned it, Google
Express ADS has evolved.
Basically, Google keeps trying
to find a way that the platform
is easier and profitable for
small businesses who don't have
any technical know how to run
their own ads. Okay, Google
Express was effectively an
entirely a failure. I don't know
anybody ever who ran Google
Express and made money on it. It
was all over the place. If you
were an estate lawyer, you'd get
calls for criminal, if you're a
criminal, you get called for
PII, if your PII you get call
for family law, like it was just
terrible, right.
And they weren't making that
platform, the purpose of that
platform was to make it so the
small business who didn't have
somebody to help them could be
use this right only except it
really was just a moneymaker for
Google.
Exactly. They failed entirely at
the optimization, right?
Ironically, because here's the
thing, this is between between
agencies, and Google is a never
ending war. Okay? Because
Google's goal is to make money,
right? So if you ever wonder
like, why do you hire an agency
is because an agency is your
representative who's fighting
Google and saying, no, no, no,
Google, you're not going to take
that money from me. Because I
don't think that's going to turn
into a lead. I don't think
that's going to turn into money.
So for example, putting a lot of
effort and saying I don't want
to pay for pro bono, I don't
want to pay for free, I want to
pay for cheap, I don't want to
pay for this or that or somebody
who tends to search, this tends
to not be profitable, right?
Like you. They don't know the
the human mind, right? They
don't have that data of what
actually from a click turned
into a call and what calls
turned into a case, right, but
an agency does, right, as an
agency, I can actually tell
exactly every keyword that was
clicked on, if they turned into
a call. And if my client is
giving me the data, if those
calls turned into clients,
right, which then means I can
optimize that entire campaign to
tell Google to stop spending my
money, right. And so my job as
an agency is to not get more
clicks. It's to remove as many
clicks as possible. See exact
opposite. Right? So a lot of my
campaigns, we may pay $100 or
more per click right, which is a
lot $100 For one click Yeah,
right. But so then on a $3,000
budget, we get 30 clicks, right?
But of those 30 clicks, 15 of
them called you and of those 15
that called you five to eight of
them became clients, which
really pays. Yeah, right, well
worth it. But the game there
then is removing clicks, not
getting clicks. Google is good
at getting clicks, you don't
want clicks. So you need to
remove the ones that aren't
worth anything. But anyways, so
Google Express came out total
failure, because it wasn't based
on the idea of removing clicks,
it was getting more clicks. And
that's a horrible idea. So
Google Express then evolved into
the next attempt they made,
which is now local service ads,
which admittedly is way better
than Google Express. Okay, they
made it its own little separate,
add its own little separate
platform, some little thing,
right. It's got this little
visual, it's Google screen,
Google approved, you know, they
get you to go through this whole
process of validating that
you're legit business. And that
does, okay, I see people get
cases for maybe 500 750 bucks a
case. That's all right. Pretty,
pretty easy to set up. It
doesn't scale very well. It has
limits, but it's easier. It's
better than Google Express,
right. And then the newest thing
that they just launched is now
performance Max, which is
basically Google Express, but
like combined with like their
ideas that they got from like,
like from Google screen and or
local service ads. And now
they're saying, Okay, now
instead of just running Google
ads, you can also run display
ads, which are like ads on
websites, and you can run
YouTube ads and Gmail ads, and
you can run all these ads in one
simplified campaign. That's
super easy for a small bit.
business owner to set up. Now
personally, I fully expect it to
fail, right? Like, I don't know
that I'm not a perfect Google
expert. Somebody on here who's
listening who is telling me I'm
wrong, it's fine. But for me, it
just smells of Google Express of
here's a super easy way.
supermax or performance Max.
Performance matters. Okay,
performance Mac. All right,
good.
So we got that I might, I had
not heard her performance Max.
It's brand new.
All right. So let's talk about
Google Local, because I, so I've
had a client who uses Google
Local, and they've done their
own ads through Google Local,
and it's paid off really well
for them. And they just noticed
a drop in one of their practice
areas. But in the other practice
areas, it's still doing pretty
well. Is that something that
people can do for themselves?
That's different. This is a
different question, then is that
something they should do? This
is a dummy they can do for
themselves?
Yeah, I mean, you could do any
of this for yourself. A lot of
it's just, you know, grunt work
at the end of the day. And, you
know, to kind of tie it to the
previous question, we hadn't
quite finished with saying,
like, Hey, what are the
different elements, right, but
you have Google ads, then the
next thing you see is Google, my
business and our Google business
profiles, the new name now, but
also known as Google, local, the
map pack three pack has a bunch
of different names, right? So
that's second, right. And then
third is what used to be
traditional SEO, where people
used to say when they say rank
one, that's what they meant was
showing up on what was
traditional SEO, the actual text
result, right? That's now
effectively, nobody cares about
that just yet owns that Super
Lawyers owns that fine law owns
that is a small business, you're
never gonna be able to put
enough money to own traditional
SEO, right?
Just a little bit. A little bit,
okay. Because this is one of the
things that is a distinction
that I'm always oftentimes when
I'm speaking with law firm
owners, they tell me about SEO,
and they paid somebody a lot of
money to SEO, their do SEO on
their website and do it monthly
SEO and all that. And I tell
them, there's a distinction
between SEO and pay per click
right, PPC, which is when you're
paying for the ads. So SEO is is
is something that we think we're
going to get organic search
about organic reach. And that
your what you just said has
always been my argument is that
if you want to take advantage of
signing up for all the attorney
services, just get their free,
get their free listing, you
don't have to pay those
listings, but you want to be on
Justia, you want to be on any of
the ones that you could be on
for free, because they they've
got that first page of Google's
just sewn up. Yeah, right. Well,
this is actually where I want to
add something to your kind of
your your framework there is
that there is now a middle step
between PPC, Google ads, and
traditional SEO SEO right.
There's now local SEO, right.
And that and that's, that's
Google My Business. And here's
the thing, the work you do for
traditional SEO, helps Google My
Business, right, which is the
map pack three pack, Google
Local, the thing in between
Google ads, that so there is a
role for SEO, and it still can
make quite a bit of money. But
it's not in the way that people
thought of it about 510 years
ago, back in the day, 510 years
ago, you cared about website
traffic. Nowadays, I don't give
a crap. If anyone has ever gone
to your website, it doesn't
matter. The goal is have a good
website, you have to it's
important to have one. But the
goal of it is to have a good
website, because that helps your
Google My Business or Google
Business Profile rank better and
that local search part. And that
in itself is very profitable.
Because Google Local SEO is
built on the foundation of what
used to be traditional SEO. So
traditional SEO has a role, but
not in the way that people think
of they used to think it was
like website traffic and rank
one. And now I'm like, no, none
of that. Use it as a supporting
tool to help you with Google
business, which kind of gets us
more into if you want to talk
about it. What do you actually
do to take advantage of Google
business?
Well, so if you've got so for
SEO, SEO is, is what's happening
on your website, on the back end
to your website on the front end
to your website. It's about the
content, how the content reads,
does it follow certain rules
that Google has put out there
that says they prefer for
ranking? And so there are all
kinds of plugins that you can
use to help you get the backend
set up the right way, and then
there's certain contents or
rules and you know, I love what
I like about the the certain
plugins is they get a little
green light, you know, so you
know, Yoast SEO,
plug in the front of your site,
but at least you make Google
happy. If you get a keyword
stuffing, all of that just does
it's not nearly as effective as
it used to be when Google first
started doing SEO, you know. So
tell us tell us a little bit
about SEO kind of like what's
not working anymore on that and
sort of what is
Yeah, so a lot of what you just
talked about was actually what's
known as on page SEO, SEO can
technically be divided into two
categories on page Off Page.
Very simple on page means stuff
you do with your own website.
Off Page means stuff you do with
other people's websites. So off
page SEO would be like trying to
get backlinks from other
websites like just fine law,
etc. Okay, all that kind of
stuff off off page SEO of
getting some backlinks. I mean,
it's worth it to the degree like
if it's free, go for it. But
it's not worth it to necessarily
buy links or put a lot of effort
into it, you know, off page SEO
stuff. What is still worth it is
on page SEO, but not as much as
people used to think used to be
in the old days, you'd pay to
$3,000 a month, or more, just
for on page SEO and on page SEO
would mean would be blog posts,
optimizing the website, meta
titles, meta descriptions,
image, alt text, local schema,
I'm just throwing out technical
terms, forgive me for anyone who
doesn't know it. But all this
really technical stuff that you
do on this website, and on the
ongoing would be new content,
etc, etc. Paying two to $3,000,
just for that nowadays isn't
going to be profitable. And the
reason for that being, as I said
is that you are never going to
spend enough money to beat
justia or find law or Super
Lawyers or any of them, okay,
for any of those relevant terms
like criminal lawyer, insert
city, you're not going to win,
you just don't have the money.
Those guys are spending millions
a year, you just don't have the
money.
We were researching that Legal
Zoom is what everything is
gauged against Legal Zoom is
like the number ones Bender,
Google ads and investing in
Google far involve multiple
multiple times over anybody
else. So you and they set the
standard for like what keywords
cost for lawyers,
you're not going to say you're
not going to win that game with
with that traditional SEO. And
here's the thing, even if you
did, and this is actually the
biggest mind shift that I need
people to understand. I've
actually set up call tracking
and form tracking and lead
tracking on over 150 campaigns.
Okay, and so what that means is
that if a lead came in, if they
called you, if they sent an
email, if they fill out a form,
if they live chat, it didn't
matter how they came in, if they
came in, I knew about Okay, so
I've tracked well over 50,000
leads, okay, and what I have
consistently found is no matter
how large, the firm was small or
big 60 to 80% of every lead they
generated, could be directly or
indirectly attributed to just
Google My Business. That's not
the website. That's not even
Google ads. That's just Google
My Business. So here's the
thing, even if you do invest all
this money into SEO, and you
somehow beat justia and find
law, or maybe you find some
really long term key like long
keyword that they don't think of
like, you know, specifically
marijuana lawyer in Lawrence
County, right? Like this really
long one, right? Maybe you win
that and that gets you an extra
couple 100 people per month on
your website, okay? On average,
only 3% of the people who go to
your website will ever call you.
So a boost of 300 people on your
website, which the big boost,
right? That's a big number for a
lawyer most people only get only
get 300 for their whole website.
Okay, so 300 for one blog is
it's not bad. That's only going
to net you nine calls a month,
nine calls all that effort, all
that money 1000s of dollars for
nine calls, the math just
doesn't work out. When you
compare that to Google My
Business where most of my
clients are getting somewhere
between at least 50, but often
100 Plus calls a month from
their investment on Google My
Business, okay? So it's really
the mind shift. There's like,
hey, the calls the call volume
really comes from nowadays.
Google My Business. It's just
like the way I think about once
when you do a restaurant search,
you say, Italian restaurant near
me, do you ever go to their
website? No, almost never. You
look at their reviews. And you
they're saying and the menus
even on there, you don't even
need to go to the website to
look at the menu, it helps. Net
nowadays, you can even click
order now in order takeout
without ever going to the
website. Okay, so it's all on
Google My Business. So the same
thing happens with lawyers,
somebody looks for lawyer near
me, they look at your reviews,
they check out your profile,
they look for your information.
And now that looks good call,
and actually track that 75% of
the people who call you from
Google My Business or somehow
attributed to it. Only call from
Google My Business, they don't
even look at your website at
all. So 75% of people aren't
even looking at your website,
they call you without ever
looking at it. It's huge. It's
crazy. So Google, my business is
where the call volume is Google
business profile is a new name
technically. And your website is
for me a supporting metric.
Nowadays, any investment,
hardcore investment into your
website without focusing on
Google, my business, in my
opinion, is now a waste and is
not going to get you ROI.
Because even if you boosted your
traffic by 300, you only get
nine calls out of that. A lot of
money for only nine calls. But
you can get a lot more out of
that from Google business.
Now does it so does it matter if
you will everything for me? It's
in the name Google Local. So it
really is about focusing
locally, regionally, have a
national
it only had well So for anybody
with national presence, the only
way you can get money out of
Google businesses, you have
separate locations for in
specific cities. Okay? So for
most lawyers, that's not a
problem, because they just have
one or two locations, three,
four, whatever, they have actual
physical locations. And then
they just have location there,
they have a profile for each
location. And each, they fill it
out, they make it do everything
they can on the profile to get
reviews, etc. And then they
compete. And Google business
profile has about a 25 mile
radius, where you will compete
in unless you're in a very rural
market like Salem, Ohio, middle
of nowhere, Ohio, you can maybe
get 5050 miles. But mostly, it's
about 25 miles. But if you're an
international, you just need to
have multiple locations. And
there's lots and lots of
different ways. Yeah,
you and I were talking earlier
about the call, like, for our
business models, where we're
dealing with clients all over
the country, you know, having a
local or regional is not
something but for law firms.
Yeah, it makes that mean, your
clients are coming within even
even working remotely. There's
only so many places your clients
are going to come from and
people are going to hire people.
Well, local more than they are
going to hire somebody on the
other end of the state to do
their will or handle their
divorce or whatever, cuz you
gotta find somebody who goes to
court for you where you live in
your area. Right? So it's so
that local model, that regional
model is really an important
sort of distinction, right?
Yeah, Google, Google ads,
you can do whatever you want.
Yeah, it's one of the with
traditional Google ads, that's
one of the sort of pitfalls of
kind of running your own Google
ads that people have found in
the past is like, I'm getting
calls from, you know, KIPP
senior, or whatever, I'm getting
calls I live in safer Florida, I
get, you know, I'd get calls
from safer North Carolina, or
whatever, because, you know, you
have to be very dialed in and
pay attention to where your
calls are coming from. Right.
Yeah, that's both the the
Achilles heel, so it's a double
edged sword is, it's amazing,
because at the same time, you
can have that nationwide
presence. And you can get cases
anywhere. With Google ads.
There's no limits nationwide, as
long as you can practice in the
area, you can run an ad.
Downside being if you're not
managing it, if you're not
watching it, yeah, it happens
all the time, that you get calls
from areas you can't serve. Now,
local service ads help with that
a little bit, because local
service ads make it same
concept, right? They very clear
on your local service area, it's
in the name, right? Local
Service ads. So that helps a
lot. So the local service ads
are safer, but your your
traditional kind of text ads,
which is still the majority of
ads on Google, yeah, you gotta
be real careful. But yeah,
Google My Business, hyperlocal
25 mile radius. And if any of
those people listening who are
trying to have a virtual office,
you mentioned this, I'm going to
tell you right now, you're just
gonna have to, you're gonna have
to find a way that you have a
physical location, there's no
way around it. And trust me,
there's enough money to be made
on the platform that it's worth
it. You can make deals with your
local person, or you go to a
dentist and say, Hey, do you
have a broom closet, I can rent
for $100 a month, right? As long
as you have some kind of lease
agreement with them, that counts
as a location, you can use that
if you're willing, you can use
your own home address or a
friend's home address if they're
willing to have it publicized.
But you need some form of
location. If you're going to
generate leads from Google
business, there's no way around
it.
Things like you might I guess
some of the mailbox services
now. Are they using Street
numbers for like UPS, whatever
are they
even if they do, you'll get
caught eventually, and then
you'll get suspended. And then
it's going to be brutal. You
have a sudden drop and lead flow
and you're not going to want it.
We're clear on that point. So up
for the UPS store, local UPS
Store or the setting store or
whatever, those do not count.
Google doesn't like it if they
find out that that's where you
get you've got a box there or
something.
And now you need to have some
kind of physical location. And
there's actually there's a cool
story behind this. Basically
what happened this is here's the
thing, a lot of small
businesses, small people are
like, I want to go virtual, I
want to start my own business.
Why is Google stopping me? You
know, they're very angry at
Google. And I get it. It's very
annoying to be stopped like
this. But here's the thing, it
actually protects you a lot.
Yes, the people who protects the
most are the small businesses
because here's what happened. At
one point, it wasn't necessary.
And this is what happened. The
guys with money, Morgan and
Morgan went into every city and
every market and created a brand
new listing with no reviews
because they didn't need it
because they're freaking Morgan
and Morgan, and everyone knows
them anyways, didn't matter if
they had reviews. So they opened
1000s of GMB listings and
crushed every local competitor.
So it became useless for local
businesses, local businesses had
no role to play. So the only way
that the local business can be
protected is if Google forces a
verification of some form of a
local presence, right? So it's
actually in your benefit. And
even as a virtual smaller firm,
that if you want to make money
on this platform to be a ditto
except Google and saying, Hey, I
appreciate that we verify
locally to some degree, because
at least prevents Morgan Morgan
and anybody with enough money
from coming in and launching
1000s of these nationwide and
just crushing everybody. I gotta
say John Horgan is always
impressing me, man. And he's
always steps ahead of everybody
else in trying things and trying
to do things from a marketing
standpoint, some of it some
white hat, black hat.
Oh, my God. I mean, that was the
biggest suspension wave I've
ever seen in my career. I mean,
we saw 1000s of listings get
suspended. Some, some of them
from obviously people like that,
who are making these 1000s of
them, but others just from other
law firms who just said, I'll
just keep making more virtual
offices who had kind of taken up
the same idea, but not to the
same scale. And people in Regus
offices, co working spots
sometimes still get suspended.
Yeah, I mean, it, it's tough.
But if you put the effort in
either at a home address, or
again, make a deal with a local
dentist a non competitive
business and say, Look, do you
have a closet, and like that I
can rent for 100 bucks a month,
you're gonna get more than 100
bucks a month and clients out of
out of doing that effort, just
have a legit lease agreement,
which again, I'm very big on
doing this, as ethically as you
can, it's not breaking Terms of
Service, you do have a
legitimate lease agreement that
says you rent this thing, right?
That way you can give it to
Google, if you ever get
suspended,
do something great for you have
another other attorneys out out
there that you can, you know,
rent their conference space for
the use of their conference
space, if you pay them a certain
amount and, and have a lease
agreement with them or something
like that, maybe a good way to
go. And also, I do like the idea
of other other types of
businesses, especially let's say
if you're, you know, you're an
attorney, and maybe you rent
space with a therapist or
something,
oh, these are great, because
they're busy. They're in a
similar situation where they're
not in it all the time. You
know, so they're, they're very
incentivized.
Yeah, so great idea. All right.
So let's go back to where we
were kind of, we were kind of
clearing up the distinction
between all these. And so I
think the last one we were
talking about was just kind of
like what Google ads just
straight Google ads, what normal
people normally think of when
they think of hiring agency to
do Google ads for them. They're
not necessarily thinking, Google
Local, they're thinking, you
know, we're gonna put ads out
there or make it local, by the
keywords we use, or by the
parameters that or something
like that. Is there anything we
need to know about that? And how
that's different?
Yeah, I would generally say like
the I would never do Google ads
on your own, ever, like I and of
course, I'm biased in that. But
if I were to separate my own
business, and I didn't have an
agency right now, I'd say the
same thing. And the reason is,
is like, I've just seen too much
money be burned. I mean, unless
you like the full and you want a
full time job of managing it.
It's just a lot of effort. It's
just a lot of going in every day
and seeing Okay, where is Google
spending my money and then
telling it not to spend the
money there, okay, like, it's
just a lot of everyday going in
and saying, don't spend my money
this way. And unless you're
willing to go in every day,
you're gonna burn a lot of
money. Okay, local service ads,
sure, you can do that on your
own. That's pretty easy. It's
limited enough in scope, that
you set it up. Once you it's
really set and forget local
service ads, it's kind of the
first time Google succeeded and
what I think is a set forget,
campaign. So that's, that's
fine. But don't ever run Google
ads on your own. And if you hire
somebody, make sure that you get
them and ask them to talk about
how they limit clicks, and then
figure out if they talk about
really the metrics that matter,
like, like actually getting
cases, because impressions,
clicks, click through rate, none
of that means anything. If it
doesn't turn into cases, I don't
care if they got 100 clicks. Did
any one of those turn into a
call? Did those calls turn into
cases where they calls it? We're
talking about Social Security?
When here you're not a
Disability Lawyer, right? Like
it actually you gotta gotta get
get them to talk about like,
hey, no, no, we generate cases.
And here's how we do that by
getting rid of clicks as much as
we can. And if they can't talk
about that, don't hire them.
Just don't. Yeah, yeah. Like,
they're not gonna make money.
And one of the experiences we
had is, we've learned my husband
who works with me in this
business to provide it's the
only thing that we still do for
our clients is that we do adult
for us Google ads. And when he
became Google certified, it was
just a whole nother level of
knowledge and information that
all the sort of secrets that you
don't realize, that's why we
were telling everybody Oh, my
God, no, do not to Google
yourself. Too much stuff. And we
learned that the hard way,
because we had another business.
Yeah. And that's what propelled
him to like, go in and become
certified and learn it. Because
he was, you know, spending all
this money to advertise another
type of business. And it was
like, Oh, my gosh, there's so
much I don't know. And they that
you can't, you can't google it.
No,
you can't you learn the hard
way. That's almost it. There's
some online courses, but it's
still hard to find.
Yeah. And they probably aren't
as you know, one of the things
you and I were talking about
earlier was how verta about meta
and Facebook, advertising,
Instagram. And all of these
services are all Google is a
little bit more intuitive, but
they're all always changing. So
you can go watch a video from
somebody who says this is how
you do such and so on YouTube, I
mean, my nephews who are college
in college They're famous for
like going to YouTube to figure
out how to do things, right. And
my husband, you know, will go
look on things in YouTube. But
it's amazing how quickly those
types of things expire. Because
they're no longer good, because
of the platforms have changed
what they're doing, they're
always evolving. And Facebook
right now is in a huge, you
know, just being just turning,
just becoming meta, and all
their focus and how they're
shifting, things are changing a
lot of things. And you, you have
to have, like, people help you
figure those things out, because
you can go watch videos all day
long, but then you were like,
looking at your screen goal, I
don't have any of those buttons,
were whatever that right. Things
are always evolving, right? So
you have a very interesting
guarantee, you have 100%
guarantee that what you do will
work and will result in cases.
So why don't you go into a
little bit more detail about
that, because I know people are
going but so one thing about
lawyers, as fun as we may be to
work with is that we are
skeptical lot. And we might look
at that and go, Oh, I believe
that you can't do that. And of
course, we're told everywhere.
That Well, you know, there's no
guarantee and marketing. Yep.
Because we can't, you know,
there's, you know, it's fluid,
things are always changing,
right? So tell me what made you
decide to do this guarantee? And
what it is exactly, yeah. So
we'll start with kind of talking
about what is the actual
guarantees. So the explicit
guarantee is, we guarantee the
campaign will be profitable in
three months or less. And if we
fail, in three months, we'll
work for free for up to three
more months. And if we fail
again, after six months, we'll
actually refund all your money.
Okay. And so for example, if you
were to do our base campaign
starts at $1,500 a month, okay,
which means within three months,
you'd spend $4,500. With me,
which means by the end of that
time period, most lawyers, we
based on gross profits, so most
lawyers gross profit around 60
to 80%, which means we need to
be getting you at least $5,600,
to about $7,800 in revenue to
make that profitable for you
minimum, okay. And the main
reason we do this guarantee is
not because like that, like
three months, getting only
$7,600 in revenue, like that's
not, that's not the end goal,
right? Like, that's not a goal,
right? We want you to make way
more money than that. But the
reason we do it is our goal is
in that three months is that if
we can get to the point where
the campaign makes enough money
to pay for itself, well, then
you can sustain the campaign,
okay. And so then you can
sustain it over the next 12
months, 24 months. And that's
where you're going to start
seeing major gains like doubling
your business or tripling your
business. But before we can do
that, for a lot of lawyers, if
you can't start making money in
three months, you can't sustain
it for 12 months, like you don't
want to take that risk. A lot of
people, you know, they took SEO
risks, and when they got burned,
and they spent 12 months
investing for $2,000 a month.
And then 12 months later, they
didn't make $24,000 in revenue
back. Now, despite all this
investment in quote, unquote,
SEO. And so I was very much
like, I don't want to be that
way, I want you to make at least
enough to cover the cost of the
campaign within three months. So
then you can sustain it over the
long haul over the next 12
months. And then I can make you
even more money than whatever I
did in the first three months.
Okay. So that's kind of the you
know, what the guarantee is why
I did it was just because it's
the type of business I want to
run. I just I love running
business in a way that I'm like,
none. And I'm actually helping
these people grow their business
like i It is not a success for
me. If I did all this work, and
you didn't make money, okay,
like that's a failure state.
Like, that's, that's not
acceptable. But that is not an
outcome that I'm okay with.
There are many businesses that
are that that's their whole
business model, like that's
okay. Like, they're like 500
bucks a month. And I'm like,
that's an okay for me, that's
not fine. If you're not making
money, then I'm wasting my time.
It just doesn't feel good. So
that's why I did it. In terms of
like, how do we do it? I mean,
long story short, we just kind
of have the data on it. In
general, we succeed within the
three months, about 80% of the
time, we succeed within the next
six months, 98% of the time, we
almost never have anybody
completely fail within six
months. Okay. And basically, the
thing that fails more than often
than anything is not the
marketing. It's often close
rate. And I was actually
listening to the sales
conversation you had with the
CEO of select sales development.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love
that episode, by the way. So
cool. The plan meant that
talking about how to management
questions, etc. That was a great
episode. But anyways, so we're
often also doing like train
sales, training support, and I
have my own theories on that.
But anyways, the point is, we
just have the data that like, we
put the grunt work into Google
business profile, we know that
60 to 80% of calls come from
Google business. So we're
putting the effort where the you
know, basically where we found
the 20% that drives 80%. So
we're putting all our effort
into that. And we found that
basically, Google likes Google.
So if you put effort into Google
by filling everything out by
doing everything you can do on
the profile possible, right,
putting all the grunt work in
you can that Google rewards you
and that in most situations,
within three months, most of our
clients have gotten at least 16
consultations. And usually if
they have at least a 20 30%
closing rate that turns into,
you know, three, four cases of
Okay, and most people's average
case value is somewhere between
three and $5,000. Which means
even at the low end, they're
looking at $9,000. Okay, which,
of course, more than pays the
campaign off? So a lot of this
just comes down to pure numbers.
Okay. Right. Right. And that's
how that's how we do it, and why
we do it.
Yeah, no, that's great. It's
great for you to share that.
Because I think one thing that's
really interesting about that,
too, is that you make you make
the point that it takes, this is
something that takes time, this
is something that, you know,
when, when working with anybody
on on ads, it's in, and we're
just very select, you know, I
only work with my coaching
clients on this, but when we do,
it's always like, it takes a
while, because you're tweaking
you're changing, you're seeing
what's happened, what's working,
what's not. And also things
change, you're in a dynamic
environment, you know, they're
always sort of working that to
tweak and make better, like you
said, remove those, those clicks
that are, you know, you
shouldn't be getting right. And
so I think that is, that's
something that people need to
keep in mind, like any marketing
that you do, you have to give it
time to work. And three months
is not sufficient, really to
give it time to work, you have
to give it time, six months, 12
months, to really see, to really
see the full potential big
benefit, it's not not some
benefit, you certainly should be
getting something like you
shouldn't just be throwing money
down a pit. But at the same
time, you know, to get the full
benefit is something that the
longer you sort of stick with it
even even just, you know, I
remember we had a we had a gym,
and the first one we opened, we
wound up having to close that
one. And we changed the name and
we did something similar or
different. But that old site
just got so we were ranked like
top when you search. Yeah. In
2005, or something. We were
ranked like number one. And so
we couldn't we didn't want to
give that up. You know, we were
driving traffic from that name.
Because some of that is just
like how long you've been around
and how long you've been doing
something and how long? Because
Google looks at that as the
longer you're around, the more
credible
you are, the more you've put
consistent effort in, you know,
basically, especially with
Google business, it was just
separate than Google ads. Right.
But Google business, a lot of
it, I think it is kind of the
online equivalent of how do you
have a good referral business?
Okay, so then a good referral
business, the way you get
referrals is that you prove
you're an expert to people, you
help as many people as you can
you build their trust, you get
them to speak well of you. And
you build your authority, right?
Expertise, authority and trust,
okay. And then people naturally
want to refer you because
they're like, Hey, this guy
helped me he did good work. He's
an expert, he's going to help
you in everything he does,
right? Or she I'm just saying he
because I'm a heat. But anyways,
you know that that's a little
referral? Well, Google business
is the same thing. You go on
there. If you put the effort in
consistently to prove your
authority, you really fill out
the profile, you put in your
information that you do this
service and that service and you
post frequently, you add photos
and you do questions and
answers, you prove you're an
expert, you prove your authority
by putting that effort in over
time, and you build trust by
getting reviews, and then
responding to those reviews.
Just put that effort in? Well,
then Google's then gonna refer
you cases because now you are
the highest expert with the most
authority in the most trust,
okay, it's just the same thing.
And of course, as you said, that
takes time. And what we're doing
is we're trying to bum rush it
in three months, just because
that's the challenge we want to
put to ourselves is like, hey,
we want you to make money. Let's
prove we can do it in three
months. But then the real gains
and we have people, it's not
uncommon. We have clients who
doubled their business in 12
months, like that's when we
started out, like 200,000 now is
doing 400,000. And that's,
that's a fairly small firm
still, but like we can we've had
other situations go from 400 to
800. Like that happens.
It's an awful. Yeah, yeah, for
sure. I thank you so much for
being here. today. We have to
wrap it up. But I appreciate you
being here. And I think I've
learned a lot and I'm sure that
our listeners have learned a
lot. So tell us how we can find
out more about you and how to
connect with you and get you
know, dig into local marketing
get to know more about what
you're doing.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, the
first things first, you can
always contact me at our dever
that's ours and Roger DS and dog
EA V as in Victor er at Noble
marketing.co. You can always
contact me there. It's also the
website. And if you don't mind,
do you mind if I actually
suggest a link to another
podcast that I think people
would appreciate listening to
after they listen to this one?
Yeah, so I did a podcast with
Susan Guthrie. She's a top 1.5%
podcaster and lawyer. And her
podcast that we did together was
basically on the tutorial of
everything you can really do to
take advantage of the Google
business profile and how you can
really work it to get your
money's worth out of it. And you
had mentioned you said hey, can
you do this on your own? And I
said for Google business. Yes.
It's just a lot of grunt work at
the end of the day. Okay. So
when anybody asked me like, What
do I do? I say, look, I sell
grunt work, okay, like we don't
have any black. We don't have a
black box. There's no black
magic. At the end of the day.
What do I do? I take your Google
business profile over I take
your Google Ads profile over and
I just put in hours of work.
Every day on Google business
that turns into posts that's
photos, it's questions and
answers, that's breaking out
your services into 100
subcategories with 300 character
descriptions, right? That's
adding products that's helping
you get reviews that's
responding to reviews, just
grunt work. There's a lot you
can do on the profile. It is not
a set and forget profile. It is
absolutely a proactive thing.
Same thing with Google ads, as
we talked about proactive,
removing negative keywords, we
just put the grunt work in. So I
want you to watch that podcast,
hear the grunt work. And if you
want to do it yourself, great,
go do it, you'll make a ton of
money. And if you don't want to
do it yourself, come talk to me,
we've got campaigns, we
guarantee there'll be profitable
starting as low as $1,500 a
month and I'd love to help you.
Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.
You and I discussed that. And we
were talking about whether you
whether what you can do and
whether you should be doing it.
So my clients, anybody who's
followed me for a while knows
that I'm going to tell them you
absolutely should not be
spending your time.
I've recommended
way Wait, maybe at the very
beginning, business, you have
more time than money, maybe. But
I would also make an argument
that it's worth it to put it on
a credit card just for a little
while. I've done that before. I
have people who would do three
months of credit. And then by
the end of the three months,
they've made the money back and
they're fine. Like it happens
all the time. Because it's
really a matter of should you do
it. And I think what people
don't realize about marketing in
general, and any any marketing
that you're doing any, no matter
what you're doing for marketing,
it is a lot more detailed. And
there's a lot more knowledge
there. It's there's a learning
curve, and it's people who are
marketing on certain platforms.
There's a learning curve, like I
used my I always use Instagram
as my example. I have someone
who runs my Instagram account
for me, she and I need we work
strategy. It's me, it's by
content. It's you know, I've
always all that, but she's
there, she loves Instagram,
she's on Instagram all day long.
She got it on Instagram, she
played, she loves it. It's
awesome. And, you know, I don't
have that kind of time. I'm busy
serving clients doing other
things. And I don't want to dig
in and oh, I just found out
that, you know, now you can add
links to stories.
Oh my god.
I don't want to spend the time
digging. And I don't think as
you're trying to be the CEO of
your law, firm business is not
where you need to be spending
your time. But you definitely
need people to help you do that.
So, Ronnie, thanks for sharing
with us today and you'll send me
those links. We'll include them
in the show notes for this
podcast, so everybody can just
easily click on them and go
listen to Susan Guthrie's
podcasts as well and hear all
those details. Thanks so much
for being here and sharing with
us today.
Thanks so much. It's a pleasure.
