Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Most importantly, I think in terms of marketing is delivering a quality product. It can look really nice, it can look exceptional. If you're marketing well, that that might be a detrimental even because then people remember you but not for the right reasons.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Most firms surv the best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners podcast where law firm leaders learn to think bigger. I'm Kevin Daisey. Let's jump in.
What's up everyone?
Welcome to another episode of the Managing Partners podcast. I'm here today chilling with my friend Ben Faber, Faber Law Firm.
As always, I get to talk backstage a few minutes with my guest and I love what Ben if you bring to the table and what he has to share. So I'm going to have a lot of fun as always trying to bring the best topics and guests and what pain points you all are facing. So always reach out. If you have ideas guests that we should have on the show, topics we should cover, reach out and let me know and I'll find the best people I can to cover it. So Ben, welcome to the show.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Thank you. Good to be here.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Introduce yourself real quick. Tell us where you're at and more about your law firm and then we'll, we'll get into some, some topics about brand and how important that is.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Sure. So my name's Ben Faber. I own Faber Law firm in Columbia, Missouri. We're right in the middle of the state of Missouri, practice exclusively criminal defense.
It's me, one associate and some great staff.
We're in a college town so it sort of drives a bit of the business.
We're also in the middle of a lot of rural areas.
So we practice in about 11 counties in central Missouri, including you know, the primary caseloads out of Boone county, which is Columbia, where the University of Missouri is a little more professional medical insurance and college type demographic. But then of course we get smaller towns and a lot of the issues and, and folks that, that come out of there. I've been practicing.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah, very nice.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Thirteen years now.
We've, you know, we've, things are going pretty okay this week.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: The life of an entrepreneur can look good in the morning, not so much at the end of the day. Well, I appreciate you sharing that.
And it's, you know, we were talking one of the topics we were going to cover and you kind of consider that like a, was it like a mid sized market? It sounds like it's really spread out lots of different little areas and pockets. So that can be difficult.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it can be. You know, we've got, we want to Face our, you know, our highest value client base, you know, here in Boone County.
But we get a lot of great cases from the surrounding areas and they're, they're different people with different values. They're looking for different things.
So you know, balancing all of that has been always on my mind in terms of branding the law firm.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So you know, let's kind of dive into that. Obviously I'm huge on branding and niching and culture and you know, when it comes to law firms or any business and it's so important just versus skipping right to you know, I want the leads or I want to just, you know, show up in front of people like, but take us maybe through a little bit of the process of how you've navigated that and maybe even when you kind of started to realize and put effort towards that versus kind of just, you know, hey, I, I started, hung my shingle and here I am, you know, kind of. What, what does that life cycle look like?
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Well, it all started in my basement when I was teaching myself how to use Adobe Illustrator, uh, trying to figure out what my logo was going to look like at 2 in the morning. The night that my, my former employer told me that she was closing her practice and that you know, I decided that that's, this is what I was going to do. You know, from there, you know, we knew we wanted a, a, a nice looking product and that's not terribly difficult to do, you know, if you put some thought into it. Most importantly, I think in terms of marketing is delivering, delivering a quality product.
It can look really nice, it can look exceptional and that if, if you're marketing well that, that might be detrimental even if you're not delivering a, a good product because then people remember you but not for the right reasons. So that, I mean we've, that's always been the most important thing is just being the best or, or attempting to be the best and delivering exceptional results. But at the same time you want people to remember you. And we get a lot of, you know, we get a lot of price shoppers, we get a lot of transplants, we get a lot of people without like a lot of my referrals come from Google. You know, it's, it's not direct referrals. We get plenty of direct referrals, things like that, attorney referrals. But a lot of them are people who are shopping and I'll ask them, where'd you find me? They'll say on Google and they'll say I was impressed by your reviews right and so you get good reviews by delivering a good product, but also by being attentive, you know, following up with happy clients, clients you've made a connection with.
But when you're out there in a semi crowded market, which I would describe, you know, central Missouri as semi crowded, there's plenty of work, but there's also plenty of competition.
You want to stand out, you want to look like the lawyer that people want to hire. The difficult part, the tricky part of that is knowing. And maybe I don't know, but I'm trying to figure it out what that is.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Yeah, it's everything's your brand. So someone calls up and talks to one of your folks on the phone, how they handle that, how they speak, how they carry themselves, reflects on your brand, inflicts on your marketing. So yes, it's. No one ever likes the answer to that. You have to just do a lot of great things and get things right and do good work and show up and you know, all these things. But that's what it takes. That's what these other firms have done. There's no shortcuts to do that. But also to your point, yeah. What is the attorney that they want to hire for the majority right. Of those people in your community?
Is it the sharp dressed attorney? Is it the, you know, the laid back attorney? Is it this, the, the one of the biggest case wins or, you know, what is it? So I think understanding your market is very important, but also I think they're looking for authenticity, you know, that you're not coming up with some gimmick or some kind of scheme to try to look like the attorney they want to hire.
But honestly, I think the one they want to hire is the one that has great reviews and delivers a good product and follows up.
You know, to me, that's the one they should want to hire.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Right? No. And placing yourself in a position to be identified, I think as, as that person is the difficult part. Right, because they don't know you. Google, you know, best criminal lawyer, Columbia, Mo. Right. You're gonna get several shiny websites, nice looking lawyers, you know, nice looking suits, little scrolling tidbits from their favorite reviews, you know, five stars on Avo and things like that. Or 10, I'm looking over here, 10, 10 points and then, yeah, five stars. I don't know what the difference is, throwing all that stuff out there. And you know, you can. Differentiation can be difficult.
You know, you can market yourself as the. I've seen one that I liked at, I think like the state of Washington, it was a guy, he said, representing good people, charged with dwi.
That was his, that was his message as what I'm looking for. People who perceive themselves as good people who also have a dwi.
Now, there's other guys out there.
You know, he leans into the. I'm the guy you call if you're guilty, because I'll. Cause I'll get you off. Right.
He wants people who are desperate and scared and, and are looking for the lawyer that will, that will help them and in that circumstance, you know, so just figuring out a lot of it's. And like you said, authenticity is important.
Figuring out who you are, who you. And it's like, I guess you could fake it, you know, I guess I could, you know, I could lean into, like, country lawyer.
Get some cowboy boots or bolo tie.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Get you a hat.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Wear a hat. Yes, ma'.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Am.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: That kind of stuff. And, you know, there, there's probably a lot of good old boys out there. I. I know for a fact that some of my competition, that that's who they are, that's authentically them, and they connect with those clients.
Um, and to be honest, I'm not really competing. I'm. Well, I am, but if they meet with me and they meet with them, they like them better and that's fine, right? They. They have a better connection. And if I were. But if I'm faking something like that, I'm. Then I'm not. I'm not doing anyone any favors.
So figuring out who you are, like, I think I, you know, my marketing is professional.
I think that, you know, I think that's probably the best way to describe is professional and polished. That's what I try to deliver. You know, my. I. I feel like the language that I use in my letters, the, the language that I use when I'm responding to client emails, you know, the way I dress professional and polished and it's just all sort of part of the brand, but it's also who I am. So it's, you know, it's easier to leverage when you're not out there, you know, trying to, Trying to convince people to hire you because of some gimmick.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I agree. I think, you know, it's.
There's a lot of lawyers, you know, laid back, or they show up on here with like, you know, T shirt on. They're just hanging out. So there's a lot of. Lot of newer firms and newer folks and like, oh, I'm different because I'm not dressed in a suit and all Nice and neat.
But at the end of the day, people expect a lawyer to be put together. They expect them to have clean, concise communication and letters and know how to draft an email and things like that. So I think there's a place for all of it. And I think back to a point where you can Google and find 10 other people that have also done everything that looks right.
So there's some. This stiff competition, you know, you can't just get away with not doing good work, that's for sure. Like, you definitely have to be on your game these days and everyone's putting the right things in place.
So you know, your brand, your personal brand, how you stand out is that's your differentiator. Right. Because they might go to the cowboy guys. And I got some clients like that that are good old boys, but they might not like that. They might, you know, then they come to you. So it's.
Everyone has the ability to have a place in their market.
But back to Ben's point, you have to do really good work. You have to follow up, you have to get the reviews. You have to do a lot of crap to just be at a basic level these days.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And you want to do both, or maybe you don't, right? I want to do both.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: I'm the one star lawyer. Call me.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Well, what I'm. What I'm getting at, I guess is like I have. I'm thinking of someone specific, one of the, One of the more skilled lawyers that I know who does a great job. His clients love him.
Everything, everything about him is excellent.
He doesn't really market that much, and that's fine with him. He's not trying to grow his law firm.
He's a little bit older than I am for, you know, just for example, and he gets good cases and he has the caseload that he wants. And that's, that's great.
But you know, for me, I want to grow my firm.
I want to bring in more business and, you know, hire more lawyers and all of that.
So finding a way to be out there and ex executing on lead generation, it's important. And I think, you know, marketing's.
Marketing's really the only way to effective marketing. It's really the only way to increase that, especially, you know, when you, when you have competition.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I totally agree.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Well, and on the, on the other hand, I forgot that I was. I forgot that that was only half my point. On the other hand, you can. But, but this guy's talent and skill is is what he has to, is what he has to offer for as his, as his brand. And that's fine. If you know who he is, then you're going to go to him. Or if you, you know, know somebody who used him, then you're probably going
[00:14:03] Speaker B: to go to him.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: On the other hand, you can have very effective marketing and have tons of calls coming in and have people answering the phone and following up and taking money. Right? You know, converting, you know, maybe it's a lower conversion rate but your, but your leads are, you know, five times what I'm getting or something. But you're not executing on the product. You're not, you're not delivering good results. You're not, you're not establishing yourself as, as a premier lawyer in the community. Your clients might be happy, but that only, that only goes so far. If you're bullshitting them, you know, telling them that you got em a good deal when you're not, eventually, you know, if you're building a house of cards, it's gonna fall. So supporting your brand with the product is, you know, it's super critical.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: A hundred percent. One hundred percent. I was gonna say, you know, I know a lot of firms that just, they don't wanna grow. They're comfortable and that's totally fine. Most people on this show that listen to the show, they're trying to grow, they're trying to expand, they're trying to maybe not try to be the biggest firm in the world, but they want to move ahead, move forward. If you're doing that, you need to do those things right. You need to take care of the clients, put the good work product out, get the good results.
So I mean it comes down to yeah, there's a lot of stuff you have to do, right? And then if you're doing that piece and then you turn the marketing on and you find channels that work for your market and your area, it's magical what can happen. And then growing, scaling becomes much easier. We were also talking about, you know, I know you're, you're big on hiring and so am I, your brand. How your firm operates, how it handles its clients and customers definitely impacts your hiring capability.
Because people don't want to work at a firm that's like a marketing machine, but does shit work or does it follow the clients because they're not going to stay because they're going to feel bad about what's being done. So.
And if you got a great brand in your market, much easier because other people have heard of you. Paralegals associates. Oh, man, I really want to work for Ben Faber. Like, soon as he's hiring, like, I'm ready to go.
So, you know, the brand and the things that you're doing is helping on all aspects of your company, in my opinion.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that's, and it does tails right back into what, what you were saying before, where it, if you're, if you're hiring anybody, right, Anybody and everybody. If you're trying, you know, if. What if all you're looking for is growth, then that house of cards is going to fall. You gotta, you gotta find good people who are going, who are interested in delivering the same product, like being successful in the way that you value success with integrity. You're, you know, you're, you know that you're doing the best job for these people you possibly can. And you want someone else who will do that, who's not just there to get a paycheck or who's not just there to, you know, get more billable so they can get more salary so that they can be a partner so that they can, you know, make more money. Right. Like, that's all great. That'll happen.
But finding the best people to that share that, like, mission right, Is super important and that can be difficult because those people are valuable.
So like you were saying, having that, having a reputation, you know, that's probably the most valuable thing. You have these, these old heads, they're like, that's all you need. You don't need a website, you just need a reputation. Now people are like googling lawyers with a good reputation, you know, so it doesn't really. You kind of need both.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Google's not like chat, cbt. You can just ask it questions and it'll, you know, Zach can just like, like that. So the way we search is changing
[00:17:50] Speaker A: new area that I'm just, just, I mean, I'm not, I'm not giving it any energy, but we're getting a few now where we say, how'd you find us? And they say chat, GPT or Grok or, you know, Claude, whatever.
And so, and that may be, that seems to be happening naturally, which is
[00:18:10] Speaker B: good because of reputation. It's because of reputation and because of existing SEO reviews, branding. Yeah. People don't get mentioned by those platforms that haven't put effort into their presence.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: I think so, Yeah. I hope so. You know, and the other part, the other part of hiring too, like my new hire, her name's Nicole, a friend of mine who I've been, you know, practicing Law, like a colleague, right? A longtime colleague.
I call him for help on matters that are outside of my practice area. He calls me for help, called me for help on matters that, you know, may have been new or complex or just otherwise just wanted someone to bounce ideas off of.
He's transitioning into something different and he had an employee and you know, over just like by being out there, being in the community.
And that's another part we haven't really talked about, like community based marketing. Just being, being involved, being friendly, being around, you know. He called me and he said, hey, I'm transitioning. I need somewhere for my, for my associate to land. I only thought of you, right. And so like, some of that's luck, but it's also just because I think, you know, the, the community based marketing, also known as not being an asshole, can really, can really pay off in, in special ways.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and he knew she was gonna go to a good place and has the same values as you. So a couple different points there, you know. Yeah, you can market your way to get in ton of leads and do a shit job, right. And still maybe have some success for a while.
But if you never invest in the community, you don't show up, you don't, you're not really investing and building that, you know, those deep relationships, then you're missing a big part. So yeah, you can just market your way, not be part of the community, not do a great work.
It's a house of hearts. Your point? It's not going to last. And when you do all those things, then you're really building something. And that's when people go, I can't compete with, with Ben Faber.
Like, well, Ben's done the work, he spent the time, he's done all the things.
So yeah, it's hard to compete and replicate that unless you start doing all these things. Right. So it's not the answer people want to hear, but if you want to plan strategy, then that's what you got to start figuring out.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: How can we start to accomplish these things? And it's not overnight, that's for sure.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: It's not overnight. It's not easy.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: It's definitely not.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: It's hard.
It's really hard. I think most, most, most lawyers who are interested and capable of doing good work are, are also capable of competing and, you know, being successful in terms of, you know, caseload and, and, and high value clients and things like that.
It doesn't take like a lot of talent. I'm not skilled in coaching baseball. I'M not skilled in advertising. I'm not skilled in website design or SEO or graphic design or copywriting or anything like that. But if you put a little bit of attention into everything that you do and all the people who need it and all the people who ask for it, whether it's being kind to law clerks or not law clerks, court clerks, you know, being kind to security at courthouses, being kind to your mailman or the, the people who deliver you food or chatting with your plumber. Right.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Put your grocery cart back.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, absolutely. People. If, if that guy's out there, we.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: You wee wee you.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: And I'm on there and the wrong person picks it up and redoes it. I mean, that. Yeah, like, I mean, it could all come crashing down to, you know, one bad moment. We've seen it. You know, we saw it. Don't cheat on your wife. Right.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: That'll hurt.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Don't be, you know, that's an. Don't be an asshole. Get out there and do the right thing. And if someone asks you for a hundred bucks for their, for their Boy Scout Eagle. Eagle Scout project or something like that, give it to them.
You know, it. It pays off.
Just paying attention to, to everything.
And that includes that. That's inside and outside of your business, right?
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: It's hard. It's a lot of people, we live in our business sometimes and, and don't get out to.
To think about the. The rest of the community that. That we're in. So I, I love it. So don't be an everyone. That's this the lesson today.
But I love it. It makes it simple to.
To get. Wrap your head around it.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: And then, you know, back to the hiring part. You know, it's.
I was me and Bimmer chatting another. It's like almost all my team comes from referrals from my team. And if you have a good team that believes in what you believe in, has integrity, whatever it is, you're basically asking them who do they want to work with?
You know, and if they have someone, oh, I got a great friend, they're not going to want someone to come into the organization that they don't want to work with.
So, you know, but if you, you know, build a good culture, have a good brand and people will line up. A lot of attorneys are having problems of finding people, but if you do the things that Ben's doing and what we're talking about, it definitely gets easier. It's never easy just to find people who have hired people, but it'll make it better, that's for sure.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. It's, I, I think exactly like you said, it's, it's not easy. It's a challenge.
It's so it's. Hiring is the least, my least favorite thing.
I dread it the most.
Putting, putting the time in to meeting with people and you know, and then you end up connecting with a few of them and then you gotta be the guy that, you know, picks one.
Um, and then you gotta train that person and they, and you might have been wrong. I mean it's terrible, but sometimes it really pays off. I mean we've got, I have a legal assistant who's been with me since pretty much day one. So, gosh, almost nine years, something like that. Eight, nine years.
And then I've got another one. I think we're on like year three or four and that's really the core team, right? And then we cycle in law clerks and interns. Being in a college town, we get a law school here. So they come for three semesters, four semesters, something like that.
Then move on, you know, to back to St. Louis or Kansas City or Chicago or whatever and get a job. Even though I'm like, Columbia's great, come work for me. You know, it's, that's, that's another challenge, right?
[00:25:30] Speaker B: Stay here.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: When you're competing with their, you know, bigger metropolitan areas and these, you know, these, these people who are critical to like my success, like they're, they're bought in. They don't, they don't come in late, they don't skip work.
They know, they know that what we do is important. They know that we've got a lot of people that rely on this office, not just me, the office as a whole, to get them through this time in their life and they're bought in. And that's super important.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Well, Ben, I appreciate you sharing your story and your thoughts and stuff, what you're doing in your market and I think it's a great, real talk, right?
You know, folks out there trying to grow their farms in a different market or a mid sized market or trying to figure things out and you know, real talk with Ben Faber. Don't be an asshole.
And things will go a lot better for you across the board.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: I think so, yeah.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Well, what's the best way for folks to connect with you? Find you online?
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Google me.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: Website, LinkedIn.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Yeah, Google me. Ben Faber, comocriminal defense.com. so it's for Columbia, Missouri counties sometimes call it como comocriminal defense dot com. I'm on Twitter. We've got a LinkedIn. Not terribly active on those platforms, but I'm around and we service, like I said, about 11 counties in Central Missouri. So, um, you know, if it's not St. Louis or Kansas City, we probably go there.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Nice. Good. Yeah. Any lawyers listen that, you know, criminal defense attorney have any referrals or situations with clients, please connect with Ben.
And of course, if you're watching this, leave a comment. If you want to connect with Ben directly, I'm happy to make the introduction and if he's not on LinkedIn a lot, he will be once this episode drops. So we'll see. Let's see out there. So. Well, maybe.
Yeah, I'll be. I'll just oppose for you.
Well, thanks so much for sharing. I love the story. I love the simplicity and some of the concepts we talked about. And he's 100% right. So if you found it helpful and we'll see you on the next episode. Ben, say goodbye to everyone.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: Goodbye, everyone. And thanks a lot, Kevin, for having me on.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: I appreciate it 100%, man. Love it. I'll see you in the backstage. See you all.
