How do you go about kind of an expansion plan like you did? Is it something that you have to now hire somebody there to physically be there that's a beta law kind of person? Are you looking for a partner that maybe has a firm already that you can collaborate with? Like, how did you kind of attack, okay, I'm going to expand and I want to have a physical presence in a variety of cities around the state?

Yeah, I think you can, there's a variety of approaches and at some point we probably will expand through acquisition or partnership.

But for now, we were just looking at markets where we have, there's a demand and growing markets and markets where not only the markets themselves growing, but our inventory of our clients is growing.

And so we wanted to be sure that we had, you know, presence on the ground.

And so we'll have team members that are available to meet with clients in person.

And whether it's a client meeting, whether it's a deposition or a mediation, we'll be able to meet with our clients in person at our offices.

So are those attorneys? I've not hired a new attorney to work in those offices, but we will have staff members, paralegals or otherwise.

can we help you?

Promote yourself to other attorneys or maybe not even attorneys, but that said, what type of people were these other attorneys or were they other people in the communities you were trying to serve?

I would say both.

I mean, the two primary partners that I had early on were law firms that did mass marketing.

And so they were looking for boutique firm owners or firms that could handle their cases or could handle the volume that they were generating.

I think it's important.

Look, I'm almost 20 years in, and one of my big initiatives this quarter is to develop and redevelop a full referral strategy, because there may not be a better marketing system.

If you can really build out a true referral network, you're never gonna have to really pay upfront, at least in our industry, you don't have to pay upfront for those referrals.

So what were some of the other things that you saw and had to ultimately fix and address?

Yeah.

I wanted to give them, you know, the, the representation, the advocacy that I felt that they deserved.

Um, there's a lot of lawyers in this country.

There's a lot of good ones, but there's also a lot of really bad ones, and I felt like, I felt like there was an opportunity, there wa- there was room for another good lawyer, for another caring lawyer that could come in, and I really wanted to make a difference.

And I think that the interesting thing about representing people, injured people, is you really get an opportunity to utilize different skills.

Like it's...

Like as a lawyer, you, you use critical thinking, you analyze, you, uh, identify issues, you make arguments.

Yes

You know, well, let's just say now, right now, like what do you see as being the, the most successful channel? You know, what do you feel on top, like adjacent to that? Like what has been kind of the, one of the best things you feel like you've done over time that's, that's paid off?

Well, right, right now the best channel for me is, uh, probably it's probably Google.

Um, both paid and organic.

I think that it's interesting.

Again, the marketing has changed.

When I really sort of broke onto the scene and built the business, it was through Spanish, building a Spanish brand.

We really were very quick to build that.

It also,

So at what point did you start looking into systems for running the business as opposed to kinda going and figuring it out on your own?

Yeah.

So we run the EOS Operating, [laughs] excuse me, EOS Operating System, which is, uh, Gino Wickman's, uh, system.

Uh, the book is Traction.

In 2013, I'll give a shout-out to a mentor by the name of Ken Hardison, who runs PILMA.

And at the time, he told me about, he called, he actually called them Ken's babies.

Uh, it was kinda weird, but it was, like, essentially all of his processes, his procedures, his KPIs, all of this, and that was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that.

[laughs]