Nima and his partner have built an exceptionally fast-growing young personal injury firm based in highly competitive Southern California. Networking, attorney referrals, and social media provided the initial rocket fuel, and the growth of client referrals have the firm tripling its revenue last year and this year. Good mentorship early on provided the guidance.
Kara: Tell us about your revenue growth and what is fueling it.
[Nima at 10:10] “We’ve had rapid growth. Our first year we 2x’d our revenue. Last year we 3x’d it. This year we are on track to 3x again. It is an amazing trajectory.”
[12:20] “I always tell our clients, ‘I want to be the first person you think of for anything legal-related. I am referring out a minimum of 10 cases a month, whether it is to workers’ comp, employment, family law, or wills and trust attorneys. Clients trying to put together a will are calling me. They’re going through a divorce and calling me. That is exactly what I have wanted to happen, and it is created by design.”
[13:35] “The most important advice I can give to a new attorney is, ‘Get out there.’ I spent most of my time out of the office when we first started.”
Kara: Are you investing in marketing now?
[14:05] “Most of the money we have invested has not delivered a good return. That hasn’t deterred us from continuing to try. For example, I wasn’t receiving the kind of ROI from Yelp that I wanted and expected. But I know other attorneys who are doing amazingly well with Yelp.”
[15:00] “My marketing spend is currently very low. I am doing no pay-per-click advertising. Most of our cases are now coming in organically and through our networking.”
[15:55] “We have tried PPC, and it is very expensive … especially in our market. Personal injury is the most expensive specialty to promote. The big guys work to push out the smaller players. We have personally experienced it and I have heard horror stories from other firms. We don’t plan to jump back into PPC unless we have the budget for a big campaign.”
[16:40] “Focusing on our direct community has done wonders for us. We host events in our local community. We visit different trade shows and farmers’ markets to get our name out in the community.”
When an introductory phone conversation goes well, which it does over half the time, we begin cultivating the new relationship with notes, cards, and gifts.
We also strengthen your relationships with existing referral sources with regular contacts in a variety of formats, along with personally-tailored gifts.
For your past clients, we send a branded 8-page monthly newsletter to keep you memorable and referable.
Lastly, we connect 1:1 with you every month to report our work and track the increase in your referrals against the expansion goals we have jointly set.
