So any law firm that is going to go out and build their brand, you must be authentic to yourself. We have launched many different brands on the radio across America in the legal field, and I will tell you each one is unique to who the owner or the partners are and what they want to portray.

Welcome to the 10 golden rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast featuring the latest strategies and techniques to drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into clients. Now here's the founder and CEO of 10 golden rules. Jay Berkowitz,

good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the 10 golden rules of Internet Marketing podcast. I'm putting on my radio voice because we've got a radio lawyer, marketing rock star Gary sarner with us today. Thank you for tuning in to the 10 golden rules podcast. Do us a quick favor. If you're watching this on YouTube, give us a quick subscribe, and if you're on iTunes, we'd love a five star rating if you if you're so inclined, if you like what Gary and I have to say today anyways, without further ado. Gary sarner, welcome to the dang golden rules podcast.

Jay. Thank you so much for having me. This is exciting. Tell us

a little bit about your journey and what made you the wild shirt radio rock star in the legal industry.

Do people say? What? What is that like? What? Who is it? Oh,

the phone. The phones were lighting up. Who is it? People knew who it was. The association to the Commodores. The women were just oohing and eyeing about, oh, this is amazing. I don't think, I don't remember any guys calling, but it was a hit. It was a number one hit, and I got hooked right then and there on radio. But I never thought that I would build a career in broadcasting. My father had a chain of consumer electronics stores. I always wanted to be a lawyer. So it really all comes full circle. I was not the studious type. I didn't like to read. I didn't have the patience to sit down and actually study, and I did well on in school. Just didn't put the effort in that I needed. I quit school to go into my dad's business, and I moved to Miami, December of 86 and two weeks after I got here, he calls me, says, Hey, you want to go back to school? I'm like, No, I'm very happy where I am right now. He's like, Well, great mom and I just sold the business. We're retiring to Florida. You need to move out of the apartment in 90 days, and you better go get a job because there's no employment contracts. And he basically hung up on me. I said. And I thought, What the hell am I going to do? So I reached out to a gentleman in Atlanta who ran this radio station, wqxi. And I grew up in a house where my dad worked every freaking weekend he missed so many of my sporting events growing up building his business. I said, What is it that you do that you don't work on weekends? And he started explaining to me the business side of radio. And I was like, wow, I want to do that. Okay, what's your favorite radio station now you're going to

remember you could get get weekends off, supposedly, yeah, the thought process.

How much money did he make in the first three months?

I actually made a sale on my first call to a company called Computer village down on South Dixie Highway in Miami, and I come back with a check for $10,000 and Jim, the guy I interviewed with first local sales manager, says, How did you do this? I said, I don't know. He says, Where do the spots go? I said, on the radio station. He says, nowhere on the radio station. I said, Teach me, and I'll let you know. He's getting 100 spots for 10 grand $100 a commercial. How do I do he's like, I've never seen this in all my years, but I.

You were in Mexico, that's awesome.

And, you know, it's interesting. I haven't thought about this in a while. I became a financial mercenary early in my career, and in that first year, I did very well, and I was offered a job to go to Baltimore. So I went to David, and I told him I was leaving. And he said to me, are you coming to the holiday party tonight? I said, No, I'm leaving. It's probably not right. He goes, No, you need to come. Said, David, I'm not going to come. He says, Look, I'm going to tell you this. I think you're making a mistake. I won't hire you back for one year from the day you leave, but I promise you, you will be back in Miami, but you need to come to the holiday party because you're our Employee of the Year. I was in tears. I mean, just I'm 21 now, I think I know everything and I know fucking nothing. Zero, I was in Baltimore for three weeks and came back to Miami. I did not call him. And you haven't left, right? I never left after that. Never left. By the way,

I think your story reminds me of, I think, an almost identical story. Have you ever seen Les Brown speak? I don't even know who that is, motivational speaker from Miami, African American. And his catchphrase is, you got to be hungry. You got to be hungry. And he had almost the same story, because I think he started in radio, you know, waited outside the door for the manager to open the door. It I think he pre interned for a month or two, you know, finally got some kind of job. Well, I think his story is, he got on air someone, someone got sick or something, and there was no one else. So he was the intern. He went on air and never left.

Well, based on the voice you just put out, there be Les Brown, that's a radio voice.

Yeah, I pretended a little bit in college, so I can throw the old rock and roll DJ voice when I need so that's awesome. So how did it all come around? You know, now we see Gary at all the all the top conferences, and he's, he's with the in crowd in the in the legal industry. So how did you go from radio guy, I know you were selling radio man, sales manager, down here in South Florida, for eight or nine years. How did the legal thing all come about? Actually,

it was 35 years in the radio business here in South Florida. I went on a sales call almost 12 years ago to an attorney here in South Florida named Mark annajar. He was having some issues with his advertising on the radio station. And I said, Listen, I don't know Mark, but I know other Anna jars from my neighborhood. I was raising my family in Hollywood, so I put my coat and tie on, which it was not something we did often I'm going to a lawyer's office, and I show up at Mark's office, and he's in jeans, flip flops and a T shirt. He leans over across the desk and he undoes my tie. We have fun here. I'm like, Okay, let's have fun. And the best upside down readers are sales people. You know, it's no different than me noticing your Winnipeg Jets picture behind you with just the number and the jersey before. And I said to him, do you look at those invoices? He says, My people love me. They take care of me. And I'm not going to say what I said to him, but I said, you're getting screwed. It was a lot harsher than that. Yeah, what the hell do you know about my business? I said, Nothing yet, but I know my business. He made me do an audit of one of his stations, and he had a lot of inventory that was running incorrectly versus what was purchased. And he says, You're my new ad guy. I'm like, No no, no, no, no, no. Well, we agreed that I would spot check his stuff for him, and within six months, I took over all of his buying with him. So we did it together, but I weeded everything out, and I really got to learn something that most people. People in advertising sales, whether it be radio, TV, billboards, even digital, I got under the hood of his business because he allowed me under the hood of his business.

And we actually talked you were still buying your own stuff that you were I was

selling for the radio station, yeah, and then buying his marketing. And back then it was Miami, Fort Lauderdale, a little smidge of West Palm Beach. Almost 12 years later, it's the entire state. But after eight and a half years of doing that with Mark, I got a call from my company, Odyssey, amazing broadcasters. Hey, we want you to give up doing all the ANA jar and Levine buying and just really focus on what you do here. And it was like, am I being fired? What the What's really going on here? And Mark and I are very close. I called him up and he had already heard from Odyssey, because everybody knew that I did. It wasn't a secret. He's like, let's talk. In the morning, I said, Dude, you know I'm not going to sleep a wing tonight. Let's talk now. He's like, you're not going to sleep anyway, so let's talk in the morning. And we talked in the morning, and he really just gave me the inspiration to go and open up the ad agency. He was very, very helpful in in getting to getting me to where I am today, because he was my only client, right? And I got into the business to be an ad agency. I had no desire to become a legal marketing expert like you, but there was this conference in Miami, National Trial Lawyers. May of 21 I opened the agency. April 1 of 21 didn't have a lot of money at all. I'd just gone through a divorce, kids in college and law school and all kinds of crazy things, but I bought a ticket, and my better half said to me, how are you going to separate yourself at this conference? Because the only person I knew going to the conference was Alex Valencia, who did the content on Mark's website for in conjunction with Jason

Anderson, great content guy,

Rick and I said, Oh, I'm going to sit at the bar and I'm going to drink salts of water, But by everybody else tequila, get to have conversations. She's like, you're an idiot. Come with me. Now, I dressed in polos or a white shirt, you know, black pants and a sport coat my entire career, and she takes me to the store. Robert Graham, here you can see one of them right here, beautiful.

And by the way, it matches my cup.

That's a beautiful is that a pair or an orange? I think it's lemons, lemon, okay, a great lemon cup. And

if you're listening on audio, Gary's got some beautiful irises and flowers and blues and a beautiful shirt.

So she picks up nine shirts that I'm sitting there, going, I don't need clown makeup. I'm going to be wearing a freaking clown No way. And she says, just listen. I said, Okay, I'll listen. And then the salesperson says, $3,800 I said, for nine shirts? Are you out of your mind? She says, it's an investment in your business. Buy them. Credit card came out again. I don't have the cash to buy $3,800 worth of overpriced shirts. And she says, we're one to lunch, breakfast, one to lunch, one to dinner. Now, Alex and I pull up to the Lowe's hotel, and clown Gary gets out of the car. My head's down. I mean, I'm literally embarrassed, and Paul Liebman is the first person we see, and he looks at me, says, That's a great shirt. Now, I don't know Paul Liebman at the time, yeah, but Paul Liebman and I grew up around the corner from one another, and have at least 70 people in our lives. That we both know from our childhood. So I felt a little better now I walk into the conference and people start saying, Wow, what a shirt. Holy crap. Look at that shirt. Heads up. I'm feeling great, even though I feel like I look like a clown and I changed at lunch, and I came down. And if I tell you, Jay, 100 people said, weren't you wearing something different before amazing? And I became the Loud Shirt guy, not the radio guy, the Loud Shirt guy, and I am grateful to Elena, my better half, for the idea. I get laughed at by a lot of people who are just like you're out of your mind. But the shirts became the brand before ROI 360 plus became a brand in the legal industry. So fast forward, I have 192 of them now I try not to wear the same one to the same conferences.

Did you count?

I did, unfortunately, because I was, I was like, how much have I invested in this, in the loud shirts. And the funny thing with Robert Graham, when you hit a certain level, you get to name a shirt. They have limited edition shirts, but I get a discount on my shirts, which eliminates the fact of being able to name a shirt. And I'll keep taking the discount, because nobody's going to care that I actually named a shirt.

Yeah, that's great, you know, it's, it's a great story and branding. And you know, Mari Smith, who was, was one of the early experts in Facebook, wore, like, this bright green Chartreuse, and that was her color, and she she wore it for about 10 years, and then she just said she was going crazy with, you know, everything in her wardrobe was the same color. My buddy Matt Platt had a similar story. He wore an orange golf shirt. And just, it just so happened he wore it the couple days he was filming his videos. So, like, a month worth of videos were all orange shirt. And then one day, showed up at a conference and he didn't have his orange shirt. And everyone's like, where's your orange shirt? And he's like, What do you mean? Well, you're the orange shirt guy. And so he's built, you know, very, very successful seven or $8 million business. All he does is cater to restaurants, and he has a software company and whatnot, America's best restaurants, and always in orange. So you know, there's definitely an awesome opportunity to find that consistent branding and that unique branding.

So when I go down to breakfast, if I happen to be in shorts and a T shirt, I inevitably get a comment, are you okay? Where's the shirt?

They don't make like a golf shirt, a colorful golf shirt.

They do. I don't like short sleeve polos any longer, for some reason, as I've gotten older, I'm just either I'm in a regular t shirt or I'm in a long sleeve button down shirt. So I wear sneakers with T shirts. I wear shoes with button downs. I can't put sneakers on with the button down, right?

So, so let's go behind the curtain, you know, behind the crazy shirts and the brand you now built, what's the product? And tell us how radio can help a law firm.

So I tell everybody, I don't care what you do, radio, TV, billboards, the first thing that you must have is a great website, because that is your home today. You have to have a great digital marketing partner. I don't want to talk digital. It's not my forte. But once you decide that you're going to go and build a brand, because online are the people who are ready to take action. My belief is they are clicking More on the brands that they know than going to any brand that might be down there. Google keeps getting smarter. The top of the fold is LSA, GMB and PPC. It's not even any organic stuff. So whatever you do, radio, TV or billboards, you need to own something. People ask me all the time, well, I want to be like Morgan and Morgan, great. You know what? John Moore. Morgan did 40 years ago. He started small. He stepped on the gas, and he's never taken his foot off the pedal. So you're not going to outspend John Morgan in whatever market you're in in the United States, but with the right partners on the digital side and at the top of the funnel, traditional advertising, you can out share what he does, and your story has to be authentic, whether you like John or not, he has built the largest injury law firm in America, and that's his message. Some people love it. Some people don't, but they reach out to him. So any law firm that is going to go out and build their brand, you must be authentic to yourself. We have launched many of different brands on the radio across America, in the legal field, and I will tell you each one is unique to who the owner or the partners are and what they want to portray.

Is that part of finding your why? Is that part of that finding that message, that you find their authentic voice, and then that's part of the creative so

it's interesting, the why matters to me, and I ask it only in person, if it's about money, I'm not the best partner for you. But if it's about your end user, your family, your employees, any way to make the world around you better, I'm going to give you 100% and my team is all in with you. I actually had an attorney sitting at a dinner. I asked him. I said, What's your why? He's like, What do you mean? I'm like, Why do you do what you do?

He started crying. I had never seen that, and I'm not good with people who cry. It's just not one of my expertises. And he told me a story about the pull cords on blinds. Yeah, you have children. No, no, if you were to ask 100 people where they put the crib for their for their babies. 90 will say, by a window so the child can see outside. Two kids per month were dying because of these pull cords, terrible, yeah, because they grab them, they and he fought to get those removed from being able to be sold in homes to make a difference. And it was one of the most heartwarming stories I ever heard, and we came up with a tagline that was just very unique, and I can't take ownership for it, because I'm not a writer, your case is my cause. Now that resonates with some. And as a legal marketing expert yourself, a lot of the people just want money. There's a few firms that will advertise all about money. He was like, your case is my cause. I'm gonna do everything I can to help you. So, being unique, being true to yourself, having a real why, will make a difference one way or another for any law firm out there.

It's interesting because it's one of the sort of questions I often ask the smarter people I meet in the industry, and you already answered it. But the question is, you know, if we're in we do the digital side, of course. So if we're doing a landing page, what's the most effective landing page for a personal injury lawyer? You know, is it a big dollar amount? We get you a million dollars. Is it we fight the insurance companies? Is it a picture of a car accident? Is it a picture of a courtroom? And the answer to that question is that it should be your authentic message. What do your stand for as a firm like you said your authentic message, because now it does. Mean that you, you know a lot of people are, you know, the big check guys, or whatever, the big result guys are that we fight the insurance companies, and that's fine, if that's what your you know your message is, but that's a question that I, I struggled with early in our career as as a company, figuring out what goes on the landing page. But you know what the story you tell is so true? I remember two of the first, two of my first clients, guy named Steven Schwartz apple in New York City fighting for uses brand. His first job out of school. He was working for one of the insurance companies. He was on the other side insurance defense, and they gave him a huge stack of files. And they said, Okay, you know, find a way to decline them all. It's like, what do you mean? He said, Yeah, just, you know, decline them all. Find some loophole. And he understood right at that moment, because he came from a family. His mom had, I believe, multiple sclerosis, his dad had a work injury, and they never got their just due from the insurance companies. And they lived a very, you know, basic life for very poor, as he tells the story. And he worked his way through school, through law school. And then he found out, you know, why the insurance companies are the way they are. And so his Why was, you know, once he became a personal injury lawyer was to fight the insurance companies because it was, you know, part of his story. Another attorney, his brother had an accident and the family got almost no compensation. So that became his why? So you're, you're bang on there with, you know, find, find the message, and then bring the message to market for everyone who's listening. And hopefully there's lots of personal injury lawyers listening who want some help with their radio or their digital right?

You would think so. It's amazing how many business owners in the legal profession want to do it on their own. It's one thing to save money, but when you hire experts, it will make your life easier and let you grow your business the way you want to grow your business. And one of the things that I I have noticed recently, in the last year, social media is so important today, and law firms are running all kinds of wild social media. And let's just take the firms that don't buy the bots to follow them. The amount of interaction on social media with a law firm's post is limited to other lawyers and vendors in this space, often, yes, and the story they they're all telling great stories in a unique way. But why would somebody in the general public follow a law firm or a lawyer if you're not outlandish, there's no reason now you know this as well as I do. Less than 3% of the people across America are going to need a personal injury attorney this year. So all your marketing across the year, 97% of it is building your brand. Because nobody can tell you when the next accident is going to happen. We just know it's going to happen. I find what personal injury lawyers get to do. And I'm not talking about the soft tissue damage, I'm talking about major accidents, death, dismemberment, brain injuries. To listen to some of these stories that are told as to what transpires in a courtroom. That's what matters out there. And I believe you were at the conference. I was at Nashville. Ilma, yeah,

oh no. Nashville was accelerate.

And Steve debosier and James Peltier got up and spoke about a case where a young lady was in a bar and left with somebody in their Lamborghini. She didn't live. He did, and he was. Was quite intoxicated, and I'll never forget it. Steve threw the meeting over to James, and he started crying, telling the story, and I walked up to him, and I actually worked with with Dudley devosher in New Orleans, and I walked up to him, and I said, this is what it's all about. And I was I felt proud to be their partner, because they make a difference and and I would say every law firm that we get the privilege to work with at ROI 360 plus really does make a difference in their communities, and that's something that we're able to do on radio that's a little bit different than TV billboards or the internet. We get to touch communities and do different things to help communities. And I think vital

answer to your earlier question, though, because if you want to have social media that people like, share and comment on, your best chance as an attorney is your community activities and your involvement in the community, because you're right. People are not going to like a lawyer for the sake of it. Let me switch gears for a minute, because you know, you and I are in a unique position where, you know, we talk to 50, 100 law firms, we get to look behind the glass and see how they operate. You know what? What would you say is the difference between the successful law firm and the unsuccessful law firm. I often see two firms in about the same size market, both the same number of attorneys, and one will be doing 4x the number of cases and 4x the number of revenue. What do you think the biggest difference is?

So 4x the number of cases is different than Forex to revenue, right? That's the marketing. That is how the general public perceives you, and wanting to make the call to you, forex in revenue is the easiest question in the world. Great legal work. It freaking matters. It matters, and I have heard from trial attorneys, why do all these other firms that they call Mills get these great cases and then they refer them out? One reason their brand matters, people know who they are. They're invited to do business with them. I have a client that's part of our partnership up in Detroit, and he heard me speak at the TBI conference, and he told his story himself on another podcast, and he comes up to me and he's like, I love what you had to say. We've got so many TV advertisers in our market. This sounds unique, but why? Why do people call them? And it was right back to that you're in business 50 years. You have great internet presence, so an educated consumer who's actually going to go into the websites and read 20 pages of your website is your perfect customer. How many people read 20 pages of a website? Jay, 27% 27% good answer.

But that that's, that's a generalized answer. But, you know, I always tell people, you know, a lot of times we'll say, hey, we need a really great video on this page, and they'll say, Oh, I never watch videos on a website. And then I explained to them that, you know, some people are video watchers. Some I'm a clicker. Like, I'm going to try and get the answer by clicking around as quickly as I can. My old VP, we used to go see a client. She'd know all about their businesses. How do you know all that? Well, I read your website before I came here. So there's different different people use websites differently, and you've gotta accommodate for all those different styles Absolutely. So

we exchange cards. I sent a thank you email to him, and I don't know who he is. I had never heard of him. He's a trial attorney. He doesn't advertise, so the brand and I went to dinner with Joe fried that night. And Joe's a friend of mine since we're 13, we went to high school together.

He's the truck accident guru, among other things, right? The

the best human being you could meet. He will help any. Body, which is what I love most about him. But I took out this card and I said, Hey, Joe, do you know this guy? And he's like, you know how everybody calls me their friend? I'm like, yeah. He's like, he's my friend. Like, you are watch this. And he texted him, said, Gary's one of us. There's nobody better in the radio space. I think you should give him a chance. I got the email back immediately after that, the invitation up to the market and a firm that's been in business for 50 years that had never marketed offline started on radio. It was a it it takes patience and balls to do it to start, because nothing happens immediately. Nobody knows who you are, yeah, um, fast forward 19 months. He's on in three markets in Michigan, he's hired extra attorneys, and he's getting to help more people than he ever imagined, awesome. So give me

one more quick case, case study. You know, maybe mid market. How does radio make an impact for a law firm?

So I get to, I get the privilege to work with a lot of TV agencies out there, and TV was the first mass market advertising that lawyers did, going back to the 80s when it was allowed. And the world has changed. We don't have three television networks anymore. We've got an abundance of choices. We have streaming now, whether that's for video or audio, and what we found is there's a lot of advertisers that just can't keep adding dollars to their TV buy because it becomes a waste. So they come to us and say, how could we broaden this law firm's reach by utilizing radio and we get the privilege to sit down with law firms, talk to them about what they feel good, about what they have, what they've seen not work for them, or perceived to not work for them. Because the the number one thing I hear over and over and over for the last three and a half years, since we're in business, I tried it, it didn't work. Well, guess what? If you commit to something and you have the proper partnerships with the right strategy and great creative it will work. And I'm grateful that you know our team has the privilege for 22 law firms in three and a half years, we've changed the legal marketing on the radio across the country.

Awesome. Congrats. I used to work in ad agencies. I worked for McDonald's and Coca Cola, and I was always a big fan of radio. And, matter of fact, the first agency I worked in, they were huge radio guys and jingle guys. They loved writing a great a great jingle. Well, let's just wrap up with the quick one liners. Give me either an app or a technique you use for personal productivity.

I hate to say that it's Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, but I'm in the growth mode of what we do. So I am. I've worked harder than I ever worked in my entire 38 year career, but I get so much satisfaction from helping the end user, which actually helps the law firm and helps me to employ the people that I employ. So I spend way too much time on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, literally engaging with lawyers, law firms, marketing directors across the country. When I do take time for myself, my passion has, has been, and always will be, music. I will put my headphones on, and I will go walk three and a half miles, and now I'm back into listening to albums versus listening to songs.

What's some of the go tos this week's walks?

So every week I listen to Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run in its entirety. Me. It is my favorite album of all time. It's music that just lifts me up. I'm stuck in the 80s. I love journey. I love the cars, reo, Speedwagon, poison, hairbands, motley crew.

And that gets you through a couple miles

easily. I don't always get to listen to a whole album. Next

one, blogs, podcasts, YouTubes, what do you subscribe to? And it hits your feed and you always go to listen to it first.

Well, I listen to the 10 golden rules. I listen. I listen to every legal podcast that I possibly can, as well as lawyers.

What are your top legal ones?

So I listened to Maria. I listened to Chris Dreyer at pimcon, personal injury mastermind. Chris is great. Yeah, Maria. Maria does a great job as well. Chris really gets to know somebody

you're going to be at PIMCO.

I am going to be a PIMCO. I'm doing the most unique sponsorship ever done in legal marketing. I'm not a booth guy. I don't want my team at a booth. So sitting with Chris and Ashley and the team at laudy Graw last year, before PIM con was even announced, we got to talking, and we are doing a red carpet with just a step and repeat, and I'm going to have a videographer there, and I'm going to get to interview the speakers, the attendees, it's going to be Loud Shirt Gary asking some outlandish questions, like people were going to the Oscars. Now I don't know what it's going to be like the end result, right? And

is the content is ROI 360 or on PIMCO. Both awesome. I

love it both. He's a

quick snappers. Who's your NFL team?

Dolphins.

What's a great introduction for you? I

want to introduce you to Gary sarner. He is the expert in radio. Have a chat with him. He may or may not be able to work with you, but he will always be there to help you.

Last one, where can people get in touch with you? Instagram instead LinkedIn, 360 or Gary sarner.

you for sharing your story. Jay,

thanks for having me. This was fun.

Thank you for listening to the 10 golden rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast, please send questions and comments to podcast at 10 golden rules.com that is podcast at t e n golden rules.com you.