Ben Glass is a lawyer, but that’s not all he does.
He took the road less traveled in the legal world by starting a business teaching lawyers how to market their firms in an authentic way that forges strong, personal relationships with clients. Now, as he consistently scales his own law firm, he gets to help other lawyers do the same.
But here’s the thing: Marketing in the legal world can be taboo. It’s difficult, but Ben has overcome that, and the insight he’s gathered along the way transcends any industry. It can help a small business of any niche scale with personal, strategic marketing. Tune in to this episode of the Conquer the Chaos Podcast as Ben shares his top tips with you.
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
[00:00:23] Clate Mask: Welcome everyone to this episode of the podcast. I'm Clate Mask, co-founder and CEO of Keap and the host of the Conquer the Cast Podcast. And I am excited today to talk to a longtime friend, longtime customer, longtime digital marketer that I … We go way, way back. And so this is going to be a really fun conversation because we're going to cover things from marketing to business ownership to leadership to mindset, and help you conquer the chaos in your world.
[00:00:53] Clate Mask: Let me introduce to you this friend. And by the way, this is also a customer who has one of the very early domain names of our product. And so, this is a fun one because we go back probably 15, 16, 17 years. Something like that.
[00:01:11] Clate Mask: So let me welcome to the Conquer the Chaos Podcast our guest today Ben Glass. Ben, great to be with you here.
[00:01:18] Ben Glass: Clate, man, one of the fun things … I host a podcast and I'm on a lot of podcasts and so one of the fun things for me is I get my friends that I've had from what we'll just call the Dan Kennedy world, for 20 years … We haven't been in the same room in over a decade, and we're just going to riff and we'll let people listen in on our conversation as we catch up on life. You and I have both been doing this for a long time, like serving small biz owners, helping the world move, serving really all the customers of the small biz owners who use your product or, in my case, lawyers running small practices. It's a really fun place to be. And you and I are survivors.
[00:02:04] Clate Mask: Very true. Well, and let me just for our audience … Let me just tell you a little bit more about Ben.
[00:02:09] Clate Mask: Ben is a practicing attorney of 41 years. He, many years ago, recognized that marketing in small law firms was a real challenge and was holding back these attorneys from building the kinds of practices and lifestyles that they wanted. And they were being really kind of captive to their law practice.
[00:02:32] Clate Mask: And by the way, that has a lot of meaning for me because I went to law school. I've worked in a law firm before I went to business school and got into software and I've seen the truth of what he's sharing. I know what he's saying. So he started a practice to teach law attorneys how to do great legal marketing and the company is called Great Legal Marketing.
[00:02:58] Clate Mask: And so we'll talk about Great Legal Marketing. But he has been an expert in this area for 15 years. So maybe tell us a little bit more about what you do, Ben. Let's leave the law part aside for the most part. Let's focus on what you do in teaching law firms because I think that applies not just to law firms, of course, but I think it'll help our audience understand the wealth of experience and knowledge that you have.
[00:03:25] Ben Glass: Yeah, so thanks. So, primarily, I am a dad to nine, as you and I were talking about before we went live. And so that's the primary. I had a very sort of standardized routine growth path in legal and discovered I didn't know anything about running a business, which led me to that world of sales and marketing and led me to Dan Kennedy.
[00:03:47] Ben Glass: Kennedy led me to then Infusionsoft, now Keap. So, if anything, I've been a good student. When I first heard Kennedy, his early tapes that I got, I didn't understand half the words he was using, let alone the content. But I realized if I could figure out this thing that they call direct marketing, if I could figure it out, it would revolutionize the practice because I don't see anybody doing this legally.
[00:04:15] Ben Glass: Really, they weren't. And so, we started creating information pamphlets and booklets. This is Yellow page days. This is pre website, pre email, and so we were trying to figure out how to stand out in a crowded market. For those of you who are young, you've probably never seen a giant yellow page book filled with either the A’s for attorneys or the L’s for lawyers, just hundreds and hundreds of pages.
[00:04:47] Ben Glass: So I started to figure that out and then, thank goodness at the same time, you and your co-founders were figuring out that this direct marketing was a problem to be solved in part with technology. So you all introduced Infusionsoft back in the day. I was one of the early users and still am a customer.
[00:05:11] Ben Glass: And so that helped to automate a lot of what we did. And what we learned was you could, rather than shout, “Hey, I'm here, come hire me,” you could shout, “Hey, I'm here. I'm here. Maybe you have a question. Here's some information. Let me get your contact info. Let me follow up. Let's do all that stuff that we teach.”
[00:05:29] Ben Glass: So as I grew the practice, then friends said, “Hey, you could teach this. You could start another business,” as so many of your friends and my friends have done over the years. And so we were one of the very earliest ones teaching … In the beginning, Clate, it was teaching personal injury lawyers how to advertise better.
[00:05:53] Ben Glass: Today, Great Legal Marketing is really … We're a pure coaching organization. We don't sell services. We don't sell websites or pay per click or anything like that. We help mom and pop who are growing a law practice organically and not spending tens of thousands of dollars a month. We help them stand out in a very crowded market. We help them compete against the 800 pound gorillas, and they do very well.
[00:06:17] Clate Mask: Yeah. I want to come back around to the Great Legal Marketing practice and what you do there, but let me just … There's a couple of things I want to touch on there. The first thing is when you got into this niche, you recognized that so many professionals, like attorneys, doctors, accountants, they've been grown and taught and educated to do their practice, not to do their marketing.
[00:06:47] Clate Mask: And in fact, in law, it's very interesting because I know in that background, a lot of times the marketing is actually shunned. It's looked down upon. It's like, “no, we can't do that. We'll just deliver great professional service. And then, you know, the practice will grow.”
[00:07:05] Clate Mask: And it’s not. The reason I want to draw this out is that that mentality is prevalent among professionals who get their degree and their certificates. And they think that education prepares them to go build a great business. And unfortunately, some hold onto that belief all the way through their entire career of having a subpar practice from what they could build if they would really dig into marketing, but it's not just true in professionals.
[00:07:35] Clate Mask: This mentality exists among many business owners where they think, “Look, if I build it, they'll come. If we build a better mousetrap, if we deliver great service, we'll grow by referrals.” All these things are typical mindsets that hold back the business owner from really growing and building a great business.
[00:07:55] Clate Mask: So I want to just kind of press down a little bit on this experience because I believe this is a very common problem that holds back small businesses from accomplishing what they want to in their business. They don't develop this marketing mindset and you dealt with it among attorneys and have built a whole business around this, a whole coaching business around this now for 15 years. And so I'm interested to know, what did you discover that needed to unlock for people to embrace the marketing mindset?
[00:08:28] Ben Glass: As you were speaking, the word “unlock.” Came to mind. So here, here's the mindset unlocked. It doesn't matter if you're a lawyer, it'll apply to almost anybody. But the questions I asked lawyers, Clate, are these two questions: Number one, are you a good lawyer? So ask a room full of lawyers and they'll raise their hands — “We went to law school. I passed the bar. I'm a good lawyer.” The second question is important: Is there someone in your town right now walking around with a legal problem or an opportunity for whom you would be the perfect lawyer for them and they would be a great client for you? And everyone is going to say yes. Now, it's a matter of finding that person. Well Clate, if that's true, why would you let that person wander into another law office for whom the experience is not going to be as perfect as it would be walking into your office?
[00:09:27] Ben Glass: So now we call toward our Jay Abraham, you know, sort of the moral obligation to market so to those who say, “Well, you know marketing's bad or I shouldn't have to market.” I'm saying you're doing your community a disservice by not letting them know about what you do, how you do it, why you do it.
[00:09:56] Ben Glass: Now you are not going to be perfect for everyone. We get it. But why do we let people wander into, you know … You're a dentist. Why let people wander into a practice that's not as good as your practice is? And if you don't believe your practice is good, and you don't have a team that believes your practice is good, those are different problems.
[00:10:15] Ben Glass: And we shouldn't do marketing to drive people into a bad customer experience, especially today with online reviews. But let's just start there. For me, Clate, you serve the world better by letting people know clearly what it is you're good at and you like doing
[00:10:34] Clate Mask: Yeah, so you unlocked people's mindset by helping them see who they are for the market and that it's a disservice to not attract that ideal customer into their business.
[00:10:47] Ben Glass: Yep. Not serving the world
[00:10:50] Clate Mask: Yeah, that’s a great way to do it and I think about some of my friends in those early days of law who were very opposed to advertising and marketing. Fundamentally, what they're seeing is they're looking at advertising and marketing is something they don't want to be instead of looking at who they are and who their ideal customer is, and then matching it up
[00:11:13] Ben Glass: 100%. 100%.
[00:11:15] Ben Glass: And so we teach this kind of hierarchy. What kind of life do you want to live? What kind of business supports that life? What type of customer, patient or client supports that business? If we have clear answers to those three questions, then and only then, Clate, do we think about what's the marketing?
[00:11:34] Clate Mask: There we go. Okay, go through that hierarchy again.
[00:11:41] Ben Glass: Yeah, this is really important. Really important. You could be in practice for 50 years and even change. So don't worry if you've been at it for a while.
[00:11:49] Clate Mask: And you can be in business in any kind of industry, right? I mean, that hierarchy you just went through … What kind of … so go through that.
[00:11:56] Ben Glass: So go through what kind of life you want to live. What would be perfect for Ben? And I give lawyers permission to think that way. We have one life. We don't know how long we have. Let's live it in our own happiness. Okay, number one. So then number two What kind of a practice? Because there's different kinds of law practices that would support that lifestyle that you would like.
[00:12:16] Ben Glass: Some lawyers like to be in court and others don't. Don't build a court litigation practice if you hate it.
[00:12:23] Ben Glass: Then number three, kind of who would you love to see walking through your door as a client? Like what would make you go, “Yes. This is perfect for me. Perfect for that person.” Once we know those three things right now, what's the messaging? What's the media to that person to attract more of what we call my perfect client, my perfect avatar to walk through the door? Because in any business, when a customer comes through the door and the owner and the team are charged up and love the work they do, the customer is better served.
[00:13:05] Clate Mask: And then everything goes more smoothly for not only the customer, but for the employees, for the business owner, for the business owner's family. So when you get that clear hierarchy … Number one, what kind of business, what kind of life do you want to live? And then what kind of business or practice would support that lifestyle? And then what kind of clients would make up that sort of practice or business that supports your lifestyle? And then now you've got to a place where you know your ideal customer profile, you know what your ideal client looks like, and now you can speak to that client and get really clear in connecting with them and who you are for them and why you serve them really well.
[00:13:50] Clate Mask: And suddenly the job of advertising and marketing doesn't seem so used car salesman-ish. It's just connecting up who in the world is right for you and who you are right for in the world.
[00:14:03] Ben Glass: We don't force or fool anybody into coming to be a client with us, but we say very clearly what we do, what we're good at. And we are good at a couple of narrow verticals, and we have a lot of third party sort of endorsement of that and the space where we play and compete with people and with other firms is in the experience, right? Because it's kind of hard for a consumer to tell if lawyer A or lawyer B is a better lawyer. We're going to deliver the very best experience of anybody in our region like nobody could beat us on experience.
[00:14:41] Clate Mask: So you create, then you teach. In your coaching, you're teaching your members how to build that kind of experience, how to differentiate from others by creating the practice that serves their ideal customer profile the best.
[00:14:53] Ben Glass: From the moments they find us either by referral or find one of our digital properties until long after the case is over, we stay in contact. We stay a part of their lives for as long as they want us to stay a part of their lives in interesting ways, which is another whole topic.
[00:15:10] Ben Glass: But again, I remember walking into I think it was your old office now, speaking with Christina many, many years ago. And you have these huge, larger than life avatars. But every employee knew like, “Hey, here's the four or five different types of business owners that we serve and here's what they like and what they need.” And every single day your team is walking in not being distracted by life and all the many things we could say to someone in advertising but talking to those four or five avatars.
[00:15:47] Ben Glass: So we're clear on what that is in our firm. And again, any business owner, like a dentist doesn't serve every mouth, right? Here's the other thing I believe, truly believe, Clate, is everybody, every human being has a unique set of gifts, talents, and interests. And it is unique in mankind. Like nobody else has your combination, right? I believe that we're put on earth to shine that combination of gifts, talents, and interests on the world. We don't do things we're not good at because, Clate, you may be really charged up by something that I hate doing.
[00:16:24] Ben Glass: You come work with me or we'll do a joint venture or something like that. But that's the other thing. I think a lot of lawyers and biz owners get frustrated with life because they try to do everything, try to be everything. And they don't realize that they're really born to serve. According to how they were made, and everybody's different.
[00:16:47] Clate Mask: Okay. We're going to keep this going, but first a quick message for you. Hey listeners, as you know, automation is the great game changer in small business. And every year we do an annual conference to bring together people who are serious about growing their business with automation. Now it also creates an amazing balance in your life.
[00:17:05] Clate Mask: That's why we love automation so much. So if you are serious about the keys to success for entrepreneurship and you want to do more, especially in these times, you want to make sure that you're getting the most out of automation. Do not miss our annual conference. It'll be November 20-22, right here in downtown Phoenix with an amazing community of entrepreneurs, business owners, and their teams who are looking to grow their business, create more time, more savings and gain more control in their business.
[00:17:34] Clate Mask: It's going to be an awesome event. I love this event, especially the customer contests that show you how they're using automation to grow their business. So make sure that you sign up. You don't want to miss this. So make sure you register. You can do that at keap.com/lets-grow-summit. And take advantage of our early bird registration pricing that expires July 30.
[00:17:54] Clate Mask: You don't want to miss out on that. So again, it's keap.com/lets-grow-summit, November 20-22. It's going to be a fantastic event again, https://keap.com/lets-grow-summit. We'll see you there, November 20-22 in downtown Phoenix. All right, now back to our chat.
[00:18:20] Clate Mask: That's the thing. When you get really clear on that — who you are, what you offer, what you're great at — it becomes magnetic. It attracts the right people, the right customer profile. It repels the wrong ones, the ones that it's not going to be a good fit for. And so much of the job of getting really clear for the market begins with who you are and what you offer, which is why it's so important to go through that hierarchy you took us through — What do you want? And what would create an idea? What do you want in life? What would create an ideal practice? That’s what the ideal practice that would create and then getting really clear for your customers about who you are and how you serve them in a differentiated way than somebody else.
[00:18:58] Clate Mask: When you and I sat in these conferences many years ago, we were taking in these principles of direct marketing. The technologies were different. It wasn't even beginning to be a thing back then. But the principles have stayed the same.
[00:19:19] Clate Mask: It's so interesting to me. I look at I look at the people who practice the principles of direct marketing. And it doesn't matter what platform they're using. It doesn't matter if it's TikTok or email or Instagram or whatever. It doesn't matter. It really is just a matter of getting these principles nailed down.
[00:19:41] Clate Mask: I remember when I was in that time, and I was learning from Dan Kennedy and others, Dan said something one day that I will never forget. And he said … It's along the lines of this concept of realizing that you need to embrace marketing and in order to grow your business.
[00:20:04] Clate Mask: And he said, “You are a marketer, but you're not a marketer of your product or service.” And when he said that, it was kind of like, okay. He said, “You're a marketer of information, but you're not a marketer of information about your product or service.”
[00:20:25] Clate Mask: You're a marketer of information about the problems that are solved by your product or service. And that progression, I'm a marketer. But not about my product or service. I'm a marketer of information, but not information about my product or service information about the problems that are solved by the product or service.
[00:20:43] Clate Mask: And when you see the people who are really great in small business marketing, they're really great at talking about the problems that are solved by their product or service. And I've seen you do that in an amazing way in the legal niche. I've seen so many others in their niche, but they're talking about the problems that are solved by their product or service for their target customer.
[00:21:11] Clate Mask: So, that was one of many principles that I remembered from Dan when in those early days that made a big difference. And I've carried that with me for what, 17, 18 years now.
[00:21:21] Ben Glass: Well, think about why this is. And it's exactly true. But the reason why is that when you just talk about your product or your service, you're talking about me, and that's boring.
[00:21:35] Ben Glass: When I create, we would call information marketing. I'm not just educating the prospect. I'm creating trust in me. So much of our marketing … And we have to be careful when we use the words brand and branding, right? But for me, Clate, so many people know me for reasons other than he's a lawyer. Like they know this story.
[00:22:06] Ben Glass: Right. So you create information that helps educate because many people are searching. But then you disclose, and people know your story, and they see you as a trustworthy individual to reach out to first. So, no matter … We want people to call us no matter what their legal issue is. We only do a couple of narrow verticals, but my rolodex is really big.
[00:22:32] Ben Glass: And I'm going to send you on your way. And so it's another thing, it's a second thing that a lot of lawyers struggle with is how do I use these various media to not just make it all about me as “Ben the lawyer, hire me, I'm the best, I get you the most money.” That's plaintiff's personal injury marketing in a nutshell.
[00:22:54] Ben Glass: Or “Hey, here's Ben, the soccer referee, down to nine, running a couple businesses, loves small biz.” Oh, that's kind of memorable, right? More than, “Oh, I had a car accident.”
[00:23:06] Clate Mask: Right.
[00:23:07] Ben Glass: So there's a lot of layers to this. And I think, you know, as you alluded to, Clate, the flood of technologies today, I think, confuses people and slows them down.
[00:23:17] Ben Glass: They see Hillary over here doing this, and they see Clate over here doing this, they see Ben over here doing this, and then they try to do all three of those things, which nobody can afford. Nobody has the time to do that.
[00:23:27] Clate Mask: That's right. Yeah. So you talked … Let me go back to what you said a little earlier.
[00:23:31] Clate Mask: You talked about the interesting ways that you help your clients to stay, to follow up after the case is over. You and I both know how critical follow up is. I talk about this in Conquer the Chaos. It's at the heart of the customer strategy of staying in front of the customer. What are some of the things that you've learned and that you teach your clients that help to stay present, stay relevant, stay on top of the mind of their potential clients over time? Because as we all know, you can have this great client experience and think, “Oh, I'm going to grow by referrals and they're going to come back to me.” The reality is that they move on in life. They're busy doing something else, and they have a need arise in their life for your services, but they've forgotten.
[00:24:26] Clate Mask: So, what is it that you do to solve that problem? What are some of the things that you've found to help your clients with that?
[00:24:32] Ben Glass: So first of all, this is a really important point. 80% of our money, or nearly 80% of our money, comes because somebody started by mentioning our name to somebody else.
[00:24:41] Ben Glass: So that's important. Yeah, we're old school. It's old school, but everything old is new. We published a wonderful eight page monthly newsletter from the law firm. That's very little about the law. It is about the personalities, either clients and client success stories. It's about our team. It's about books we've read and recipes and all this stuff that you would think like, “Well, who would read that stuff?” Our stuff gets put up on refrigerators in homes.
[00:25:08] Clate Mask: So a physical newsletter, you're sending a physical newsletter that people will put up.
[00:25:12] Ben Glass: Yeah. It's so funny because my young marketing team is like, “Oh, we have to do newsletters.” I said, well, if you're going to do an email newsletter, it has to be even better than a physical newsletter, because if you think of all the emails you get and you just hit delete.
[00:25:26] Ben Glass: So, you got to do something. If you're going to put the energy into that, it has to be along the lines of whatever the most opened, famous email, deliverable newsletters are. And I'm not sure we have the bandwidth to actually do that, but that's number one. Number two is we've got our referral sources.
[00:25:44] Ben Glass: So other professionals, prior clients, lawyers, healthcare workers, doctors, refer cases. So, we have a whole separate newsletter for them, and that, Clate, is mainly. repurposing marketing that I write for the Great Legal Marketing community, making it generic and agnostic to business and getting that out.
[00:26:09] Ben Glass: So again, that newsletter is not about, “Hey, remember Ben, send me a case. It's like, “Here's something I learned. Here's a book, here's a podcast that you might be interested in because I know that you're interested in growing your business.” So that's two things. The other thing is we try to do as many person to person events.
[00:26:27] Ben Glass: When we built our space here, we built a training center. So we invite the community to use it for free if they want. We host our own events here again. It's not always about how you do a case better. It's about all of these things. And so just where people walk into the lobby of my office, Clate, they go, “What is this place? Really?” It doesn't look like a lot, right? And so, and that's it. So for us, you can choose to spend $100,000 a month on advertising. You absolutely can. And if you're the largest spender in the market, you'll do well, but it can only be one of those, right? So we have focused on this so-called grassroots, genuine, here's our story, but what's your story? How can I help you? Like, is there something that we could do for you? And then we find Clate’s running a pizza shop. Oh, great. Let's put a story of your pizza shop in our newsletter. And just tell the community and then you'll, of course, you'll take that newsletter, you'll put it on your front desk or the front counter at the pizza shop. So that’s it. But again, it's nothing new.
[00:27:40] Ben Glass: These are harder than doing one more social media post of some image that goes on Instagram.
[00:27:52] Clate Mask: Well, what strikes me is it's very personal and there's connection. You're doing physical newsletters.
[00:28:01] Clate Mask: You're doing referral networks. You're doing events. You're bringing people into your space. You're creating relationships. In all of those things, it's a very personal relationship-oriented approach, which doesn't surprise me.
[00:28:25] Clate Mask: This is managing relationships, building relationships in a very personal way. And it's interesting because what I've noticed over the last couple of years, I think it's really a post-COVID effect. The relationship building, there's a void there. There's been a lot of ways technology … And I think society was moving so fast and away from true in-person relationship building. And then COVID just put a huge freeze on it. And so post COVID, there's kind of this rebound effect that's happening. And people are craving this. They're wanting relationship. And I think that's why what's old is new.
[00:29:06] Clate Mask: And like you said, there's an opportunity for people to inject genuineness and personality and relationship and connection where people have been starving for that for a while. And it sounds like you're teaching that and practicing that and working on that with your coaching clients.
[00:29:24] Ben Glass: And it is the huge opportunity, Clate, for any small business owner, like anyone\ because that's what differentiates,
[00:29:32] Clate Mask: It's what makes it different.
[00:29:33] Ben Glass: And it's more work than again, just creating another graphic for TikTok or whatever. I’m not saying a TikTok won't work. I haven't figured out how to make it work, but so the business owners who spend the time going to events like yours, reading your book, reading your blog and listening to this podcast are the ones who can find ideas that are affordable, doable. You do not need to own the whole market. You need a thousand true friends in any business who will know your name and your story and have the confidence to make a referral to you again, whether you're selling sub sandwiches, counting services, whatever, like it's business agnostic and that's the value really in listening to, um, to your podcast actually, because there's so you bring on so many guests who have.
[00:30:35] Ben Glass: These ideas and you just build and build and build and you say, “Oh, that's one I could do now. I'm not really comfortable doing this, but here's another one I could do. Or here's a team member who would like to do something like that.” Brian and I, my son, like we say to ourselves, “We're playing the endless game of business.” It's puzzle, puzzle, puzzle, grow, grow, grow, right?
[00:31:01] Clate Mask: By the way, that's one of the things about the mindset of marketing that I learned early on. And I realized many business owners don't take this approach. We're in marketing. It really is about failing fast and learning, “Okay, that didn't work. Okay. Let me make this adjustment. Well, maybe that didn't work because of this.” You don't just try something and then throw it out. You adjust, you tweak, you modify, you build on it. You start to find the pieces that work for you and build that into a program, into a campaign.
[00:31:37] Clate Mask: And I think a lot of times business owners, they kind of go, “Oh, I tried that and it didn't work,” and they just move on. It's like, no, well, what's the next thing you did? What did you take from that? That did work. What did you apply? How did you adjust it? Like there's a formula for success in marketing that you don't just discover right away because every business owner is a little different.
[00:31:57] Clate Mask: They have a different ideal customer profile. So you've got to get that honed in. And it's trial and error. And so I love that endless game of business point that you're making because I think about some of the things we've tried over the years that just didn't work.
[00:32:14] Clate Mask: And you spend that money and you think, “Oh, well, we wasted that money.” Well, did you? No, you didn't waste it. You learned. And now you're applying that to the next thing and working to get better and better for that reason, you, you might've heard me tell this story years ago. When we first started the business, I was with Scott and Eric. Scott and Eric, they're Sharice's younger brothers.
[00:32:34] Clate Mask: And part of the reason why I've always, we've always had such an affinity with you is that you're an attorney with nine kids and Sharice and Eric and Scott's, dad is an attorney with 10 kids. And so we've swapped some notes on that. But one of the things that was so amazing In the early days when we started our business was I came in as the person who understood business, partnering up with my two technologist brothers in law who were software developers. And I was doing the books the first week and I'm going through QuickBooks on the line items and under the payroll section, there was us and then there was this other name Mark, and it was $5,000.
[00:33:22] Clate Mask: And back then that was a lot of money for us each month to be paying $5,000 to Mark when I hadn't seen Mark at all. So I go into these guys and I'm like, guys, “You brought me in as a partner. You didn't tell me you had this other partner that's taking $5,000 a month.” And they're like, “what are you talking about?”
[00:33:38] Clate Mask: And I said, “I was just doing the books and it's in the payroll section. It says Mark, $5,000,” and they started laughing. They're like, “Oh, we decided when we first started the business that we were always going to pay 5$,000 a month to our marketing budget to make sure that we were learning and growing and developing. And so we just call it Mark.” I said, “That is hilarious.” And I've come to realize how brilliant that was to actually allocate an amount of money every month that you're spending on marketing and you're using it to get smarter and wiser and learn. And there were times where we spent $5,000 on a direct mail campaign that got us zero leads.
[00:34:18] Clate Mask: There were times where we spent $5,000 on a new source and it didn't work out very well. We got a couple leads and you could conclude that it was a waste. But it wasn't because we were playing, as you just said, the endless game of business of refining our marketing, figuring out what was working and what wasn't working.
[00:34:37] Clate Mask: And it was that mentality that I think was one of the smartest things that we did early on in our business to learn how to become marketers of our product and service.
[00:34:47] Ben Glass: It's the advantage that the small business owner has, which as you know, the larger the business and the more committees you have and the more hands in the pot that want to chime in on decision making, the harder it is to do this.
[00:35:03] Ben Glass: So, that's one. So trying things and learning. And then of course, the other thing that's been great for me, and I'm sure you've experienced this as well, is you accelerate that learning when you are in rooms of people who do things bigger, better and faster than you are. So I have both been in and run mastermind groups where either a room full of lawyers or a room full of mixed businesses get in.
[00:35:30] Ben Glass: And so, Clate, you could say, “Hey, Here's a piece we did. We tried. We got zero. Here's a piece we did. We tried. We got 5%.” A good number. And then and then you go around the room and out of the room comes always an improvement on some part, either design or list or a call to action, right?
[00:35:52] Ben Glass: And so, our joint friend, Bill Glaser would tell us the entrepreneur is the loneliest person in the world, and this is true. And so what we want people to know, and you and I do on this podcast, is that one of the best places you can be in is to find a group and don't be the smartest one in the room.
[00:36:11] Ben Glass: Find a group of people. I have found that successful people are abundance minded and will share.
[00:36:18] Clate Mask: Oh yeah. No doubt. Get into a mastermind or into a coaching group or something and it makes all the difference. It definitely helps address that loneliness.
[00:36:29] Ben Glass: 100%. Because this work is hard. You can decide to run a business and reap the rewards, but that is a roller coaster and it is hard work.
[00:36:42] Ben Glass: And the world needs entrepreneurs and you can make just as great a decision to be an employee and supportive business and a business owner and the world needs you as well. And so, you know, Clate, part of what I do in life is just help people, especially young people, like what's a path? The sad part is, lawyers, they go to law school, Clate, and they see like this really narrow path to big law. They don't even know that I exist. They don't even know that thousands of law firms like mine exist in America, so I think part of what you and I do is really help spread the message of entrepreneurship, capitalism, free markets, and goodness gracious, if you've got an idea, let's go and see if the world will think your idea is valuable.
[00:37:30] Clate Mask: Yes. And help you get it out there. Well, you're so right about the loneliness of entrepreneurship. It's why we do our conference every year. You know, it's coming up November 21-22. By the way, you mentioned Jay Abraham. He'll be speaking at our Partner Day the day before that.
[00:37:46] Clate Mask: So that'll be a lot of fun. But it's just a collection of what we call the icons of small business that all come together and help small businesses to grow with automation primarily is obviously our focus. But getting like minded people together and learning how they can grow their business and learning from each other is really the big thing.
[00:38:06] Clate Mask: So that'll be November 21-22 in Phoenix. Excited about that. Um, Tell people where they can learn more about you if they're in law and they're looking to improve their legal marketing. If they just want a little bit of direction and advice, where can people learn more about you, Ben?
[00:38:23] Ben Glass: Yeah. Thanks for asking. So it's a couple of things. So you can go to GreatLegalMarketing.com. You can see what we do there. You can go to BenGlassLaw.com to see how we take these principles at least in our digital website space and what we're doing there. And our joint friend, Dan Kennedy and I just published the fourth edition of “No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs.”
[00:38:43] Ben Glass: And I added some parts to that book that had sort of a much different angle than Dan did. And the reason he asked me to participate in that book is he knows I'm busy and he knows I get stuff done. And he knows that I'm ruthless. He said in one of his newsletters, “You'd be surprised at how much gentle Ben and grumpy Dan actually align on these things.”
[00:39:06] Ben Glass: And by ruthless, we don't mean being mean, but we mean paying attention. And so we're helping to free up the entrepreneurs so that he or she can do what they were born to do, act in their zone of genius and spend most of their time there because that's how you move the world. And we need to support each other, share ideas and promote entrepreneurism, which is what you have been doing forever and ever. You and I were teenagers when we started these things.
[00:39:53] Clate Mask: Well, we'll keep teaching entrepreneurship and helping entrepreneurs work through the dark side of entrepreneurship, conquer the chaos and achieve balanced growth in their business and personal life. That's what it's all about.
[00:40:06] Clate Mask: Thanks for going into some of the marketing stuff — the principles, the follow up, the relationship building. I think that's one of the real key things that stands out for me. So you know, for our listeners, if you, if you're not really connecting with your clients the way that you want to, and you're not building relationships, take something from what Ben has shared here today. Create something where you can really connect in what makes you unique to your market that enables you to connect on a personal level and really build that relationship, whether it's physical newsletters or live events, or bringing people into your world or sharing your personal stories, writing to them about the problems that affect them that you can help address.
[00:40:48] Clate Mask: Those are the things that really create great, great relationships. And I think Ben, at the end of the day, that's why we do what we do. We love the relationship building. I appreciate our relationship for nearly two decades. Thank you for being a longtime customer of ours at Keap and thank you for all that you do to help other small business law firms build their business with automation and follow up. We know that follow up is the great game changer and automation is the best way to do that.
[00:41:17] Ben Glass: I'm so glad that we could connect and have this conversation because it has been too long, my friend.
[00:41:23] Clate Mask: It has.
[00:41:24] Ben Glass: So I've really … I've waited for this and treasured this time that we've spent. Thank you for having me on.
[00:41:29] Clate Mask: I have to thank you, Ben, for being here and thank you all for joining us on this episode of the Conquer the Chaos podcast. Until next time, get out there and keep growing.