Oftentimes, we can get caught up in what our competitors are doing for their firm rather than focusing on the work that can be done in our own home base. Especially now, it’s important that we recognize this time as an opportunity to improve and prepare for future growth.
Crisp Founder & CEO Michael Mogill is joined by attorney Chris Hudson in the most recent installment of Leading Through Adversity to hear how he’s utilizing social media, kicking his marketing up a notch, and keeping morale high at his practice.
Get the full rundown here.
0:18 – Find opportunity. “We are a personal injury practice specifically focusing on car accidents and trucking accidents, but when the people left the roads, our call volume completely tanked. I decided to use this as an opportunity to hone in on my operations, advertising, and staffing. I’ve worked more hours these past three months than I’ve ever worked because once this is over and the calls start coming in, I want to be right there at the line with a running start.”
1:25 – Pivot resources. “I learned to pivot my resources. When people were not on the road, I took down all my billboards, and instead, I put them on this billboard. I’m crushing it on social media. I’ve done some TV. Even though the calls are not coming in, I know that I still need to get my brand out there. Crisp has helped out a great deal in helping me make those choices as to how to reallocate my spending.”
2:05 – Continue to brand. “One thing I didn’t do, which I think is a mistake for many small business owners, is getting scared and cutting off the advertising altogether because you don’t have the income coming in. That’s a very bad mistake. You have got to keep branding. This is not something that we do to try to get a call today. I want the calls six months from now, a year from now. The branding is just a process that does not stop regardless of what’s coming in the door.”
4:10 – Utilize social media. “I’ve got many billboards around Augusta, but if you sit under one of those billboards and watch the traffic for 30 minutes, you’ll notice that instead of looking at the billboards, they’re looking at their phones. I bought into that relatively early. It’s not a medium that’s saturated. If you flip on the TV, you have law firm after law firm after law firm. I think people get tone-deaf to that. There’s not a whole lot of lawyers, at least in my city, that are utilizing social media. I encourage everybody to use social media — except for if you’re in my market, then that’s not important at all.”
6:10 – Morale. “One thing I did not do is make the mistake of trying to furlough, cut pay, or count the hours that the legal assistant was out of work due to helping their child or anything like that. This is about a morale issue. There are businesses that cannot afford to pay their employees, but if you can afford to pay your employees, that is a very important move for law firms and for business owners, just for morale reasons.”
7:06 – Be versatile. “The biggest learning lesson is to know how to pivot your resources, selecting different types of advertising. I told you earlier that we got rid of the billboards. Knowing that people were at home, we replaced the billboards with a newsletter from a company that we hired to do newsletters, and that’s a new win for us. You’ve got to go where the people are. If they’re at home, then you go to their home — not physically, but through newsletters or social media, and TV. The biggest lesson has been that you’ve got to be versatile. You’ve got to be on your feet and ready to pivot during hard times.”
If you’re viewing this challenging situation the same way Chris and Michael are, text Michael directly at 404–531–7691 to tell him your thoughts.
