The Law Offices of Lance Fryrear

48%

Increase in Revenue

Project Overview

Lance Fryrear, founder of the Law Offices of Lance Fryrear, is a Seattle-based criminal defense attorney who specializes in working with clients whose criminal charges are causing them overwhelming stress and anxiety.

Lance started his law firm 18 years ago and, until the last few years, didn’t rely much on marketing. However, as time went on, he found himself faced with an increasingly competitive market that forced him to reevaluate his approach to marketing and branding.

He knew that clients don’t hire based on skill – the general public doesn’t have the expertise necessary to discern between a “skilled vs. unskilled” attorney. Instead, they hire based on emotional connections and, of course, how they interpret the messaging you distribute.

Once he came to terms with that realization, Lance reached out to Crisp to create a series of videos that would differentiate his practice and communicate his “why”. And the results paid off, big time.

Challenge

Lance Fryrear started his firm in 2000 – at the time, his only marketing strategy was a $1,500/month ad in the phone book that he could barely afford. He carried two flip phones at all times – the phones were on different carriers, so whichever phone had the best cell service would be the phone he took calls on. He said he remembers many mornings and evenings where he’d jump out of the shower to grab his cell phone and answer, “Law Office!” as soon as the phone rang.

After three years, he hired a paralegal. After ten years, he hired an associate. Now, 18 years later, Lance has three associates and has moved on from phone book ads to experiment with a variety of marketing strategies, including legal directories like Avvo and working with platforms like Birdseye and Podium to obtain positive Google reviews.

However, that wasn’t enough. As Lance says,

People don’t hire lawyers based upon the lawyer’s skill. Most people have never even stepped foot in a lawyer’s office, nor have they faced the seemingly insurmountable task of deciding who they are going to trust with their life and their future in their time of need.

Through my work at the Trial Lawyer’s College I realized that human beings think in pictures. This is why we can remember the layout of an office or a person’s house even if we’ve only been there once. This is not true for other forms of communication (such as the written word). We’re also emotionally affected by visuals (like movies and photos). All buying decisions are emotional – someone will fill in the “facts” later to justify their decision. So, I had to find a way to tell an emotional story that communicated our “why” as opposed to our “what”. I had to find a way to differentiate myself – in fact, “Differentiate or die” is a motto I live by. No one cares that I’m an ex-prosecutor or how many cases we’ve won. They care how we can help them feel better and how we made our past clients feel when working with us.

Lance Fryrear

So, Lance set out to find a company that would help him produce an emotional, engaging video that could introduce his firm and communicate his “why”. He ultimately chose Crisp – and what happened next helped him achieve a 48% revenue increase for his firm.

Here’s what Lance shared with us when we asked him why he chose to work with us:

I chose Crisp because they were, by far, the best video production company I came across. Their videos were the most polished and Hollywood-like of any I’d seen before. More importantly, their attention to detail and commitment to emotional storytelling is unique in this industry. I can honestly say they’re the best vendor I’ve ever worked with.

Lance Fryrear

Strategy

The team at Crisp worked with Lance’s firm to produce a brand video and a series of educational videos he could leverage on social media to boost thought leadership and communicate his firm’s “why”. In addition, we produced an introductory video he uses when welcoming new clients to the firm that explains what they can expect while working with his team through their case.

Aside from his early 00’s phone book ads and his directory listings, Lance wasn’t utilizing any other forms of marketing. His foray into video marketing was one of his first formal attempts to establish an online presence by spreading his firm’s messaging via his website, Facebook, and YouTube.

Lance finds that he gets the most use out of his brand video when he uses it as a conversion tool. Lance uses his video:

As a follow-up for people who do not hire him in the office
In the office to help convert potential new clients
- He also sends the video out to other stakeholders in the decisionmaking process who cannot attend the initial appointment (i.e. a mother, father, uncle or grandmother is going to help pay for his services)
On his firm’s Facebook and YouTube pages
And, as of 2019, he has shorter commercial cuts of his video which he’ll be leveraging in a paid social media campaign (the program is called Crisp Social Stack)

Lance has found that when a stakeholder sees his video, and no one else has anything quite like it, they are sold on him as a solid decision almost immediately.

Beyond their production quality and professionalism, Crisp's CEO Michael Mogill went above and beyond by spending time on the phone with me on several occasions to offer me business advice even after I became a client. His candidness and generosity were very comforting - it reassured me that this relationship wasn't just transactional, and it wasn't just a sales pitch. That's why Crisp was the only company I trusted to share my vision with.
Lance Fryrear (Founder, The Law Offices of Lance Fryrear)

Impact

When Lance hired Crisp, his gross revenue was $880k for 2017.

He released his Crisp brand video in June 2018, and until that point, his firm had only broken 100k in revenue in a month twice before. Since releasing his video, his firm has broken 100k every month since. His 2018 revenue rounded out at $1.3MM – a 48% increase over the previous year, just six months after he released his video.

Lance attributes this success to his video because it was the only change he made to his marketing efforts, aside from minor internal process improvements.

Here’s what Lance had to say:

[The video] really does work. Given our average case value is now over $4,100, we paid for our Crisp Video at over a 10x multiple in the first six months – and we own it forever. Investing in a Crisp video was the best marketing decision I have ever made for our firm.

Lance Fryrear

Lance credits his video (conservatively) to over $20,000 in additional monthly revenue since releasing his video. And once his paid campaign launches, he expects that number to only grow.