Balancing Business and Law: Innovative Strategies with Andre Regard

Viktoria Altman: Hey guys, welcome to the Law Firm Accelerator. Today with us, we have Andre Regard, a business attorney from down south. Andre, could you introduce yourself and your practice?

Andre Regard: Sure. I’m Andre Regard. Nice to be here. I’m in Lexington, Kentucky.

We like to say we’re the gateway to the South in Lexington. We’re the most Northern of the Southern cities. It’s a beautiful area, horse country and bourbon country. I’ve had a law practice here for 20 years. Most of my law practice through the years has been focused on business contingency litigation where I help business owners who have, been shut out of their business or they’ve had a major dispute where they’re unable to retain, a law firm on a traditional hourly basis.

And I do a lot of those on a contingency basis because I have a background as a CPA, I also do a lot of work in the horse industry. We call it equine law. focused on various aspects of the thoroughbred industry Kentucky is the international center of thoroughbred breeding.

Actually, for 10 years, I ran a horse farm in Kentucky, a breeding operation. And then I do a little bit of distillery law. I have a tendency to practice law in areas that I also have personal interests. I was in the horse business for 10 years, I also own a bourbon company and practice some bourbon law, do some real estate investment law.

And alsoI’ve started to build out a personal injury practice. so that’s most of where My marketing has been focused over the last, 36 months. So we do a variety of things. I would say at the end of the day, we’re a litigation practice.

we go to court, we argue in front of judges, we’re oral advocates, appellate advocates, and, that’s mostly what we do.

Viktoria Altman: Thank you so much for that comprehensive introduction, Andre. You have such an interesting, eclectic collection of law you practice. this might be the most eclectic, collection so far in my show.

I have questions. why the law? It seems like you have so many different interests. why did you decide to go into the field of law

Andre Regard: That’s a great question. my father was an attorney, so I grew up in that world.

He was a solo practitioner who was also a businessman, he was involved in the oil field industry. I grew up in South Louisiana. He was involved in farming. We had a large pecan farm. he was involved in various businesses around town, and he also maintained a law practice. So I always viewed the law as something you did while you also had an opportunity to do other things.

so that’s probably why I am not a hundred percent focused on the law. I have a tendency to do a lot of things try to integrate what I do in law with my other entrepreneurial interests. currently I’m running my law firm. a bourbon company with a partner.

a real estate investment company focused on self storage. I still own horses, even though I don’t run a large horse operation any longer. I have a wedding venue center that my wife and I own together. I’m also involved in a mail order company with one of my brothers based in Louisiana.

That’s part of our pecan industry legacy. It’s called Cane River pecan company, we’re the largest. pecan gifting company in the country. So I just love business in the law. so a lot of my clients, I’m very involved in what they’re doing with their businesses.

I really don’t approach it as though I’m just an attorney. I approach it as though I’m an advisor who can give them a comprehensive view of their business. Business law is my favorite thing to do. personal injury law is interesting and it’s a nice area to grow a practice in because it can be very lucrative and it’s not as hard of work, as business law.

Business law can be very difficult, work.

Viktoria Altman: before we started, I warned you that we might go off tangent, the moment I hear something interesting, I really want to talk about it.

you’re obviously a serial entrepreneur, and have a lot going on. I struggle with this myself. Everybody out there probably struggles. How do you manage so many different projects? What’s your system to combine all of this in a reasonable, work week.

that’s a good question. I don’t really know what a reasonable work week looks like. some people love to play golf. Some people love to play tennis. Some people, have what we like to refer to as hobbies. I think business can be a hobby. if you do things that you enjoy and you get satisfaction out of it, I really don’t understand why society says you can’t just do that all the time.

Andre Regard: And why do you have to play tennis three days a week or golf two afternoons? I enjoy, the businesses I’m involved in. I enjoy, being closely associated with, the businesses of some of my clients. I think of it as a hobby, social, and business combined in one. it’s a lot of stress.

there’s a lot of moving parts.

so I do try to say, okay, I’m going to spend some time today just on this business. I’m gonna spend time today just on that business.

I spend a lot of time involved in those businesses and activities that I’m involved in, I also. Try to go to the gym. I try to go outdoors. I travel a lot. technology has really allowed us to expand what we can do. I’m on the road a lot, but I have my computer.

I have my phone. My staff knows where I am. Very rarely do I get totally out of pocket. some people would say, you aren’t turning it off enough. On the other hand, you’re getting to have adventures and explore when maybe you wouldn’t otherwise if you didn’t have technology because you would have to stay in Lexington, Kentucky.

Viktoria Altman: I do believe in just trying to enjoy life, but always my mind’s running on what I’m doing in business. your secret is just to work a lot of hours.

Andre Regard: Yeah, my secret is to work, but that’s what you do. I started working when I was nine years old.

That’s what you did. if it wasn’t a business that I owned with my brothers, which was related to the pecan business. It was working on the farm. It was doing instruction and maintenance work for my dad on various things he was doing. It’s just what we did.

and, I don’t really view it as work. I just view it as life.

Viktoria Altman: yeah, you’re right.

Andre Regard: Certainly society tells you how you should feel about working or not working. And why can’t we write our own rules and do what makes us happy? society is not set up for entrepreneurs. Society really revolves around, what we view as a work week.

a lot of people can’t really work more if they wanted to because they’re in jobs where, overtime isn’t something they can just say, I’m going to go work more. but the reality is, if you want to Succeed and achieve. In my opinion, you got to work.

 it’s interesting because people like to say business people work too much, but they never say that about athletes. if you want to be a world class athlete, you want to be a Michael Jordan, you want to be a LeBron James, those guys work, they work 10, 12 hours a day, whether it’s fitness, exercise, physiology, how they eat.

Practice games. that’s what you do if you want to be successful and achieve you have to put the work in it’s that simple But it doesn’t mean it has to be dreadful Part of everything’s dreadful. that’s why it’s called work.

if you enjoy it, great.

Viktoria Altman: so you are a serial entrepreneur. You’ve started many companies and helped companies that have been in your family. for generations. What marketing lessons would you say you’ve taken from all of them

it’s interesting. For my law firm, I didn’t market for a long time because business law is hard to market for. I’ve been trying to figure out how do you market business law? you can, when I say market, mass media market. My experience in business law is you market it through relationships and referrals.

Andre Regard: because I’ve tended to do business law in other industries I’m involved in, I have a natural referral base. I represent a lot of people in the horse industry because I was in the horse business. I do a lot of stuff in the real estate industry, not closings, but transactions. like investment fund type transactions, because I’m in that industry.

mass media marketing a new concept I’ve started after COVID, I’ve been involved in it, particularly with our Pecan company, which is very consumer and business facing If you don’t market, it’s like winking in the dark at a prospective spouse

If you don’t cast light on it and let people know you’re doing stuff, then people aren’t going to know you even exist. So I think it’s important to be in the marketplace. And to try to find little niches. where you can market your unique services to a very defined group of people.

personal injury marketing is the most expensive marketing in the country. And we all know that now because of Google. Google tells us exactly the value of the marketing dollar. if you want a medical malpractice case and you’re willing to sift through all of the potential cases out there actually cheap to get compared to an MVA case.

you got to find your niches, the riches are in the niches, and try to do some targeted marketing. I think being authentic in your marketing. We were shooting some videos today and we shot 12 videos that were going to be cascaded on social media over the next couple of months.

they were all serious at the end of the video, I have this big alligator skin in my office. So we created this new character Andre regard, lawyer and alligator hunter. we made four videos and we’re not sure we’re going to post them.

my videographer was here and my marketing person was following by zoom it was funny. a lot of today’s social media marketing. it’s interesting because, are you marketing your business? Are you marketing your service? are you marketing yourself?

Or are you creating an aura or image? For the public to consume, that’s who you are. And then they’re just, it just so happens they’re going to buy your service. I think the jury’s out on that. I have some friends that are attorneys that pretty much lay out their whole life online.

Very authentic. and then you have the lawyers whose commercials are very traditional. So I think we’re in a changing dynamic. My brother who runs the business I mentioned earlier is very much, image driven in the sense that He doesn’t sell his product, his marketing sells a lifestyle and an image.

so I think there’s some value to that as well.

Viktoria Altman: there’s a couple of things to address there. To go back to the beginning, when you talked about, marketing your business online, You can only do that if your clients are searching for you online, right?

So if somebody goes on and says, I want an equine law lawyer, and if there is a certain number of people who do that per month, then it makes sense to invest in the SEO. If this is not the case and there is not a lot of people looking for your specific niches online, then putting money into that type of marketing has to be done in a very different way.

The first thing you want to do is make sure you have a high converting website because if somebody is getting a referral, Chances are they’re not just getting one referral, they’re getting two or three referrals, which means they’re going to visit your website and probably a couple of other people.

So where you can win is by converting more of those referrals. I just did a whole presentation for the New York City Bar on how to make a more convertible website But principles apply. You want people to visit your website, you want them to call you.

if people don’t search for you online, then the question is, do they not know to search for you? if they don’t know to search for you, then you need to educate them. through social media or personal speaking engagements,

Without knowing more about the specifics of your practices, I can’t give you advice there, What’s important to remember is the only time it makes sense to do SEO is if somebody is searching, right? for PI it works very well because people go online and they say car accident lawyer near me And I know that there’s 75 000 people searching for these kind of keywords every single monthto address the discussion about Google tells us exactly how much a conversion costs Not quite.

So Google, will tell you how much they want to charge you per click. But the reason why Google doesn’t like people who do my job is because I am able to get you clicks that are cheaper than Google, If I couldn’t do that, then I wouldn’t have a job because why would you pay a third party when you could just pay Google directly?

a good SEO can help you create An asset that’s going to convert at a cheaper rate than Google. In fact, that’s a good way to track your SEO is, is the, the ads more profitable than the SEO. And if they are, then you have a problem because. the SEO should be more profitable than the ads.

I always say that ads are like renting an apartment and SEO is building a house. SEO takes time, but you should have an asset when you’re doing it. Whereas ads, the moment you stop paying for them, they no longer work. I’m curious to hear about your experience with marketing your PI practice.

Video is a very interesting component, that works well for some people, but that is a longer sales cycle component. In general, with PI, the best cases are going to be urgent, right? They’re going to be folks who are like, I just got into an accident, I need a lawyer. If you’re nurturing that lead, Chances are, you have a very big budget because you are nurturing tens of thousands of leads and maybe, five of them will end up calling you at some point.

Andre Regard: talk to me about how you decided to do the video portion and what you are hoping to get from it. I’m not the one who really made that decision. It just was wasted up on me. I think it’s just part of the package. I’ve done it with another vendor before. I’m not posting those little funky Tik TOK stuff where people were getting a bunch of followers.

So I really don’t know the value of the video it’s probably just another way to put more information out there about you. I agree with you.

I don’t think it’s going to get you that emergent. client but to the extent somebody is going to take the time to go to your webpage and learn a little bit more about you and not just react to the first person that comes up when they Googled right after the car wreck. I think it has some value.

something else that we are about to start trying that I find very interesting is. news article writing, it’s writing news articles about major catastrophes or single event accidents, where you write an article about it, and put that out there right after it happens.

Because a lot of people will Google their own accidents, and they’re interested in that. So we’ve been playing around with that a little bit as well.

Viktoria Altman: yes, you’re right even though they’ve been in a car accident, the best potential clients might, still look at a few lawyers, because those are the people who have better impulse control.

And those are generally going to be the kind of clients you want, having some content is very helpful, but unless you have a longer sales cycle, additionally investing money in that content is probably not very helpful.

So I don’t know if you ever been to like a very big PI lawyer website they’ll have a nice video of if you’ve been in an accident, blah, blah, blah. And that’s something that does help conversions. I know because I’ve done AB split testing, adding more stuff on Facebook or Instagram or Tik TOK.

That’s really more if you have additional budget or, maybe you’re getting it for free or have a longer sales cycle. for your business law practice , that might be beneficial. If there are people who go out there, ask questions, research, maybe they’re not sure what they need, that could actually be helpful.

But for a very short, quick sales cycle like PI, it just depends on your budget, but probably you have better ways to spend the money. It works well for estate, and it works well to some extent for divorce. Those people are, do I want a divorce?

Do I not want a divorce? and they go back and forth a lot, right? We all know somebody like that.

So that’s a type of branding, right? you brought up a really interesting discussion of, are you selling a product that you’re selling yourself? what are you doing? And that’s branding branding can be done in many different ways, right? the best example of branding is Nike,

you see a swoosh and you’re like, okay, I know exactly what this is. Nike has Nike type budget. most small companies do not. So Nike keeps spending money because they can afford it. so it’s like a pyramid, right? you want to grab the people at the top because those are the easiest to convert, right?

you want to grab the people who are doing the search and need a lawyer. then you could do, ads And maybe some kind of a nurturing like a newsletter as you have fewer and fewer potential prospects, that may convert at some point in the future, you want to put those things off until the last, and really invest the money in the very easy conversions.

You want the easy money, if that makes sense, legally, you want the easy money legally, So branding. a lot of times banding too is about, people want to be on camera. They like being on camera. They like being on social media, et cetera.

So a lot of times that kind of crosses over into people’s personal preference. I personally am with you. I don’t want to be in front of a camera, but here I am

Andre Regard: since I’ve gotten involved in my bourbon business. I have a partner who does all the marketing, so I just repost everything, but 90 percent of the things I post are related to my bourbon company now,

We have a bourbon website, and I’ll post on my personal website. Once in a while, I’ll post one of the bourbon things on my law office website. the bourbon stuff, we probably post 3 to 5 things a day. it’s a lot. because, that is an industry that’s very brand driven.

I probably have a brand problem when it comes to law because I have a pretty diversified practice. I’m thinking about my practice and you’re going to have a website. You do equine and business litigation, business contingency litigation and personal injury.

Those are not all compatible on social media, in my opinion, or website. But the reality is my equine cases are not going to come to me because somebody just decided to google equine lawyer. the people that have substantial investment in the horse business, have substantial advisors, and I’m going to get those cases from those advisors, not because they happen to get on the internet and said, I just got screwed on a horse deal.

Who can I find to help me? What you will get for people that aren’t big players. They’re very nominal players, and that litigation just economically is not worth hiring me.

 when you start talking about a business litigation case, if there’s not the potential to, get a judgment or a settlement, that’s at least a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand dollars… They’re really not worth doing. They’re hard and difficult cases because everything that’s done in business litigation, in my opinion, based on my experience, is done on purpose.

People don’t run red lights on purpose. People don’t commit medical malpractice on purpose. It’s negligence. But in business litigation, business partners and business owners screw their partners and screw other people on purpose. So there’s a lot more complexity to the litigation.

our business cases are usually Pretty big. when I come to marketing, I’m like, where do my business cases come from they come from? Bankers or CPAs or family offices, financial, advisors, they’re the ones who are more likely to send me a business case,

 They want me to have a presence and they want to know that they’re going to somebody legitimate, but they’ve already bought in because they have a trusted advisor that has told them. Oh, you have a dispute. Now you need to go talk to Andre Regard. Here’s his phone number,

Viktoria Altman: So for you, my recommendation would be, to almost have multiple subdomains as a business card for multiple different lines of work. So your primary one is regard law, personal injury, but have.

 a mini website on your domain just for this area of practice, and have whatever is relevant to that ideal client. It might be reviews case results.

social proof like articles about you, et cetera. you want the person looking for your horse business not to find your personal injury business because that’s going to get really confusing. you want to make sure that the person who you want to convert for a certain thing is being served what is right for them.

Because otherwise, if you have the horse guy coming to your accident law website, chances are he’s not going to convert if he finds another. horse lawyer. That’s all about the horses, right? So for you, you have what’s called brand dilution. usually brand dilution happens because you have a very similar name to somebody else and their website comes up for you.

But in your particular case, you have it because you have so many businesses. I would create, websites in a sub domain for you. And make sure that the right person is writing to the right website. not that hard to do. You’re not in such a competitive field of work that you don’t have that many different competitors for most of your practice areas.

Andre Regard: It’s interesting because equine law is really not the type of practice that a person can do full time. equine law, it’s very episodic and there’s really not that many of us that do it. We all know each other. the one thing I wish I could figure out how to market better. And I don’t know is the contingency based business litigation, because I think it’s something I really enjoy.

It’s something I’ve been very successful at, and it’s something that people need. they don’t realize it’s available every time somebody is in a business dispute they think. if I don’t have 50, 000 to sign a retainer with a law firm, I’m out of luck. And that’s not the case.

so that’s probably an area I would like to figure out how to market better.

Viktoria Altman: Are there firms that focus on this specific area of law? I don’t know any, but in the big picture, there is some play that happens in the patent area. There’s some contingency litigation that happens at large scale patent contingency litigation, but I’ve got a million dollar business or two million dollar dispute and I want to hire a contingency attorney to help with that.

I don’t believe there’s a defined marketplace for that at all.

So this is where social media comes in. This is where those videos come in because now you can target. business owners. And you can say, Hey, business owner having trouble with a partner, vendor, whatever the case may be. I will help you on contingency.

So now you have to educate people that you are available. And that’s the place to use social media because they don’t know They need you. They just don’t know. So those videos, that’s where they really should be going. And then as a marketer,

Andre Regard: Yeah but you need to watch my alligator skin video.

Viktoria Altman: I’ll email it to you. It’s pretty funny. We’re not going to use it. I’m embarrassed. you might want to use it for the business contingency, and then you put those on LinkedIn. you put them on YouTube Facebook, where your ideal client, maybe your business owner.

35 to 55 hangs out. Maybe they are only a business owner who makes 2 million plus a year. And that’s all you know about them. And maybe this works or this doesn’t work because nobody has ever done this before. So I don’t know that it will work. That’s why I asked if other people have done it. But you enjoy a little bit of risk and certainly can create a campaign and, test it out and see how that works.

Andre Regard: And you might have to run the ad for three months to get a good lead, you talked to a lot of law firms. have you heard many people talk about contingency based business litigation?

Viktoria Altman: No, I have never heard of it. you’re the first person

I talk to people on podcasts. people who want to hire my digital marketing agency. I spoke to people conferences, you are the first, but nobody’s ever heard of an electric car until a point, or Google, I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but I agree with you, it’s not something that is, so you always have to treat it like a startup, right?

there’s not a lot of it being marketed out there, but it’s a real need. when I do help people and they realize I can get somebody to help me and he’s willing to take the financial risk.

 It’s not bourbon. But somebody had to do the first bourbon, right? I just don’t know who it was.

Andre Regard: That’s right.

Viktoria Altman: You probably know who it was.

And to take a step back to the news article idea for your website.

So we do have something called news hacking. you comment on ongoing matters. the quote is, while this lawyer is not handling this case, he says in similar cases, and you reach out to reporters.

You can do it for PI, but you probably have better luck doing it for other business ventures. that’s something that could be a good. way for you to market.

 Talk to me a little bit about failures in marketing. What have you found that did not work for you?

purchasing lead gen is not really marketing because you’re purchasing somebody else’s marketing. I’ve never had any luck with that as a personal injury lawyer. there’s a lot of vendors out there who are going to sell you leads and I’ve probably dealt with four or five and it’s just never worked for me.

Andre Regard: I guess somebody hits the roulette table once in a while, but that’s not really marketing, I guess. I’m 53 now and there are things I wish I would have done 23 years ago. When I started my own law practice, because I think repetition in certain areas is extremely important.

If I had bought the last page of the racing program at Saratoga every year for 23 years, then everybody would know you’ve got an equine horse problem. This is who you call, those problems don’t happen very often and you just have to be repetitive, repetitive, repetitive, repetitive,

So I think repetition is probably something I haven’t done enough of I think it’s pretty important. being involved in the community is something I wish I had done more of. Maybe I didn’t because of how many businesses I get involved in, whether it’s being involved at your church or your school the annual picnic the baseball games and utilizing the network that gets created around your kids.

people want to do business with people they met or through referrals. So community involvement, community marketing and repetition are things I look back at and wish I had. Time flies, you think to yourself, what’s 25 years and then all of a sudden.

Viktoria Altman: 25 years passed by and you’re like, wow, if I’ve been doing that for 25 years, I’d probably have more cases in that area. in marketing, there is a concept called touches. and we know most people need multiple touches, in order to convert. generally the longer the sales cycle, the more touches they need.

for me, my sales cycle is very long I may talk to somebody on my podcast. I may see them in the conference. I might, send them a couple of newsletters and eventually they’ll convert. For personal injury attorney, The touch is almost instant,

Maybe one or two touches and you convert or you don’t convert. For criminal law, you’re the same. So since you have such a long sales cycle, it sounds like you need a lot of touches for some of these practice areas. purchasing, the same ad year after year or similar ad year after year.

great example, the Hess truck. I’ve seen those commercials since I was a kid and every year I see those commercials I think that’s a gas station, but I had no idea. They don’t have them in my part of the country. Certainly adding more touches is helpful.

some of the other touches you could do besides ads would be newsletters, social media, things like that. is there any other kind of marketing lessons you’d be willing to share from any of your other companies?

I feel like you probably have done. So much marketing that you probably have so much wisdom that, I could learn quite a few things from you

Andre Regard: you mentioned brand earlier. I think brand. Plays a big role. I think brand can play a bigger role than people realize. a lot of people are scared of brand. I’m still playing around with that in my head. What is your brand? What is your image?

I’ve gotten to know a few people that are influencers, whether it’s in fashion food or drink and they’re always marketing to create their brand. that’s an interesting concept to me. what’s your brand? in a case like me, I have some pretty disparate things I’m interested in, whether it’s a personal injury case or a business litigation, or trying to sell a bourbon or doing something in real estate.

how do you have a cohesive brand? If you’re diversified, your brand is, you’re an entrepreneur. think of somebody like Richard Branson. he’s selling. Exactly. He’s selling an airline. He’s selling a hotel. He’s selling a drink.

He’s selling a nightclub. But nobody’s ever confused about what Richard Branson is. Richard Branson’s success. You do what Richard tells you to do and you live a great life and you’re successful and want to be like Richard.

Viktoria Altman: when I see Richard Branson, I think. you’re edgy, entrepreneurial, living a good life, but He’s failed a lot. that’s your brand. You’re an entrepreneur. a serial entrepreneur. And so all of those things that you do really ties together.

Now, I don’t know if you want to be in front of the camera and be known as that person, right? Because, That’s something I struggle with too. I am also a serial entrepreneur and I hated being around the camera for a long time. I like this podcast because I like talking to smart people and learning.

Andre Regard: I struggle with social media. I don’t mind being in front of the camera.

I think the branding works for everything but the personal injury because what you said earlier about personal injury is, and I’ve learned it’s not necessarily true, but your initial personal injury case is not relationship driven. It’s opportunity driven you were there and you were available Now what I have learned from people who have very large personal injury practices Is the number of cases they get as referrals from past clients is huge but once again, I don’t think that’s because of the brand.

I think that’s because They have done a good job. Their business got a successful outcome. Johnny then has a wreck, turns to his friend Matt and says, Oh my gosh, I had a wreck. And Matt said, I hired Andre three years ago and he did a great job for me.

Viktoria Altman: Here’s his phone number. Call him. Yeah. the best kind of marketing is serving these clients. I work with one personal injury law firm. That’s been in business since 1932, And they have generational clients coming to them, and they have a very nice website.

They do have a video, they do have reassurance, but they also have this history of really serving people well. And you’re absolutely right, because I’ve done split AB testing, having reviews throughout the page. makes a difference. is that person going to convert to you or the lawyer that the aunt gave them?

Because a lot of people have multiple referrals. getting that person to actually convert, there is an art to it and a science, we know certain placements, certain types of pictures. certain colors, certain things convert and certain things don’t And I’ve tested it. I know it works.

I think one of the biggest things, if you’re going to have a high volume PI practice, it’s all about your intake. if you don’t have, that’s where the conversion, you convert social media, but you have to be responsive. I remember one time when I was a young lawyer, it was a Sunday, it was a business transaction dealing with a horse.

Andre Regard: And a client of mine called me, and he was a very successful businessman in New York, short hauler for UPS, and he wanted to buy a horse. The way it works in the horse industry is all the big races are on Saturday. So across the country, you have all these big races in the spring, everybody’s thinking Kentucky Derby, all these races happen, you have results, and Sunday morning, people start wanting to buy things.

and you got to close. you got to make the deal. You got to pay for the deal. it’s a lot of moving parts that happen very quickly because there’s a lot of people who want to make the transaction happen. Very competitive. This guy calls me, nine o’clock on a Sunday morning. Hey, Andre, I want to buy this horse.

Here are the particulars. I’m about to email them to you. I need a contract. I said,I’m about to do A, B, and C. Can I get back to you at two o’clock this afternoon? He actually said to me, Andre, You’re the guy who chose to go to law school. If you don’t want to do this kind of work, don’t tell people you do it.

but if you’re going to be an equine transactional lawyer, there’s a time of the year when you’re going to have to be available

you’ve got to hook in that client. You’ve got to convince that client that you’re the person that can take care of their issue. customer service marketing without customer service. Is wasting money if your phone rings 20 times And you don’t answer or close the deal, then I’m going to be mad at my marketing person, and my marketing person is going to say, would you answer the phone?

Viktoria Altman: If you didn’t answer the phone, you’re not going to get the client. certain fields will ask for certain types of, times, like a tax lawyer would have to, or a CPA, for instance, has to work February, whether they like it or not, the whole month, probably with no breaks.

one, interesting tip, Google will actually depreciate your listing for the hours you are closed. if I search for a personal injury lawyer near me, and you happen to be closed Google will show you much lower on the page than a competitor who’s open.

I see you’re open 24 hours and have a competent person answering the phone if you didn’t and somebody called you and you didn’t pick up the phone. Google would actually depreciate your Google My Business list. So you would actually be seen lower in the page.

Andre Regard: Andre, thank you so much for joining me. What a fascinating discussion. Do you have any last words of wisdom to attorneys, entrepreneurs, anybody who is listening and looking to grow their own company or companies I think for lawyers, I would say, I don’t think a lot of lawyers appreciate what it is they really do.

Whether it’s personal injury law or business law. Or really any type of law. at the end of the day, lawyers provide an incredible service to society of helping people manage extremely catastrophic and difficult situations that can ruin them, either ruin their health. ruin them financially, ruin their relationships, and good lawyers understand that they’re there to help people get through that process.

one of the things about practicing law that is very different than being a physician or a psychologist is the hard work lawyers do when they’re not with the client. when they’re in their office managing their staff and thinking about the problems solutions.

It’s a very stressful profession. for those lawyers out there listening appreciate what you do. When you get overwhelmed, call other lawyers or support services. there’s, it can be very stressful. You’re not in it alone.

There’s people out there that can help you manage through difficult times because you take on a lot of stress, be cognizant of what you’re doing.

Viktoria Altman: Thank you so much for joining me today, Andre. I really appreciate it.

Andre Regard: Thank you for having me. My pleasure.