Empowering Clients Through Divorce: Attorney Valerie Fenchel on Modern Family Law Marketing

Viktoria Altman: welcome to the Law Firm Accelerator. Today with us we have Valerie Frenchel, a family law attorney. Valerie, could you introduce yourself and your practice?

Valerie Fenchel: Hi, Viktoria. Thanks for having me. I have a family law firm, Fenchel Family Law, in the San Francisco Bay Area. we empower our clients to navigate divorce towards more vibrant futures.

we’re a five attorney, law practice, and I’ve been in business for,seven and a half years.

Viktoria Altman: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. So why did you decide to go into the field of family law?

Valerie Fenchel: My mother, had a family law practice.

So growing up, I figured I would do something completely different. but,I came back to it after finding, construction law mind numbingly boring. I really like family law. I feel like. You really have the opportunity to genuinely help somebody. I always have enjoyed helping friends or loved ones, figure out relationship drama.

And, I feel like the best thing I did in my  own life was finding the right. Life partner to have kids with and all that stuff. So I think, brining that value to others of giving them the courage to break free from the wrong relationships, is something that I’m really passionate about. And I get a lot of fulfillment from

Viktoria Altman: I love it

Valerie Fenchel: So you are a hereditary family lawyer. that’s interesting. And did you have,any ideas of why you wanted to do construction? Was it just to rebel against your mom? I’m really curious about this journey. when I lived in law school, I actually I really just didn’t want to be a lawyer at all.

I wanted to be like a child advocate, because I worked with little kids before I decided to go to law school, but I realized that was more like pro bono kind of work and probably wanted to generate some kind of salary for myself,pay my rent. so I,I put that aside and I actually got pretty passionate about, criminal law and I wanted to be a DA for a little  bit, but I found the dynamics of the DA’s office to be pretty, sexist, and I just, didn’t really think I would be able to, have a bright light and be myself in that kind of environment, and so I did another switch, Where, I don’t think I was sure what I wanted to do.

and, I think the construction job was just the first job I got. it was a tough market, but more than that, I think I just didn’t have a lot of conviction in knowing what I wanted to do. as an employer now, if I had me interviewing, I probably wouldn’t have hired me.

I got into family law, because I thought I’d enjoy, working with people directly but I still figured I’d probably hate it, but I would just do it to make money. I actually ended up really, enjoying it.

helping people have clarity when, they’re in some of the hardest times in their life and helping them solidify, the relationship they have with their kids and set boundaries with, unhealthy dynamics you have when you have a kid with the wrong person or married to the wrong person.

I got a lot of fulfillment from  that and I just realized that I could actually enjoy being a lawyer

Viktoria Altman: I think a lot of attorneys don’t exactly know where they’re gonna end up as a lawyer and they try things and then they find something they really enjoy.

And, you did get to be a child advocate, right? In a way except the child advocate that gets paid , since you probably get to advocate. for the well being of the child in the divorce process as well, to some extent,

Valerie Fenchel: I think as a family law attorney, if you think of yourself as a child advocate, you end up having so many nightmares.

You can’t sleep. I think you’re a client advocate and you have to remove yourself from feeling any level of responsibility, to what happens, if the court doesn’t make an order in your favor, if your client doesn’t follow. your legal advice.

But yeah, I do believe that, being passionate about,early childhood development, and being really interested and curious about the best way to, co parent kids, and all this stuff, could make you a better family law  attorney and more thoughtful, but definitely not a child advocate.

Got it. Okay. I appreciate that. you started what you said seven or eight years ago, and now you have five attorneys working for you. Is that correct? yeah, I have four. I say five because I, I’m a five. I don’t really practice anymore. but yeah, we’ve grown a lot, this past year, actually.

and before that, more steadily, building the firm, based on, people that I organically found that were a good fit at my firm

Viktoria Altman: that’s actually very impressive growth trajectory, and certainly one that many people out there would love to replicate.

Can you share some of ways that you have marketed yourself, whether that be online or offline, to get yourself to the point where you can afford to hire four lawyers?

Valerie Fenchel: yeah, I was thinking about that this morning. I was like, what am I going to talk to Victoria about? I think, It’s hard, I talked to other law firm owners, and they want, advice.

and I thinkIt’s easy to take a lot of credit for what you accomplish and say it’s because you’re such a  genius, but, I do think,doing activities that, you genuinely enjoy, that are authentic to you, I think is, a big piece of it, when I started my firm, I would do every activity, just to get, my firm’s name out, and I enjoyed, that journey of building a business, and I felt empowered by it and excited by it, and I don’t think every law firm owner feels that way, right?

it’s a very, personal experience, but for me, the first couple years of starting my firm, it was, throwing parties for my firm and open houses and holiday parties, sending announcements out by mail, sending newsletters out to whoever wanted or didn’t want them, by email,I invested in SEO early on to, help with,how much Google values me

And luckily Google seems to have a lot of the market share. I think it’s trying to stay one step ahead. if I think about how I spend my day, when things  aren’t so chaotic, I spend my day interviewing vendors that I think are doing really cool things that I want to learn about.

cause I think that as far as marketing goes, it’s always going to be an evolving, developing game. And you gotta play that game in order to continue to ride on the coattails of innovation and, enjoy the benefits of that. I think you have to be curious

I know that I’ve definitely had times in my business has been slow or I’ve given myself a really hard time for not figuring things out, but I think it’s those slow, horribly painful, scary times that usually lead to me being like, I’m gonna try to figure out Google ads today, or, I’m gonna try to, think through how to improve our pre engagement glide path for potential clients or, something like that, or I’m gonna second guess this lawyer I hired and see whether clients are actually stoked to be working with them.

Viktoria Altman: And if not, that’s the worst possible thing that could be occurring. That’s  worse than bad marketing is not having a exceptional product, right? So I’m going to make sure I’m providing exceptional service to clients. They are stoked to be with my firm and referring me, more business, it’s all kind of part of the same thing, Okay. You have some really interesting ideas in there. I’d love to explore them a little bit more. so you talked about throwing parties and open houses. You might be the first lawyer I’ve ever heard about who does open houses. Can you tell me what that means and how did that impact your marketing?

Valerie Fenchel: Yeah, I don’t do that anymore and I’m home with two babies and chaos, but before I had kids when I had the time,I would throw parties,at my law firm, and I’d have, people, friends and family and, people that I enjoyed or, that I refer business to they’d be invited and it was just a way to see people and connect and also I don’t know, like showcase what, how, what my firm was doing and, Enjoy it with other  people.

And I think if you are proud of what you’ve built and you’re proud of the high caliber attorneys and support staff that work for your firm,there’s no greater place to. Showcase that to get others to know and trust you than in your own home office space, so they can really experience what it’s going to be like for clients that they refer to your firm and they see you as an established.

multi million dollar business that, is doing cool stuff that they want to be a part of, too. I used to love just having people over for wine and snacks in my office, since COVID everything we’ve been fully remote. So it’s a much different,marketing strategy and different, things I do.

Viktoria Altman: But back when we, had big physical office space. I loved to spend time there and invite others into my space and have that be a part of, my business development That’s an interesting idea. So you would invite people who could potentially reffer others to your people from your newsletter and would you invite clients or would you not?

Valerie Fenchel: I think it needs to  be like natural, I have some clients that I adore, like they came over to meet my kids when they were born, I don’t think it’s about inviting every client, it’s about being authentic, if you’re someone that, enjoys cultivating relationships with people and building on that, and that, makes you feel like yourself, then I think do that, everyone’s different, right?

Viktoria Altman: It’s a very interesting, unique idea. Thank you for sharing. You are the first person on this podcast to talk about this, so I appreciate it. Yeah, maybe most people are just not as extroverted. I don’t know. It would never have occurred to me to have a party.

Valerie Fenchel: But do you like having parties?

Viktoria Altman: I don’t mind attending them as long as I can hide in the corner for a portion of it.

Valerie Fenchel: I would rather throw the party where I know my favorite wine and snacks will be there because I’m the one paying for it.

Viktoria Altman: I gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. Wine and snacks could be a good impetus to go  to a party.

So let’s talk about your newsletters. how often do you send them? Who do you send them to? give me some tips on how you do that.

Valerie Fenchel: Yeah, I’ve been so bad at it recently. I don’t think I should be the example. But, I try to send them out every month. I try to include a video, because people like videos,subject matter people are interested in.

If I have something personal to share, I try to be personal just because I think that’s more, interesting than general family law information. And, I don’t want to be like that divorce attorney that sends a newsletter on how to get divorced every month. I don’t know.

Viktoria Altman: That’s a fun topic.

Valerie Fenchel: If it could be about how to have a happier marriage, I think, what would I want to receive?

I don’t know. but yeah, I think it can be a way to have a warm touch with the people that, you care about, or you might be able to help,I can’t tell you, I get 20 percent of my referrals come from my newsletter, I don’t really know, but I think it is a way to just, stay in touch with people and remind them, that you’re out there if they need your help.

Viktoria Altman: Yeah. So attribution with things like a newsletter, a party is very complex, right? And as a marketer, most things that, close a person or get a person to become your client, they refer to you, they require multiple touch points, right? You might see them at a party, you might send them a newsletter, you might have a call with them.

And it’s not about, okay, I need seven and a half touch points to get. Person a to refer somebody to me. Nobody can live that way, right marketers, we might think of it that way But as a small business owner, it would just drive you crazy and also it’s unnecessary. So creating multiple touch points in many different ways a video a newsletter, a party invitation, seeing somebody at events in a natural way is the best way to approach it as a small business owner .So nurture those relationships in a natural and positive way, whatever feels most comfortable to you.

I don’t throw parties,  but it feels great to Valerie. So do the things that feel most natural to you and you will attract the right kind of people. So that makes perfect sense. You’ve spoken before about how discovering your own limiting beliefs has led to some powerful changes.

Can you talk a little bit about how you utilize that at work and if that helps you?

Valerie Fenchel: This past year I’ve struggled probably with, some of the worst limiting beliefs. Before I had kids, I think I had the limiting belief of,I should marry someone to support me so I could lay by the pool or something.

But,that wasn’t going to happen for me. I’m not very good at being the little lady on the arm. so I grew my business instead, but I think, this year having two kids, The second baby has been hard because, I still have the belief that, my baby’s best cared for by me.

And I think that’s, I don’t know if it’s limiting or not, but it certainly feels limiting when it comes to, building a  business and having to still manage a bunch of people and Figure out policies and procedures and, marketing and sales and all this stuff, while trying to be home with my son, and, I think that,I’ve made the decision that maybe a limiting belief was I had to choose between one or the other,

So I’m trying really hard this year To, not give myself such a hard time and to have a bit more. what was my word? my word of last year was like, be responsible and take responsibility for growing your business. And I think now my words integration, I’m just trying to integrate,being there for my one and two and a half year old with, being there for my employees and being there for my clients

and I think, I’m learning that, it’s not about,being such an intense, focused powerhouse human, in business all the time, or being a warm, nurturing, present, chill, happy mom at home all the time, I think it’s  integrating both those things in order to have both things.

in a manner where I can, feel calm and, happy inside. so it’s definitely been, a different vibe, this year, managing all those things. but I definitely, been learning a lot through it, through the, challenges and all that other nonsense. I think it has really helped me, probably become a

Better leader to my employees and run my business in a more even keeled, thoughtful, slower manner..

Viktoria Altman: Yeah, I think as women, we certainly face this issue of how to be great at everything, And I’ve, I’m a business owner. I’ve been a business owner in multiple businesses since my kids were your kids age and mine are now 18 and 14.

And I don’t know that there is a perfect solution out there. But I could tell that my kids turned out pretty good. And my businesses also turned out  pretty good. And so I think to some extent they can see us trying and that matters almost more than the things you actually end up succeeding in

The fact that they can see you trying so hard is. eventually, what they really need. They need to know that they are a priority and they can see it based on the things that you put in there. but certainly I think men don’t face this pressure, right? It’s just us.

Valerie Fenchel: They are so annoyed that they don’t have to face it.

Yeah. They’re never asked to be best at everything. I think It’s the thoughts we create for ourselves, right? We just, as women, we have different thoughts about it than men do. And to me, it’s Valerie, freaking change your thoughts. These are not productive thoughts, it’s easier said than done, I think.

Viktoria Altman: Yeah. One hack that I’ve found for myself. Trying to balance everything is to outsource as much as I can. things like cleaning or cooking, and I know I’m coming from a  place of privilege, but if I’m not required, I’m not going to do it. I’m going to ask somebody else to do it if I can. even things like setting appointments, small things like that.

If I can take the time that is my precious time to either spend with my children. Or on, my business or some other kind of growth that I’m not going to be doing the laundry. And coming from a place of privilege, I understand that it’s not possible for everybody, but that’s a hack that I found that works really well for me.

Valerie Fenchel: Are there any hacks you’ve found to combine raising a family, especially a young family and running your own business like this? yeah, if I think about it,when I was first pregnant with my daughter, my first kid, it felt like something that I didn’t really want to share publicly because it felt like a weakness being pregnant as a business owner, or even like being home with my new baby as a business owner, because While on social media or if I went to an event,  I was broadcasting, Oh, I own this law firm and I’m just so busy doing all these business stuff.

Like in reality, I was home, like singing, you are my sunshine to my daughter as she flipped through books and taking Thousands of unnecessary videos of her, right? I wasn’t really being a lawyer so it just felt like I wanted to hide that kind of and I think After having my son I decided that this is really hard and I just want to be myself And if i’m going to be isolated either with my kids or in this rental office by myself working I at least i’m going to be myself online And so I started integrating more sharing about what it’s like to Try to build a business while having two babies at home and I think being more authentic and real and showing up just As I am, I think has made this process easier for me,

And I think it’s also helped me find my people, a  little better because When I tried to hide, how great and relaxed I was with my little baby, with my employees I think it created this disconnect. And I think,I’m definitely not relaxed with my babies right now, but, I think By sharing who I am and sharing what I’m about, it’s helped me attract, employees that share my mission and values a little bit better, where I feel more connected and like we’re all on this journey of, building this premier family law firm together, I’m not isolated building it alone, trying to get people to do their work responsibilities.

it feels more integrated. And I think that’s been, really valuable, to me, both as a business owner and, as a mom at

Viktoria Altman: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Being more authentic goes a long way, in running your own business, as well as in even like things like marketing.

the more authentic you are generally, the better people connect with you. And like you said, finding your people, finding your ideal client. Generally, it’s easier if you’re more authentic,  right? Because if they’re your ideal client, chances are they like your personality. They like your lifestyle. They like who you are as a person.

And sometimes, we try to put on a show and, then with age, we figure, Oh, wait, I never needed to do that. I could have just been myself this whole time and it would have gotten even better. So let’s get back to your practice. in your firm, you’ve talked about Collaborative approach to family law.

Now, what strategies have you used to, build a strong team of attorneys that focuses on collaborative approach? And how do you team build

Valerie Fenchel: Yeah, the majority of our clients are probably in a high conflict,divorce situation or high conflict custody situation or some kind of more complicated, financial dispute or custody dispute.

And I think, for me. It’s been about recruiting and cultivating a really high performing team. I think family law has all kinds of different firms. I think, a lot of  firms, treat family law like it’s a no brainer kind of law, and it’s not very complicated. And, I think there’s a lot of cases that aren’t that complicated in family law.

but I think when you’re helping higher net worth folks or people with really complex custody or financial issues or complex needs, or high touch kind of clients. most people can’t do it. Most attorneys don’t have the experience or just the acumen or the toolkit to handle those kinds of cases.

and most paralegals don’t. for me, it’s been about really having clarity, in my job posts about Who we are and why we’re different and we help a little bit more sophisticated clients and, making sure that people I hire actually have experience helping clients like that.

And actually are passionate about,maintaining the systems I have and helping clients the manner I want. and it’s been hard to  do. but I think, to me, You can have the most powerhouse marketing machine in the world, but if you’re not delivering the level of service that you’re promising, then whatever kind of marketing you’re doing is going to be a big fat miss because People aren’t going to want to come back to you, and they’re not going to like working with you, and you’re basically lying, you’re committing fraud, And so to me, it’s like really critical to stand behind my marketing. My marketing shouldn’t be just marketing, it should be truth.taking the time to write out my mission and vision and values and having that be a part of my interviewing process and having that be a part of my weekly meetings and ensuring that everybody on my firm stands behind the same mission, vision and values.

Building out a high performance team of people that I can feel really proud of, the results we get for our clients and a lot of those results are settling cases, on terms that make our  clients happy

a lot of it is also getting really great results in court, which is expensive and stressful and awful. But if at the end of the day, if somebody is married to the wrong person and that person is making their life a living hell, then courts. It’s oftentimes required and, that’s okay.

Viktoria Altman: That’s awesome. Those are really good tips. writing out your mission statement, talking about it, reinforcing it to your team. Those are really important things. And yes, some people think it’s soft, but the way I look at it, it’s more of an art than a science. There is no one right way to do it, but if you don’t do it and if you don’t reinforce it, you’re definitely going to end up in the wrong place, not the place where you’re trying to go.

I know some of my clients, struggle with letting go of hires and you brought it up earlier. Is there, do you have any tips for when you know it’s time to let somebody go? Do you notice it when they’re not matching the mission? What can you share about, firing or just, letting go of, associates?

Valerie Fenchel: Yeah, I think  it can be really hard, it’s what I give myself the most grief over Is if I hire somebody and then they don’t work out. I see it as a huge fail on my end. I have failed them, right? I convinced them to leave a job to come work for me, and then I failed them, and it feels awful, but I think, for me, it’s tweaking that narrative in my head.

Where, of course, if I didn’t write out the job description accurately, and I didn’t make sure they had the core competencies and the specific experience, that’s my bad, right? But I’m also an imperfect person, and I’m still learning how to be a good manager and how to hire and how to interview and I’m evolving, too.

So I’m going to learn from it, too. But it’s not a benefit to anybody to have somebody in a role where they are not able to perform their job. and if you keep them in that role, they’re not only, giving you a headache every  day, but they could be screwing up the lives of your clients that you’re supposed to be.

taking care of right? while it can be really hard to let someone go, I think, to me, what I found is really critical is, really communicating verbally and in writing to the person working for you what they’re doing. That’s not meeting performance requirements. I’ve taken the time to write out All the performance requirements of the paralegal position and the attorney position at my firm.

And it’s this Google document, that my employees have to fill out, every six months and every year for their performance reviews. And it’s very specific, you need to respond to client emails within two business days. Period. within two days or the next business day, you need to give clients updates every two weeks.

You need to have a roadmap letter with the strategy of how to handle their case after two days of onboarding. And that needs to be updated regularly. all these things are what you need to do. And If you’re not doing that, we have a major problem because these are the promises that I’m making to our  clients when they onboard,

so I found that, the more clear and specific I get as far as performance metrics and the more. Frequently, I communicate, that with my employees, if I have an employee that’s not able to meet it, they usually just resign, because they know, no one wants to do a bad job, I think it’s more how you frame it and how you communicate it, and if somebody knows they’re doing a bad job and they’re not quitting, Then I think you feel an abundance of confidence to let them go because you’ve done everything you can to communicate that they’re not meeting the mark and put them on a performance improvement plan.

And, you have all the documentation that your employment law attorney would tell you needed. and then, it’s a no brainer, right? Because if they’re unable to meet their specific performance requirements and, after a certain amount of time, then, it’s a no brainer.

Viktoria Altman: I love it. So you have everything written down, you do regular reviews. That’s very corporate. And a lot of people are afraid of  going corporate, you’re doing a couple of things really well here. First, you have things really clearly outlined for your employees and yourself so that there’s no excuses with, managing those job expectations and also you’re protecting yourself.

Of course, as a U. S. based, law firm and U. S. based employees, you have to protect yourself in case of any issues. So having everything in writing is a great way to do it. I do know, some attorneys who wound up in litigation over this issue. So it is always better to have documentation

Put it down in paper, have it clear cut and you can protect yourself and your clients as well from not getting the kind of service that they require.what a great suggestion to do. so let’s talk a little bit about your ideal clients. Who are you marketing to? Who is the person that you would like to see as your clients, as your firm grows?

Valerie Fenchel: Yeah, I think,my ideal client is somebody that, ready or looking for  a lawyer to, give them legal advice on their rights and responsibilities so that they can find clarity and make a decision as far as what they want to do.

And they’re the kind of person that once they make a decision. they’re going to feel empowered by it. And agree to a roadmap of how to move forward and to achieve their financial goals or goals with their kids. And they’re going to listen to our advice and they’re going to really value.

our strategic insight and, appreciate, when we,do the legal work required to bring them to the place where they want to be.

So it’s finding someone that’s the right fit that really does want to move their life forward. and it’s gonna stay the course. as far as who they are, what they do for a living, it doesn’t really matter as long as they can afford our legal services.

we end up helping a lot of,W 2 employees that are, higher up in their companies or executives. We have a lot of business  owners. sometimes we help, stay at home mom who, maybe their parents are helping pay their bill or, sometimes we help a younger dad to, got into a mess, having kids with someone that, maybe they know very well and their parents are helping them out, as long as they can afford the legal work and they’re in a situation that, where they value, sophisticated experienced family law attorney really advocating for them

I think it’s, it’s the right fit.

Viktoria Altman: It’s such an interesting answer from you. So I ask this question pretty much every lawyer I speak with.

And most lawyers start with Describing a personality trait, right? And they talk about who they want to work with and that’s where they stop. And as a marketer, the question I’m really asking is the demographics, but most lawyers don’t think in terms of demographics, they think in terms of who they want to work with.

You went into. the marketing perspective and into the lawyer perspective. and it’s an  unusual person who thinks in both ways. So the reason why I ask this question is because as a marketer, It is important for me to understand who you’re targeting.

And I can’t go online and ask Google to show, your ad to people who are ready for a divorce, right? I can ask Google to show an ad to people who are in market for a divorce, which means they were looking at divorce lawyers, but it can’t go inside their head. Now, give it a couple of years, maybe with AI we will.

it can’t show it to people who are extremely conscientious, you know what I mean? It doesn’t have those specifications, but it can tell me this is a W2 employee, this is a certain zip code, this is a certain gender, this is a certain, income, So as a marketer, for me, the question always is who are you looking to sell to?

But as a lawyer, Of course, you’re thinking of who do I want to work with. And I’m very particular about the clients.

I have to like them. They have to be flexible. They have to be willing to listen to my advice. But at the same time, I also know that my ideal lawyer has, one to five associates.  They are. earning a certain income from their firm, they understand the value of marketing, etc. So part of your success is probably that you actually are viewing it from both sides, unlike many other folks who just use one side or the other side and, miss that connection.

to get back to the marketing, and again, you seem to have a natural knack for it. let’s talk about some of your Failures. Now, I know you, it sounds like you’ve had a lot of success, but I’m sure there was something you did at some point. You’re like, Oh, I shouldn’t have done that.

Valerie Fenchel: So share with our listeners, the kind of things they should be avoiding. I feel like I’ve got failures all the time. I don’t think that you can own a business and not have consistent failures. I’ve thought about quitting at least twice now. I think, It’s hard.

I think that ooo when bu my business has slowed down,I think sometimes I give myself too much responsibility. Valerie, it’s because you failed at these five things and that’s why business is slow. If  only you were more responsible. If only you did these five things, you wouldn’t be where you are today.

And maybe that’s true, but maybe it’s not. I think what we don’t always remember is business is sometimes cyclical and sometimes in life things are actually outside of our control. And that’s the scariest thing is the idea that we can’t control everything.

as I built my firm and as the expenses have increased,I try to have more marketing buckets in the pipeline so that there’s not as much of that risk of it slowing down, because that is, one of my bigger fears.

I think another fail, was thinking that Google ads would be the game changer for my business. I think Google ads are great for a lot of family law firms. for mine, they’re just okay.

I think we’ve closed two clients, in the past, four months with Google ads, I don’t spend a lot of money on it, but, it was really keeping my intake team frenetically busy, dealing with potential clients  that couldn’t afford my firm. the strategy for marketing is going to be different for your firm based on, the demographics of who you help and, what kind of scope of work you’re going to do

I think the Google ad may be really great. Maybe not, but I think, I think it’s a mistake to rely on any one bucket to solve your marketing problem.

Viktoria Altman: So a couple of interesting points to address there Google ads. Now Google is a for profit company and most of their money comes from ads.

They want you to succeed when it comes to ads, but that is an incredibly complex algorithm that manages Google ads. So when somebody goes in and sets up a Google ad, unless they have a lot of experience and know exactly the kind of client you want and know exactly how to target them and have separate landing pages that they’re A B testing for your particular client and have great attribution, you can go through a lot of money very quickly  without making any money in return.

And its not really Google’s fault. They actually even create classes that you can take for free to learn ads. Really, it’s just because it’s such a complex ecosystem. so in that particular case, it’s possible that your Google Ads were just not set up correctly, or your targeting was not done correctly, or your landing pages were not done correctly, or maybe Google Ads wasn’t going to work for you, but you wouldn’t know that until you looked at it, or somebody, with some experience looked at it, and said this is what was happening.

But Google Ads can be very profitable. Pretty much any business out there, depending on how they’re done and figuring out how to do it can be very expensive, so by the time you become profitable, if you spend so much, it might not even make sense. Plus, you could have better, money spent, right?

Google Ads is not necessarily the end all be all. For instance, you might be better off spending that money on, let’s say, YouTube, so it’s not necessarily going to be the best bang for  the buck.

I know that we are pretty much up with our one hour time. Can you talk a little bit about what’s next for your law firm? where are you looking to go? Where are you looking to grow?

Valerie Fenchel: I feel like I have found these amazing.

high performing, talented, people. and I feel really proud of all the work we’re doing for our clients. and I’ve really, discovered how critical it is for me to actually leverage the genius of the people I’ve hired, to, Improve, our systems and to even up level like the manner we communicate and different handouts we get to our clients.

And, I started to. see this as more of an integrated kind of thing that we’re doing all together rather than that. I’m pioneering on my own. so I’m not really, that Motivated or interested in Explosive growth, I’m  more about improving, organically by, being together as a team and figuring out what we can achieve together, over the next year.

And I think, I’m hoping that probably includes onboarding at least, maybe one or two more attorneys and seeing what that looks like, but I’m not in any rush to do it because at this point, I’m really being careful about putting the right people on the bus because, this has really, become, that mission and vision value they talked about, that’s more important to me than, anything else,

I’ve realized that when, I do anything in my business, that’s just to Oh, I want to make more money so I can afford, to have the nanny or to afford this preschool. if it’s about money, the decision’s not a great one,but when I make decisions based on actually genuinely improving my business,it’s always more financially profitable, but because it’s more successful.

so I don’t have a big vision. it’s more about,organically  sustainably growing, infrastructure and more stability and improving The experience of my employees and doing the kind of softer stuff to really build a business that, not just provide, really great legal services to its clients, but provides a really high level experience to the employees,

 

Viktoria Altman: So you are growing a better company, not necessarily a bigger company. I love that.

Valerie Fenchel: Yeah.

Viktoria Altman: I love systems and I love that approach. Do you have any last words of wisdom for our listeners?

 

Valerie Fenchel: Yeah, I think,I talked to other law firm owners that feel like they’re just struggling and they can’t seem to bring in the business, but I think, there’s this process you have to go through in order to, be a more, powerful marketer.

And I don’t think it’s a business decision. It’s not something even a business coach necessarily  can help you with. I think it’s like a personal. thing.

Because, ah a lot of people feel a lot of shame or embarrassment about, this image they’re putting out into the world, um especially if it’s an attorney related to selling legal services, right? Like it’s very easy for me to be like, Oh wow, I look like a greedy, terrible divorce attorney, thats trying to sell divorce on the poor population of people that are happily married.

and I think we can like like all paint this nightmare story about who we are and what we’re doing that kind of cripples or paralyzes us from marketing our business because we don’t want to, have that vibe. but I think it takes, some work on yourself, to figure out a way where

you can market, to your community in a way that feels good. not many people do market their business successfully because of their limiting beliefs about not wanting to look like that.

terrible, greedy lawyer but I think if you can retrain your thoughts to realize that you’re actually helping people, think of the clients that you have helped. if your mission is to get the word out that you’re providing this really high level of help they might choose a different lawyer and their life could be really screwed up.

But if you. Really take a lot of pride in, the manner you help people. Why is it so evil to share that with the outside world?

I think once you’re able to do that, I think your marketing will take off because you can have this integrated, that’s my word of the day. integrated approach with who you are and what your business is about. and it’s going to change the way you talk about your business when you go to events.

And it’s going to change the way you talk about it on social media or in your newsletter, once you really step into your power. And I think that’s honestly the, biggest change you can make in order to, have a successful business

 

Viktoria Altman: What a great piece of advice.

You have to have a great product, truly  believe in it, and then when you market it, remember that you are marketing for the benefit of the people who are going to be the ultimate users. You are looking to help them with their cases, with their Issues and if they don’t hire you they might not end up so lucky with such a good lawyer.

I love it Valerie, thank you so much for coming to this podcast. I really appreciate it and all the valuable advice. Thank you

Valerie Fenchel: Thanks, Viktoria for inviting me. It’s been such a Pleasure to, talk your ear off about, this has been really fun. I look forward to, getting to learn about your business a bit more in the future.