YPM - EP041 DOUG BRADLEY

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Mps: [00:00:00] well why don't

you tell us

a little bit

about that?

So give us a

quick rundown

of your story

into how and

where you are now

Doug Bradley: I started way back

when companies

would publish a book

full of local businesses

and phone numbers

and deliver it

on a doorstep

I sold the ads

that went into those

phone books

and anybody under

the age of 30

is probably never

seen one or

used one

but believe it or not

that was a thing

and people sold

the ads that went

into those phone books

and that's how

I got my start

in advertising right

after college

and even though it

seems ridiculous

that somebody

would have used

that nowadays

but back then

that's how businesses

were found

if you weren't

in the phone

you weren't in

business that year

and we literally had

people you know

lined up to get

their ad in the

phone book on time

otherwise the

book closed

and they were not

expecting much

business that year

well right around

the great recession

advertisers started

pulling out and that

was coincidentally

the timeframe when

smartphones were

getting really popular

and so the

business model

[00:01:00] for yellow pages

was sunsetting

and luckily for me

I was recruited into

a major legal directory

it fit perfectly

with my experience set

And so I started selling

ads on this

legal directory

and I did

a really great job

I turned around

a failing territory

and created some great

relationships with

attorneys that I still

work with to this day

but one of the things

I learned real quick

was this huge company

wanted me to sell

this very niche

product set that's

difficult to sell

​

Mps: Hey, law firm owners. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm

MPS.

Richard James: And

I'm Richard James and MPS today, we're going to get to work with somebody that actually does real nuts and bolts marketing with law firms at the ground level. And they've worked with many different practice areas. And so we're not only going to be able to hear about that, but we're going to also be able to hear about their journey [00:02:00] that they had in the legal world before they started their own firm, what it's been like to work with law firm owners for as long as they've worked with them.

So I'm excited to have Doug on the show today, Michael.

Mps: Me too. Doug, super excited to have you on.

Doug Bradley: Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Mps: Absolutely. Doug, around here, one of the things we like to do is loosen people up a little bit, get to know you a little bit. So, why don't you tell the audience, what's something that maybe not everybody knows about you?

Doug Bradley: You know, something that nobody really knows about me or not much about me, Gosh, that's, you know, that's a really good question to put me on the spot because I'm kind of an open book. I tell a lot of people about my life. Let's see. You know, I, that's a really great, great question. I think, I think probably the thing that most people don't understand or don't know about me initially is that I got into this kind of industry by chance and I fell into it.

And the way that I proved early on that I could actually execute for, clients was I created a website and I just started optimizing that [00:03:00] website and hope that people would find it and come. And that's exactly kind of what ended up happening and it was kind of a roundabout way to prove my capabilities, but you know, that's the way that I personally did it.

Richard James: Hey, Doug, I can relate to that. I fell into this industry too. In 2008, I'd moved to Arizona, joined a mastermind group where other business owners got together and talk about their businesses. One guy's business was faltering. I kept giving him advice. He finally said, can I hire you as a consultant? I'd never been a consultant before.

I said. Well, sure. I did it. I fixed it. He goes, Hey, well, this worked for my clients. His clients were law firms. I go, I don't know. Don't see why not. I've owned a pet supply company, funeral homes and an insurance agency throughout my life. Never had anything to do with law. First time I walked into a law firm was after I gave my first presentation in Orlando in 2000, beginning of 2009.

I was hired by one of the firms at that presentation to come into a full day review or audit of their [00:04:00] firm and I pulled apart their firm and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is like every other business I've ever owned. It's the same thing. Right. And then I had to go from there and figure out how to build systems off the back of what I already knew.

But in 2008, 2009, my stories were about insurance sales and funeral homes and pet supply. I had no lawyer stories at all. Right. And so it, but at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter because like I, we have our clients talk about is. My business is no different than your business. I mean, fundamentally at the core business is business is business.

They have the predominant same moving parts, especially if it's a client based business. And so, you know, for, I, I respect the fact that you jumped into the deep end and you proved your worth by showing that you could get results, not only for yourself and your clients, as you're working in the early days, but now as you're running your own practice and getting results for your clients on a regular basis.

You've now grown to a new level. So congratulations on jumping in the deep end and accomplishing that goal. [00:05:00] Oh,

Doug Bradley: business situations. And I think. It takes a special personality to recognize a business opportunity and say, how do I, how do I insert myself into this and create value for my clients that they're willing to pay for?

Mps: Absolutely. Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about that? So, so give us a quick rundown of your story into how and where you are now.

Doug Bradley: Yeah, I actually, I, I started way back when companies would publish a book. Full of local businesses and phone numbers and deliver it on a doorstep. I actually sold, I sold the ads that went into those phone books. And anybody under the age of 30 is probably never seen one or used one, but believe it or not, that, was a thing.

And people sold the ads that went into those phone books. And that's how I got my start in advertising right after college. And it really and even though it seems ridiculous that somebody would have used that nowadays but back then that's how businesses were found. If you weren't in the phone book, you, weren't in [00:06:00] business that year.

And we literally had people you know, lined up to get their ad in the phone book on time. Otherwise the book closed and, you know, they, they, were not expecting much business that year. Well, right around the great recession, advertisers started pulling out and that was coincidentally the timeframe when.

Smartphones were getting really popular. And so the business model for yellow pages was sunsetting. And luckily for me, I was recruited into a major legal directory and fit perfectly with my experience set. And so I started selling ads on this legal directory I did a really great job. I turned around a failing territory, and created some great relationships with attorneys that I still work with to this day, but one of the things I learned real quick was this huge company wanted me to sell this very niche product set that's difficult to sell.

It's hard to execute called SEO. And you really have to pay a lot of attention to SEO. Back then and now you, you have to be hands [00:07:00] on and they were anything but hands on. And so, just for self preservation, if I wanted to have my sales stick and eat that month I had to make sure that those SEO programs were going well and that they were performing.

And so I had to take charge of my clients campaigns in many cases and make sure. That they had the things in place that would make it successful. And so I really was self taught. And fast forward a few years later, the company was sold and they fired about 200 sales reps, myself included. And I figured that was the time when I should get into the business on my own.

I had the hands on experience. I had some relationships. And here we are today.

Richard James: You know, it's funny you say that, Doug. A couple of things. One I used the Yellow Pages when I owned funeral And so, I remember, you know, convincing my uncle that we should buy a full page ad and having him nearly jump out of the, you know, the rocking chair. And, and I remember when I built the law [00:08:00] firm, first law firm, I built 2009ish we, the very first ad we had was a newspaper ad, I mean, a yellow page ad.

And we actually, we, we actually were able to, because people were pulling out, we were actually starting to capture the back cover and the inside back cover and the inside front cover and the little widgets on top of them. And so for a while, we got a lot of, we got a lot of juice out of that lemon, or I guess it would be like a, Benjamin Graham cigar butt concept.

Like it was all the, the yellow pages were almost dead, but they had enough life left in

them and while everybody else was exiting, we were able to get things at a deal and it really worked out very well for us. Interestingly enough, I just got a yellow page book put on my doorstep last week. believe that?

Yeah

Doug Bradley: can't, No I can't, I haven't seen one in years.

Richard James: I took a picture of it. I went all the way to the attorney section immediately and I took a picture of that as well. [00:09:00] I think there was two ads. If you remember, you sold those ads. So you remember attorneys would, would have a double truck and single

truck

and triple truck, right? I mean, They were trying to get ahead of everybody.

And I think it's interesting. And I want to make a point to those who are listening. So you said something very, very interesting that the yellow pages had a natural window of time at which you could get your ad in and then the book closed.

And the reason the book closes because, well, they had to print it and then they had to deliver it.

Right. And so they would only you only had a window for so long. And because of that, there was a sense of urgency for attorneys to get this done. And I feel like one of the things that's happened in today's digital marketing age. It's a sense of urgency is gone. And so a lot of attorneys sit back on their heel and they don't act and they don't act and they don't act because they don't have to act.

And I think it's actually costing them opportunity. Would you agree with that?

Doug Bradley: I think so. And I think there's a couple, you know, people land in [00:10:00] a couple of different camps when it comes to that. Most people know or if they've just started researching that SEO takes time. And so if you want something to happen, you know, three to six months from now. The time to start is not three to six months from now.

The time to start was just yesterday. And, and so it's hard to have a sense of urgency to make something happen in the future. But those firms who they come to me and they've had experience, maybe they were an associate or a partner. at another firm And they said, you know, our phone rang off the hook with really good leads from SEO, and we're going to be starting up this firm in the next few months.

And we want to make sure to start getting the, you know, the groundwork laid for this program. Those types of firms really set them up for success because we can start to do a lot of the foundational work early on. But you're, you're, you're definitely right. The, the sense of urgency to publish a website, to do SEO, to publish [00:11:00] articles when the benefit isn't right there, right at that moment.

It's kind of a tough sell.

Richard James: Hmm.

Mps: I agree. I think that's, that's spot on. I I'm curious, Doug. I mean, most entrepreneurs you speak with depending on varying levels of intensity have had a down point or a failure point. Do you have a story from, one of those moments in your entrepreneurial journey?

Doug Bradley: Yeah. COVID that, remember that thing that Yeah, that, was a real scary Most of our clients are on a month to month. Contract we don't, we're one of probably very few SEO agencies that don't lock our clients into a one year agreement. And when COVID hit, boy, that was a scary time to be a month to month vendor.

you know, we did have some cancellations at that time, and we had some people pause their campaigns because not necessarily because they had immediately lost a ton of business, but just precautionary measure, [00:12:00] they said, you know, we don't know what's going to happen. So we're halting all unnecessary spending.

And so, once we started to go through that, I said, well we really have to start to my team and I got together and we really have to recalibrate our approach. You know, people aren't going to stop meeting lawyers business might change during this timeframe, but we really need to start talking about how to work through this in a non-person to person environment.

So we started sending out more messages to our clients about using zoom, about the comfort level of over the phone. And over zoom we introduce some campaigns to our clients especially those who did a state planning. I mean, people were really concerned about. Their long term health or, possibly dying through the pandemic.

And you know, we really had to think very creatively about how to market during that time and make sure that our client's client was comfortable meeting with them. And so all of the content that we had written [00:13:00] thousands of pages, we had to make some adjustments to all of those thousands of pages that the call to action was.

You know, let's schedule a 30 minute zoom meeting and, and, you know, we'll meet virtually and we'll talk about your potential claim or your case. And, and that was a really scary moment in time because we did lose a good chunk of business and we came right back after about six months of the initial shock, but yeah, definitely definitely a scary time, I think for myself and a lot of small businesses.

Richard James: Yeah, I don't think COVID, obviously that's not a unique experience for you. A lot of us went through it. Everybody was a little bit different. Ours was a little bit different. We weren't, we, our clients are month to month too, for most of the percentage of our business that they've been around for a very long time and we weren't sure.

Because we definitely would be viewed as a non-essential expense, you know, by most people. From a, you know, here we're, paying this firm to help us understand how to grow our firm and our firms at a standstill for whatever reason. The headline though, to this message, so that market, that law, firm owner [00:14:00] listening is marketing should not be the first thing that you. cut Marketing is absolutely an essential expense, right? It's an investment

without marketing. We nothing else happens, right? You're back to only word of mouth advertising. And during the COVID era, when people weren't seeing one another word of mouth was really getting hurt. And so advertising and marketing was probably more important than, than ever.

And so we would actually have clients come to us and go, you know. What do you think we should do? And we want to take some precautions. And back then I remember we had some clients that were, they were actually in industries that were really affected. Like bankruptcy got affected pretty hard. And like 50 of our clients at one point were bankruptcy clients.

Cause that's the first firm that I built. So it made a lot of sense. And so, those folks were hurt pretty hard. And a lot of them had to come to us and they were like, Hey, I'm thinking about cutting my advertising. I'm like, no, no, no. I tell you what. We'll put you on a pause. Stay in the program. We'll just, we'll give you a [00:15:00] resuscitation package where we won't charge you for a couple of months.

Keep spending the money on marketing because you need to keep investing in marketing to keep the lead generation going because somebody was going to need your services at some point. Now, yes, there was a window. Where marketing maybe didn't as make as much sense the same way we always did it, but we needed those.

So I will tell you unequivocally the firms that continue to figure out how to market, maybe differently than the way that they did market, but they still had a budget for marketing. Those firms are by far. So much further along today than those firms that cut back and stop spending on marketing during that pandemic time, because they were still figuring out how to grow.

They were still moving forward. There's an old saying, you can move forward. You can move backward, but you can't stand still. And those firms that cut the marketing were really moving backwards. So I'm glad you were there. I'm glad you walked alongside them. I'm glad, obviously you came out the other side it. and that's a really good lesson that, you know, you've got to be ready for the difficult [00:16:00] times to come, but the lesson for anybody listening is. Don't cut marketing first. Marketing should almost never be cut. And I know that that's not a public service announcement for Doug, that's, a public service announcement for, small business owners, and by the way, it's natural, it is natural.

Oh, I'm just going to cut this marketing

expense. I generally understand it intellectually, but because I know how it works, I don't agree with it because I've seen the other side of that story. If you continue to market, you continue to grow. Do you agree with that? Michael,

Mps: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. You know, you, summed it up best. If you're not growing, there's no standing still, which means you're, you're dying. And so if you cut the source of your lead flow to your practice, Then there is no growing. You're just staying, trying to stay a float but really it's reversing Doug. I'm, curious, just on the flip side there, what was that [00:17:00] breakthrough moment for you in your entrepreneurial journey? What was that aha moment?

Doug Bradley: You know, I actually have a really clear aha moment and I still remember it to this day. I carry it with

me.

my story is my wife and we were at our prior home and I was really Nervous about starting this business because we had a mortgage. We, you know, had a baby a newborn and I had been building elements of my business working at another job, a corporate job, that was a great job, but I knew that it wasn't my longterm endeavor.

I really wanted to have this business. And I was basically waking up at 5:00 AM from five to eight, I would work on my business then from. Eight to five, eight to six, I would work the corporate life. And then from six to ten or six to midnight, I would work on my business more and just build up infrastructure processes.

And finally I had done a pitch [00:18:00] to a lawyer on one of the websites that I had built, and I said, let us do this for you, we just want this small piece of business and that's all we want. And I. And nobody had been listening to me until that point. And, and he said, okay. And I remember the day very clearly, I literally started crying.

Like everything that had been building up to that point was just a notion or just a guess, or just a dream. And then when finally, actually a lawyer said, I see the value, I'm going to invest and pay for that. It just was emotionally overwhelming. And that's the moment I knew that I loved what I was doing.

I knew that I wanted to do it for a very long time and that it was going to stick with me.

Richard James: you make a, you make a living from nine to five and a fortune from five to nine, brother. That's the. that's

that's what that my family learned. My kids have learned their whole life. That's what we tell our clients. Because even when you're building a law firm, you know, it feels like when you're changing your, improving your business, you're building systems, adding frameworks, [00:19:00] you're making working on the different pipelines we talk about.

And you're growing your business. It oftentimes feels like you're changing the brakes. You're driving down the road. Like there's a lot going on. and so when when a law firm is trying to break free from where they are out of the chaos into the freedom spectrum, we tell them, look, there's going to be some extra hours needed here.

You're, you're going to need to work the. Job of your business from nine to five, and you're going to need to work the business of your business from five to nine for some window of time. I, I've got a question for you, Doug. How long have you and your wife been married?

Doug Bradley: Just over 20 years. We celebrated 20 years last year, but we've known each other since we were 12. So I guess that's the bigger headline.

Richard James: Got it. Now. Hey, I'm with you. My wife and I met over the butter out when we were 15 and 16 years old and Michael met his wife when he was 15 years old and she was 14 years old. So we're in the same camp. Tell me you guys work together now.

Doug Bradley: No, no, I don't think that would work out.

Richard James: Good. Very smart, man. Very smart, man.

Doug Bradley: Cause I know everything and she [00:20:00] knows more than I do.

Richard James: there you go. There you go. But

Doug Bradley: No, she she works in mental health, completely separate fields.

Richard James: Got it. Well,

obviously she was a real supportive of your journey and, and you taking this leap. And so congratulations to you on finding the right partner in this journey. Because as, as law firm owners go through this, I hear a lot of them struggle with the spouse. You know, not supporting them and not and not necessarily because they're not supportive, but because maybe they've gone through years and years of them working 70 or 80 hours a week with not a

lot to show for it.

Right. And

then finally they're like, now I really have to put in the extra time. And like, are you kidding me? You've been putting in the extra time for the last 15 years and got nothing to show for it. And so. I, I just, I'm so happy to hear that your, your spouse supports you. And, and so I just, my message to those that are listening is if you, if you have a spouse, you know, nurture them don't take it for granted.

If they're [00:21:00] supporting you bring them flowers, or if you're, if it's your husband, that's supporting you bring them great food, meat and beer usually. And make them feel, make them feel good because they really, you can't do this alone. I mean, you can't, if you're

single, can do it, but if you're married, you need the support of that other person.

And so I'm glad to hear that about you

Michael, you have, you have support in your marriage as well. I mean, Delaney and you don't

work in the business together, but she totally supports you.

Mps: 100%. And and that is not to be underestimated because I've, you know, heard the flip side equation from people before too, and it's. couldn't really even imagine, to be honest with you. I could imagine that's a very difficult road to go down.

Just because you're constantly caught in this battle of, well, do I put in the hours and actually get it done and work and get to where I want to go or, or do I not?

Because my spouse is saying, no, no, no. You know, I want you here. We got to do this. We got to do that. Don't worry about. I can imagine that's [00:22:00] very difficult

to have an unsupported. So, definitely lucked out in that regard. And very, very happy about that. But Doug from a success habit on a daily basis, what, what are, what are some of the things, or what is the one thing that, you do to help continue your sustained success?

Doug Bradley: You know, I'm, a pretty hands on agency owner. I, really love SEO and the technical aspects, and I'm a little neurotic about rankings and performance of my clients. And so, outside of, you know, waking up. I make breakfast. You know, I typically take my daughter to school. I come home and I usually am looking at emails and rankings for my clients to make sure that there's to identify either any problems or, you know, maybe something went through the roof for one of our clients and I want to identify those and see, you know, do we need to redirect?

Do we? Do we do nothing? Do we strategically do nothing? Or do we [00:23:00] lean into something? And I try to find out through the data of clients what's happening with our clients. And then throughout the day, I'll usually try to you know, engage with my team members. What's going on? Where are we at with certain projects?

Are we either behind? Are we ahead of schedule? Does anybody need extra personal follow ups? And that's usually my day. And then we use some time for business development whether it be outbound calls or whether it be. Working on our website or, or something along those lines. So we're always trying to keep moving.

And as you had mentioned before, Richard, it's, it's, you're, you're building the boat as you row. And a lot of that is happening along the way.

Richard James: That's great, and I love to hear you. You said the word outbound calls, it warms my heart. You're obviously a salesman. Salesman, so I, love

to hear that we train on the importance of outbound calls to our law firms all the time. And so, that's a writer downer. By the way, if you're listening to this, [00:24:00] one of the secrets to success for your law firm is making sure somebody in your firm is dedicated to making outbound calls to unconverted leads.

Anyway, I, I I'm curious, you know, as you think about scaling, cause it, it sounds like you've got a reasonably sized firm, but it's, you're also pretty personally involved. So I, you're leaning more towards the boutique, high service, white glove, really taking, nurturing your clients and not feeling like a mill.

Is that a correct assessment of how you see your firm?

Doug Bradley: Yeah, I, I I would say you nailed it. We, we, we aren't the firm for everyone, but the firm that we are the provider for, they really value the relationship and most of our clients are very long term clients.

Richard James: Yeah. So as you're, you know, you've got that law firm out there that's sitting there and you, maybe you've wrestled with this yourself, but they're wondering, do I grow big or do I keep it small and keep it all? I mean, do you have any. Thought process about how you, what decision or process you came to, to answer that question for yourself.

Doug Bradley: Well, I, you know, I, [00:25:00] I don't have any aspirations of becoming a next. Scorpion or a next fine law or something along those lines. I learned from their business models in order to help effectively differentiate myself. And then I went in my own unique direction, or at least I feel like I did. But I think.

Personally, you're going to have to decide what it is that you like to do. Do you like to manage people? Do you like to manage clients? And I like to manage clients. I like to work with clients. I like to go out to lunch. I like to go out to dinner with them. I like to meet them face to face. I like a personal relationship.

If they text me, I'll text them back typically immediately. And so I like that. And I think you know, comparison is the thief of happiness. And if you constantly come, if I were to constantly compare myself to a huge. Profitable marketing agency, I would just be miserable because I am, I'm not there yet, but quite honestly, I really enjoy where I'm at.

And if the law firm [00:26:00] is trying to compare themselves to Morgan and Morgan, they're really going to be upset that they don't have the Morgan and Morgan numbers, or they don't hear Morgan, you know, the ads on the radio or on the billboards all the time, and it will really make them upset about that. But I, I definitely know that personal service is my strength.

And when a client works with me, they're working directly with me. I have a team behind me and they're supporting me. But they are getting the one on one service directly from me. And that's personally what I enjoy.

Richard James: that's great. A lot of

law firms could learn just from that message alone.

Compare it comparisons, the thief of happiness. Love it.

Mps: Sure is. Doug, what's got you excited? What's got you fired up today? Could be personal, could be business.

Doug Bradley: You know, I, I, what's exciting I think today is how, how much everything in my industry has changed in the last one year we have. AI that has come out in January of last year. And it's on the tip of everybody's tongue this year too o all the [00:27:00] tools that are coming out, that's integrating AI to make humans more efficient not replace what we do, but to compliment what we do.

I think. For me, that's a really exciting thing to be a part of in an industry. That's changing change means opportunity. And so if we see things, if I am seeing things change, not just with search, but the way that people search and there's not, everybody's going to use Google forever and the platform may change, but if you partner with the right agency.

And that agency is paying attention to these things. You're, you're going to be ahead of the curve because you're looking ahead rather than behind. And so, if to me, it's, it's just the amount of change that's been happening just in the last year, more change in the last year than has happened in the last.

probably nine years combined.

Richard James: Change for the confident is opportunity. I love it. I love it. I'm excited about that change as well. Michael.

Mps: Hey [00:28:00] it's creating some new opportunities like Doug said in the industry and I'm looking forward to it and I think it's going to better enhance each, each program, each law firm and hopefully impact their clients just a little bit more too. But Doug, we appreciate you taking some time to invest on here today.

If people want to learn a little bit more about you, where can they go?

Doug Bradley: Yeah. I mean, my website pretty much has it all. EverestLegalMarketing.Com You can follow our blog. If you do look at our blog we do like to chat about industry updates. I'm usually tweeting on a fairly regular basis. If there's changes to what Google's doing, if there's changes to something that's happening specifically in the legal marketing industry.

And you can just look us up on Twitter, EverestLegalMarketing you'd find me there and give us a follow.

Richard James: Hey, Doug. I appreciate you being on here today and sharing your wisdom and your journey. Congratulations on taking the step outside of your comfort zone and you and your spouse supporting you starting this work in the 9 to 5 launching in the 5 to 9 and now developing a [00:29:00] successful marketing agency.

That is obviously getting great results for your clients who are sticking around with you month after month. We need more people like you to help more law firms be able to accomplish their goals and the only way they're going to do that is if they're able to have a great partner in marketing. And so congratulations to what you've built.

Doug Bradley: Thank you. I appreciate the, the platform. I appreciate you introducing me to your audience, Richard and Michael. It's been a great time and I, I really do. Thank you.

Mps: Of course. And to the law firm owners listening, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to invest. As you may or may not recall, we got the gentleman's agreement around here. So if this is not your first time listening or watching, we kindly ask that in exchange for us, invest in our time, money, and resources into this, which we'd love to do.

You hit that subscribe or follow button, depending on where you're listening or watching like this episode, and then show Doug some calm or some love down below in the comments. We appreciate it. And we love putting these on and hope you got some value from today.

Richard James: That's the part, everybody.

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