Lauren Mingee:

There’s a place for SEO. There’s a place for pay-per-click. You need your brand, but also you need cases now.

Chris Dreyer:

When you break into a new market, speed is your ally. Faster leads means faster returns.

Lauren Mingee:

Within 24 hours, if you tell me I want to go into Georgia, you have a signed up retainer. You don’t have to have your building, you don’t have to have everyone hired. You can say, “Hey, my headquarters is going to be out of Philadelphia.” We are getting you leads and you’re able to see and maximize that volume and then back into, “Okay, now I’ve gotten to policy limit case. Where is the best thing to start my brand recognition?”

Chris Dreyer:

Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. Each week you get insights and wisdom from some of the best in the industry. On these special Toolkit Tuesdays, we dive into conversations with the leading vendors in the legal sphere, the masterminds behind the technology, services and strategies to help firms not just survive, but thrive in today’s competitive landscape. Now, this isn’t about selling your latest software or getting kickbacks from affiliate links. It’s about bringing you the best so you can be the best for your firm, for your staff, for your clients, and for you. This is Toolkit Tuesday on PIM, your weekly guide is staying sharp in the legal world. Follow along so you never miss an episode. Let’s get started.

Leads will make or break a firm. Filling the pipeline with a steady stream of potential clients isn’t easy. It requires a complex, intentional and coherent marketing strategy. Attorneys went to school to study law, not marketing. Hiring a lead gen agency to tackle the marketing and deliver quality cases makes complete sense. The agency focuses on brain clients. The firm gets to focus on what they do best, serving the clients. But choosing the right agency can come with its own challenges.

Lauren Mingee:

Unfortunately, attorneys that have been burned from lead gens, I mean lose millions of dollars.

Chris Dreyer:

Lauren Mingee began her agency, Quintessa Marketing to solve this problem. They are retainer service that connects personal injury victims to attorneys nationwide. They help law firms scale and tactically move into new markets and locations.

Lauren Mingee:

We have about 65 people, they vet that lead and then they sign it up on the law firm’s retainer.

Chris Dreyer:

Guys, I think this component is so valuable because it allows a firm to test a new market before they go all in at this new office location. It’s a solid game plan for remote firms too. Lauren gives us a look behind the curtain. She shares how to sidestep human error when following up on leads. She reveals the logic behind paying her intake team like a sales team and reminds us why it’s a great idea to tap into referral networks as quickly as possible. Here’s Lauren Mingee, founder and CEO at Quintessa Marketing.

Lauren Mingee:

I worked for a company down in Dallas and I was producing TV commercials as their executive assistant. And I got to really be around some pretty incredible personal injury lawyers. And I did that in 08, and fast-forward pretty much I started as an executive assistant and then I started doing SEO. From SEO, it became intake training, and then intake training turned into helping run a law firm. So it was just kind of this great evolution of learning things. And the type A in me, I didn’t like anyone else handling it. I’d rather just fix it myself, and so being a problem solver. And so eventually whenever I decided to move back to Oklahoma, because I had a daughter, I wanted to do something my own and decided to instead of building on an attorney’s brand, go ahead and build it on my own. Yeah, so that’s about six years ago, so almost seven now.

Chris Dreyer:

Many of the PI attorneys that we speak to have mentioned Quintessa Marketing. Tell me about your first client and then within a year you’re up to 20 people. So tell me about this whirlwind experience that you had Right out of the gate.

Lauren Mingee:

A client that I was flying back and forth with to Newport Beach, I’d spent a week there and a week here. Obviously Newport Beach is a lot more expensive than Oklahoma City. What I asked him was, “Hey, instead of flying there and flying back and having to house me and pay me a salary, why don’t you just let me develop leads and let’s back into it at a per lead cost? Let me hire my own people here.” It was a little bit cheaper. And so I started with one employee and then end of year, it wasn’t even a whole year in business, it was like six months, we had done a million in revenue and had 20 employees. It just kind of went off like gangbusters.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s extreme scale on a year. How are you different from other PI lead gen companies, and that probably makes you cringe, what is Quintessa Marketing?

Lauren Mingee:

What we say is we’ve elevated what a personal injury lead should be. We take a car accident lead, whether it’s something we develop in house or get externally. We have an intake team here in house in Oklahoma City, so we have about 65 people. They vet that lead and then they sign it up on the law firm’s retainer. We’re not attorneys, so we aren’t able to pull accident reports or send letter of reps or anything like that. But the hardest thing to get done is to get the client signed up and to deal with managing your front of house staff. And that’s something Quintessa has mastered, so that’s what we do for the law firms.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah, I would say there’s a lot of marketing companies that the frustration occurs is where you generate the leads and then they’re not signed up and it’s not a necessarily a lead problem, it’s a case intake problem.

Lauren Mingee:

And I think lawyers go to law school to become a lawyer. You don’t go to law school to become a marketer. So our goal for Quintessa is to become a concierge for attorneys and pretty much say, “Hey, let you be an attorney. Let us be the marketer. Let us be the intake specialist. Let’s get it signed up.” And then it gives them back that time. And so that’s what we’ve really tried to master.

Chris Dreyer:

When I mention lead gen, other companies a lot of times the attorneys are immediately defensive and they’ll say, “Oh, that they just give us nothing but bad leads.” Is that come from where they don’t do the full cycle, they don’t do the intake and they’re kind of just sharing leads and selling them multiple people? Is that where the intake team really shines, in this qualification process?

Lauren Mingee:

I think the problem is what the attorney’s seeing is, let’s say you’re relying on Betty and Betty just broke up with her boyfriend last night. And the three good leads that you were supposed to get were actually called seven minutes after they came in. She called one time, she didn’t leave a voicemail. So they’re not converting. They immediately think, “Oh, it’s the lead gen.” And so what we have is a proven process of how they call, how they text, how they make sure they get on the phone. That way it takes out all the, if Betty breaks up with her boyfriend, we can spot it and we can pull her out so then it doesn’t affect the conversion rates.

Chris Dreyer:

That makes sense. So it’s a very systematic checklist and systems and processes. I was listening to another one of your podcasts and you talked about your pricing structure and how you compensate and incentivize your intake team to do a good job and you actually have some intake reps doing quite well for themselves. So how does that lend itself to success in that department?

Lauren Mingee:

For us, the biggest thing I never understood was if some of these attorneys, they would spend let’s say half a million a month on advertising spend, and then they would pay their people to answer the phone minimum wage, or let’s say 10, 12 bucks an hour. The problem is these people are your salespeople. They are talking to them, and most people think, “Well, back in the day with TV, they were calling for you.” Well now they’re not just calling for you. It’s speed to lead, it’s who your competitor is, who’s going to get them signed up fast. It really comes down to, for a lot of these people, who’s going to take care of me, who’s going to set me up with treatment? Our intake people are incentivized. They make a really good hourly wage, but then each one of them, they’re paid per lead that they sign that meets criteria.

So it goes through a rigorous process on making sure that they cross their T’s, they dotted their I’s they were in compliance with everything that we ask them to be in compliance with, and then they’re incentivized. They can’t be late more than X amount of times per month, they can’t miss. So it’s incentivizing the right behavior. So our top guy’s probably going to get $6,000 or $7,000 this month and a bonus. And this is someone who doesn’t have a formal education, which I don’t either. And so that to me was a very important thing. I am a eat what you kill. So if you are the top salesman, you should get a really handsome bonus from that. And so that’s how we pay our employees. It’s just a little bit different.

Chris Dreyer:

Partnering with Quintessa can increase the number of cases that come to your firm. But to see results, you have to have a sufficient capitalization. Lauren explains how the retainer system works at her agency.

Lauren Mingee:

Because our attorneys, they convert anywhere between 55 and 65%, 95% of our clients though, are over that 65% threshold because they’ve worked with us for so long, we know each other really well. We know how they convert. So minimum investment for us is 25,000. And so what it ends up pretty much baking out to is most of our guys are under a 2000 cost per case, excluding crazy markets like California, that’s a little bit different. Just for the norm, they’re getting a blend of commercial blend of motor vehicle. 30% of it normally is commercial, so it gives you access to higher policies and it’s coming in at that CPA. So I would say the money’s one thing, but that to us is not the most important thing.

To us, it’s your processes in your people. And so what we want to know is that you’re a partner. So at the end of the day, this is not a, “Hey, Quintessa works for John Doe law firm.” What it is is, Quintessa and John Doe law firm, we are partnering together to bring these leads in. We are going to try and make our processes better, your processes better. We’re going to work together to make sure that you’re pretty much maximizing every single lead and not leaving any stone unturned. We look at ourselves that way and we align ourselves that way. So it’s a little bit different approach than what most lead gens do.

Chris Dreyer:

I couldn’t agree more. And if they’re making a better ROI than they have more to invest for more case generation and it’s reciprocal. And so I guess a follow-up question to that is how does it lend itself to expansion? Let’s say you’re a Philly client and on the marketing side, you may have to go buy a whole bunch of billboards in a new market. Let’s say you want to go to, let’s say hypothetically Atlanta. You have to go buy a bunch of billboards or TV spots and airtime and develop your SEO. And then eventually you’ve got cases coming in. So how does your service differ from an expansion perspective?

Lauren Mingee:

Well, we know from any PI lawyer standard, let’s say, and there’s different states with different settlement times, but six to nine months is your standard to start getting and realising money. That’s a long time to invest. I know that TV used to take 12 to 18 months before you’re really seeing it. When you’re going into a new market and you have to compete with all these players who may have been there 20, 25 years since, or even since the eighties, since it became legal to. So what I love, and this is my favourite part, is within 24 hours, if you tell me, “I want to go into Georgia,” you have a signed up retainer. You don’t have to have your building, you don’t have to have everyone hired.

You can say, “Hey, my headquarters is going to be out of Philadelphia,” and we are getting you leads. And you’re able to see and maximise that volume. And then back into, “Okay, now I’ve gotten a policy limit case. Where’s the best thing to start my brand recognition?” But we know the best way to get advertising is through referrals. So once you start getting in the pipeline from Quintessa, we have some attorneys will tell them, “Hey, why don’t you tell your referrals? You’ll take off a percentage if they send you in one of your clients,” like another client that was in an accident if they refer anyone over. So we try and work with the law firm and say, “How can you maximize your value going into these new markets and how can you be a steward of the money,” because we know you’ve got to be efficient with those advertising dollars.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah, so it’s an accelerant. SEO, you hear everyone say it’s going to take six months regardless of the firm. But it’s going to take some time and these different avenues. And I think I heard the millennial and the Gen Z ears perk up that the attorneys with the no offices, the work from home attorneys, so this would be a good solution for them because they don’t have to have that brick and mortar compared to SEO to rank in the map pack and some of these other things. You have to meet those requirements, which the facility costs can be significant.

Lauren Mingee:

In some of these markets like LA, rent is insane. And so to be able to test a market before you invest into it so you don’t have to sign a three-year lease, you don’t have to do anything like that, it allows you … So for some of our attorneys are risk-takers, They’re daredevils, they’re able to do that, and hey, we’ll figure it out. But for some of these other attorneys, they’re down to the last cent and we get that. And so we want them to feel comfortable, “Hey, see money coming in, see dollars coming in,” and then invest. And be wise in the investment. Because there is a place, there’s a place for SEO, there’s a place for pay-per-click. You need your brand, but also you need cases now. So that’s what we come in. So when people have maximized that, SEO or Pay-Per-Click or lead gen. Or they just don’t want to hire any more intake staff, they’re like, “I am tired of dealing with them,” and that’s what we come in and help do.

Chris Dreyer:

You have the math component. So would that help them forecast their delivery costs a bit better from their hiring needs as opposed to maybe the feast or famine scenario of maybe those referrals or other marketing initiatives? Have you seen that you’ve needed to maybe even facilitate that side, the data side or provide them resources on that side?

Lauren Mingee:

Yeah, especially when they’re newer, I talk to them myself and I ask them, “What’s your plan?” Like, “Oh, I’m going to get in cases.” I’m like, “That’s great. What’s your medical network?” We had one guy go into a completely different market, no doctors. And he is like, “I’m losing these cases.” I’m like, “You’re not setting up with treatment. Who do you think they’re going to? They’re going right down the street to the big boy who’s getting them set up with treatment in 24 hours.” So you have to have your ducks in a row. So we started making kind of checklists for them of, if you’re going into a new market, what are you doing? Tell me your process.

Anyone who’s an entrepreneur, you get excited about something, you’re like, “We’ll figure it out,” but then you start losing your money. So we help them on the process and the data side too. If they need that, we’ll introduce them to medical networks if they need it. We’re here to be an asset. So their success is our success because the goal is if we’re a partner, they’re going to spend more money with us as they start getting in those policy demands. And after they start getting in those settlements, they start investing more in Quintessa and in their own brand and growing that.

Chris Dreyer:

I really appreciate the abundance mindset and a few other things that really caught my attention is it’s just how involved you are in lifting up others. Your passion and charities, and there’s an organization close to your heart called Reemerge Oklahoma. So tell me about some of these organizations that you’re involved with and how Quintessa is giving back.

Lauren Mingee:

When Covid happened, really started feeling led about giving away our percentage of our profit. And so it was actually the month before Covid hit, I decided to. And then Covid actually hit and we had lost some clients, so it was really testing. And so we gave away half our profit. And at that point I think it was a $5,000 check. We were super small. And I did that and then ever since then, that’s just been the mindset. And so that is something that is in our vision, that’s in our mission. We are resource efficient because we give away half of our profit. That’s not a question. That’s just a part of our blood. And through that, what we do is we work with different companies pretty much throughout the United States, Reemerge being one of them. So they take nonviolent offenders who have either been in prison or about to go to prison and they help rehabilitate them into jobs.

Now the problem is some of these people, you’re breaking generational curses. So they may not have gone to school, they may not have completed high school. And they’re trying to teach them jobs like coding. Which is great, but it’s sometimes over their head. And so what we’ve been able to do is not only partner with them from a financial point, but also from a staffing point. And so one of my favorite stories is I think two months ago we had one of our first Reemerge girls and she was able to get her driver’s license. She was able to get enough money to pay off the tickets to get her driver’s license. And then one of our other guys was able to actually get his car for the first time. And he was able to pay it in cash because of his bonus.

Those are the people I want to invest into. Because when I came back from Dallas, I didn’t even have a degree, I couldn’t get hired. I had ran a company, but I couldn’t get hired anywhere because I just didn’t have a degree. And to me, you shouldn’t be limited by a piece of paper. And I think all of us at one point in time have probably made a bad decision to where it could have landed you in a really tough position like these girls have gone through. I just had parents who helped guide me and straighten me out, and they didn’t. And so our goal is to give those people an opportunity that no one else has.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s incredible. And I got to imagine that it aligns. There’s this sense of belonging to who you work with and who you’re helping. And I imagine that those values are shared within the organization and kind of lifted the top. And talking about legacy, what does a successful legacy look like for you? And I know you’ve spoken about this previously, but when you think of legacy, what do you think of?

Lauren Mingee:

To me, the legacy is if all of my mistakes that I’ve made, if it helps one person, if it helps one person grow into something that they didn’t feel like they could do or they didn’t feel like they were able to, or that their parents or that their even husband told them that they weren’t able to do, and they were able to feel that encouragement because of something that I’ve done or spoken on or had a podcast on, that to me is really big on legacy. But then also being able for my kids to just understand you are your only person that limits you. So we really talk about are you limiting your why or is why limiting you? If you are not growing and changing and adapting, then just know you’re not pushing past that barrier. So that to me is really what legacy is for us, especially as we continue to grow.

Chris Dreyer:

So how can our audience get in touch with you and where can they go to learn more?

Lauren Mingee:

So quintessamarketing.com, that tells us a little bit about website, tells us a little bit about our mission and what we do, kind of goes into more of the details. So that is the best way to get in contact with Quintessa. And then really for me, email is probably the best or my Instagram. So email’s just lauren@quintessamarketing.com.

Chris Dreyer:

Thanks so much to Lauren for sharing some insights. Let’s recap. You might have better leads than you think. If your firm does intake, take that time to set up an outbound lead follow-up process. Having a documented process helps remove the potential of human error and focuses on the number of touches or contacts that you actually need to sign up that case.

Lauren Mingee:

Let’s say you’re relying on Betty, and Betty just broke up with her boyfriend last night. She called one time, she didn’t leave a voicemail, so they’re not converting. And so what we have is a proven process of how they call, how they text, how they make sure they get on the phone. That way it takes out all the, if Betty breaks up with her boyfriend, we can spot it and we can pull her out.

Chris Dreyer:

Treat your intake team like a sales team. Reward those top performers that provide excellent service. So often we see people trying to coach up the bottom. But is this really the best way to be spending your time and resources? Look, in basketball, if you have two teams of five, you focus on the starters. The rest need to work on themselves so they can become indispensable in the future. Reward your starters, reward your top performers.

Lauren Mingee:

Our intake people are incentivized. They make a really good hourly wage. But then each one of them, they’re paid per lead that they signed that meets criteria. They were in compliance with everything that we asked them to be in compliance with. And they can’t be late, more than X amount of times per month they can’t miss. So it’s incentivizing the right behavior. So our top guys probably going to get like six or $7,000 this month and a bonus.

Chris Dreyer:

Work. Those referrals. Referrals are so important to putting down roots in a new community. Getting a few cases in the door before you even set up shop can help you set up a path to success.

Lauren Mingee:

Now, I’ve gotten a policy limit case. Where is the best thing to start my brand recognition? But we know the best way to get advertising is through referrals. So once you start getting in the pipeline from Quintessa, we have some attorneys we’ll tell them, “Hey, why don’t you tell your referrals you’ll take off a percentage if they send you in one of your clients,” like another client that was in an accident if they refer anyone over. So we try and work with the law firm and say, “How can you maximize your value going into these new markets? And how can you be a steward of the money,” because we know you’ve got to be efficient with those advertising dollars.

Chris Dreyer:

All right, everybody. I hope we added a few more tools to that toolkit. For more about Lauren and Quintessa, head over to the show notes. While you’re there, leave me a five star review. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. Catch you next time. I’m out.