Ali Awad

Your Instagram page is your storefront. And if everything looks like an advertisement, then you’re inviting people to leave. Everyone likes to buy, but not everyone likes being sold. So you want to make that as smooth of a process as possible.

Chris Dreyer

Social media can be a great way to grow your business, but it’s gotta be done right.

Ali Awad

So you invite them to your page. You invite them to your content, starting with good highlights, things that show the type of person that you are and fresh new content that is not advertising. That is entertaining first and educating second.That’s how you do it. So if your page looks like advertisements, that’s the biggest mistake you can make.

Chris Dreyer

You’re listening to personal injury mastermind the show where elite personal injury attorneys and leading edge marketers give you exclusive access to grow strategies for your firm. Having already started seven businesses by the time he got to law school, it’s a fact that Ali Awad knows how to build a brand. With an Instagram, following it over 600,000 and equally impressive engagement stats, Ali is an expert at finding the perfect balance between entertainment and education. I sat down with Ali to pick his brain about scaling workforces, building brands and creating social media content that both captivates and engages. I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of rankings.io. We help elite personal injury attorneys dominate first page rankings with search engine optimization. Being at the forefront of marketing is all about understanding people. So let’s get to know our guests. Here’s Ali…

Ali Awad

So I had seven different companies before I became an attorney. One of those companies was a graphic design company. And what I would do was just, I bought a $700 plotter on eBay. I think when I was like in middle school, I saved up enough money to buy a vinyl plotter. And then I would purchase all these 24 inch vinyl rolls because it was the master X, Y 300 P was the model number of that of that vinyl plotter. And we would only use 45 degree blades and 60 degree blades on it. Anyway, I would make stickers that I would put on other people’s cars and I would just download any sort of image online. Right. Vectorize the logo, put it as a sticker on people’s windows. Well, I had that company at the same time that I was running my car audio shop, which was Joker’s audio.That was the sort of family business that I was running with my brothers. And we made a rule where if you have a Joker’s audio sticker on your car, then you will always have warranty. For the products that you buy from us. So if you come into the shop and you let us put a Joker’s audio sticker on it, then on your vehicle, then anytime you have any issues with your electronics, cause no one offers lifetime warranty, no electronics.We just said, we will give you warranty for as long as you have a Joker’s audio sticker on your car. Before, it, this little small town of dolphin, there were over 10,000 cars with Joker’s audio stickers. And we basically blanketed the entire city with our logo because everyone wanted to keep the brand. So I learned very early on that omnipresence in your brand, especially coupled with a cool logo or a cool catchphrase. Cause our catchphrase was clear as a bell. Cause if you’re buying car audio, you want it to be clear as about loud as hell. So we had this joker image that I had basically created that I vectorized have jokers and then audio at the bottom, and then clear as a bell loud as hell with the phone number underneath.And people would come into the shop and say, Hey man, I’d like to buy a Joker’s audio sticker. Like I just want one on my car. Cause it was just the cool thing. So very early on, I realized that people will actually promote your product. If there is an incentive. So, if you learn how to brand properly and you have a cool logo, cool catch phrase, a reason for people to promote your product, then you will brand yourself so much faster and so much more easily instead of going the traditional route of just dumping a lot of money into it.So Joker’s audio and the graphics company that I had, those were kind of two of the businesses that taught me brands. And really marketing at a grass roots level. And now I kind of apply those same sort of strategies in my business. And there were a couple of other businesses and companies that I had, but learning how to brand and make a catchy name and a catchy logo that people wanted to share for you.You just had lifelong fans. And that was the goal with the CEO lawyer from day one.

Chris Dreyer

That’s amazing. That makes me think of like a John Ruhlin type approach. You’ve got basically these permanent artifacts on everybody’s car, just promoting your brand. It’s like the old school strategy with the magnets in the phone book where they got them on the fridge and it’s, you’re memorable. I think that’s incredible.

Ali Awad

Well, now the strategy has changed a little bit, right? So the strategy used to be just send everyone business cards or send them a fridge magnet or whatever, or even those little chip bags with your logo. Well, now, if you just added a QR code onto that product, that promotional material, and you told them, Hey, here’s a chance for you to win a thousand dollars, just scan this QR code.And, from an SEO perspective that if they stay on your page for a couple of minutes, now you’re getting all of this awesome traffic that you would have paid way more than a thousand dollars. So it’s really the concept of how you think of marketing. So when people see that I’m giving out like $5,000 or a thousand dollars on Instagram, it’s well, why are you doing it? You’re just wasting money. I’m giving away a $10,000 Rolex at my summit this year, but I know so many people are going to talk about us giving away a Rolex and it’s going to far exceed the money that I spend on it. That’s how I think about marketing is how can I get the maximum value, no matter how it’s spent, and if I have to literally burn cash.I’m going to do it to get your attention.

Chris Dreyer

I think that’s brilliant. And that person with the Rolex, everyone’s going to come up and say, hey, where did you get the Rolex?

Ali Awad

Absolutely. Amen. Say CEO lawyer hooked it up.

Chris Dreyer

Amazing. I love that idea. And I’ve watched a ton of your videos. It’s so impressive what you’ve done on Instagram.And, I saw on one of the videos that you said, Hey, by the end of this year, I want a hundred employees. By the, by 2025, I want 500 plus. So, first of all, that’s super exciting to have that mindset, that motivation how should a lawyer or a business owner prepare for that? What do they need to do in order to say, double or triple in size? What do they need to do to set the pavement? So they don’t just explode and just break.

Ali Awad

There comes a point in your career as a business owner where you realize you need more. You need people that are smarter than you. You need people that are also leaders.You need people that can teach you things. It was Steve jobs that said I hire smart people so they can tell me what to do, not so I can tell them what to do. And so I realized early on, actually in 2019 to 2020 was the transition because here’s a little background information. 2018. My first full year in business, I boosted ads from my phone spent $6,000. Boosting ads generated $3.2 million, not a bad ROI, right? 47000%, 2019. I actually made a little less money because I learned how to hire people. And that was a very painful process because I went from just me and one paralegal doing all the work. And realizing I could run a comfortable $5 million a year operation by myself with a very, but I didn’t want that.I want a $500 million operation. And in order to do that, I need more people. So I had to learn how to build systems and how to hire people 2019 to 2020. I kind of figured all that out halfway through 2020, literally on the anniversary of my, my marriage, my way. I had to get rid of two cancers in my organization because I realized they were draining all of our time, energy and resources and the problems that we were having were recurring from those two people.Once I got rid of those people. I started setting higher standards and saying, look, if you want to work here, you have to Excel. I don’t want B players and C players. I don’t even want A players. I want A+ players. And it’s just a crazy thing that happens when you elevate your standards and your expectations, the world just kind of opens up the path and gives those people to you. If you only want the best and you only seek the best and you demand nothing, but the best. I promise you, you will find the best and you will become the best. And that’s been my philosophy, not just from starting my business, but also from hiring people and growing. And when you make that switch and realize you need people that are really smart, that are talented, that can get the job done. How do you retain them first? How do you bring them in? And then how do you retain them? To be honest, it’s very simple. You attract them with a very high salary. That’s kind of the easiest way to do it because people are motivated by money and you keep them with your company culture and continued education. That’s how it works with employees. You attract people with a very high salary range. You keep them with the continued culture and education, and then they become lifelong family members when you are emotionally and financially invested in their futures and in their goals. And so because of that, we have a very low fall off rate from employees. Once they start with us, we don’t really have that high of a turnover, except for in the first 90 days, it’s like over 70% of people quit or get fired in the first 90 days. And that’s okay because that’s my standards showing you who isn’t supposed to be here. And there’ve been people that did phenomenal on interviews and that just knocked it out of the park and check every box. And they were highly recommended from other employees. And then when they got here, they realized this shit is hard. I’m just, I just don’t fit here. And so another crazy thing happens is your team starts squeezing out the bad apples on their own. Once you build a solid core team, I would say five to 10 people that are hardcore, super understanding of the mission and exactly where you want to go. And you literally have to make a dream that’s big enough for everyone else’s dreams to fit inside it. And then your job as the company owners to sell that dream every single day, once those people are on board, they will squeeze out the bad apples and you’ll learn that you don’t even need to do so much qualification because even during the onboarding process, they’re gonna be like, Hey man, well, you showed up at 8:05 and that’s unacceptable. Hey, you didn’t take that call from the client right away. That’s unacceptable. I’m not going to give you a warning, but I’m telling you, if Ali finds out about this, he’s going to fire you on the spot, and it’s great. So that culture, and that’s the culture that I want is we don’t play around with clients and their needs. And that’s just what I want. And if it doesn’t work with a lot of people, that’s okay because I’m not a lot of people. I’m one and I want to be the best. And I want everyone that works in this organization to have that same vision. And so to get to 100 people, 500 people. It’s going to take me a little bit longer than I thought, from one year we’re at 40 now. It’s gonna take me a little longer than, through the end of 2021. But I genuinely believe that within the next six to 12 months we’ll have a hundred person organization.

Chris Dreyer

For sure. I feel the passion and everything you’re saying. There’s just so many things that I was thinking about Nick Saban. There’s this video where he talks about how mediocre people don’t like high achievers and high achievers don’t like mediocre people.

Ali Awad

I hate it, dude. We just can’t connect. We’re not on the same wavelength and I get frustrated very quickly, even in interviews where someone like lies about their qualifications. I get frustrated, man. Yeah. Cause dude, you’re taking my time. The most valuable thing that I have. And you took the time you lied on your resume. Look, if you put that, you speak Arabic on your resume or that you speak Spanish on your resume or that you have experience in a certain field on your resume, you better believe that I’m going to test you on it on the spot.And if for any reason you don’t meet the qualifications that you say you have in your resume, there’s no way you’re going to get this job. Don’t lie on your resume. I would rather you shoot very low in terms of being honest and manage my expectations, say, Hey, I’m just an entry-level guy. I’ll do whatever it takes them a hard worker, but I’m not super experienced with this great there’s room for you if you have the work ethic. But if you say that you’re an expert, dude, I’m going to drill you. No one has ever done on the inside. And if you frustrate me during the day, you’re not going to get a job. And so I think that’s another thing is that even during the interview process, I also manage my employees expectations. This is not a job that’s going to be easy. It’s going to be very difficult and you’re going to want to quit in the first 90 days because there’s 70% chance that you’re going to quit in the first place. And I tell them that. So before we waste each other’s time, please understand this is a very demanding job. I’m going to pay you more than what you’re getting paid now, but I expect you to do better. And if you’re here for more than a year, and you’re in the same position with the same salary, with the same knowledge and education, I’m going to fire you for not improve. And we actually started implementing that a few months ago and it’s worked wonders. My rule is this. If you wouldn’t enthusiastically rehire, any one of your employees and do yourself a favor, give them a severance package. Hey, I’ll pay for you for the next four to six weeks for you to quit now. And I’ll write you a letter of recommendation, just so I don’t have to deal with this in the future. Let’s cut it now before the cancer metastasizes,

Chris Dreyer

Absolutely addition by subtraction. Yeah, the whole team gets better. And I, just before we jump into social media, I really want to jump into that. I want to ask you just a couple more follow-up questions, are you putting these, the hiring process, are you putting these individuals through personality assessments? Are you putting them through, making them do the craft before you give them the full-time position? What’s that grueling process look like where they know Hey, he’s for real, I really need to bring my A game

Ali Awad

I was at a point where I was spending most of my days doing interviews and fielding resumes. And when you’re at the 15 to 20 employee, mark, you realize I need more people I need to grow. And I just need to keep looking through resumes to find that ideal candidate. And at some point we had thousands of resumes pending and I would just book interviews back to back from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, every 30 minutes. Boom boom. We’re doing. I realized that the value of my time exceeds the potential salary of a full-time HR director. In addition, if I want to hire, let’s say three or four people in the next 12 months, it would make more sense to find a full-time hiring manager and give them all these other responsibilities. Then to outsource it to a company that’s going to charge you an 18 to 25% placement fee for each employee. So I would rather to learn it and become really good at it and bring it in-house than to continue outsourcing it. And that’s how you, it.

Chris Dreyer

Makes a lot of sense. It makes a ton of sense. I think there’s so many valuable tips there. And just the demands that you put on your team to exceed to Excel to win is as inspiring. Ali’s all over social media with over 600 followers on the CEO, lawyer, Instagram account, and a ton of engagement to go with that. I asked Ellie to walk us through how CEO lawyer started and what the secret ingredient is to getting high engagement on social.

Ali Awad

Well, first, let me tell you something about content and engagement. So not everyone is interested in the product or service that you’re selling. We’re competing against all these cute puppies and kittens and fitness models and so much money and attention and noise out there that it’s impossible for someone like a doctor, a lawyer engineer, a roofer, an electrician. To get consistent, great engagement and feedback from their audience all the time. So I still have posts that get zero engagement. They’ll get a lot of likes. I don’t really count that as engagement. They’ll get views, but not enough comments, not enough shares. I look at shares and saves its data, that analytics that I look at, and I’m okay with that because I know that people are still consuming my content. So it’s okay. If you don’t get engagement, it’s okay. If you’re not getting great comments and I’ll figure out different strategies to do that. But don’t get discouraged, keep doing it. I’ve done thousands of videos and I still have some that block. That’s why I’m winning because I don’t care. No. So first let’s talk about the CEO lawyer brand. Okay. So the CEO lawyer brand really started as an Instagram page. That was called power moves. I was I just graduated law school was like 2016 when I started the CEO lawyer page. And I just wanted to become Instagram. I decided, all right, I’m going to start the posting power moves. Like I’m going to share content from this other business person or this entrepreneur or real estate investor. I’m going to share it and give my feedback and show people how power moves are done from other people then slowly incorporate my way into it. But then I realized almost a day or two into it. What’s the point of having tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers. If it doesn’t directly relate to your business and you can’t monitor it. So I scrapped that idea and I was just up late at night, searching different usernames and I found CEO lawyer. I’m like, well, that’s cool. I’m not exactly a CEO yet. And I’m barely a lawyer, so why not try out and get this name? And I reserved it on every single platform except for Facebook, because there was this Korean guy who was a lawyer named CEO that got the username CEO, lawyer, or sales lawyer. I finally got Facebook to give me that name just a few months ago, but that’s how CEO lawyer was created. And the way that I started building up, my following was not by advertising my face. So I rarely advertise. I entertain first and I educate second and I look at where the attention is going. So as a car accident, lawyer, myself, I’m not going to be putting out posts during the pandemic when people aren’t even driving, educating them about what to do, if you’re involved in a car accident, because that would be stupid. Right. If you’re trying to tell people what you should do in an accident, when people aren’t even driving, it’s really bad content, it’s going to plummet your engagement. You’re going to have people stop following your page. It’s just a waste of time, money, energy, and resources, literally the worst thing you can do. So instead, I created a content about PPP loans about getting the EIC, the IDL grants about the new quarantine laws and things like that. Stimulus. And that content was being used to promote it to people, obviously that wanted to hear it. And I started by posting the content on TikTok to see the level of engagement take talk. When I get a video that shot up to a million views, I then posted on Instagram and run it as an ad as top of level, a top of funnel. And then I would read, target them with my personal injury content. So what you see on Instagram is probably 1% of what’s actually going on behind the scenes. Cause we get tens of millions of views a month. Hundreds of thousands of engagements a month, millions of impressions each month across all platforms. And it’s all because I care about the attention first, and I’m going to get your attention because I’m going to give you what you want. I’m not going to give you what I want. I’m gonna give you what you want first. And when you got what you want, then I’m going to get what I want, baby. You know what I’m saying?

Chris Dreyer

This question is almost silly to ask because you already kind of jumped in, alluded to it. It was like, Hey, do you rely just on organic? Is it like a paid and organic strategy? And a seems like a lot of organic at first to find what works and then Hey, when you find it, you’re just going all in and you’re going to pump it up, hit the top of funnel awareness, jump those re-targeting ads in a is that kind of the strategy is. Do the organic first figure out what people want and then jam into the ads.

Ali Awad

Okay. So in the 1980s and the 1990s, if you wanted to figure out whether an ad was going to work well, you would have to get a focus group and you’d have to pay all these people, individual dollars to get their feedback. And you would just have to hope that by getting a large enough sample size, that you can determine the potential. Success of that future poster advertisement. Well, in 2020 and beyond, or actually 2010 and beyond. You don’t need focus groups, your audience is your focus group. So before I run an ad, I run it organically to see how people are going to react to it. And if we get great engagement and obviously you can’t just post something at 2:00 AM and expect it to do really well, you have to have consistency. And there’s, this information is available online to see when’s the best time to post on each platform. And sometimes what’s the best time to post is different based on each specific industry. But it’s safe to say. If it’s during business hours, Monday through Friday, and you’re consistently posting during that time, trying to stay away from that lunch hour where there’s a lot of people posting at the same time, you should be able to get consistency in terms of the engagement and the feedback from you, your audience, once you post something organically and you get great feedback, I use it percent rule. If I get more than 10% of my people, my following to engage, then it’s a good piece of content. Then I run it as. Because anything that performs well, organically will likely perform well once it’s paid and boosted as well. And that’s been my strategy and it doesn’t matter what the content is. I probably spend more money boosting stuff. That’s not related to personal injury, like funny memes, like a car crash videos, like who’s at fault, right? Like just elevational inspirational Twitter quotes that I put together. I don’t even use Twitter. I just have the template to make it look like I’m using Twitter because it’s, it just works really. That’s the kind of stuff that I wrote as ads. And then once I have that awareness, then I retarget them with personal injury content because there’s 4,000 ads that you’re seeing on a daily basis. And for me to compete as a personal injury lawyer with the highest price per keyword in literally any category, the most expensive keyword in the world is mesothelioma. I don’t even know if I pronounce that. Right. That’s how expensive it is. I can’t even afford to pronounce it. It’s but it’s so expensive because the average case is worth like a million dollars. And it’s the same thing with personal injury and tractor trailer cases. So you got to figure out a way to get people’s attention without just throwing dumb money into your projects. And that’s why. I really like social media, because it’s a way to test the quality of a piece of content before you put money into it. And the most beautiful thing is that you can test and get a large enough sample size with all these different types of content and continuously test literally from your phone. So you don’t need to spend all that money. You just need to see what works and that’s exactly how I really came to be known was in 2018. I spent a total of $6,000 boosting ads from my phone. And it resulted in $3.2 million in revenue for my law firm. And I didn’t have a media team. I didn’t have a website even. I didn’t have a website at that time. Didn’t have full-time staff and employees didn’t have an office. I think I barely had business cards. It was all creating videos on Snapchat and using the little subtitle feature by just posting, whatever. And then running that as an ad on Instagram and Facebook to my ideal clients. And by the way, if you’re just getting started, I can tell you the exact strategy. Maybe we’ll leave that until the very end. Right. But I would just target these people specifically from Snapchat video posts on Instagram, Facebook boosted as an app. And I’d be in those DMS all day, every day. And now it’s automated with VAs and everything. So it’s unbelievably powerful. And the beautiful thing is there’s still a lot of big blue ocean out there. Like we haven’t even started.

Chris Dreyer

Ali is living proof that having a presence on social media can make a radical difference for personal injury. But choosing a strategy, can be quite a minefield. I asked him if he could share some of his best tips for using Instagram to build.

Ali Awad

So the fourth hire that I ever made for my law firm was a full-time videographer. And that was a very difficult decision because I had to decide whether I needed another paralegal to actually make me money or a videographer to help me brand myself. And even in 2017 or 18, I still believed that it was more important. To build my brand and my marketing then to add more staff that are just, case managers, paralegal, people that are actually going to generate revenue. So it’s the mindset. It’s not the secret is the mindset. It’s. How important is your brand to you? How important is the social media content? How important is video editing and creating captivating information for people to follow every single. I haven’t missed a beat since 2017. I mean, even when I go out of the out of town or out of the country, I’ll automate it, HootSuite buffer it up Lummi or whatever. There’s so many different platforms out there I’ll automate it. So I have posts going out for the next few weeks or few months while I’m out. Yeah. Some days I won’t post because I strategically want my content to kind of die down and I’m always testing. I’m realizing sometimes, Hey, Saturdays, don’t get the best engagement. So why even bother posting? I can just, do something completely different or, once Monday morning hits, I realized that with Instagram stories, the best engagement that you can get on an Instagram story is by doing a poll. Don’t post a generic story, do a poll because Instagram also keeps track of the engagements in your stories. They’re not just going to show it to all of your followers, but if you do a poll and say, Hey, what do you guys think? Boom boom. And it’s something that grabs people’s attention. Your engagement is going to sky. And then you hit them with another ad or another video and say, Hey, swipe up to go to this page. Or, you know what I mean? You play that game. It’s all about grabbing people’s attention because the people that obviously build these algorithms, they want people to stay on those platforms. And if you create content that encourages people to stay on that platform, by watching more of your content, then Facebook and Instagram are going to reward you by showing it to more people. That’s the code. If you’re looking for one, it’s that right there, you crack that you’ll become the CEO lawyer.

Chris Dreyer

That’s an incredible piece of advice. And I think so many people, they get into the minutia. They’re like, should I post one time a day or do I post all the time?

Ali Awad

Literally you can’t over post. Instagram is only going to show it to maybe five or 10% of your followers. Maybe if that, so you can post 10 to 20 times before safely all your followers. And the people that want to see it that are excited about it are going to incur acronym engage. So don’t worry about that. It’s so many people care about what other people think, but when’s the last time you went to the bank and try to deposit other people’s opinions.

Chris Dreyer

That’s a good point. That’s a good point. That’s good. I love that. The other thing I was going to say is, yeah your posts and stuff, like you said, memes you pictures of the baby your graduation, even you in the hospital. So they’re building, you’re building rapport with the audience. And I imagine that you’re catering to different interest groups, right? So if you post a picture with like a pet. The people that like dogs and cats, maybe engage, or he posts the baby picture, then you’ve got the family and friends. So I imagine it’s just a whole mixture of content that really just works well together.

Ali Awad

Well, if you visit my page, you’ll notice that it doesn’t look like a series of advertisements. It also doesn’t look super fluid and consistent because humans aren’t super fluid and consistent. I had a brand manager tell me, Hey man, your your page kind of looks childish, and we want to kind of make you look more like a mogul. And I’m like, it’s funny you say that because I’m an expert at this, and you’re an amateur and amateurs think that way, that you need to look like a mogul in order for people to want to come to you, but that’s how you push them away. You need to look like a normal human being and you need to post content that resonates with the average person. So my billionaire friends are people that intently, intentionally try to make themselves look smaller than they really are. Because they want to keep that connection with their audience. So the biggest problems I see, and here’s where I’m going to get dropped some knowledge on API lawyers that are listening. So any personal injury lawyers that are listening to this or watching this pay attention, because here are the biggest problems that I see with your pages, because I audit these pages and I charged a couple of thousand dollars an hour to audit them. And I’m gonna give it to you for free. Okay. First, if your page is on private, it’s literally like having a business with a door that’s locked and closed up. Don’t put your page on private needs to be public. And once it’s public, make it a business page. Once it’s a business page, now you can take analytics. Okay. That’s number one and should be self-explanatory. But I had to mention it. The biggest problem, immediate number two is obviously if you’re, if your door is opened and we should be able to go into your store and see what you have to offer, you don’t walk into a Macy’s and see that there’s a hundred sale signs right at the entrance. You find that they strategically put something that’s going to grab your attention and lure you deeper into the store. They usually put their best product upfront. Hey, here’s the new mattress. Here’s the most comfy couch, that $14,000 cloud couch. You go to restoration hardware. They’re going to put that couch right there in the front, and they’re not going to clutter it with advertisements. They’re going to give you the best of the best right there in the front. So your opportunity to make a good impression on people is your store. And I know this because I worked in retail and jokers audio in my car audio for over a decade. And I strategically put all the radios and the TVs and the fun stuff in the back of the store so that I could lure you in. But in the front I put all the fun stuff like the hoverboard, right? And the brand new 18 inch daddy subwoofer that obviously no one can afford, but everyone wants to touch, with a sign that said, Hey, can you lift up this 369 pound MTX jacket? Right. If subwoofers in car audio, you’d be like, oh, this is not boy. He knows this stuff. Anyway, your page, your Instagram page is your storefront. And if everything looks like an advertisement, then you’re inviting people to leave because I don’t want to come here just to buy everyone likes to buy what not everyone likes being sold. So you want to make that as smooth of a process as possible. And so you invite them to your page. You invite them to your content, starting with good highlights, things that show the type of person that you are and fresh new content that is not advertising. That is entertaining first and educating second. That’s how you do it. So if your page looks like advertisements, that’s the biggest mistake you can make. No one cares about independence day. No one wants to see the fireworks and all that other stuff, but Hey, happy independence day. Hope you’re spending it with the loved ones. No one cares about that. So why are you even wasting time? Yeah, I know you can post from time to time just to have filler content, but don’t do that. That’s not what people are coming to your page for. So number one, make sure you’re set up as a business profile. Number two, make sure that you’re actually giving people the best information that you have and it’s fresh and relevant. Think of it like the storefront of your retail store. And number three, my video trick, my favorite video trick of all. When you’re putting out videos, don’t introduce yourself in the beginning. Don’t say my name is Ali Awad with Alia law, and we fight for maximum compensation cause I’ve already scrolled seven other videos, and I’m literally watching this cute kitten video by the time you even got through your intro. My secret is to put your conclusion in the beginning of the video, because it’s literally the best hook that you can get. And if you have a hard time with this, just record a normal video and then edit the intro, the introduction out, and then just take the close of the video and put it in the book. And when you do that, you grab people’s attention within the first three seconds, which is the holy grail of content. You grab people’s attention within the first three seconds. They’re going to stay on that page. Facebook is going to reward you by showing it to more people. Your engagement increases, your awareness increases your CPL or your cost per lead, and your cost per client decreases all because you figured out how to give people engaging. You do those three things, which I promise you, 99% of you are not doing. You will be a lifelong fan of social media.

Chris Dreyer

There’s so much gold there. I don’t even know where to start.

Ali Awad

Like a broken record all day, every day, same stuff. And people are paying me for this stop paying me, dude.

Chris Dreyer

And I would say, one of the final questions I had to that is it just, be you is to just put out the content that you’re an expert about. Don’t try to think too much about, I need the to position this way, because this is the content that they want or is it just be you and share your expertise?

Ali Awad

Look, man, I live by this very simple quote that not everyone is going to like you because not everyone has great taste. Okay, so you don’t have to appeal to the masses. Not everyone is going to want to work with you, especially friends and family. They’re not always going to support you. So stop trying to go after people that don’t even want to hire you, go after the people that genuinely want and need your services. And you’ll figure that out by creating content that resonates with the type of person that you are, because people are going to see that authenticity. They’re going to see. I like this person. I want to work with them. I want to follow them. And then you’re going to see people that say, I hate everything about this person, and I’m not going to engage with them. Don’t put any effort into trying to convince those people, otherwise, show them the door and then keep focusing on your thing. And I promise you, you will attract your tribe. Be yourself, give good information on social media and don’t be afraid to spend. That’s how you do it.

Chris Dreyer

That’s incredible. And one final question for you Ali. So where can people go to learn more?

Ali Awad

So I’m CEO Lawyer on all social media platforms. I also trademarked it by the way. If you’re looking to build a brand, you should get in the seat, you can get your username on all platforms. And buy the website, buy the domain, don’t make the same mistake I did and have someone else buy it and then charge you five times, 10 times more than it’s worth to buy it. But I still did it. Trademark it. If you really want to go in on that brand. And that’s how you find me a CEO lawyer. And then at the end of the year, December 10th, through the 12th, 2021, we will be doing a CEO, lawyer summit. That’s my advertisement.

Chris Dreyer

Thanks so much.

Ali Awad

Appreciate it, brother.

Chris Dreyer

So many great tips from Ali, all super actionable to help you with building a brand, particularly on Instagram. It’s really encouraging to hear that even the best have to spend time testing strategies to find what works for their business. It’s like Ali said, you can’t get discouraged. You just got to keep going. I’d like to thank Ali Awad, the CEO Lawyer, for sharing his story with us. And I hope you gained some valuable insights from the conversation you’ve been listening to personal injury mastermind. I’m Chris Dreyer. If you’d like to set aside, leave us a review. We’d love to hear from our listeners. I’ll catch you on next week’s PIMM with another incredible guest and all the strategies you need to master personal injury marketing.