Chris Earley:

We’re in the customer service industry. We can’t make everybody happy, but I’m going to make damn sure that we do our best to make as many people happy as we can.

Chris Dreyer:

Create raving fans through outstanding customer service.

Chris Earley:

Well, they have a good experience, they want others to also have a good experience. So, again, I’m going to make damn sure that we do everything we can to give the best client service possible.

Chris Dreyer:

Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the preeminent personal injury marketing agency. Before we get started, if you like what you hear, head on over to Apple or Spotify and pound that five-star review button. Each week we talk to the best in the legal industry. Ready to dominate your market? Let’s go.
Chris Earley came out of the gate swinging. He went straight from law school to opening his practice. He hung out a shingle and built something out of nothing, deciding to pursue personal injury early on. He has come a long way since advertising on Craigslist. The Early Law Group is now a thriving practice, and Chris is hell-bent on creating raving fans. He has picked up some great lessons along the way.
Today we talk about time management for better productivity, turning your haters into raving fans by giving that big old hug, and how the right CRM can amplify your impact as an owner. But before we get into all of that, we dig into getting your mind right, because you must put your own oxygen mask on before saving anyone else. Here’s Chris Earley, owner at Earley Law Group, on mental health and law.

Chris Earley:

So, I found peace through meditation. I try to create space, because sometimes it’s even more challenging when you’re owning your own practice. Right? It’s a different flavor of stress.
So, I do things like meditating, journaling, because I’m all about creating space away from that stress and trying to be very intentional and deliberate. Because if your head isn’t right, the law can really… I think it can mess you up and create great anxiety, depression. There’s a lot of people that are not well in the law, and they’re not getting help.
And so, I try to just push away against any type of unnecessary stress, try to manage my time well. I hire, to the best of my ability, really awesome rock stars who help me do what I do and just really be intentional about, again, creating that space. Hate to say it again, but it’s space away from the profession.
Because we’re human beings. Right? We happen to make a living by practicing law, but I think you have to get your head right and maintain the right head space, because without that I think this profession can punish you mentally and emotionally many times. Such high stress. It’s a hard gig.

Chris Dreyer:

It is a hard gig. And is that like a morning routine? When do you find time to do the meditation?

Chris Earley:

Yeah, I’ve only been doing it for a couple of years, but I haven’t missed a day. I wake up every day, 4:20. I meditate from 4:50 to 5:10 on the dot like on lock. Because if I don’t do it, I fear that it’s not going to get done that day, so I just get out of the way. And it’s hard work.

Chris Dreyer:

It’s hard not to think of yourself when you’re telling the story. I was thinking yesterday I had a situation where I’m like, oh, let me just check one of my employee’s work. And there was a little air, and I felt my face getting all warm and the blood pressure go up. I’m like, you know what? It’s okay. This is very minor. We can fix this.

Chris Earley:

I hear you on that. Those things can, no question, be upsetting. For many years I would let that ruin my day. And this isn’t a panacea. This just works for me. I journal. Just little things you can do to keep your head right, because I have a lot of demands. I’m sure a lot of people on this call, Chris, they’re not only PI lawyers, but they’re running PI shops. And again, tremendous stress.
We’re in a very difficult hiring period. It’s hard to find good people. There’s just so many factors. There’s such keen competition in this space. There’s so many lawyers that are in PI that it can create a lot of heavy stress on people.
So, whatever you can do, take care of yourself. Right? Not just mentally and emotionally, but physically, too. Right? Just take care of yourself. Don’t neglect that. Because, again, this profession be a brutal one at times. A great one, very rewarding, but it can really be sneaky and can be tough on people.

Chris Dreyer:

I think one of the things that you do quite well is the time management side of things. Right? You have this routine you have and that you said, “Hey, I’m consistent. I haven’t missed a beat.” As the owner, our time, we at the highest hourly rate and we’re getting pulled in a million directions. So, what are some tips that you have maybe that work for you in terms of time management?

Chris Earley:

All right. I think it starts with mindset. I actually have a presentation I present to many bar associations about time management because I’m pretty militant about it. And I look at it as getting the mindset right. Because like you said, time is so important. Once it’s gone, it’s over. We can’t get it back.
So, when you talk about the hourly value of your time, I would encourage, sit down if you haven’t already with a piece of paper and figure out what is your hourly rate, what do you make per hour. Right? That really shapes how you will manage your time moving forward, I can promise you that. You’ll probably get a little uncomfortable when you see that number, but it’s healthy to know the number.
So, little things like not checking email very often, delegating as much as I possibly can, time blocking on the weekends. I got a lot of balls in the air. I run a busy growing practice. I write for many bar publications. I speak to bar associations. So, I’m really focused on time management, and I think it’s an ever going process of trying to get better and better with that. But like I said, less email, more delegation, leveraging automation, time blocking, calendaring things.

Chris Dreyer:

Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. This idea is called Parkinson’s Law, and it’s as accurate today as it was when it first appeared in The Economist in 1955. So, be careful who gets access to your time and how you structure your day.

Chris Earley:

I don’t take any unscheduled phone calls. I stole that from Ben Glass who has been very helpful for me. No unscheduled phone calls. I try to, for lack a better word, train new clients that when they email me or call me, we have a certain routine in how we handle communication. This really goes back to being kind to yourself and not letting this profession run you ragged. Right?
Owning the day, owning the business, owning your time and being super focused on how I consume that time, what I allocate that time towards. Right? I think that’s really important. And a lot of lawyers get that wrong, and I know that because I’ve spoken to other lawyers publicly. And they tell them, “I don’t really do that. I always try that.”
And I’m a student of this stuff, I’m always learning, because I think time management is really important. It’s so important. As a business owner, PI lawyer, whatever you’re doing, manage your time well. I think it’s important.

Chris Dreyer:

Talk to me about your role and those high value activities. How has your role changed? Where do you provide the most impact today versus maybe in the past?

Chris Earley:

Definitely. It may sound weird, but I’m not really… my strength isn’t practicing law. My strength is growing a law business, the law practice. So, I try to lean into that. So, I hire really good people that are better than me at trying cases, at practicing law.
Me, I can try a case. I like negotiation, mediation, and lawyering. I really get stimulated by growing this thing. I like to go to conferences. I’m in a couple masterminds. I enjoy geeking out on the business development.
And so for me, my greatest strength is a visionary, I think, as opposed to an integrator. Right? Visionary, planning, plotting the future, thinking strategically, sitting down and just figuring stuff out. I like to do that. I like the challenge, because this is hard as hell.
I mean, anyone listening to this that runs a PI practice knows just what I’m talking about. This is hard stuff regardless on work. So again, we got to manage the time, we got to manage our head space. We can’t do a million things at once. We have to really take care of getting high level things done.
So, I try to get out of the way of my staff. I let them run, do their thing. We have the systems, the processes, the procedures set up. And I’m so crazy careful on who I hire. So, when I bring them on the bus, I want to make sure that they can do the work at a high level. When you make a wrong hiring decision, it really sets you back.
So, hire the right people, have the processes in place, and get out of their way. Right? And that allows me to jump on airplanes, to go on conferences, network, grow, meet other lawyers, meet people outside the law who are inspiring and we can glean a lot from that [inaudible 00:08:21] legal space.
So, that’s what I’m doing. I don’t handle any more cases, Chris. I thankfully divested that responsibility. Now it’s just strictly just growing this thing. That’s really what I’m passionate about. I love it.

Chris Dreyer:

Are there any tips on the hiring. Right? So, you said, “Hey, I’m very particular.” What do you mean by that? Are you doing personality assessments? What goes into your hiring process?

Chris Earley:

You ever hear of Patrick Lencioni? So, I thought I knew about hiring. I didn’t know anything until I read this guy’s, Lencioni’s, books. Right? I want humble people who are hungry, who have high social intelligence, high social emotional intelligence, and know how to deal with people. But humility, I think, is my number one characteristic that I chase when I’m hiring.
So, Jay Henderson, he runs a fantastic online evaluation which helps me learn more about each applicant. And I put applicants through a process that is designed to be difficult, because anyone can put up their resume and apply to a hundred jobs at once, and people do that.
But I want people who are picking up what I’m putting down. I want people who care about the culture I’m putting down, who actually speak those core values, who care about those core values. Because I don’t want to hire you and see you leave here in six months or me having to fire you. I want you to be around for a while.
But I think it’s so true, Chris, hire slow and fire fast. If it’s not working out, let’s be honest about it. And let’s be fair to that person. It’s not working out, let’s have that conversation and do what needs to be done. But hire slow, fire fast has worked pretty well, in my space at least, and here it works for others, too. So, be so careful on who you hire. I think it’s so critically important.

Chris Dreyer:

I couldn’t agree more in having those right values. I love Len, fantastic author. So smart about getting the right team. I’m looking at your website and I’m doing the things is the referrals. And you have this raving fan section on your website, which is different. Most people, they’ll just have testimonials or case results. It’s kind of generic. Talk to me about how you create raving fans, and what’s it mean to be a raving fan, and then how you put that across the organization.

Chris Earley:

Well, again, this goes back to hiring. So, I’m going to hire people that are empathetic. I’m going to hire people who care about customer service, who like providing high level customer service. Once they’re on board, we focus on making the clients happy.
I mean, we can’t make… We’re in the customer service industry. We can’t make everybody happy, but I’m going to make damn sure that we do our best to make as many people happy as we can. That’s the way I have over 500 Google reviews. Right? I’m obsessed with customer service. I want this to be the Ritz-Carlton, literally. I want this to be white glove treatment.
So, that creates raving fans. Right? That creates people who will evangelize and say, “Yeah, Earley Law Group, they really treated me well. They cared about me. They showed me that love, care, and concern.”
And I’m sensitive to taking the temperature of the clients during the client journey. We’ve put out automated surveys through our CRM asking you, Hey Chris, have you been treated with care, compassion, and concern throughout your case? Have we met your expectations? Have we exceeded them? Have we not met them? Right?
And then it’s sort of like an NPS score type thing. How likely are you to refer to people? So, I believe in educating people about the fact that we want referrals. Right? I can’t presume that people even know that we want referrals. Let’s presume total ignorance on the topic, that they have no idea about referrals.
Now I don’t mean being heavy-handed and just slam it down their throats. “Refer us, refer us.” No. It’s more like encouraging it because we want to inform and educate our clients that that’s how we grow. And so, a lot of people, if they have a good experience, they want others to also have a good experience. So again, I’m going to make sure that we do everything we can to give the best client service possible.
Again, can’t make everybody happy, but if you focus on that intensely and seriously for a long period of time, I think a practice can, like a rocket ship, just go up and just grow like crazy if you focus on it. But too many lawyers, they feel like neglect clients, take them for granted, and you do that at your own peril. I think that could be very hazardous for the growth of practice.

Chris Dreyer:

I think that’s so smart because those referrals end up being a flywheel. Right? You get the reviews, it helps you in your local rankings, it helps your social proof and conversions and then other future referrals. It just has so many positive benefits.
And it reminds me of… it seems like everybody’s had this scenario where a friend goes and works at an insurance company. Right? And you sit down with them with Northwestern Mutual or whoever. And at the end they always say, “Hey, who else do you know?” Right? They’ve been trained to ask about referrals. I mean that’s very intentional, and you can see it. And look how big Northwestern Mutual is, and that’s their main tactic is referrals.
The other thing that you have that’s a bit different is your VIP program and the free services you provide. How does that function? How does that translate into more cases? Talk to me about it.

Chris Earley:

It’s on the website. It’s just another value add, if you will, to pull them into our universe over here at the Earley Law Group. Right? So, just one way to try to attract that prospect to us. You test things and you see if it works. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, all right, let’s audible and move around that, maybe.

Chris Dreyer:

What Chris offers his clients helps him stand out, and it feeds into the psychology of his branding. He radiates warmth and caring, and he hires team members who share the same values, care, compassion and concern.

Chris Earley:

I’m trying to develop those raving fans because there’s good math that happens, this exponential multiplier effect. Right? They say everyone knows a couple hundred people. So, I try to play into that and try to make sure that John and Sarah, whoever, super happy. And if they’re not, those surveys are going to tell me how I can get ahead of that.
I try to sit down with the clients. Obviously all we do is PI. Client comes in to pick up the check, I’ll say, “Hey John, do you have a quick second to sit down?” Bring into my office, give them a merchandise bag. It’s got our books, it’s got our merch and bookmarks, all that good stuff, right? Umbrella, whatever, ice scraper, whatever the season may be. And I’ll sit down and say, “Hey, how was your experience?”
I want to hear something bad because I want to work on that. Most people, they have a good experience, but it’s the ones who don’t have a good experience, I lean into that and I say, “Oh., okay, thank you so much. Anything else you could tell me?” Because that enables us to create raving fans by tweaking the problems that we don’t see.
Because if you’re not doing surveys, I would encourage everyone who’s called to start doing surveys, always be sensitive to problems you may have no idea that are festering in your practice. And your clients will tell you, but you must ask them.
Now, Chris, after I have that conversation with a client, if they’re really happy, and I’ll say, “Hey, thank you so much.” I almost presume that they’ll refer to us because they’ve had such a good experience. It’s almost like a presumed close, like, “Would you be agreeable to keeping us in mind should someone in your orbit need a lawyer?” Right?
Now no pressure, no heavy sales tactic. Just ask them, would you refer to us since you’ve had a good experience so other people can have that experience? That’s worked out pretty well.

Chris Dreyer:

I think it’s such a different mindset that you have. It reminds me of that book Hug Your Haters by Jay Baer, because you get information to improve. Right? When you pry that out, when you can uncover it, it’s something you can fix. Because if they don’t tell you, you don’t know. Right? You may even replicate it, which is even worse.

Chris Earley:

Right.

Chris Dreyer:

Som I think the surveys are super smart. I just want you to restate for the audience. You ask them the three questions are in that survey. It’s slightly different.

Chris Earley:

Yeah. The questions are, yeah, have you been treated… I’m all about how do we make you feel. At the end of the day, that’s what people care about. It’s not how much the settlement was. They’re going to forget that in a few years. It’s how did the Earley Law Group make me feel. I want that to be a good feeling. Right?
And this is a couple times. There’s checkpoints. Right? Beginning of the case, middle, end. Are you being treated with care, compassionate, and concern? That’s what I care about. Not a lot of people do the survey. Right? It’s not like everyone does it. So, when I do get feedback, I do that.
Now another thing I do, I did this recently, I surveyed my staff anonymously. I was putting myself out there, but I said, what the hell. I’m trying to grow this thing. I got to know how I’m doing, and my team knows better than anyone how I’m doing.
So, I asked them. Anyone, they can reach out to me, I can show the questions. I forget what they were, but it was like, am I setting me a good example? Am I open to your feedback? I think what’s really important is team members need to know that you are open-minded. You’ll listen to them. Right? Because if you’re not, they’re not going to come see you with suggestions.
And just equally important as it is with clients, I want team members to tell me about problems, too, that I don’t see myself. So, survey clients, survey team members, you’ll get some great info that you can really tweak and improve upon.

Chris Dreyer:

The other thing is you have a way of educating the public to get more cases. So, you talked about a few of these. And then you have a ton of free education, your Truth series. Talk to me about your approach to marketing in regards to educating the public.

Chris Earley:

Well, at its core, it’s direct response. Right? It’s education-based marketing. I’m not trying to shout the loudest, because I’m not going to be able to outspend my competitors on AdWords or Google Ads, whatever, TV. So, I’m realistic. I’m in this space and I play in those spaces, but I really try to leverage education with attracting prospects. Right?
We use a very robust CRM. We utilize shock and awe packages which double down on the whole educational component. We’re literally trying to educate the prospect to make good decisions. Right? And we try to set the criteria that this is what [inaudible 00:17:49] how to hire a lawyer. Right? And we try to point the signs towards us like, hey, we check all the… Without saying it, this is who we are. That is the team that we’ve assembled here. We’re here to help you.
Educate the public, provide value, don’t negotiate your fees. Don’t ever take any crap from a client. Obviously clients have a bad day and we have to understand and be compassionate, but protect your team members. Protect them and good things happen.

Chris Dreyer:

The right CRM lets you manage the database, send out correspondence with the click of a button, has time saving automation. Chris uses Keap, formally Infusionsoft, for his firm.

Chris Earley:

I pulled out a lot of hair trying to figure that CRM out. But once you nail it and you figure it out, you’re done. Right? It’s really robust. It’s a great CRM and it can give potential… We use that drip campaigns with potential clients we’re trying to nurture through education. Right? There’s no hard selling.
Different people consume different types of content differently. So, some people like to read things, some people like to hear, some people like to see things in terms of how they can ultimately be receptive or be persuaded by content. Right? So, I hit people with video, testimonials, all sorts of free reports, white papers. So anyway, so we use that for potential clients. We also use it with existing clients, nurture them with email sequences.
So, if you’re not utilizing a CRM, I’d really encourage you. And yeah, Infusionsoft, you pay a little bit more, but you get what you pay for. Right. There’s so much it delivers for you. It gives you so much power, automation, sophistication. It’s fantastic.

Chris Dreyer:

I’d have to say, that was totally out of left field. I wasn’t expecting Keap.

Chris Earley:

Yeah.

Chris Dreyer:

And I got to tell you, in the past it used to be very challenging, but it is so robust with this automation. Just briefly, can you talk about your database of former clients and how you could potentially utilize it? Because again, it’s just so powerful with the automation. Maybe just a couple examples of maybe in terms of the client experience and then maybe in terms of the nurture side.

Chris Earley:

Som we use it in countless ways. I mean, I have a weekly email that goes out to our entire tribe, past clients, former clients, prospective clients. It’s a universal email, and we tag… That’s what they call it in Infusionsoft, it’s a tag. We have that for that audience. Right?
I have an attorney tag. I send an attorney email blast out once every week on a practice tip that attorneys can utilize. Again, this is education-based. I do the same with clients as well as attorneys, trying to nurture referrals, nurture people, providing value, trying to show up differently. I’m just always thinking, how can I be different today? What are lawyers not doing that I can try to leverage? But there’s so many ways to use a CRM. It can be tremendously powerful.
Now it’s hard work. Getting that set up, as I said, it was tremendously hard, frustrating. I felt like I was sliding down the mountain as I was trying to go up with this technology. But slowly you advance upward. It’s really great stuff [inaudible 00:20:56] so much.

Chris Dreyer:

I got to give you props. I hired a company called Six Division about three years ago to implement Infusionsoft on for our agency. And you know what? I just didn’t keep up with it. And when I niche to just PI, it was a lot easier. I didn’t need as much logic. But yeah, it’s so powerful.
I like to talk a lot about leverage and a lot of times it just comes down to a lot of our guests just talk about labor, the staffing, and that’s so incredibly important. But you’re utilizing technology for distribution, and you’re multiplying yourself.

Chris Earley:

Yeah. No, no, for sure. We have a newsletter, too. If you’re not doing a newsletter, everyone on the call should be doing a newsletter. Right? We have an attorney newsletter. And we’re talking about emails, blast emails. I’m talking about paper newsletters that hit the mailbox, attorney newsletter, client and former client and prospective client newsletter. Right? Just hitting people with frequency, showing up.
I put a lot of content out, man, and it’s not hard to do. Because the only reason I can do this is because I’m not handling cases anymore. I didn’t really love that. I like this stuff. I like writing for lawyers. I’ve written content, marketing pieces for potential clients. Now that’s the stuff I like.
So, if you can, lean into what you do, what you enjoy. And I try to live there and just stay in that space. And thankfully, I feel fortunate that good things have been happening the more I’ve been doing that. Thank God.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s fantastic. That’s so different. I applaud you doing that. That’s so unique and so powerful. What’s next for Earley Law Group, and where can people go to connect with you?

Chris Earley:

Yeah. Well, my goal is to keep scaling this. Right? And just growing this thing to be the best firm that I can possibly create. Right? Because when it’s all said done, when I retire, I look back to, okay, that was the best I could do. So, my job is continue scaling.

Chris Dreyer:

Thanks so much to Chris Earley at Earley Law Group for everything you shared today. If you want to geek out with someone on how to run a law practice, reach out to Chris. He would love to hear from you. His cell is 617-956-2501, or you can email him at C-E-A-R-L-E-Y@earleylawgroup.com.
To recap, here’s PIMM Point number one, hug your haters. I know you heard me say this before. It comes down to this, get close to the problem, knowing when people are upset, and figure out how to improve, survey them to find out what’s working and what’s not. Ask if the experience has had care, compassion, and concern.
Surveys work for clients and for employees, too. The questions are a little different, but the outcome is the same. Surveys help identify blind spots.

Chris Earley:

Surveys through our CRM asking you, Hey Chris, have you been treated with care, compassion, and concern throughout your case? Have we met your expectations or we exceeded them? Have we not met them? Right? And then it’s sort of like an NPS score type thing.

Chris Dreyer:

PIMM Point number two, invest in a robust CRM that can handle automation. With the right features, a CRM can help you learn from your clients and give you more control over the database, target content distribution, create custom campaigns and nurture referrals. In short, a better CRM means a better bottom line.

Chris Earley:

There’s so many ways to use a CRM. It can be tremendously powerful. Now it’s hard work. Getting that set up, as I said, was tremendously hard, frustrating. I felt like I was sliding down the mountain as I was trying to go up with this technology. But slowly you advance upward. It’s really great stuff. [inaudible 00:24:15] so much

Chris Dreyer:

PIMM Point Number three, slip on those white gloves. Your customers want. Ritz-Carlton level service. Remember that you’re not just competing against other firms. Your service is being held to the highest standards across the industry. When service stands out, it will contribute to the marketing flywheel.
This is why. Great service gets you more reviews. More reviews help you rank better in local SEO. This helps increase conversions and rank for those superlatives like best car accident lawyer. Great service gets you more referrals.

Chris Earley:

I’m all about how do we make you feel. At the end of the day, that’s what people care about. It’s not how much the settle wants. They’re going to forget that in a few years. It’s like how did the Earley Law Group make me feel. I want that to be a good feeling. Right?

Chris Dreyer:

I’m Chris Dreyer. Thanks for listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. If you made it this far, it’s time to pay the tax. No, I’m not talking about taking your cash like Big G. I’m asking you for a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. Leave me a review and I’ll forever be grateful. If this is your first episode, welcome and thanks for hanging out. Come back for fresh interviews where you can hear from those making it rain. Catch you next time. I’m out.