The Long Game: How to Build a Referral Network That Prints Money

0:00Narrator: Welcome to the Law Firm Growth Podcast, where we share the latest tips, tactics, and strategies for scaling your practice from the top experts in the world of growing law firms. Are you ready to take your practice to the next level? Let's get started.

0:23Jan Roos: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Law Firm Growth Podcast. I am just stoked to speak with today's guest. I need to give you guys all a primer on this. You're going to hear a lot of bleeps on this podcast, and it's not because our current guest swears like a sailor, but it's because there's something to work with his personal friend that will come up very soon.

0:43Jan Roos: So we have Chris Rose on the podcast today. He and I met at the Lawyer Growth Summit not too long ago. I guess it was a little bit less than a month, and I just thought we have to get this guy on the podcast. He is super dynamic. He runs LegalFlare, which is a super, super interesting service that I want to dive into. But without further ado, Chris, welcome to the podcast.

1:05Chris Rose: Jan, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

1:09Jan Roos: So I want to take everybody back. It's really funny. So we were, it was kind of the early days of the conference. Kind of there was like a little bit of a pre-party. We're all waiting for an elevator and everyone just kind of announced like, oh, hey, who are you? What are you with? How long you get here? Blah, blah, blah. And some people clearly knew everyone. So and then Chris just goes up and goes, yeah, I'm Chris Rose. And I was like, I, pardon me. I was like, damn, this guy's got some balls on him.

1:33Jan Roos: But it was like, oh, my God, Chris. Yeah. So I was like, I just feel like I just got into a secret society or something like that. I was like, I started joining this party just by you introducing yourself. But let's maybe start with who Chris Rose is.

1:48Chris Rose: Yeah. So I live in Vegas, attorney. I'd say that everything you think about Vegas is essentially what I am. Larger than life. I like to be very aggressively friendly and just high energy all of the time. And I think that makes for great interactions. It makes me memorable and it really brings out the best in people.

2:14Chris Rose: And so I've just kind of, I've been steeped in everything Las Vegas for 20 years. And so I was a casino dealer for a while and I learned to like talk to people, to have a conversation with anyone about anything. And then I went to law school in my 30s, became a lobbyist. That's when I essentially learned to cultivate relationships and then moved into legal sales and marketing and dove into the conference circuit, where it's essentially just, I mean, you know, putting your mouth on the fire hose.

2:46Chris Rose: You meet so many people and I've just developed this over time. And I realized that if you want to stick out among all these people, the sea of people, the best thing to do is just wear at them right away. And it really works.

3:00Jan Roos: Yeah, that's true. There's no really any question about, I mean, I feel like that's always something when you're launching into a conversation. So I was like, how far can I walk this to the line? But, you know, you're walking straight past that line every single time. I think it just puts like, I mean, certainly that kind of thing, Eddie, is which is really, really good. And then just briefly, can you fill us in on what LegalFlare is and what it is that you guys are focused on today?

3:21Chris Rose: LegalFlare is case referral and relationship management. Everybody who's an attorney, case managers, paralegals, they all know that referrals are an important part of this business, of this industry. But nobody has really dove in to figure out how to systematize this. There are rules and regulations around this, but everybody is still connecting through conferences or listservs or networks online where you don't know anybody. It's essentially like, you know, the Facebook marketplace of lawyers.

3:54Chris Rose: And so there's no system that really says where to send these referrals and then how will you follow up? How do you ensure that everybody's in compliance, that the amounts are being disbursed properly? And then most importantly, these are people. All of this is, there are actual clients at the heart of all of this. And it's just so easy just to move them around like letters in the mail.

4:20Chris Rose: And when I dove into this, my first thought was like, mailbox money. That's going to be so easy. You know, just send off referrals, get money in the mail. It's not like that at all. It's so hard. But lawyers are so bad at their jobs, like they just want to practice law and nobody thinks about all of the administrative components. So I'd say what I really do is like herding cats. Just follow them around, corral them, get them to do their job. It's fun.

4:46Jan Roos: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it fills an absolute need in the marketplace. And I'll say like most of the exposure that I have to the challenge of finding referrals is when people have marketing that's sometimes, you know, I like to say good advertising a lot is like fishing with one of those big trawler nets. And like, you know, sometimes you're fishing for tuna, but you're like, damn, I got a dolphin here. What do I do with this? And you have to find out what to do with it. And sometimes it's a geographical thing or a practice area thing. But like, I think this stuff can be super lucrative when people figure this out.

5:17Jan Roos: I got a good friend of mine, former podcast guest. I won't say the name, but if you want to do some research, you might be able to find out. Anyways, elder law attorney. And again, he gets every now and then somebody's like, hey, I need an attorney for my elder, who is my grandfather, who's, you know, got these bad sores at this place and need help with it. And he's like, well, I don't do that. Chops that case out to a friend of his, happened to be his old roommate in law school. And, you know, million dollar case. He's getting a third of a third for that. So he gets a hundred thousand dollar check for making that connection.

5:46Jan Roos: These are opportunities that happen to people every single day. And the more people are spending on advertising, the more likely it is they're getting these situations. So I think it's super, super important that people end up doing this. And I think it's really good that you're able to kind of monetize this because, you know, like you, I'm in the same boat. It's like, it's just a shame when you have. I mean, I'll hear anything because, you know, that's a good example. But like, you know, a bad example is you have these calls like, oh, yeah, sorry, we don't do that. Boom. It's like, it's terrible. It hurts my heart.

6:15Chris Rose: It hurts my heart when people do that. And you're exactly right. Every time your phone rings, you have paid to have that person call you, and to not capitalize on that somehow is literally losing money. And the problem is most attorneys, they have maybe a handful of connections. The larger firms have a lot of connections. But being able to send those when they come up anywhere, any state. I handle contingent fee cases, so I don't do anything like flat fee or anything like that just because there's not a real role for me there.

6:47Chris Rose: But the other part is every attorney should be thinking every interaction they have with a client is, hey, I hope we did a good job. If you ever need anything, you ever need another attorney, I don't care, you know, whatever it is. You get run over by a car or your boss touches your ass or something, like, give me a call. I'll help you out because you have that relationship now. And most attorneys just don't, they don't have that business mindset.

7:13Jan Roos: Yeah. And it's also just kind of like, it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer sometimes, too. And I think this is just like one of those like cursive knowledge things, was just like, you know, some people would take a call like that and be like, oh, you know, why does this fool look for a plaintiff's personal injury lawyer instead of me? But it's the same thing. Like if you're talking to like, I don't know, a plumber, he's like, yeah, you really need a water heater guy for this. And it's just like, if it's something that you don't understand, you don't know what you don't know. And it's so hard to imagine that that's the case. But again, like, you want to be the GC.

7:42Jan Roos: And it's funny because there's people like, you know, we've worked with firms that approximate the strategy in other ways. Like I see this strategy working all the time. Like there's a bunch of, couple of firms in California that will do this. It's like they'll run Lemon Law. They don't care about Lemon Law. They know those people drive cars and some of them are going to get hit. And then that's where they're going to make their money. So it's like there's so much to get like from this.

8:01Jan Roos: So I want to kind of talk about two things to do, Chris. We're going to try to like multifact. So I want to get into the legend of Chris Rose and building a referral base, because I think that's something that you've done effectively super well. And genuinely for myself, I'm super curious to unpack how effective you've been at these, you know, with all these reps that you've gotten in from conferences you've developed over the years. But at the same time, how to talk about these principles, because, you know, regardless of whether somebody wants to start doing this or not, there's always opportunities to build referral relationships. There's always opportunities to make those referral relationships work better and all those different things, too.

8:38Jan Roos: So I wanted to start with the question. When people are coming on, when you're talking to people about the referral process, what are the most common frustrations or common things that you see people doing wrong that they might not think that they're doing wrong?

8:51Chris Rose: Oh, OK. All right. Let's open up this can of worms. I'd say the, I mean, the biggest problem is they don't think to refer these clients, these potential clients, to someone else. That's never at the top of their mind. They just, yeah, I can't do that. You know, try the bar service or something like that.

9:08Chris Rose: Second is probably sending these clients to people that they've never met before, that they don't know, that there's no, they just like, somebody referred them in like a listserv or, you know, it's like, like I said, you know, like Facebook marketplace. You know, there are several platforms that allow you to do that. And it seems easy enough, even if it's a good case, you can refer that out.

9:29Chris Rose: But the real headache comes in the, in the process of like getting updates. What's going on? Are you taking care of the client? Did you file in time for the statute of limitations? You know, is this going into litigation? What is happening here? And so many attorneys, even the law firms that receive them, they just kind of look at it like, I got it. You know, I'll take care of this, whatever, you know, leave me alone. Like that, that handoff. Then they never hear from them again. Sometimes they don't get paid out.

9:56Chris Rose: And so thinking of it as just like handing off the football and then the football game is over. It's like, oh, you still got, you still got three more quarters to go. And I'd say that's probably the thing. I mean, the biggest part in terms of referring out, as far as the handling side goes, like, treat your referral partners like you would your client. Update them all like every 30 days. Talk to them. Schmooze the good ones, you know, but lawyers are going to lawyer. And this is, this is like, this is a business.

10:24Jan Roos: So you start getting more of, you become more of an empresario of sorts. Like, but I also think it makes sense because it's, I mean, I think that's the, I mean, no one would expect a client to hand them a file and then just to not communicate to them until the matter is resolved. And then like, you know, maybe give them their money or maybe not. Right. I mean, it's kind of assuming a contingency law kind of situation here. And it's the same thing for other people, too, because it's like, again, if we're going from this presupposition that they paid for this call, whether it was an ad dollars, shoe leather or, you know, reputation that they're putting at stake, it's like they have to get a return on that investment.

10:59Jan Roos: And I'm sure it's like, you know, especially if it's the kind of person that's in one of these like, you know, little streams where they happen to get your type of thing. And look, I, you know, you go on Avvo.com or lawyer.com. Go on lawyer.com. You can see all the attorneys that are advertising for this stuff, too. It's not like a shortage, but the people who are going to become the go-to refers. It's like you almost have to treat that situation like it's a first date. Like who's good that, you know, if you're, if you're showing up with mustard on your shirt. So you like booze, like, it's not going to work out. Right.

11:28Chris Rose: Yeah, I get that all the time. I've had, I've had those first meetings where someone is just like sitting on their couch, you know, in a T-shirt, and like they're just, it's not a work day for them. And I've said, yeah, this isn't going to work out. Like, what are you doing? Instantly.

11:42Chris Rose: But then, so I want to turn this around on you, Jan. Like, think about it like this. When law firms hire you, like, do they just like pay the money, sign the contract? And then they're like, all right, you know, like I'll see you in like two years. Or, you know, do they just trust you to never talk to them again? Or are they like hitting you up? Like, what are the results? What's going on? Tell me what's happening.

12:03Jan Roos: Oh, it's super funny you bring this up because I've never talked about this on the podcast before. But I am extremely anal retentive on the specific topic of communication with clients. And again, this is something that I obsess over within CaseFuel. But it's something that, again, I'm not going to become an operations or, you know, client relations coach at any time. So it's, and again, but it's interesting because I noticed that the people that tend to take the stuff very, very seriously happen to be the ones that are growing the fastest.

12:33Jan Roos: So not to be prescribed, but like, so, I mean, literally we have, and I go to, like, we have situations where I can tell you when it happened the other week. It's like, a very standard cadence of reporting for an agency is about once a month. So sometimes when we get brought into, like, white label partnerships or relationships, we're downstream of a once a month cadence when things are happening a lot faster than that.

12:54Jan Roos: So we have a situation, no joke, it's like, you know, when people launch with us, we have calls that we're scheduling. We try to get everything launched. It's going to be five or six calls in about 14 days is the goal. And, you know, sometimes people have vacation or they go on trial or whatever, so they don't hit it. But that's always the goal. And they're meeting with our reps every single week.

13:10Jan Roos: I literally have a dashboard where it shows the list of clients that don't have an active next meeting on anybody's calendar and, like, the cadence for people that owe us deliverable for an ad or something like that. And it's like, I tell people, look, you got to follow up with these guys every day. If they owe us ad creative, you got to treat it like they owe us money. Like, because at the end of the day, if they don't have, if we don't have what we need to make their clients succeed, then shame on us. If that's in our control and I treat it like it is, then, you know, we have to make sure that we're getting that outcome from a client.

13:43Chris Rose: Yeah, that's exactly right. You owe it to them. And sometimes it's just like, I don't know, I'm kind of vibing here. But, like, if you have a kid, it's your job to be responsible for that kid, like, to make sure they're fed, like, to make sure that they take a shower, they brush their teeth, you know. They're not going to love that, but it's good for them. And so sometimes you got to, you got to treat your partners that way.

14:03Chris Rose: And like, I know on my end, I've got my referral partners that are just top notch. I send them potential cases and they're on it. They're calling these people left and right. And then I've got others in areas where it's a little thin. The case type is like a little bit more difficult, like work comp or employment law, where they don't have that same, like, personal injury drive because the market just isn't as competitive. It hasn't forced that. And so they'll, like, call, you know, once a day, twice a day. And I'm like, get on them, text them, call them three, four times in a row, sign these clients, like, get in there. What are you doing? And there's just that mentality of just doing other things, you know. And it's like, you know, like my family always said, you know, spare the rods, spoil the child.

14:48Jan Roos: Yeah, I like that. This is a little bit of the Alabama code, right?

14:55Chris Rose: That's exactly right. Yeah. No, a common refrain was, go cut me a switch.

15:01Jan Roos: Well, but yeah, I mean, basically, I think a lot of this speaks to competitive dynamics.

15:05Chris Rose: Nice.

15:05Jan Roos: And it's interesting that you kind of, you're able to draw that distinction within the data that you're seeing within LegalFlare. Because I could totally understand, because it's like, you have a situation, I would bet that the level of competitiveness that a PI firm who knows that there's 30 people that are advertising in their area trying to eat their lunch money is going to be different than somebody where they're in the middle of, I don't know, Wyoming or something like that.

15:28Jan Roos: And it kind of gets to this old, like, you know, kind of country lawyer type, and they're going to be able to do whatever you want. But it's like, look, I'll get to you when I get to you, man. I got to defend this landlord tenant case. And then I got to go separate this couple. And I have to make sure this, because this company gets their visa approved or whatever the hell. And that's the thing, too.

15:44Jan Roos: But I think it's one of these things that it's just like, just because. So where I feel like this kind of speaks to human nature, because it's like, I feel like a lot of these PI guys, or the more aggressive firms and more competitive markets, they learn how to do that. Because the feedback of not doing that is not getting paid and it sucks and they want to make money. Right. But if you don't have the switch, so to speak, because you're in a less competitive market with less competition, you can kind of have these situations where less than optimal behaviors end up getting an adequate result.

16:13Jan Roos: But the thing that is so hard to get people to realize is that if you were to take your effort, which might be adequate for where you're at, and get it to where it could be, then you're just going to be absolutely ripping through your market and getting rave reviews and paid out faster and better compliance and then more referrals from your clients and your referral partners, just because you're having a higher level of service.

16:35Chris Rose: Yeah, you are exactly right. And I have, I mean, it's really, it's evolution. You know, it's, are you familiar with Bellicist theory?

16:45Jan Roos: I'm not.

16:45Chris Rose: It's so, it's this idea that groups that are in, basically in constant contention over land, such as like Europe, where you have all of these like little nation states that are constantly going to war with each other. Their systems, their governments have to evolve quickly. They have to be able to organize, to allocate resources. They have to be able to capitalize on moments. And it's that constant fighting over scarce resources that causes them to evolve and develop quicker.

17:22Chris Rose: And so if you consider that in, you know, the markets where they're ultra competitive, you know, population dense markets, they're fighting, they're scrapping, like they have to learn how to run effective, efficient businesses to get this, to get, you know, the revenue. Whereas you're right, the country lawyer, there's no market pressure there. It's like a cottage industry. Call you back whenever, you know, you know, just, they take half a day on Friday, things like that, because they don't need to fight anyone else to get what they need to survive.

17:55Chris Rose: And so that's kind of how I thought about all of this. The ones who learned to fight earlier, the ones that are going to survive, especially as we're seeing so much, you know, market forces, the, you know, margins compressing, the firms that are consolidating nationwide. It's, the cottage industry law firm will be a thing of the past in 20 years.

18:17Jan Roos: I mean, there is this quote that I like from Jeff Bezos, who once said, is your margin is my opportunity. And it's just like, you know, you better believe that the private equity groups that are looking to do these MSO type situations are looking at that stuff. And again, you know, if like this stuff has been as competitive as it has been in PI for a very, very long time. But if you, if you don't think it's coming for your market or your particular practice area, then, you know, you might have another thing coming. Unfortunately, I don't want to scare anybody of our dear listeners here, but they should be scared, though.

18:46Chris Rose: They should be. If you're, if you are running a country store and suddenly Walmart opens up down the street, like, how long do you think you're going to survive? You know, they should be aware. And I'm sorry to cut you off, Jan. But like, you know, I'm ringing the bell, man. Like the sky is falling.

19:02Jan Roos: Yeah. And also say this, too, on a more positive side, too. I really love this, too. It's fine. So we have a lot of experience in the estate planning stuff. And again, that's, it's a very interesting practice area because there is a type of person that's attracted to estate planning. Because I don't have to go to court and I can do it from wherever and I can take two months off when I need to and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And those people will do what they want to do. But it's, I love to see people who are just like, I'm going to run an estate planning firm like the fucking Navy. And those guys can go super far because it's a really, really scalable model.

19:36Jan Roos: So it's like the outstanding things. It's like, I'm going to make a really stupid sports analogy here. It's like, we think like back in the day, like Manute Bol was like, OK, the good. He's nine feet tall. That's all he needs. He doesn't. The guys need to shoot. He doesn't need to handle. But now it's, you know, 2026. We got Victor Wembanyama. Man, he's hitting threes. He's also nine feet tall, but he can handle it. He can do all these different things. And that's where the game is going. It's never going to be less competitive. But if you want to be ahead of the game, you can make so much money if you have the discipline to hold yourself to a standard that the market isn't holding you to.

20:10Chris Rose: Yeah, you are exactly right. Suddenly existing is not enough. And the lawyers, the law firms that are constantly asking, how could this be better? What could be better? What could be more efficient? How can we get this cranked out faster?

20:25Chris Rose: And I know you're a fan of AI. I've listened to your agentic series. Love that. And that is the, that is the area where the most improvement can be made fastest. When firms are beginning to understand where those mechanical processes that don't require as much judgment exist, it's so accessible to create automations for those now, instead of having to rely on some shit service, like somebody who's going to rip you off because they want to charge you a hundred thousand dollars to automate something that now you can do, you know, in a weekend with Claude Code. Like, it's going to change everything. And the ones that are paying attention are the ones that are going to survive, because the waterhole is shrinking.

21:11Jan Roos: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just, it's one of these things, too. Like, I think it just goes back to that choice of, do you want to wait until the wolves are at your door? Do you want to have a situation where you're taking advantage of the situation while the, while the road's wide open, too?

21:22Jan Roos: And like to your point, yeah, it's such an interesting thing to kind of do on that, too. We kind of just have this directive. And I've been having this stuff, too, because, like, you know, who hasn't had a situation where they're hiring an intern? That's just going to be. Look, I was that intern. I remember one of the first days I had, I had a gig my sophomore year. It was a marketing internship. And I was literally copying and pasting stuff from spreadsheet into like a Joomla CMS. And I'm like, that stuff doesn't exist anymore. I had situations where people were like, oh, yeah, like I'll tell someone, or like whatever, that's on the team. Like, look, honestly, if your job involves telling somebody else what to do, you're not going to have a job in six months. If you're doing something that you can do without making a decision, you got to figure out how to make this.

22:01Jan Roos: And to the point, too, it's been really interesting. Even like internally within my team, we kind of like gave everybody their magic wands a little while ago. And it's crazy because I have middle managers that are just like developing these dashboards that I've never really thought about. And that, can, we can honestly talk about that for a full hour.

22:16Jan Roos: But maybe quick pivot. You know, speaking of apex predators dominating a landscape, let's get into the Chris f***ing Rose story. So I want to talk about how you approach networking and developing relationships at these different events. And this is a little bit before we started rolling. But could you start off with just kind of your schedule, as far as what it used to be in terms of how many of these events you went to and what it took to really hone in on this stuff?

22:42Chris Rose: Yeah. So when I dove into this, I was hitting 50 plus conferences a year. And it's not an average of one a week. It was like two to three a week. And then, you know, when conference season dies off in like November, December, like there would be those gaps. So I was hitting two to three cities a week.

23:01Chris Rose: And when I didn't know anybody at first, I just knew that I had to show up. And so what I would do is I would just sit in these areas that were choke points where the crowd had to walk by. And so I would just sit there so that everybody would see me. And that way, when I would go to other conferences, they would be like, oh, hey, I saw you at whatever. And so that was the first thing, just creating a billboard for myself.

23:24Chris Rose: But I think one of the biggest revelations that I had was, I was at one of the conferences here in Vegas and I saw an attorney. I won't, I won't mention her name, but there are several like her where when they, when they walk around, people just notice. And there's like a, like a presence, and people are, other people are eager to meet them. You can tell there's just like, there's some importance there. And so I made it a point to get to know these people, to understand how they operate, what they do. And then I began to emulate them.

23:59Chris Rose: Now, like, I'm not going to lie. I'm pretty, you know, but I'm nowhere near as pretty as the people I'm thinking of. And so I had to find other ways to compete. And one of, one of the ways that really sticks out is just by being authentic, by being aggressively friendly and authentic. And people respond to that. It's like being, I'm here to just like, for self amusement, you know, in the end, like if I can get a few giggles out of this.

24:27Chris Rose: And so when I started introducing myself as Chris Rose, it jolts people out of that, whatever bubble they're in. And it makes them like think for a moment, like, what did he just say? Like, and then like they have to look at me. They have to recognize me in that moment. And that's kind of what causes this, you know, this connection.

24:51Chris Rose: And the other part is, if somebody doesn't like that, and I do it where I say Chris Rose, nice to meet you, and I can tell like they're a little startled and there's like some unease, I know instantly this isn't my crowd. This isn't my audience. And so I can just move on to someone else. Like, it's easy. It's kind of like a sorting mechanism as well.

25:14Jan Roos: Yeah. I had a quick question for you. Would you consider yourself an extroverted person, Chris? Naturally?

25:20Chris Rose: Absolutely. Yeah. No. So I, these days I'm in my office writing software like 28 hours a day. And so I only go out.

25:30Jan Roos: Soylent and energy drinks. Yeah. Yeah.

25:33Chris Rose: No, it's, well, if you want to know the truth, it's caffeine and Adderall. And so, but I go out maybe once or twice a week and I just go straight to the club to dance. Like, to me, I recharge by being around people. That is what I live for. And so just being in this office with my cat, like, that's draining for me. Not that I don't love my cat, but I just, I love to be steeped in people.

25:58Jan Roos: Oh, OK, because I was going to say, I feel like that's a huge natural advantage that you have on that.

26:03Jan Roos: But, you know, for even people that are introverted, too, I listen to it. And also, I will include this in the show notes. It was a fantastic interview that you did on the Fireproof podcast with Mike Morse. But I thought it was really fascinating as far as the things that you also picked up. And you mentioned this a little bit earlier in your backstory. But being able to be comfortable with reading those micro expressions and understanding people at kind of a like intuitive level from your time as a dealer.

26:29Jan Roos: So I'm curious, because you mentioned sort of like being able to pick up on those cues with people. How is that something like, you know, can you just, as far as how you think about that? Because, you know, I'd love to ask you to, you know, what are your top three tips for body language or whatever. But how could somebody who's interested in cultivating that as a skill set begin to go about doing that?

26:50Chris Rose: Yeah. So, I mean, the first thing is like being forced to talk to people, because when I was a casino dealer, like, I can't walk away. This person's an asshole. Like, I can't just excuse myself. Like, I'm stuck talking to them. So I've got to figure out a way to make that as enjoyable as I can. And so it's just like constantly putting in those reps.

27:09Chris Rose: I was also a professional poker player for two years. So I spent a lot of time learning about micro expressions, learning to establish a baseline for people. Just in the first few, like, minutes of talking to someone, I can understand their average reaction, how they normally hold themselves. And so what I'm really looking for is just slight deviations from that.

27:35Chris Rose: And when I'm talking to people, I guess I have an ability to talk on autopilot. It's not that I don't know what I'm saying, but it's that I'm dedicating as much time to watching them as I am to speaking. And depending on what I say, and I will even plant like phrases or statements just to see how they react, so I can get a better idea of who they are. And if it's something that they did not respond positively to, I can move the conversation. They look bored, I can talk about something else. Or if they get a little bit excited, there's just that like slight change. You know, maybe they, maybe they stand up a little bit more, their eyes get bigger, or suddenly, you know, they focus on me a little bit more, and I know, OK, dive into this. And so it's just like a lie detector. It's just, establish a baseline and then watch for deviations.

28:28Jan Roos: Yeah, I think what's really interesting, and this is kind of something I find really unique about your approach, it's like almost this little like testing thing. It's kind of funny because it's like, you know, when you're, when you're throwing out kind of a crazy session or introducing yourself as Chris or whatever, it's like splasher chips to the table. And some people are like, oh, fuck, or some people are going to call it. And you're just, you know, everything is getting data. And even if you don't play poker, and you probably should play poker if you play business at some point, because it helps a lot. But, you know, you can think about with anything, you just, you know, whatever, it could be tennis, it could be boxing, jujitsu, whatever. This is almost versions of this, establishing the state and kind of probing to see what's going to happen. A lot of those different things. But it's a very elegant way to do that.

29:08Jan Roos: The next thing I wanted to ask was, so you mentioned something about basically kind of almost having this like time series approach to multiple events, right? So, you know, you're talking about getting in the choke point and being visible and then maybe seeing them at the next event and then the next one in that.

29:24Chris Rose: Yeah.

29:25Jan Roos: What's, I mean, I don't know if you have this or if it's more of like an intuitive thing. And we were kind of talking about this a little bit more on the pre-chat as well, too. But just like, you have all these different people that you're keeping track of in your mind and you're, you know, potentially moving forward to some of these people being referral partners or centers of influence or different things like that. How do you kind of approach when to move forward with something or when to let something go a little bit, or like, is there, you know, any sort of approach that you take to getting these relationships developed over multiple events?

29:56Chris Rose: That's a good question. And you're right. A lot of people go wrong because they see events, they see other people as being something that requires immediate ROI, immediate attribution. I went to this conference. I met these people. I'm going to follow up to get them as clients or whatever. I don't see it like that.

30:17Chris Rose: It's like Simon Sinek said, you should not play to win. You should play to keep playing. And so it's understanding that long game. It's, this is who I am. This is what I do. And so for every conference, it's just, just be seen, spread the gospel of Chris F.N. Rose.

30:37Chris Rose: And I never look at it as meeting someone. When you think of meeting someone as like a destination, an endpoint, what you are neglecting is like, one, their value as a person, you know, because like I never focus on trying to do business with some people. And most people are surprised when they find out what I do, because I don't talk about it that much.

31:00Chris Rose: But the other part is think of people as networks, as experience. And if you can get to know these people, especially influential people, then you can gain access to their networks, to their, to their knowledge base. And so don't try to sell them something, because that's a one to one zero sum exchange. But instead, cultivate and plant seeds and just keep following up and be genuinely interested in them. And then that's, and just let the opportunities grow. You know, don't try to force it. Like you can't like tell a plant, you will grow right now. You know, it's just something that you have to tend to.

31:43Chris Rose: And so I think that's more than anything what I've done, is just I've always understood this, that when the game is over, I want to have, like, you ever see when the Ayatollah died back in like 89 or something? It was like there was this riot, is like, event. And I think it was like 200 people died. Like they tried to like lift off his body with the helicopter and the mourners like pulled it back down and they were passing his body around. And that's totally what I want for me. Like I want, you know, the headlines to be like, nation in mourning, stampede. Things like that.

32:18Jan Roos: Yeah, we'll be taking it down a lot. Let's have like it. Well, shoot, because I think I'd be hard pressed to find a better place to end this in the next two minutes. And we've covered a lot here. So if people are picking up what you're putting down, what's the best way to get in your world?

32:33Chris Rose: So there are two ways of doing this. First is Chris dot Rose at LegalFlare dot com. I mean, that's my email address. Or just, well, it used to be you could go to any conference and find me, because I'm like at three conferences at once. But now a better way to get me is go into your bathroom, turn out the light, stare into the mirror and say Chris F.N. Rose, Chris F.N. Rose, Chris F.N. Rose. Yeah. There I am.

33:02Jan Roos: Yeah. Also, great following LinkedIn.

33:04Chris Rose: Oh, yeah, yeah. There's that too.

33:05Jan Roos: Yeah. OK, we'll get all that, except for the mirror one, in the show notes, or maybe we'll figure it out. I'll talk about it. But Chris, this has been a fantastic conversation. I know I've definitely gotten some really cool reframes from how you like to think about a lot of these things. But yeah, for everybody else, I'll see you guys next Tuesday at 8 a.m. Eastern on the Law Firm Growth podcast.

33:25Narrator: Thank you for listening to the Law Firm Growth podcast. For show notes, free resources and more, head on over to casefuel.com slash podcast. Looking forward to catching up on the next episode.