Chris Rose: Turning Declined Leads Into Signed Cases

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0:43Narrator: Here's what's next on The Nice Guys on Business.

0:46Chris Rose: That's really what it's about. I see so many people that try to diversify or pick up all of these different services. Like you were saying, general law. If you're talking to a firm that does like several different, you know, unrelated practice areas, I mean, it's kind of like going into a Cheesecake Factory. You know, I mean, sure, some of the food's going to be pretty good, but like there's not any one dish that's going to blow your socks off. And so you should be very wary of those firms that do a little bit of everything.

1:13Narrator: Well, I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal. People know me. I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books, and my apartment smells like the Nice Guys on Business.

1:29Narrator: Go from where you are now to where you could be. Get expert tips to grow your business, to be more productive and more efficient. Whether you're trying to build influence, grow your community, or make it rain, best-selling author of Nice Guys Finish First, Doug Sandler, can lead the way. The Nice Guys on Business is produced by Turnkey Podcast Productions. Now, here's your host, Doug Sandler.

1:56Doug Sandler: All right, nice guy community. Today on the Nice Guys, we've got Chris Rose. He's the founder and CEO of LegalFlare.com. Boy, I screwed that up. Right out of the gate, I've already screwed this up. Have you listened to any of our episodes? You know we're totally a fuck-up of a show, right? You realize that, right?

2:11Chris Rose: I'm so excited. The first show I've heard, fuck, and I was like, okay, this is my audience. I love this.

2:17Doug Sandler: So, nice guy community. What's so fun about Chris is that when he actually applied to be on the Nice Guys, we have this application that he filled out. And every spot that had his name, his name is Chris fucking Rose, as opposed to Strickland fucking Bonner. So, that was really cool.

2:34Doug Sandler: So, Chris, he's got a razor-sharp take on the consumer side of law and actually the B2B side of law specifically. He brings both heart and hustle to a field that sorely needs it. Let's dig in about how he's shaking things up in the legal community one case at a time. Chris, I'm excited to chat with you. Welcome to the Nice Guys on Business podcast.

2:55Chris Rose: Hey, Doug. Thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to this for, I think it's been like five, six weeks, something like that. So, this is awesome.

3:02Doug Sandler: Sorry it's taken so long to get you on. I'm either very lazy or we have a very busy guest list. You get to pick.

3:10Chris Rose: No, no. Good things come to those who wait. The old Heinz tomato or ketchup purchase.

3:16Doug Sandler: Yeah. Heinz 57. Got that.

3:17Doug Sandler: So, tell me a little about how LegalFlare.com works, because when I originally started tuning in and doing some research, it appeared that, hey, consumers go to you and they get to buy services, but they're doing it online. And you're kind of like a conduit between them and the legal community. And then when I actually had a deeper conversation with you, I discovered, well, we're not – actually, that's not our direction specifically. We are very much focused on the legal community and helping connect other attorneys. So, why don't you just – why don't you give me a 35,000-foot approach to what LegalFlare.com is all about?

3:54Chris Rose: Sure, sure. So, I will preface this by saying that I don't want – I'm a lawyer, but I don't want to work in these fucking places. I don't want clients calling me. And so, when I opened up my law firm, my first thought was, well, how the hell can I make money without actually having to work these cases?

4:12Chris Rose: So, my idea was to essentially be like a sophisticated Google. Someone needs a lawyer, they call me. I'll tell them what kind of lawyer they want, and then I generate like a referral fee or fee split. But, Doug, that shit's hard, man, because then I'm competing with every other law firm that has so much money to invest in marketing. So, then it occurred to me, maybe I can leverage their marketing for my referrals. So, now I go to law firms, and when they have cases they can't take or that they need to refer out to other law firms, I essentially do all of the administrative work and send it over to another law firm. So, I'm kind of like a middleman or like a broker.

4:50Doug Sandler: Ah, that's very cool. Now, being not real sophisticated in the legal world, how often is your general practitioner getting a question about, let's say, tax law, where they're calling their general practitioner and saying, hey, can you refer me to a tax law specialist? In which case, they're like, well, we don't really have anybody that's in our pocket, so let's call Chris over at LegalFlare.com. Because it sounds like from what you just set up, that's the relationship you have with these firms. Is that right?

5:17Chris Rose: Essentially. So, if they're a good lawyer, people are going to be calling them all the time. That was how it kind of occurred to me, because as soon as I became a lawyer, my Facebook Messenger blew up with people I hadn't heard from in 10 years that said, hey, Chris, how's it going? And so, I got a question for you. And then I realized, you know what, I should make money off of this somehow. And that was really the genesis of it. So, they should be getting those questions all of the time if they're any good.

5:47Doug Sandler: Okay. So, then connect you with that law firm that is getting those questions. How is your relationship, let's say, tighter than the relationship for the guy that they literally have next door in their office building that, you know, they're in a law building that has 50 law firms and they're one of them practicing general law. There's a divorce attorney that's next door. What's to say that that office won't call the office next door and instead will want to pick up the phone and call you? What's your, I guess, your unique selling proposition that you might have?

6:19Chris Rose: So, at first, I mean, it's going to be hard to top proximity. Those close relationships are almost always going to beat me. But if we're really talking about business, this is a business podcast. When people buy, they are looking for confidence is what it is. I mean, you can sell a person anything as long as you sell it to them confidently, because when someone is unsure, that's what they're looking at you for. Like, how well do you know this product? Are you positive this is going to work? If there's any uncertainty in your voice, people are going to pick up on that. And so, that's why people reach out. They don't know something about this topic and they're looking for someone who's an expert. And if you can pay that confidence that you're an expert, that's what people prefer.

7:01Chris Rose: Now, in terms of my actual professional services, I do a lot of administrative work, a lot of vetting. I have accountability meetings. So, I've built a very sophisticated process for monitoring all of this. But really, that's what it comes down to. It's just easier than finding some jackass on a listserv.

7:20Doug Sandler: You know, what's really interesting about it is there are some attorneys that become business people and then there are some business people that become attorneys. It sounds like you are the latter. You are the guy, the entrepreneur that's out there that's looking for the next best mousetrap. And this next best mousetrap was this white space that you filled in. Are there a bunch of other organizations that do what you do, but they do it in too broad a scope or maybe too narrow a scope to actually hit a home run as you are starting to really make an impact in the legal community?

7:52Chris Rose: Yeah, that's a great question. Competition. So, what really differentiates me is, first, I'm a law firm. There are these other referral services that may or may not be law firms. And so, that means that in terms of my clients, I work on contingency, same as all of the law firms I work with. So, it doesn't cost anybody anything. We just all get paid at the end.

8:14Chris Rose: There are more sophisticated competitors here, but they don't have the same processes for vetting and monitoring, quality control, quality assurance. It's kind of like they're more of a marketplace. So, the way I compare it is, if you're selling your house, do you want to sell your house on eBay or do you want to hire a realtor? I mean, both will get the job done, but what's that experience going to look like?

8:37Doug Sandler: No, I get it. So, it's like, do you want to hire the cheeplisting.com or do you want to hire Sotheby's? Well, I want to hire Sotheby's, because they're probably going to get the most and people are going to look to them to get the greatest impact.

8:51Doug Sandler: So, when did you discover that this space actually existed? Because it sounds like, again, this referral-based fee splitting or structure that you have set up. Did you discover that a lot of law firms were kind of flat-footed when it came to making recommendations? Or did you just discover there's such a surplus of these extra calls that they're getting that they can't handle that it would be better for you to serve that side of the business as opposed to the consumer side?

9:19Chris Rose: You know, I'd love to lead you on and pretend that I'm a really smart, intuitive guy. But that shit ain't true. You'll figure that out right away. So will your audience.

9:31Chris Rose: What I did was I really spun my wheels for pretty close to a year trying to make this work and I just couldn't get any traction. So, I had a friend reach out and say, hey, there's this law firm. They might need help referring out a case. And I said, oh, I can do that. Okay, that's great. And so, I spoke to them, helped them refer out a case. And they said, actually, we have a few more that we're going to need help with. I was like, great, I can do that. Of course, I agreed to do it before I really knew whether I could do it. But that's the hard business.

9:59Doug Sandler: That's the best entrepreneur. You're kind of building the plane as you're flying. And how many times do we go through life? And I've been doing that for 40 plus years as an entrepreneur.

10:09Chris Rose: Yeah, that's exactly right. Falling with style. And so, I just really listen. Listen to the market. And so, when I began to speak to more and more firms and told them about this idea, they would say, oh, well, I need help with this or I need help with that. And then, as I began to do it more and more, I realized all the ways that law firms are failing at doing this themselves. And so, I just began building out the process. So, I'm not figuring out anything. I'm just listening to what people need. And then, I just kind of plug that hole.

10:41Doug Sandler: When did you discover that the legal side of the industry, or the legal industry specifically, what other things are they looking for? You'll have a need for, let's say, general practice law, but they have a client calls, potential client calls and has a tax law question. Well, there's an opportunity for you to find a tax law attorney that might do it. But they also might say, you know what? We're doing general law right now, but we are overburdened with our paralegal work. Do you do things like that, or do you specifically stay in the world of being the conduit between one law firm and another?

11:20Chris Rose: Hell no, Doug. No way. I have niched down. I am simply a conduit. And people tell me all the time, well, why don't you try to work some of these cases? Why don't you just put in a little bit of the effort and settle it? No way. I have figured out my process. I'm just going to be an expert at this and then scale the shit out of it, because that's really what it's about.

11:44Chris Rose: I see so many people that try to diversify or pick up all of these different services. Like you were saying, general law, if you're talking to a firm that does several different unrelated practice areas, I mean, it's kind of like going into a Cheesecake Factory. You know, I mean, sure, some of the food is going to be pretty good, but there's not any one dish that's going to blow your socks off. And so you should be very wary of those firms that do a little bit of everything.

12:10Doug Sandler: Okay. Got it. So who typically becomes a client of yours, and what typically does a referral look like from that law firm so that you can make that additional connection for them?

12:23Chris Rose: Oh, okay. All right. All right. I'm getting excited now. We're talking about ICP, my ideal client profile. So I have essentially two ICPs, one on the sending side and one on the receiving side.

12:36Doug Sandler: Okay.

12:37Chris Rose: In terms of the firms that send me leads in cases, they're usually larger firms that have large marketing budgets, but maybe focus on only pre-litigation, personal injury, maybe employment law, some work comp, things like that. And so they're getting a lot of people ringing their phones, but they're not, they just naturally can't take all of those cases. So those are the ones that send me leads in cases.

13:04Chris Rose: On the other side, I have a network of attorneys that review and sign all of these cases. So I usually look for solo, duo attorneys, smaller, who are going to be hungrier, who are going to chase down some of these cases, really make sure that there isn't something there before they decline. And that gives me the most leverage over them too, because they're the ones that I can demand accountability from. The larger firms, they're often kind of bad.

13:32Doug Sandler: I'm discovering, or I'm thinking that there are a number of firms that, through the test of time, you can determine whether they're sending you all of their cold cases or the dead leads that go nowhere. So that becomes, there's got to be some level of accountability for the sender of those cases too, because I would assume not all cases are meant to be yours or meant to be referred out. They just don't want to call them dead, because they might see a potential dollar sign in their eyes. Is that right?

14:00Chris Rose: Yeah, that's exactly right. Some firms are better at keeping all of that revenue, all of those valid cases. Some firms are actually pretty terrible at it. They let a lot of cases fall through the cracks, and I act as a layer of redundancy. But you're right. I mean, when you say that, I've got one firm in mind that I'm working with that we're going to give them a few months, but they're pretty good about either keeping all of their great cases or just sending me all of the discount DVDs. And so, you know, it's just...

14:30Doug Sandler: Understood. They're sending you the Be Kind and Rewind VHS tapes when they should be sending you MP3 files.

14:36Chris Rose: Yeah, that's exactly right. So, you know, we'll give them a little while, but yeah, I'll probably have to cut them loose before long.

14:42Doug Sandler: Tell me about your journey just as a business owner, because I'm really curious. You're a legal guy. You know, you're in the legal world. As you said earlier, you're an attorney, and that was an area that you thought originally that maybe you would be doing some work in. But you discovered later on that that actually wasn't something that you enjoy doing as much as the business side of things. Tell me a little bit about that part of your journey.

15:06Chris Rose: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we'll relate it back to law school. I did well in law school, but what I really wanted to do was just walk around and bother other students. Like, that was my day. So out of law school, I became a lobbyist, because I thought that would be fun, and I like politics, and I like networks and relationships. But man, that shit's boring. You ever sit through, like, a committee hearing or a city hall meeting? Like, some of those punching in the face.

15:35Doug Sandler: Right. Brutal.

15:36Chris Rose: Right. So I moved into sales and marketing, working for a legal services provider. And that's when I really was exposed to business and the startup community. And that's, like, I found this passion for efficiency and making a shit ton of money. So that's what I want to do.

15:56Chris Rose: So I really focus on how can I create a business that I can just build a process, a system, and then just scale it as quickly as possible. Because that's how I'm going to find myself on a yacht in, like, 15 years. If I'm just, like, working on single cases, that's a one-to-one ratio. And so it's just not going to work.

16:19Doug Sandler: Right. Yeah. We've often used our podcast guest seat as the – I call it the guest of gold strategy. Oftentimes, we'll find people that are potentially really good individual clients. And that's wonderful to be able to have somebody that will turn into a client if you build a relationship with them. But once you're done launching that podcast and moved on to production, that's the end of that revenue stream. However, you find somebody that sits in that guest seat and becomes a referral source of business for you. Now, all of a sudden, you have a one-to-many model. So I really appreciate the fact that the one-to-many model oftentimes gives you yacht money as opposed to gives you grocery money.

16:56Chris Rose: Yeah, that's exactly right. I think of some of those – when I go to conferences, I go to a shit ton of conferences, and a lot of people are focused on speaking to the attorneys, the specific people that they're trying to sell to or trying to create a relationship with. But I think of the community conferences in terms of nodes. Like, every attorney is like an endpoint. That's a dead end. You may get something out of it, but you are going to expand your network and expand the possibilities by speaking to the nodes first. And those are often vendors, people selling things, the conference hosts. So those are all the first people that I meet. And that's exactly right, the one-to-many. Who are the people that can give me the many? So I love that you said that.

17:44Doug Sandler: No, I built an entire career on that, and then I built an entire podcast production business on that, and then a strategy based upon that. It just seems to make the most sense to me to go after the solo client. Yeah, it's great, and it will pay the bills. But as soon as you're done with that client, it's like, okay, now I need to go find another client again. I'd much rather work with – I love how you referred to it, the nodes. I'd much rather refer to the nodes, the referral sources, the ones that have the same market that they serve, but they don't compete with me. They complement the services that I provide. It seems to be a much better way and a much easier way. You never find yourself having a sales conversation. You're always just having a relationship-built conversation. Doesn't that make – as a business owner, doesn't that make much more sense?

18:26Chris Rose: Yeah, exactly right. I mean, come on. We both know a ton of business owners who are not good business people.

18:34Doug Sandler: That's right.

18:35Chris Rose: Throw a rock, right? Walk into any number of doors. Half of them are going to be people who are running shitty businesses.

18:41Doug Sandler: Well, they're good at what they do. The biggest challenge is not to bash anybody that's out there that's in the community that has a gift, and that gift, if you're an artist, the art is your gift that you are giving to mankind. The challenge is the art is not the thing that sells your work. Unfortunately, it's the marketing. It's the sales relationships that you've built. It's the network. It's the connections that you've made. It's the people that you know.

19:05Doug Sandler: And oftentimes, that's why artists will find themselves starving and dying, and their work doesn't become much more popular until after they're gone, because somebody then picks it up and says, this is an opportunity worth marketing. And then they have a limited supply. So, of course, supply and demand is everything, and their prices go sky high. Sorry, didn't mean to go down the art path, but that's kind of what you're talking about as a growth opportunity as a business person.

19:31Chris Rose: I think what you are talking about is passion. What is your passion? Is your passion working in this business, like providing that service or creating something? That's great. Love that for people. And they're going to create really quality products, because their passion is in refining that skill set. For me, my passion is, I mean, I guess it goes back to like video games. I really try to gamify business. And so how can I just get better and better and better and win the game? And legal referrals is simply just the specific game I'm playing.

20:09Doug Sandler: So talk about your ideal client for a second. Let's talk to our community, because right now we have, let's say we have a community of 1,000. And in the 1,000, you're not going to be talking to all 1,000 that are listening. Maybe from a business perspective, the lessons that you learned would apply to all 1,000. But let's just talk specifically to those that are in your market. So let's take the 1,000 and let's narrow it down to talk specifically to the person that is ideal for you to speak to about the services that you provide. Who is that?

20:41Chris Rose: Yeah. So that would be, it's usually decision makers within larger law firms. We're talking, you know, COOs, CMOs, managing partners. And they're the ones that are going to have a very good view into the intake. How many people are calling their firm every day? What does that look like? How much money are they spending on marketing? And then the other part of it is how good is their intake? How many of those cases are they able to retain?

21:11Chris Rose: Some firms, they just don't take certain practice areas. Like let's say they only take personal injury, like car accidents. A lot of people are calling them saying they got hurt on the job. That's actually work comp. So a lot of firms will just let those people say, you know, go, hey, we can't handle that. I'm sorry. Or as I say, no, no, no, send that person to me. I will provide, I will set them up with an excellent law firm. And then I will create a fee split or a referral fee, depending, you know, on the jurisdiction.

21:39Chris Rose: So it's really attorneys, you know, managing partners, COOs, CMOs within law firms who want to maximize the revenue, get the greatest return on their marketing spend. And that's, those are the, I mean, yeah. So if that's you, like call them, come find them. Go around.

21:59Doug Sandler: Got it. Got it. So Chris is looking for that specific, those specific characteristics on the ideal client profile that he has just provided you. If you fall into the, I'm one of a thousand and I love this idea and I love his journey. And I want to talk about the yacht money. Great. But don't call Chris. That's not, he's not selling coaching services to that audience member, to those in our nice guy community. He's looking for those larger law firms. He just went through the ideal client profile. So just check it out. And we'll put a link in the show notes for his website as well.

22:35Doug Sandler: What should I be asking you that I haven't asked you, Chris, as it relates to the business that you're running, or what information do you want to get out to them?

22:43Chris Rose: Yeah. Information. You know, I would just think that what I really try to tell people and encourage in people is to be solution oriented and business minded. Like whether that's the people that want to work with me or, you know, even just the larger audience that's listening, always be thinking about like, how can I solve a problem? How can I make this a little bit better, and to do it authentically as well, which sometimes means, you know, fucking swearing at people.

23:14Doug Sandler: No, and I, we, Strick and I both appreciate that very much. So those that are in our community, take a look at the show notes again, check the link in the show notes. If you are appealing to the ideal client profile that Chris has just laid out, let's connect. If you want to talk more about the entrepreneurial game and how to make your journey even more effective and efficient, check the show notes, not for Chris's, but for my contact information. Also happy to share with you any information about how to get there. Legal stuff, Chris, non-legal stuff, business related. Me, unless Chris, of course, you would like to be bothered by all those in our community that will reach out to you.

23:52Chris Rose: I mean, I love being popular. That's really. Let's not. You're probably more of the expert than I am. That's why I'm on your show.

24:02Doug Sandler: No problem. Well, thank you for being on. Now you've been on a bunch of other people's podcasts. Cause I think you've been on some that are in our community. This seems to be a good avenue for exploration, for business propositions, business proposals, the way that you get some of your business. Have you found this has been an effective resource for you to get your word out?

24:20Chris Rose: Oh my, I will sing your praises. This has been so great, because the people that have heard me on these podcasts, the people that have reached out has been phenomenal. I really underestimated the value of being a podcast guest until I started showing up on these and just like, you know, getting that response from the audience has been tremendous. Now I'm going to be on a podcast for.

24:48Doug Sandler: There's gotta be, well, that's okay. That's a good whore to be. There's gotta be a ton of legal podcasts. I mean, I know that we have several in our small network of podcasts alone, but if I go to Spotify or Apple Podcasts, I would think there was, there'd be a ton of legal podcasts.

25:02Chris Rose: Oh, there definitely are. And I'm knocking on every single door. Like, hey, can I bring my soapbox and let me talk to you guys for a few minutes?

25:09Doug Sandler: All good, man. All good. Sounds like a good proposal there. All right. Well, I appreciate you sharing your message and your inspiration. And I hope that we're able to move the needle for you with our nice guy community. Thanks for being here, Chris.

25:19Chris Rose: Yeah, no. And I really hope that I entertained your audience for the time that you had me.

25:24Doug Sandler: Well, if nothing more, you definitely entertain me with all of the Chris fucking Rose namesakes that you shared on the application. Thanks for being here on the show.

25:36Chris Rose: My pleasure, Doug. Thank you a ton.

25:38Doug Sandler: Nice guy community. Never underestimate the power of nice. Again, special thanks to Chris Rose, all of his information, including access to his website right there in the show notes. Steve O'Brien, go ahead and take us out of here.

25:48Steve O'Brien: Are you sure the legal department cleared this? Okay, then. For the Nice Guys on Business, I'm Steve O'Brien. Hey, if these bozos want to get sued, that's their business. Leave me out of it. Wait, we have a legal department?