{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"How to Bring the \u201cLittle Guy\u201d to the TOP","description":"Rafi Arbel, President, Market JD (Chicago, IL)   Rafi Arbel is President at Market JD, an internet-based advertising that focuses its work on \u201cincreasing visibility\u201d for small law firms specializing in personal injury and workers\u2019 compensation cases. With the kind of clientele the agency serves, the written content has to be extremely precise and accurate. That\u2019s why the firm currently employs 3 attorneys. Rafi is one of them.  The agency provides websites, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, reputation management, and content production. The work split is about 65% to 70% personal injury and 55% (overlapping) worker\u2019s compensation legal firms. Rafi says, \u201cEverybody can build a website and everybody can claim they do SEO or pay-per-click well.\u201d Because this work is so labor-intensive and the details are numerous and critical, Rafi believes that those \u201cwho do it well\u201d are not only those with knowledge, but those who have built a process to ensure consistent, high-quality outcomes. People have to know what they are doing, set an end objective, figure out the tasks to get it done, assess and respond to feedback, and do it \u201cconsistently over and over again.  Because Rafi practiced law for 6 years, he has represented people. Following a passion for selling and \u201cengaging people,\u201d he worked for Thompson Reuters and spent a number of years selling for Findlaw and Westlaw. Then, he went back for his MBA and again, and decided to change course, this time to become an entrepreneur. With this varied background and because he has been promoting small law firms for over 20 years, he understands what lawyers do, \u201chow they do it, and how to position them.\u201d  In this interview, Rafi notes how SEO has changed over the years, that searching for broadhead terms, \u201cChicago injury lawyer\u201d or \u201cNevada workers\u2019 compensation lawyer\u201d renders a lot of paid ads at the top of the page so that even if a firm organically appears below that in the map section or even below that, the likelihood that SEO will produce much traffic is negligible. Or the firm\u2019s won\u2019t show well because Google\u2019s Local Service ads take up the top of the page, followed by Google Ads below that. A big portion of the top of the screen gets taken up by all those paid ads . . . especially on mobile. So, broadhead SEO is not of great benefit to lawyers. What does work are longtail searches. Rafi says the great race now is to \u201ccapture the longtail searches\u2019 to find \u201cthe corners that the big guys don\u2019t see.\u201d  As an example, Rafi talks about a Nevada client . . . a personal injury lawyer who, unlike his big competitors, does not have$40,000 or $50,000 a month to spend on SEO. What the attorney does have is a lot of experience representing people who have suffered sepsis and whose doctors failed to treat it correctly. Medical malpractice? Not many Nevada lawyers work in that area. By building comprehensive content to cover sepsis and medical malpractice, Market JD is carving out a unique niche for the lawyer\u2019s business and building a moat around the lawyer\u2019s business as well. Few competitors in that specific area will be willing to invest the resources to match this project. Rafi says the best way to contact him is to call him at: 312.970.9353 or email him at rafi@marketjd.com. (Market JD like Juris Doctor) ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Rob Kischuk, and I\u2019m joined today by Rafi Arbel, President at Market JD based in Chicago, Illinois. Welcome to the podcast, Rafi. RAFI: Thank you, Rob. Nice to be here. ROB: Excellent to have you here. Why don\u2019t you start off by telling us a little bit about Market JD, and what is the company\u2019s superpower? What is your specialty? RAFI: Market JD is an internet-based advertising firm. We only work for small law firms. People think that we work for lawyers; it\u2019s much narrower than that. We really don\u2019t work for the big firms. They have their own marketing needs that are very different. We really focus on small law firms. We do everything that they need online to increase their visibility, which means we do websites, we do search engine optimization, pay-per-click, some reputation management, and of course, the content production. Your question was what is our superpower. What I have learned over the years is that everybody can build a website and everybody can claim they do SEO or pay-per-click well. What differentiates those who do it well from those who don\u2019t is not just knowledge, but process. Because each of these things is so labor-intensive, and because there are so many details that have to get done right, you have to build a process behind every one of them. The process should really dictate the outcome. If you are making sure all of your t\u2019s are crossed and i\u2019s are dotted, then you should get a consistent, high-quality product every time, assuming you know what you\u2019re doing. Over the years we\u2019ve gotten feedback, like everybody else, of what works and what doesn\u2019t work, and where Google has rewarded us and where Google hasn\u2019t rewarded us. We\u2019ve taken those lessons, and those have affected what we want in the sites and what we don\u2019t want, and how our sites need to be built and the content that we need to create. Then we convert those objectives into tangible tasks that can be assigned to every person in the process. So, our superpower is our ability to take an end objective, figure out how to get it done, and then do it consistently over and over again. ROB: Got it. You mentioned smaller law firms. Are there any particular practice areas or geographies that you focus on? Are there any that you do not do from a practice area or geographic area? RAFI: Historically, we\u2019ve focused primarily on workers\u2019 compensation and personal injury law firms. I\u2019d say 65% to 70% is personal injury, and probably overlapping, I\u2019d say 55% workers\u2019 comp, because some firms do both. But we have criminal law firms, divorce law firms, business law firms. Really, generally speaking, it\u2019s a business-to-consumer law firm \u2013 those people who don\u2019t just have a few big business clients that they get all their recurring work from. These are people that help the individual consumer, that constantly need a new flow of cases coming in. Those are the people that need us most. It\u2019s not that we can\u2019t help those that just need a law firm brochure, but what we\u2019re really good at is improving somebody\u2019s visibility, not just creating a brochure. We might be overkill if all you want is something that validates your existence. ROB: As a consumer, when you mention some of those practice areas, it certainly rings to me \u2013 my perception would be that that\u2019s largely a reflection of the marketing budget of the different types of law firms. In other words, I certainly see a lot more personal injury and workers\u2019 comp advertising than I see let\u2019s say business law. Is that some of the alignment between your focus and the market? RAFI: Absolutely. Although I do find it a little \u2013 I don\u2019t understand why some of the other practice areas don\u2019t spend more. Yes, it is true that the potential payout for a personal injury lawyer is much greater. But what I will say is that I think the estate planners and a lot of the transactional attorneys that have the potential \u2013 or even maybe especially the civil litigation lawyers, they have potential to make a huge amount of money from a civil litigation case. If they\u2019re representing the manufacturer that bet the business on litigation, the attorney\u2019s fees can easily be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So why those attorneys don\u2019t want to spend a few grand a month to promote themselves is beyond me. But that\u2019s beyond probably the scope of this conversation. At the end of the day, it\u2019s really the personal injury lawyers who are spending and who are programmed and understand the need to spend to bring in a constant flow of high value cases. ROB: As someone representing smaller firms in this space, how do you think about tactically going to war and finding the client for some of these firms? I don\u2019t even know, and you might know, what the national advertising budget is for some of the national firms, but it\u2019s got to be quite something to go up against. How do you think about giving your client the edge and the best bang for their buck on somebody who can spend almost unlimited amounts of money on out-of-home advertising, on SEO, on pay-per-click, on all of your keywords? RAFI: That\u2019s a really good question. We get this from time to time from personal injury or workers\u2019 compensation lawyers who say just that. They say, \u201cLook, in my marketplace there are four big competitors and they\u2019re spending enormous money. They\u2019ve got a 10-year lead on me. There\u2019s no way I can compete, is there?\u201d The truth is, they can compete. But we have to be careful in what we promote. Oftentimes when you start to dig a little deeper into their practice areas, you find that not all personal injury lawyers and not all workers\u2019 compensation lawyers focus on the same things. For example, I have a client in Reno who has never really done any significant online advertising. He doesn\u2019t have much of a presence now, and he doesn\u2019t have an enormous budget to compete against the huge Nevada advertisers. And there are certainly people paying $40,000 or $50,000 a month on SEO. So, he asked me what we can do, and we had a conversation about the nature of his practice. It turns out that in Nevada, not many lawyers want medical malpractice cases. It turns out also that this particular lawyer had a lot of experience representing people who came down with sepsis where the doctors didn\u2019t treat it correctly. That\u2019s a very niche field. This is something he was very good at, had a lot of experience in, and very few people did, and cases that he wanted to attract. So, we decided to build out, and we\u2019re in the process of finishing, a lot of content around sepsis and medical malpractice. And even if others come in to compete, they\u2019re certainly not going to invest the same resources into that field as he will. We\u2019ve already started to see some success with that, and leads are starting to come in the door. It\u2019s that sort of focus on the client, the real micro focus on what they\u2019re doing on a day-to-day basis. You have to understand their practice. I\u2019m also a licensed lawyer in the state of Illinois, so I understand their practice in ways that somebody who\u2019s not a lawyer may not understand. ROB: That experience you have as a lawyer, your licensing as a lawyer, is that what has kept your focus on law? Have you ever been tempted to \u2013 there\u2019s other local advertisers, whether it\u2019s air conditioning, basements, plumbers, etc., who have I think similar battles. What has kept you in the legal lane? RAFI: That\u2019s a really good question. The truth is that I don\u2019t bring a distinct competitive advantage outside of the law. If I were to go sell to a plastic surgeon \u2013 and they certainly have a lot of money to spend on their advertising \u2013 or sell to HVAC guys or plumbers or any of them, I don\u2019t bring with me any inherent competitive advantages that my clients don\u2019t have. Obviously, I know the technical end of it, and we have the coders and the designers and everything else, but so does everybody else. Only in the law do I really bring something that few other people, few other agencies have, and that\u2019s an intimate knowledge of what they do, because I\u2019ve been doing it for 20+ years. Because I\u2019m a lawyer and I\u2019ve represented people, I really understand what they do, how they do it, and how to position them. So yes, while it is tempting, and maybe I could make more money if I did websites for people other than lawyers, it\u2019s just not my comfort zone. I really understand the law so well that it doesn\u2019t make sense to do much else. ROB: Rafi, to understand a little bit \u2013 it\u2019s not entirely a typical path. Most people don\u2019t go to law school to start a digital agency. What is the origin story of Market JD? What took you out of the day to day practice of law? What made you want to learn and build a team around you that understands things like SEO and SEM and everything else you have to do to make things work? RAFI: That\u2019s a really interesting question. I didn\u2019t go directly from the practice of law into running an agency. I practiced law for about six years, and then I had a real desire to sell. I\u2019ve always loved working with people, and I just love the selling process and I love engaging people. So, I took a job with Thompson Reuters and I sold for FindLaw and Westlaw for a number of years. Then I decided to go back and get my MBA, and then when I got my MBA, I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and it was at that time that I started Market JD. We do largely the same things that my former employer does, FindLaw. We do the same sort of things that they do; we just like to think we do it better. ROB: Got it. So somewhere along the way, between some growing coincidence, between having practiced yourself, between competing in the market, you saw a set of ingredients, you made a little bit of a bet on yourself \u2013 and then who were your next coupe of hires? Who are the first couple of people that an attorney goes out and hires to build a firm like this? RAFI: I think if I could do it over again, the one thing that I would do differently is I would\u2019ve hired more people quicker. I was a little too conservative in who I hired in the initial years, and potentially didn\u2019t grow as fast as I could\u2019ve if I had hired more staff. I think I wasn\u2019t as confident as I am now in my ability to succeed. I was always worried that I would run out of money, and it never happened. I had more clients than I had necessarily people to do the work. So, I certainly would\u2019ve hired people quicker. I think what happened was it was a lot of on-the-job training. I hired people as I saw the need. I knew I couldn\u2019t design, and I knew nothing about design, and I knew nothing about coding. So I surrounded myself with the best people I can and the people I need to get the job done. It was need-based hiring.  ROB: Got it. That certainly becomes an interesting path. In terms of running out of money, I have done that; I don\u2019t recommend it. It\u2019s not the most fun. We did make all the money back and then some, so it\u2019s okay. When you look at yourself now \u2013 you said you\u2019ve learned a little bit about hiring more. Obviously, you can\u2019t hire unlimited, so how do you think about, now, with experience in mind, when is the right time to hire? RAFI: I think that story has changed as the labor market has changed. At this point, where I find great talent in an area that I know I\u2019m going to need, I hire for that even if I don\u2019t necessarily have enough work to fill that person\u2019s plate. It just so happens that when you hire great people, you find work to give them, and it\u2019s often profitable work because when they\u2019re good, it enhances your service and you tend to sell more of the things that you can do better. I think the question you asked me was, how do I know who to hire. I\u2019m always looking. We recently hired a Head of SEO. I wasn\u2019t initially planning on hiring her, but I did find an article that she had written, and I thought it was so well done and it was so technically complete that I reached out to her and I asked her if she\u2019d be willing to do some consulting. One thing led to another, and she\u2019s now our Head of SEO. So, it\u2019s more about availability than it is about necessarily our needs. It\u2019s becoming very hard to find the right people, and I know I\u2019m not the only employer to say that. ROB: For sure. It\u2019s hard to find the right people. It\u2019s hard to find sometimes the sorts of versatile people who can and will wear multiple hats. I think that\u2019s interesting; you\u2019ve probably had some choices as you\u2019ve grown. SEO probably has not been a choice. You\u2019ve probably had to do that for a very long time. How have you considered, though, which service areas you should engage in? Are there some that you haven\u2019t? Are you in television? Are you in out-of-home? How deep do you go in social? How do you think about those kinds of decisions? RAFI: The traditional media is not something I had experience in or knowledge in. I\u2019ve thought many times about doing it, because oftentimes the people who sell traditional media add digital services to their menu of choices. So I\u2019ve often thought of adding traditional media to my set of choices, but I haven\u2019t, largely because it\u2019s out of my comfort zone. I would have to bring in people, and I would be doing it just for the sake of growing. I have enough troubles in my life without taking on something that I don\u2019t know particularly well, so I\u2019ve chosen just to be a digital agency and do that better than my competitors. And I think it\u2019s that laser focus and doing one thing well that\u2019s been a great recipe for us. It\u2019s worked for us. ROB: Sure. There\u2019s a certain discipline to knowing what segment you play in. I\u2019m sure many firms have started in the legal world, and many of them really have that appetite to go as far upmarket as they can, as fast as possible. They want to buy the side of every bus, the front of every billboard, all of those things. How do you think about what firm size is too big for Market JD right now? How do you think about that decision? RAFI: When it comes to digital advertising, I don\u2019t think there is a firm that\u2019s too big for us in our space. It\u2019s when they have needs beyond that. Now, certainly we have partners we can bring in, but I don\u2019t pretend to claim that they\u2019re part of the Market JD business. They\u2019re just our partners if they need them. But when it comes to digital advertising, this is what we do best. If the largest PI firm in America came to us, I don\u2019t see any reason why we couldn\u2019t help them with their needs. We represent people, or we do the digital advertising for solo practitioners, and we do it for 75-people personal injury firms, and everything in between. ROB: That\u2019s certainly a range. Once you have 75 attorneys, I don\u2019t want to pay those bills, I know that. That\u2019s a sizable firm there. You mentioned a little bit about perhaps a desire to have hired a little quicker. As you think about other lessons you may have learned while building the firm, what might something else be that you wish you\u2019d done differently if you could rewind the clock a little bit? RAFI: Yeah, definitely hiring quicker. Most certainly it would be also doing more internet marketing for Market JD. It was always ironic, I thought, that I\u2019m selling lawyers internet marketing, but I\u2019m not promoting my own wares on the internet. We ignored it because I had such a nice base of connections from my years working as a lawyer and my years selling as a salesman at Thompson Reuters. I had such a great base of people to call on that I really didn\u2019t need to do a lot of internet advertising. In hindsight, I think that was a mistake. I probably would\u2019ve more aggressively done it, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re just beginning to do now. But you know what? In some regards, I always thought it was better to have fewer clients and do a better job for fewer clients than it is to grow as fast as I can and see the quality diminish. I\u2019ve seen too many of my competitors with fantastic salesforces, far better than anything I have, that win the business but don\u2019t have the resources to put into each client, and the mistakes that they made were just embarrassing. I never wanted to be that guy, so I never wanted to grow any faster than I had the capacity to do a great job for them. ROB: Your team is so focused. When you\u2019re out there marketing for these firms, you know who their ideal customer is; you\u2019re thinking about how to reach them, and to a certain extent, it sounds like you\u2019re intuitively selling to people you know, to people you know that you know, some referrals. What did it look like? Did you all actually sit down and formulate a picture of your customer and their journey separate from their customers and their journey? Or how did you get clarity on the target you are marketing to as a firm, how you reach them, and how you separate that from the everyday of working with all these other firms, knowing you\u2019re trying to reach an individual consumer? RAFI: I think for every small business, to a large extent the direction of the business is set by the needs of the clients. So, if you listen to what the clients say and you really don\u2019t just hear the words, but take it to heart, then their needs will dictate the services that you provide. We don\u2019t just sell technical expertise or a set of tools or any particular solution. What we\u2019re really trying to communicate to the lawyers we sell to is, tell us what your issues are, tell us what your end objectives are, and then let us work backwards and figure out the best way to address those and achieve those ends. I think if you listen to the client, they\u2019ll help you. They\u2019ll direct the solution because your solution will be based on their needs and their objectives. ROB: Rafi, now that you\u2019re at the level you\u2019re at, now that you\u2019re looking ahead a little bit, what\u2019s coming up for Market JD and the type of work that you do that\u2019s exciting? What\u2019s the next frontier, maybe the next place you think you might hire for that you don\u2019t know yet you\u2019re going to hire for? RAFI: I think we\u2019re just in the initial stages of really expanding and taking what we do best, but doing it in a bigger way, hiring many more SEO content writers who can really focus in on longtail search. What\u2019s happening in SEO is that when you run a search for the broadhead terms \u2013 \u201cChicago injury lawyer\u201d or \u201cNevada workers\u2019 compensation lawyer\u201d \u2013 the search results are so dominated by paid ads at the top that even if you appear organically in the map section or beneath that, the probability of you getting much traffic or cases from appearing well there isn\u2019t too great because you\u2019ve got Google Local Service ads at the top and then you have Google Ads below it. It really takes up a significant portion of the top of the screen, especially on mobile. The SEO isn\u2019t going to be of great benefit to the lawyers. But those same ads don\u2019t always appear on the longtail searches, and there are so many of those longtail searches. So the great race right now \u2013 it\u2019s no secret, but the great race is to capture the longtail searches, and the better we are at that, the better off our clients are going to be in the end, the more benefit we\u2019re going to bring them. That\u2019s the race these days, the longtail searches. ROB: That would seem to also align with maybe the capacity of the big firms that target those searches as well. There\u2019s some stuff that\u2019s longtail, they\u2019re not going to have keywords targeted against it, they\u2019re not going to be SEOing for it either. But you mentioned some of those niches that are special to the firm, that is an individual strength, particular types of cases, that then become the opportunity. RAFI: That\u2019s exactly right. The corners that the big guys don\u2019t see. ROB: Are you the only attorney in the firm at this point? RAFI: No. Actually, there are \u2013 let me see, three of us that I can think of right away. I\u2019ve got to think through it, but we have at least three attorneys here, and two of them are editors. We\u2019re very careful about what we write about on the law. We don\u2019t ever want to misrepresent or get something wrong on the law, so I thought it would be a great idea to hire lawyers as editors. So two of my editors are in fact lawyers. ROB: Certainly, you get into some of these compliance areas, it certainly makes sense to have some expertise there. I think we\u2019ve heard this a few times on the podcast \u2013 when it comes around the medical space, there\u2019s a similar level of depth, attention, compliance, and danger that leads to specialization and helps keep any little upstart two-person shop in town from coming after you too hard. RAFI: That\u2019s right. Really, for me, if I was just a general web shop, I could practice law and do better financially than I could if I were just selling to the local businesses. But it\u2019s really the deep specialty that we have that allows us to serve the personal injury and workers\u2019 comp lawyers in ways others can\u2019t. ROB: Very interesting. We\u2019ve been hiring in a bunch of states; I\u2019ve learned a lot about workers\u2019 comp that I didn\u2019t want to know, but you might know better than that. [laughs] We use a PEO; we had the privilege of buying our own policy from the state of Ohio because they don\u2019t like the PEO\u2019s policy. Something new in every state. That\u2019s you and your clients to figure out for the most part, I think. Unless there\u2019s any other states you know we should really put our heads on the swivel for, because I\u2019d be curious. RAFI: This is for your own company? ROB: Yeah. Are there any other states with really weird workers\u2019 comp regimes? Because Ohio seems unique in its specialness. RAFI: [laughs] Most states have their own peculiarities, and it\u2019s often changing, so I can\u2019t claim I know every state\u2019s. But yes, it\u2019s definitely an area where there are differences between the states. ROB: Fascinating. A very interesting area, and it keeps some lawyers employed, for sure. Rafi, when people want to find you and find out more about Market JD, where should they go to find and connect with you? RAFI: The easiest way is pick up the phone and call me, (312) 970-9353, or they can email me at rafi@marketjd.com. That\u2019s Market JD like Juris Doctor. ROB: Excellent. Good to have that. I encourage folks to find and connect with Rafi if you need some of their help. Other than that, Rafi, thank you so much for joining the podcast, for sharing your journey. We\u2019re very grateful. Thank you. RAFI: Rob, thanks for having me. I appreciate being on. ROB: Excellent. Be well. RAFI: You too. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com. ","author_name":"The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/spinutech.com","html":"