In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Mark Homer discuss:
- How legal marketing has evolved.
- Seeing your law firm as a business.
- Multichannel marketing.
- When you should spend money on marketing.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding your brand, not just the logo, but who your clients are and how you approach the work, helps you to be more successful in marketing your firm.
- Talk about what you are doing to be more accessible to others. Everyone may be doing it, but if nobody is talking about it, customers won’t know.
- Google, including Google My Business,x` is a great referral partner if you are properly investing your time.
- Many lawyers think they have a lead problem, but it is actually a conversion problem. Get that dialed in before you spend money on marketing.
“Your law firm is a business. That’s something that people are now realizing that they need to think about it from business strategy, business terms, not just in legal practice terms.” — Mark Homer
Connect with Mark Homer:
Website: https://gngf.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8jMUZpf1YIvQ7MyHJEToHw
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhomer/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/gngf/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gngfound/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mark_homer & https://twitter.com/gngfound?lang=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GNGFound/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, cincinnati, law firms, lawyer, marketing, business, clients, called, website, leads, trends, chicago, google, referrals, mark, legal, day, years, brand, digital
SPEAKERS
Mark Homer, Narrator, Steve Fretzin
Mark Homer [00:00]
There’s a lot of groups and a lot of, you know, support online and stuff to really kind of help you understand that, hey, your law firm is a business. Right? And, you know, that’s something that people are now realizing that I need to think about it from business strategy business terms, not just, you know, like legal practice terms.
Narrator [00:21]
You’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer, coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:44]
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I hope you’re having a terrific day. I I’m a little disheveled. I was just talking to my guest today about how I was late for this meeting. And then, at all the best intentions of being prepared, more prepared than usual. And I’m less prepared than usual. However, I’m going to make it work. I’m going for it. And I think we’re going to stick together. Yeah, it’s going to be a great show. I’m not worried at all. Now that I’ve got my guests with me. So listen, you’re interested in learning about digital, you’re interested in understanding about marketing, your law practice. And there’s a lot of different people that I’ve interviewed on the show, and this guy is absolutely terrific. He’s the CEO of GE, N G. F, get noticed get found. And that is Mark Homer. How’s it going, Mark?
Mark Homer [01:29]
Great. Great. Steve. Good to be here.
Steve Fretzin [01:31]
Yeah. Good to be here with you. And let’s, let’s start off with a little bit of background on yourself and where you come from and how you came to be.
Mark Homer [01:40]
Awesome. Okay. Yeah. So like I said, I’m the CEO and founder of j&j. I forget, notice, get found, we’ve been around as a law firm marketing agency. For Dasha, that’s our 10 year anniversary, graduation years now. Yeah. And but my, my route to that was kind of long and winding, been doing marketing and or technology, so kind of been at the intersection of those two areas. Pretty much my whole kind of career, um, somebody actually went to school for both technology and marketing. So probably an unusual person who is actually doing something in the business world that is doing a major they actually studied, which doesn’t happen too often these days. But yeah, I’ve background at large companies from like, you know, IBM, and Ernst and Young and been in agencies where we had, you know, Fortune five, hundreds as kind of clients. And I, I, while I enjoyed that, I kind of like, you know, sold, sold my stake in a company, gosh, about 15 years ago now. And started working with some small businesses, and really, really enjoyed that. And I think it’s the, I think we’ve talked about that at one point, too, but it’s just the idea of, you know, really, like, when I worked with these really large companies, we do some really cool campaigns, but it was just like, they kind of turn the page and be like, Okay, what’s next, but you didn’t really, like see how it hit home, you know, like that? Did it really move the needle, and I started working with some small businesses, just happenstance, you know, kind of got asked to do some consulting here and there and, and, you know, did some marketing consulting, help some people out and next thing, you know, they’re saying, Oh, my gosh, business is going great, I’m get ready to hire somebody, and, and like, that kind of feels really good, you know, as a marketer to kind of go, Oh, I did some stuff, and somebody got a job. That’s right. So I dove in and did a little more work with small businesses. And somehow along the way, I ended up with a few law firms, who referred me to a few other law firms and a few other law firms. And next thing, you know, it’s like, majority of my business was working with law firms and, and around 10 years ago, I had a business partner before and we kind of like, focused on, let’s let’s just go all in, like we always tell our clients, you know, you really need to kind of understand your market and really be able to focus and have a niche, and that makes it easier to market. You know, your your law firm. So we’re like, well, maybe we should take our own advice.
Steve Fretzin [03:56]
And you know, people think that they have lawyers think they have to specialize day one. And the reality is that you want to put some thought and time and experience into something before you specialize. And you and I have just incredibly similar stories of being pulled into the legal space, and seeing what an impact we can have to a community that is not really built for sales, marketing digital, and we probably go on but, you know, it just it’s it’s a wonderful group of people to work with a great industry.
Mark Homer [04:29]
Oh, yeah. We love it. It’s, it’s been, it’s been a lot of fun. I mean, I you know, I’ve had a lot of educational on the way I mean, when we started doing marketing law firms, we realized that my goodness, there’s, there’s legit specific rules that they can and can’t do, you know, and so we dove into that study that went, you know, again, we’re, we’re diving into a new niche and we’re really waiting to do a great job for clients. So we looked around, somebody had to have, you know, written some books and some stuff on this. And, you know, like marketing for law firms like let’s see what other people are saying and I think we went in like the ABA had written a book when we first got going. And it was like five years old, or somebody written a book for that, you know, that ABA published and it was like five years old, like MySpace was referenced, which was pretty much gone by that point. And so we’re like, Well, I guess, you know, maybe we should write a book. So we actually, like, wrote a book of, you know, like, you know, like, here’s stuff that that works. And here’s what we’re doing for our clients. And we did a lot of research and a lot of the ethics, professional ethics rules and things you can and can’t say and do. And that that book ended up leading, leading to getting invited to come in do CLE education Bar Association’s around the country, invited to conferences to speak. And, you know, next thing, you know, we’re 10 years later, we’re still thriving as a marketing agency here.
Steve Fretzin [05:44]
Yeah, and what in what type? There’s a lot of different marketing agencies that do a lot of different things. What what are you focusing on specifically, specifically there?
Mark Homer [05:53]
So our emphasis is in in the digital realm. We That being said, though, we’ve focused we start off by making sure we have a really strong understanding of the client’s brand. When I say brand, I’m using it in the, the kind of more real term not not like branded assets and items, not like logos and things like that. But like, really, you know, who our clients are, how they approach the work, how they want to approach the market. Really, at the end the day like asking questions, like, you know, what, what do you love to do? Like, what what was the best case you didn’t last year? What was the best client you work with? What was the worst? Right? What do you never want to do? Again? You know, like, what do you stand against? What do you stand for really understanding that so we can, you know, put that out there and help them attract? Pretty much you know, like the best type of work they can get?
Steve Fretzin [06:39]
Yeah. So, if I said to you, hey, I need help with my social media, I need help with my newsletter, I need help with video. All all included in digital.
Mark Homer [06:49]
Yeah, so and also we do work with a lot of so yeah, all that. So right, you know, from website design, all the way through paid advertising, you know, anything in the digital realm, that’s at the end of day is going to help drive leads and increase your brand. Right? That’s our focus, like, you know, from a, if you get referrals, somebody goes and find you online, we want to make sure that it represents you to the fullest, right? If somebody is just looking for an attorney, that’s, that’s something you do, as you know, as a law firm, we want them to hopefully, find your website over somebody else, right. So there’s two kinds of aspects to that kind of digital. But we also want to measure the heck out of everything. And that’s one area where I think digital can overlap a lot with the offline stuff. So we’ve got clients to do TV, radio and stuff, but we’ll work on creating you know, unique URLs, unique tracking numbers, so that we can pull that tracking in one place to kind of show, okay, what actually converted what turned into a client and help them understand, you know, what marketing is working?
Steve Fretzin [07:44]
So that goes back to the old statement of if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it?
Mark Homer [07:50]
Correct? Correct. We’re big on big on using data to drive things.
Steve Fretzin [07:53]
Yeah. And I think that’s really smart. And I think lawyers should appreciate that. Because it isn’t about a gut feel. I think lawyers like facts, they like, you know, specific language, they like the details of things. And and when you can get that from, from what you’re doing with your marketing and see ROI, right, see how things are converting? And, you know, what, what, what’s leading to the next thing and how that’s actually either bringing in business or helping get the brand built? That’s all stuff lawyers want to see.
Mark Homer [08:22]
Yeah, and I think that that technology background comes to play for me there, right? Like, it’s the wanting to figure out all the algorithms and really understand like, you know, this plus this equals that, you know, if do, can we repeat that over and over? You know, so it’s kind of taking that creative and applying that, that logic to it, to make sure we get as repeatable as possible for you know, as effective and efficient of a price as possible.
Steve Fretzin [08:43]
And let’s take a step back. And then we’re going to take a big leap forward. The question I have for you is what, when you got into the business, working with lawyers specifically, or when you decide to kind of push your chips? And what were the main challenges, frustrations, concerns, the things that they were coming to you for on a regular basis? And then let’s go through that. And then let’s leap forward and how that’s changed for today.
Mark Homer [09:08]
Yeah, good question. You know, do a lot of interviews, nobody’s really kind of said, what was it? You know, what were what was that like then? And what were the challenges? Because we always talk about, you know, what’s going on today? So yeah, good question. I think, well, first of all, I think that the most interesting thing for me when first starting to work with legal was that this was, you know, only 10 years ago. So, you know, 2010 2011 were fairly well into the digital space at this point. And the amount of times I was trying to explain why $60,000 on the yellow pages was not a good investment anymore. It was like a consistent theme, right? So this idea of, I don’t want to think about marketing. It was a very easy thing for me to just make one decision a year with a yellow page wrap. And my marketing was done and then you know, the phone was ringing. So we were getting called most of the time because somebody said I was told I need a website. All right, they didn’t really know why or what more they said, you know, the phone’s just not ringing as much as they used to. And I’m spending a lot of money again, it was mostly like yellow page or maybe some, some radio and billboard that they had been doing. But yeah, I mean, like 6070 $80,000 a year on Yellow Page ads. You know, in your, you’re
Steve Fretzin [10:18]
like, it’s actually like, it’s the 90s You’re talking 2010? Like, correct, correct? Yeah. I sold Yellow Pages in the 90s. For crying out loud. That was a job I had real thing everybody.
Mark Homer [10:31]
Again, we go back to that tracking. What’s funny, Steve, is we had somebody we were working with, and you know, measuring and they’re like, No, I use yellow pages. Still, we’re like, wow, really is like no, no, I’m pretty sure it works. And so we hit now he had a few offices, and they were in Florida, but they had some in like, the keys. And sure enough, we measured in like their offices, the where their main offices were around Miami and stuff. Yellowpages was not paying off. Right. But the keys it was paying off really well. It was funny. It’s like, well, you know what, keep on investing. Yeah. tell you not to do what’s what’s
Steve Fretzin [11:08]
crazy, crazy. So so people were either totally clueless about marketing back then. Or we’re doing things that maybe weren’t getting the right. response? And in some cases, like in the case, they were so then then transition now we’re, you know, 1011 years forward, what are people coming to you now? For what, what’s the level? Are they more sophisticated buyers now? And what are they looking to do now?
Mark Homer [11:34]
Well, I think, yeah, many I mean, the other thing that people didn’t understand back then was just this idea of, of branding and having your voice and being differentiated. And that mattering, that that actually meant something, I think now that the market is, is more mature around that we get people who come and say, Hey, we, we, you know, like, just a couple partners left, and we got some new people coming in. And we’re kind of, we just need to kind of make our brand a little more new and different than, you know, like the 50 year old, you know, 150 year old brand, or whatever they were going with, right? We just want to like update things. And so this idea of like that the brand means something and the the how consumers view, the firm when they first you know, see him or visit them or hear about them, and it is going to attract a different person. It’s not just, you know, somebody needs a lawyer, that’s all that matters, I want to get found, it’s Oh, the the type of person that I want to work with. So that I think that maturity has come a long way. We do get called just, you know, hey, can you help me with my overall brand and messaging?
Steve Fretzin [12:32]
Yeah, it’s just really frustrating that lawyers still believe or feel that a website is for lead generation, like if I’m in personal injury, well, I need a website. And it’s got to do XY and Z. And the, you know, the transactional firm that, you know, that has a terrible website. And they’re not even realizing how it’s hurting their brand, how it’s hurting their ability to attract talent, how it’s hurting their ability to be referred. I mean, I tried to refer someone, and I couldn’t even find their website, I looked on LinkedIn, he had nothing on LinkedIn. I’m like, so I want to send all of this great stuff that I think you I think you’re terrific, but I’m trying to send that to somebody, and I can’t, because I have nothing to like, impress them with or nothing to at least show that you’re really good at what you do.
Mark Homer [13:16]
Right, and the days of the old BNI network. And by the way, don’t say old, I mean, BNI still work. And I’m not talking down to it. But like this mentality of, I’m going to have a close group of people, and they’re going to have a stack of my business cards, and they’re going to kind of hand them out for me almost right. It’s like, yeah, here’s somebody to know, here’s their business card, like no, but like, you refer a name. And that person has a computer sitting in their hand, and they pull up the browser and they type the name in, what comes up really matters, like you said, like it like that, like, you will lose a lot of referrals by not having a good presence and a good, you know, like, again, supporting, supporting that, you know, like a former client or a friend or colleague who’s putting your name out there, give them some help.
Steve Fretzin [13:58]
Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, again, lead generations wonderful. And that might or might not be your thing online, but it’s the branding, it’s the culture, it’s the, it’s the referral ability. And it’s how you’re perceived in the marketplace is is a big deal. You know, when I go to go to look at a restaurant, I’m gonna take my wife out, and it’s our anniversary, and I’m going to, you know, find a great restaurant in the city of Chicago that I can take her to, you know, I better do my research, man, I better see the food, I better hear that. I better read the reviews, I better know that it’s been written up in a magazine, like I need the digits, I need the data. And I don’t want to go in and then have her be like, What is this stop, you know, like, that’s not gonna go over well, in my home in my household, especially on our anniversary, but law firms somehow feel that they’re, you know, that that doesn’t matter. And it just it just mix me.
Mark Homer [14:49]
Yeah, and I guess I think that the maturity has come a long way. I think there’s there’s many that do feel that matter and just aren’t trying to figure it out and don’t really know how to go about it. Like we’ll go through a branding exercise. ties with people. And a lot of things we’re asking are really kind of like business type strategic questions, Vision questions, right? Yeah. And we’ll have people say, like, you know, I’ve been practicing for 20 years, and no one’s ever really asked me about this about myself about my business where I want to go, why I want to go there. And in these things, you know, like, they’re their business conversations. Right. And that’s, that’s, I think, some of the thing that’s, that’s happening now, there’s a lot of groups and a lot of, you know, support online and stuff to really kind of help you understand that, hey, your law firm is a business. Right. And, and, you know, that’s something that, that people are now realizing that I need to think about it from business strategy, business terms, not just, you know, like legal practice terms.
Steve Fretzin [15:43]
Yeah. And so what are some of the trends that you’re seeing now? Because you’re in the, you’re in the, in the, you know, in the middle of this whole thing? So what are what are kind of a couple of really big trends that are happening 2021 That that you’re that you’re dealing with every day?
Mark Homer [15:58]
Yeah. So we constantly look at again, we’re data people, right? So my team is kind of forced to really look at the numbers and stuff. Every year, we kind of look at about every year, right? Well, we’ll look at our data, see what’s working, see what’s not working, and then kind of like boil it down to like a few things, right. And so this year, we came out with like, three trends that we’re using with our clients. And I’ve been kind of like going out, because it’s especially coming out of COVID, right? A lot of times we kind of keep this stuff, little to ourselves. But you know, coming out COVID With all the struggles and stuff, I’ve been kind of telling her, Hey, here’s what we’re seeing. And here’s how we’re doing for our clients. The first one is just the increased fragmentation of how people find law firms. It’s just like we and we know that that’s been happening for a while. But we saw like social media, like visits to law firm websites that we manage, from social media, and I’d say a lot of it was Facebook, what was up like seven to 8% during the that shutdown time, and it was up, I think three to 4%, year over year 2019 to 2020. So that’s people who went to social media and ended up on an actual Law firm website. Now we know a lot of people end up on like, maybe a law firms Facebook page, and then type on Facebook Messenger. And there’s a lot of people that don’t realize they created a law firm page on Facebook, and somebody went there. And there’s probably messages sitting there their their leads are trying to look like nobody ever checks their Facebook Messenger. Right? I
Steve Fretzin [17:23]
have a multi multibillion dollar litigation matter. And I need help. Please get back to me right away. Yeah, well, that’s
Mark Homer [17:29]
exactly what will show things like, you know, like, Hey, I was I was in a big accident. I was hit by a truck. And they’re like, Oh, really? I’m like, Yeah, I was from a year ago. Oh, my God. And they they? Yeah, I mean, I have that example, over and over, I’ve talked to colleagues over at Smith AI. And you know, because I think they help people, though, like, manage, like, not just your chat, but I think they actually can connect into Facebook Messenger. And she has the examples, examples over and over about that same exact thing. So but people were making it from not just the social media, but all the way to a website. Like we know, there’s even more heard just hanging on social media and calling law firms. So that’s a big one. It’s just a fragmentation, you that multi channel marketing idea, right, that you got to kind of be in more places, which to be fair, I mean, it kind of sucks. I mean, for a law firm to kind of be told, you gotta market in more places. Now, I just, I’m big on repurposing content. And we do that a lot of that for our clients. And so you know, you take a really good, whether it’s a video or content piece, and then find ways to put it in different channels, including email, email marketing is a great channel, that’s still working. But that’s the fragmentation trend. Another one is just this, this idea of, you know, digital, the expectation of having digital services. When I say that, I mean, things like working clients are expecting to be able to work with you, like over zoom, right? Have e signatures have have a portal to access documents, you know, not not ever need to use a fax machine, right? Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [18:51]
it’s it’s the automation that you’re bringing into the firm to make things streamlined.
Mark Homer [18:55]
Yeah. And the thing is, is a lot of firms over the last year or so we’re kind of forced into doing a lot of these things, implementing, you know, credit card processing into their firm, all these things that, again, consumers want and expect. So we know that they expect them. But what’s happened is a lot of law firms implemented them. But nobody’s talking about it, like, get on your homepage and tell everybody, hey, we now can access via zoom meetings, we now can take credit cards, we now have a portal so we can get our documents back and forth, because that’s what people are looking for. And if everybody Yeah, maybe has this, but you’re the only one puts it on your homepage and talks about it, you’re gonna get the call. Right. Yeah. So that’s, that’s the trend in that final trend that we kind of see is is something that I’m calling Google as a referral partner. And that’s this idea that, you know, just more and more people are just trusting Google as that source of information for when I have a problem. Clio came out in their legal Trends report that about, you know, 50% of the people when they have a legal issue, go ask a friend or colleague and look for a referral kind of thing. We know referrals are still great. We just talked about them a second go right but the other half would say, I would never tell anybody about my legal issue or problem, and I’m just gonna go online and search for it, or I’m gonna go, you know, search on my own for a law firm. So this idea that, you know, you still need, if you, you know, you can get really foreign referrals, and you can do a lot of great work there, and you can grow that. But if you’re starting to kind of like top off there, there’s half the traffic, half people looking for a lawyer aren’t asking somebody. So, you know, really think of Google as a referral partner in terms of investing your time.
Steve Fretzin [20:28]
Yeah. And is that something that, you know, obviously, it’s going to change from person to person, but you’ve got, you know, search engine optimization, you’ve got pay per click, and then maybe there’s just, again, just all the different social media channels and everything that you could publicize on or market to? In? Is it is it always going to be on a case by case basis? Or is there some basic things everybody should be doing?
Mark Homer [20:52]
So the number one thing I tell people on that kind of Google’s a referral partner trend, and then and one thing we continue to push our clients is, you know, spending as much time focusing around Google My Business, that Google My Business Profile, man, I mean, soon as somebody, you know, we work with a client and they break from like page five, where they started to page one, the calls just, you know, go up so fast. I mean, they’re in the thing that people need to realize is that Google My Business, that listing that map kind of listing and stuff on the right side, when somebody’s searching, and they click on your whatever, Google, my business, has your phone number, has your description has your URL has all this information. And there’s a lot of people that will get enough information from their views, images, right, they’ll get enough information from your Google My Business Profile, they’ll just pick up the phone call right there. Or they’ll just you know, if they’re on their mobile phone, which is highly likely, they’ll click on the thing and just say call right now. And you can get insights and Google insights on the Google My Business stuff, you can see that people are calling you directly from Google My Business, don’t even go on your website. So you know, if you’re gonna do anything around, you know, focusing on that kind of side of the business, really dial in that Google My Business, spend some time there, you know, ask and answer questions, get reviews, make sure your description is what you want it to be, make sure, you can put a tracking phone number on there to kind of like track better. Just lots of great stuff there.
Steve Fretzin [22:15]
So anyone, any lawyer, every lawyer should be on Google My Business, I mean, a lawyer that’s at a mid market corporate law practice, or just a solo or both?
Mark Homer [22:27]
Well, I mean, everybody, right? Because if nothing else, if somebody’s searching for you, if they’re searching on your name, from a referral perspective, that’s you’re gonna get the most volume of of the search. Right, then the page is going to be covered mostly by the Google My Business Profile. So that supports referrals better than anything, right? So if you’re if you’re kind of a referral, generating business, Google, my business is so important. If you are looking for that lead gen from the internet, not not referrals, because my business still very important, right? So it’s not a surprise, right? I mean, they do now kind of charge ads for things that look a little like Google My Business, right. And in theirs, they got, you know, Google’s got to make it $7 billion, a quarter of or whatever it is that they make off those little tiny ads. And so Google, my business is a way to keep people coming back to the search and maybe purchasing an ad around it.
Steve Fretzin [23:16]
Okay, before we get to my new segment, called the three best of all, I want to ask one more question to kind of wrap things up a little bit here with you, Mark. I’ve heard you say that some law firms shouldn’t be spending their time and money on marketing, yet you run a marketing agency. So why would you say that? So dare How dare you, by the way?
Mark Homer [23:39]
So no, I’ve told him many, many, many people do not waste your money on marketing, if you don’t have kind of the the connection between when a lead comes in and how you’re converting them. Right. So that intake process is a term that, you know, most most law firms use, right. So really dialing in that intake process. And knowing those numbers, right, like, how many how many leads actually came in how many turned into a consultation? How many showed up for a consultation? How many consultations turned into a client? who answered that phone? Who was in charge of that process? What is that process? If you have that understood, then you can throw more leads at it with marketing and measure it very well, if you don’t have that understood, and there’s a lot of lawyers that think they just have a lead problem, when really it’s a conversion problem. And I think Steve, you and I probably talked about that and other conversations, but that’s something that you know, I always tell people like get that dialed in before you spend too much money on marketing.
Steve Fretzin [24:32]
Yeah, so again, it’s it’s just like anybody that’s going to put a website together. Don’t just throw it up, right? Do you know know what you want your message to be? Have a plan have a strategy? So that’s the gist. I think what you’re saying is don’t just don’t just do the shoot from the hip. lay things out, get the metrics, think about it, you know, plan with an expert like yourself, get get all the ducks in a row and then invest the money. That’s right. That’s right. Okay. All right. That is true. Second, we’re gonna move to our new segment. It’s going to be not so new soon, called the three best stuff. And Mark, you are located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Right?
Mark Homer [25:09]
That’s right. Yeah. Let’s do it your whole life. Born and raised here, actually, I spent 15 years up. I used Chicago for about 15 years of my life. And then coming back here when we had kids, both my kids were born in Chicago, actually, but back to Cincinnati. Just nice place to raise a family.
Steve Fretzin [25:27]
And someone told you it was nicer weather than Chicago and you believe them, right? Midwest, it’s all the same. Okay, so here we go. Three things that we want to know about Cincinnati, first of all, what’s your favorite restaurant and why?
Mark Homer [25:42]
So there’s a Italian restaurant, which again, coming from Chicago, that’s going to be surprising that I say Cincinnati has got a great Italian restaurant, right. But we have this Italian restaurant called Soto that I go out of my way to take you know, anybody comes into town, I take them there. And they’re always like, this is one of the top 10 restaurants that I’ve ever been to, I don’t know. It’s like their hand making their pasta. You can see him making it. It’s a cool vibe. It’s like kind of down in the basement and there’s like candles lit everywhere. A lot of wood exposed beams. Just really neat. Cool restaurant.
Steve Fretzin [26:11]
Awesome, awesome. And people that come from other places to Cincinnati what’s the one thing they need to see and not mess?
Mark Homer [26:20]
So I’m gonna say I’m gonna give you two things even though I’m not sure if you’re only allowed to say once I’m gonna cheat for a second but there are a lot of people come nearby in, you know, like want to see bourbon country, which is Cincinnati a lot people don’t realize Cincinnati is on the south side of of the state of Ohio. We’re not the Cleveland on the north side. We are the south side. So Kentucky is a stone’s throw over the river. And you got all the bourbon right there. So a bridge away from all the bourbon country Bourbon Trail down there. And then the other thing is Cincinnati has a long German background. It’s been a lot of lager beer, beer making, okay, if anybody knows anything about making beer lager, it needs to be brewed and fermented at a very lower temperature than ales. And because of that, back in the day, we didn’t have refrigeration so they built all these beer tunnels just tons and tons of tunnels like Cincinnati brewed more beer at one point than any other city by multiple five Wow, and only exported 20% of it by the way. So they they Yeah, that heavy German influence. And we’ve got these beer caves that you can kind of get a tour and see and like that just were discovered only like you know, 15 years ago, it’s
Steve Fretzin [27:27]
pretty Oh my god. That’s very cool. And I think that the last question about what do people in Cincinnati love to do? And I’m wondering if you’re just gonna say drink, because you sort of everything has led up to that. Yeah, we drink but
Mark Homer [27:40]
we do have a good beer scene. We’ve got some good food. But no, I think just like any other good Midwest, mid market city we love our sports as well. Right? Yeah, we love our Cincinnati Reds, you know, their original Major League franchise right so and you know, we’ve got a football we’ve got you know, like a soccer you know, the MLS team here. So, in plus, on top of that, all the all the NCAA sports, right between like Xavier, you see, and so yeah, we a big sports town is just like, you know, like any good Midwest City.
Steve Fretzin [28:12]
Yeah. So the bars are packed during the games, and people just watch the sport. Well, very cool. Listen, Mark, this was terrific on a couple levels, from, you know, understanding how legal marketing has changed the things that people need to focus on the trends. And of course, learning a little bit about Cincinnati and I honestly, not only did I not know about the bourbon in the beer, no, of course never knew about the tunnels. And so that’s really interesting stuff. If you’re listening to this, you’re probably your jaw is a little slack like mine, just just listening to this. But if people want to get in touch with you, they say, Hey, look, Mark sounds like a great guy. I’d love to talk to him about my marketing or just to you know, check out your website. How do they what’s what are the digits,
Mark Homer [28:55]
so you’ve got our website@gngf.com it’s a lot easier to type thing get noticed get found. So G ng f.com. And then we’ve you know, you can always reach me vailable pretty open and easy to get ahold of at Mark at G ng f.com or Twitter at at Mark underscore, Homer. And then yeah, we’re also always happy to talk about marketing and anything Cincinnati related.
Steve Fretzin [29:21]
So calling from one of those two things or both. Well, listen, thanks for being on the show. I love doing your show. And and I was just so happy to have you and I apologize that I was a few minutes late today I was enjoying some Chicago Barna B’s pizza if you’re a Chicago North Shore person or from Chicago want to come and enjoy some pizza. I had some friends in from Orlando. They said they liked it. I’m not buying it. I think they were a little weirded out by the cornmeal crust. But anyway, love the Barbie’s pizza here in in the north side of Chicago. But just thanks again, Mark. Really appreciate your taking the time and sharing your wisdom and a little bit about Cincinnati. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. Hey, Listen, everybody, go see Mark in Cincinnati, I’ll take you to a game. We’ll get you drunk. Those are the things we took away. But I hope that you enjoyed the show. I hope you got a couple of good takeaways get on that Google My Business if you’re not there, clearly an easy way to get noticed online. And listen, you know, it’s all about being that lawyer, someone who’s confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker. Take care, be safe, be well, and we’ll talk again soon.
Narrator [30:31]
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website fretzin.com. For additional information, and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes