Episode 6: Gary Sarner

Here’s, in my opinion, where people miss the most. You see, this case has
$5 million dollars worth of insurance, and this case has $10,000 dollars worth of insurance. They are different cases, I get that. But if both parties
were treated the same. What do you want from each one of them? Tomorrow

You want to review. You want. You want. You want your customers to be,
you know, raving fans of yours.

Correct.  So this $10,000 dollar case could refer you a $5 million dollar case. This $5 million dollar, they’re going to refer you cases. Nine out of ten of them are going to be $10,000 dollars!

Yeah.

People are equal and deserve the same service. Same as in my business. We have people that spend multi millions and we have a couple of partners that spend less than a million. But you know what they are to us? the same.

Welcome to Harry Handles It
podcast, where we dive into the world of personal growth, success
strategies and everything in between.  I’m your host, Harry Nalbandyan, and today we’re going to chat with an incredible guest
who has some amazing insights to share. Remember, no matter what life throws your way. I’m here to help you handle it. Let’s get started. Welcome to the Harry Handles It podcast. Today we’ve got great guest, Gary Sarner on, who is a legal marketing radio expert and is the owner of ROI 360 plus.  Gary, good afternoon or morning? How are you?

I’m great. It is 230 here. 1130 in LA. So it’s both.

There you go.

Thanks for having me.

Of course. Thanks for being here. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what you do and your company?

Oh, man, I’m an old fart. So I started in radio in 1987. I’m going to assume that your dad hadn’t even thought about you yet at that time.

Plus or minus.

And, I spent 35 years in sales and management of radio stations, and I opened up what people will call an ad agency.  I call it a radio advocacy. And. When I started
this, the legal profession was like, nobody listens to the fucking radio. That’s why we’re all on TV.  I’m like, okay, go. As one by one fell down. We now spend over $60 million dollars  in legal marketing on the radio.

That’s an impressive figure.

And I guarantee you, you would say to me, you don’t listen to the radio. I might be right. I also would bet that you would say, if you were asked, do you eat at McDonald’s? You would probably say, no.

That’s not true. I was there Saturday.

Bingo! And you do listen
to the radio, too. You just don’t realize it.

That’s a good point.

So it’s,  I’m in the business of helping people. I happen to work with attorneys, but my real goal is to help end users who need attorneys and are scared shitless to call you. And it’s amazing,
with the depth of contacts that I have across the country. To hear so many law firm owners that really don’t understand that their customer really is scared
out of their mind to call you. Do you know why?

No. Can you tell us more about that? That’s actually the first time I’ve heard that.

Attorneys are expensive.
And then you have people Who use this fun, fancy word called contingency. Now, just for fun. Let’s say you’ve only had 100 clients in your career. Just keep it simple. And you were to ask all 100. Harry, do you know what contingency means?  what percentage do you think
understand that of your of clients?

Approximately 0%.

Bingo. Which is why they think you’re expensive. They don’t understand the word that’s marketed more. More than anything else. What is it that a personal injury attorney’s client wants more than anything else?

Justice.

Justice. And number two or number one,

Either a life spec or a big settlement at the end of the day.

So they want to feel they want to feel 100% whole.

Yeah.

you’re in the business. The personal injury business. I’m just marketing to help you find people. Most cases are soft tissue. Those are easy to help get people back to normal. But that small percentage of catastrophic cases where surgery is needed, those people rely on somebody like you to get them to the right place to get them well, and then to help them recover. Tell you a funny story. I have a friend many years calls me out of the blue. Not going to say what market it’s in. Her son got into a car accident. Who should I talk to? I set her up with an attorney, and There’s this much insurance on the other side. And her poor son need surgery.  He’s out of work. He may lose his house. And she’s yelling and screaming that the law firm should sue the insurance company. And I understand her as a mom who cares about her child and her grandson. But you can’t make something happen that’s not there. And it’s so funny that it’s like, all of a sudden I’m talking, I’m interviewing you, but think about this. How many times have you had to have that hard conversation with somebody?  Who counted on you to help them? Now you did you actually help them But because of the way law firms market and in LA, it is no different than any other city. You see the billboards? My lawyer got me $1 million dollars because nobody’s advertising. My lawyer got me $22,500. dollars Right?

Yeah. 100%. You’re right.

What percentage of people get 22,5 versus a million?

More often than not.

And I don’t want to know anybody who’s been through that hell to get $1 million dollars  that go work for it. Go earn it. And then they get
mad at guys like you who earn a very handsome living, but without you, they couldn’t get anything. Except taken to the cleaners.

and they even, even when lawyers are hired, they still try to take them to the cleaners

Oh, yeah. But that’s where you put up your dukes.

That’s right. Come through me first.

It should be the first phone call. And again, I think if there was more legal marketing about the benefits of what you do versus the recoveries that you get, you know, what term would be gone. Ambulance chaser.

that’s an incredible point, actually. That’s a very, very good point. When I try cases in front of juries and I have to bring this topic up every time, and a lot of times people say, I’m sick of seeing these billboards millions of dollars, millions of dollars. It’s all about money. When what it’s really not. It’s about giving that human being who was involved in a life changing event the opportunity to try to get back to who they were before. The only thing we can do is compensate for that with money. It’s wild.

But when you look at it as a whole,
and I know you don’t listen to the radio because we’ve established that, but you do watch television or videos or streaming.

Correct.

And you see those commercials
and more often than not, it’s about money, which and again, I’m only one person and I work for law firms to help them reach the public. Well, they see their shiny advertising with the dollars. You say I want that. Okay?  Here’s some theories. A clientele that wants that. But there’s a larger portion of people that actually want help, not just a check. It’s a wild industry profession that you’re in, by the way. I have two children, one that just graduated law school and another one graduated in April.

Congratulations.

Thank you. And one wants to be in
PI and is going to be in PI And one is not.

That’s awesome. They have a good reference and an influence definitely to get them through.

But trial work so important. I’m glad. I’m glad to hear that you actually get in front of a jury, because that is so important to have that confidence.

I think that’s number one. I mean, especially for the consumer, if you’re hiring a lawyer who is not an operator, who is not a technician, who can’t go to court on your behalf. Yeah, it’s kind of like hiring a pilot who hasn’t really flown that much and, flies in their imagination. I mean, that’s stuff that’s not going to serve in your best interest. And one thing that you said was interesting that I want, I want to hear more about is how how, in your opinion, does radio advertising bridge that gap?  between the consumer who’s afraid to call the lawyer  and actually getting in touch with a lawyer?

So this is this is, the quagmire everybody has right?  2% of the population will need a personal injury attorney this year.

That’s a good number of people.

It’s a huge number of people. But 98% won’t. So the legal marketing  should establish one thing and one thing only.  First, what is the brand? What do you do and how can you be reached?  Now, In your radio or TV commercials. Any lawyers? You could talk about a car accident, a truck accident, a slip and fall, nursing home abuse, medical malpractice. There’s just a gamut of things. If nobody needs you, hy does all that matter? Now, Yeah. Do you see my pen?

I do.

This is a pilot, G2 ten. Crappy pen. But we could sell this pen to anybody with the right story. Make it sexy enough and have the price, right. We could sell a shit ton of these pens overnight. I could speak about how amazing you are, Harry. The best lawyer in America at 35 years old, tried more cases than any other 35 year old out there and won and got verdicts for $10, $20, $30 million.  I mean, I’m making you exciting.

I like the energy

But, If somebody doesn’t need you, why would they ever call you the pen? I could sell millions of pens tonight. I can sell you and all of your accolades to anybody. But what I can do is make sure that they know who you are. They know what you do, and they know how to reach you.  Now, here’s a great one, because most of the lawyers that I have done podcasts with are a little bit older than you. Grew up in L.A?

I did.

ok, Did your parents have a home phone?

Yes.

Do you know what that phone number was?

Yes.

ok. Give me the name of somebody in your office that you talk to every day.

Right. Kimberly.

Kimberly. You know her cell phone number? No way.

no way.

Who’s your best friend?

Gary

Do you know his phone number? No.

no.

But you know your mother’s home
phone number. That you haven’t been home in 18 years. The world today. Is about ease. Call Harry. Call Harry in L.A., however, it’s set up in the phone. So as I have conversations like this, forget a podcast, but just talking about marketing. I want to use my vanity number, my repeater number. I want to have this special website so I could track my marketing. Well, guess what? I can tell you right now whether you advertise or don’t. 95% of the people that find you are going to find you on Google. But for those that use radio, TV, billboards, top of the funnel marketing their brand sticks out. So when they go online and they do the search. Oh, I hear I see that person all the time. I like his voice. Oh, he looks smart. Oh, I want a young, tough guy. Others are going to say, I don’t want a young attorney. I want that old fart that’s done it for 35 years because he’s going to do it better. But the reality is, nobody knows who’s really going to go fight  for them. And just like that story about the other woman who wants them to sue the insurance agent, the insurance company,  you can’t sue an insurance company for something that’s not there.  But the end user looks at the law firms  as being able to get any amount of money.  Because my lawyer got me $1 million dollars is the ad they see? Well, every lawyer should be able to get $1 million dollars. But here’s the fine print right on the bottom of the ad  that says not all results are the same.

I do feel like that is a little misleading
to the consumer, right?

It can be. But then again, there are law firms that do market without speaking about verdicts. And and settlements and speak about who they are. What it means to them. What just this means to them. You know, Bob Simon I do justice. HQ.  I mean, what a great name. Right? Justice headquarters. It’s brilliant. Now look at your last name. I’m not even going to attempt to butcher it right now, but say it.

It’s tough, Nalbandian.

Nal, Nalbandian. Nalbandian.

Well done.

You think anybody’s going to remember that?

0% chance. 0% chance.0% chance. 0% chance.

Are you married?

I am.

How long did it take your wife
to figure out how to say it?

Pretty quick.

She loved you,

we had a cheat code
It’s okay..

She loved you. But if you were a marketing attorney in broadcast or on billboards, and you put your name up there and look, we are all proud of who we are. But in marketing, it has to make it easy for the consumer to find you. And as easy as it is to butcher your name by the average person, your client unfortunately, is not an average student. It is a below average student in general, and not all. So a name  that is easy to remember works. And now let’s say it’s a law firm with four partners. I happen to have a client in South Carolina, a partner of mine, Miller, Dawson and Siegel and Ward. Well, that eats up 5.5 seconds of a commercial. So they go by the trade name the thumbs up, guys. That’s great. It’s fun. They do great legal work, but what they understand is it’s tough to remember. Miller. Dawson, Siegel and Ward. but it’s not hard to remember. The thumbs up guys.

I literally had this sam  conversatio
with our team earlier, earlier this quarter. And I said, look, if we’re going to venture into the traditional media space, we need something different than Leaven and Nalbandian.  It’s great.  That’s our firm. But people need a way to remember us. That’s a little less than those two mouthfuls,

Well, I brought up earlier Brett Sacks. Now, that’s not the hardest name in the world, but you could spell sacks six different ways.

True.

MVP accident attorneys is really freaking easy. And Most Valuable Player is you.  Not us. You do. And when a law firm makes it about the client, first it goes back to the old adage do good. Good keeps coming back. If you if law firms look at every case the same. Now there’s more work that needs to go into some than the others, but if they were all the same, how do we get the best recovery possible for the client? The law firms going to make money always, always. People are put into buckets inside a law firm. You I’m sure you talk about culture inside your firm.

Big time

culture matters. So the client here’s where here’s, in my opinion, where people miss the most. You you get the the lead. It’s a case you want. You sign it up.  Now you’re doing all the discovery to make sure everything’s there. And you see, this case has $5 million dollars worth of insurance, and this case has $10,000 dollars worth of insurance. They are different cases, I get that. But if both parties were treated the same, what do you want from each one of them? Tomorrow

for their cases then.

after their cases ends. What do you want from each one of these cases?

Oh, of course you want you want to review. You want, you want, you want your customers to be, you know, raving fans of yours.

Correct. So this $10,000 dollars case could refer you a $5 million dollars case, this $5 million dollars case where you got four, 5 million. They’re going to refer you cases. Nine out of ten of them are going to be $10,000 dollars. Right.

Yeah.

So again people are equal and deserve the same service. Same as in my business. We have people that spend multi-millions  and we have a couple of partners that spend less than a million. But you know what they are to us the same. Because if the one who spends less than a million is happy, they have friends in the legal business. They should refer us in my hope because they get great service. Same with you.  You might not get policy limits on something, but if the client feels like you gave your all and you did your best, they will send you people like family forever. You ever read reviews on other law firms pages?

Sometimes it’s scary, right?

it’s scary, right?

I feel like that’s where the consumer, that’s the final place where they can finally say, I got you. If they’re having a hard time communicating effectively with their legal team,

well, I can promise you this. Working with 25 law firms across the country in 35 markets, the number one reason a client is dissatisfied with the law firm has nothing to do with their recovery. It has to do with communication

and service. Big time. 100% agree with you on that.

And lawyers are notoriously bad at returning phone calls and then you know who follows suit. Case managers and paralegals, they do it like the pod does. It?

on this subject, you have a stand out success story of a firm who’s used radio to to benefit them in their community.

I’ll tell you a great story. We have a partner in Michigan. Largest verdicts in Michigan 20 years running. Truck attorney. You might have heard of him. You might not. Steve Gersten, Michigan auto law. He speaks a lot all over the country. I happened to be at the TBI conference in San Diego two years ago. There were probably 1800 people at that conference, all to learn about traumatic brain injury injuries. And then they had this one room for marketing. And it was my turn to be on stage. And there were 12 people in the room. Three of them were other vendors who were friends. So we go through everything that we were talking about marketing, top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, all that stuff. And this person who I didn’t know, Steve comes up to me and he’s like, I really liked what you had to say, but I’m a trial attorney. I’m different than those advertising marketing firms. I said, you are. You do different work. You you as a trial attorney, get in front of a jury with no fear. He says, but why do these other firms that don’t do that get these great cases? I said very easy. They invite people to do business with them, and you don’t. But if you did and you stayed true to your brand. Right? We talked about the money grab and we talked about the person who wants to get well. Well, as an advertiser, as a law firm, you get to portray the story you want to tell. Now, you might not get thousands of leads by not talking about money, but you will get leads and you will get cases. And hopefully if you educate people correctly, you’re going to then keep the ones you want because that’s the beauty of your business, right? You sign a client up today, you do enough digging. You could do one of three things. You could keep the case and handle it. You could turn it down and say, unfortunately, Gary, you don’t have a case here. We did. You know, we found out all this stuff. There’s no K or three.  You could refer it to another firm. That is a choice you have every day in your business. So tell your story the way you want to be perceived in your market. So you could go up against sweet James, by the way. Everybody wants to be and I’m using them as an example, a sweet James, a Morgan in Morgan, a Lerner in row, and Anjan Levine. But you know where all those firms started?

In a conference room, in a conference room

and marketing. Here’s where everybody will say, here goes Gary with his life. Marketing campaigns are measured in years, not months or weeks. And the hardest thing for somebody like you, Harry, to do, is to make that commitment and put your balls on the table because it’s your money. You worked so damn hard to help your client. And as you put that money in the bank, you could do two things. You could take it all home to your family so your profits. Or you could reinvest it into your business. Now, you’re also the only business in America. And I challenge you to come up with another that if you invest for one year in marketing. And let’s just keep it simple. You’re going to invest $100 a month, 1200 bucks. You’re not going to see a dollar back in this year unless you’re really lucky.

Yeah.

So, you know, to make the investment as you start building your case, load your bookcases. All of a sudden, you see, okay, I spent $1,200 dollars. My average recovery, I got 100 cases. My average recovery is $30 dollars. Your 1200 turned into 3000. Not bad. You just don’t get to see the money this year.

Yeah, it takes a little bit.

So I say to anybody who’s looking to start marketing top of the funnel and building a brand year one, we want to get as close to break even as possible. Now, if you have several years under your belt and you could sit there and say, my average fee is X and be comfortable.  So again, for shits and giggles, let’s say the average fee is $10,000 dollars. for the firm. What would you spend to get a $10,000 fee? Case.

Five grand.

Five grand. So there’s your math. If you were to spend $100,000 a month. Okay, 100,000 divided by 10,000. The first year you want to average ten clients a month. Year two. Because now guess what you have. You have a year of building a brand. Year two. If we grow to 14 on average per month, guess what? You’re helping more people.  And oh by the way, your cash register is ringing more often. And you have people in your firm that are cash registers. And then you have people in your firm that don’t generate money at all. How do you make the best use of your staff so you can help more people and recover more money for people? It’s I make it. I dumb it down and make it sound easy. I know it’s not easy. Trust me. I know it’s not easy, but I watch every firm that I work with, how they go about it  and the way they look at it, and the ones that don’t look at it on a day to day basis  and look at a quarter by quarter. Live much better lives. Because with that shitty day and I get I get those calls all the time. Dude, we got six cases today. We got 32 yesterday. I said, great, so you got 19 a day.

Nice.

But that’s not how it’s looked at. And it drives somebody crazy. We’re all going to have down days. We’re all going to have great days. What does it look like over time?

Yeah. Averages.

nobody could outspend John Morgan. Nobody. First thing people ask me when we’d go into a market where Morgan and Morgan is, how the hell are we going to compete with them? You’re not competing with them.  You’re only targeting the people that you want to target. You’re they’re going to get business because they’re the biggest. They’re going to piss people off because they pound their chest, that they’re the biggest. And then there’s the somebody who wants Harry. And however you mold Harry as you grow your law firm, you will get exactly who  you were intentional in finding. Over time.

That’s a good point. And with that, what innovative strategies have you used at ROI 360 plus to help law firms achieve their, you know, the targeted clients and markets  that may be saturated with people who are out spenders?

So we deep dive the market first. Who’s on TV? Who’s on radio? Where are the billboards? 98% of the market’s out there. TV is saturated. First. Then we look at the radio. Black and Hispanic radio is saturated first. Now, most firms do not look at black, white, Hispanic. But if you were to ask most firms who they want to target, you know, they’re going to say. That black and Hispanic. Well, I can tell you there’s a few markets that we’re in where we target only Anglo because we’re fishing where nobody else is fishing. Now, I don’t think that we get the volume of cases, but you could sign up if you sign a 50 cases and you got to get rid of 30 of them.

That’s a waste of time.

But if you could sign up 15 cases and oh, by the way, maybe you have consumers that have uninsured underinsured motorist coverage, which we know 25% of the population is driving without insurance. You can’t pick who hits you unless you stage the accident, which is happening all over the country. There’s that much fraud all over the place.

It’s awful. It’s awful.

But if you go with a more high end targeting, you’re going to have that type of coverage. You’re going to have umbrella coverages as well, which the average person does not. Now, if I were to say, is it safe to assume that you earn in excess of $100,000 a year, you’re.

Pretty safe.

The people you associate with in your social life are like you, the people that you associate with inside your law firm, not your employees, your clients. They are not like you. If you were to ask most of your friends, do they have uninsured motorist coverage? If they said no to you, you bitch, slap them.

I do have a habit of doing that. Yes.

But that’s so important. And when you look at. How large legal marketing is in America, guess who outspend all lawyers
put together?

Insurance companies.

Insurance companies. So, Liberty Mutual, we sell you what you want. Think about that. What does everybody want? It with the lowest priced policy, they can get it. How hard is it for an insurance agent to say, Harry, you know what? You’re going to get your this this, this coverage. But I implore you to please invest another $4 dollars a month and get a $25,000 dollars
uninsured motorist policy. You think they’ll ever say it?

No. Most of the time, it’s the opposite. It’s. I can save you a dollar a month. If you cut your coverages and put yourself at risk. It’s awful.

It’s just wrong.

Big time.

And that’s why clients get upset. Because I signed up with you. I unfortunately got hit by somebody who’s got no coverage. All of a sudden, it’s your fault that I’m not getting the recovery right.

Yeah. and therefore,

they don’t want to understand that because the marketing. My lawyer got me $1 million dollars. My lawyer got me a million. It’s fucking bullshit. Think about the number of cases, percentage wise, that are $1 million. It’s that big. But that’s what people remember. Or they could remember. We’re going to help you take back control of your life. Get well and recover the maximum that’s available to you. It’s going to resonate with some. It’s not going to resonate with the person who wants $1 million for.

For nothing. Yeah.

So what made you become a lawyer?

Honestly, it was the desire to help people. There was an event that happened early on. One of our family members was seriously injured, and I don’t feel like they got the closure
that they really deserved. And I really felt like the lawyer you hire is the biggest difference maker. And it’s not only the person’s ability to recover, but also the family as a unit to get some closure. And if you don’t know any better and you hire somebody who can’t do the job that they’re supposed to do, it could really destroy not only that person’s life, but everybody else around them for for not being able to get that closure that they should get. So early on, why decided to law school? The number one thing I like to do is try cases. I wanted to be the trial lawyer who’s able to get the clients whatever they get, however they get it. And I wanted to take these insurance
companies and the governments to the mat, because that’s where you really make the difference and be able to to get the clients what they truly deserve. If you can’t get it with a settlement. Most cases settle, but like the old adage goes, speak softly, but carry a big stick. And so that’s what really drives me. And that gives me purpose to, to do this and help as many people that we want to help and keep growing so that we can help more people in the community so that nobody falls into that category of I wasn’t able to get closure because my lawyer sucked.

So I want you to think back to the beginning of what you said. There’s your commercial. Because guess where that came from? Right here. And did that sound different than every fucking commercial you hear in L.A.?

Does now you just hone that

with the right team around you, and then this is the hard part. You put your sack on the table and and, and and you start investing that money. But I will tell you this, something that I learned from all my years in business longer than your life, if you use the word I want to try this, I promise you you’ll fail. If you say, I’m going to do this, and I’m going to help more people than I ever dreamed of helping. If I just let time take its course. Think about this. When did you open your practice? 2019 2019, So you almost got five years,

five years as an entrepreneur, yeah.

Okay. Your first year in business, do you know
how many clients you signed up?

Like 50.

50, 50? That’s 4.2 a month a year. Hang on. 2024. How many clients will you sign up?

All in with all practice groups? Thousands.

Thousands. Did you forecast that in 2019?

Not as vividly and as concrete  as the vision is today,
but there was always a desire. Yeah, but so, so.

But you saw what happened by putting in the effort, the work, the team, the culture, all of this.

Million percent.

It just happens because good doers get good back. Now you still have to do great work to get the referrals. You have to treat people well. I hear more often than I care to hear. What a pain in the ass some clients are. Well guess what? That’s every business in America.

Executive marketing, customer service.

But you have some clients who just want to get better. You have some clients that just want to get a fucking check. Which one would you rather help

to get better?

It’s human nature. Yeah. The hardest department inside
your law firm is intake. Right?

Yes.

And what word?

Yes.

what word would you use that they all need to be when they speak to a potential. Empathetic. Oh, okay. So this is my favorite. You ready to be empathetic? You have to put yourself in the position of the other person. They lost a family member in a car accident. How many people in your intake team have lost a family member in a car accident?

Good point.

I think so, zero. I hope I pray zero. So then we could go to sympathetic. Okay. You can’t be empathetic because you’ve never been through it. And it’s hard to put yourself in that position. Sympathetic. Here’s a new word. Have compassion. There you go. Make somebody feel like they called the place. It has been able to help thousands of people just like you. And with compassion and actually listening. And I listened to so many frickin intake calls. It’s scary. That are pathetic. Hold on. How do you tell somebody to hold on after they just told you that somebody died?

You’re bringing up, PTSD from, intake calls that we listen to too, as well. It’s the same.

Have you ever hired an intake specialist to help you and your company,

specifically as a consultant?

That’s probably the best investment you can make. Now, would you recommend we’ll do that offline? All right. We’ll do that offline. There are there are several great ones. And and look, you know what? There are several agencies out there. And doing what I do that are great also. I always recommend somebody speak to 3 or 4 experts, because the one thing that matters most, in my opinion,  in a business relationship is the ability to be able to speak openly and honestly with one another, that one another and not all. Not all of it’s going to be rosy. If if I did, if I did your marketing right and you were now signing thousands of cases up, which means you’re signing,
let’s just call 15 a day and you have that day where you’ve one sign up, you know, are you calling me because it’s my it’s my fault.

I it’s so we just had I literally had this conversation
yesterday, Friday we signed up 35 cases. My day was two. What happened? Literally the same exact conversation. But we didn’t call the marketing company to say, what’s the problem there? We found we did our own root cause analysis and our finding out that I.

I would venture a guess. The way the phones were answered on Friday and the way they were answered on Monday was very different.

Bingo.

And the hardest thing to look at and look, we fucked up at the agency.

Everybody does.

But I tell my staff, make a decision.  If it’s the wrong decision, we can fix it. No law firm is going to go out of business. Nobody’s going to die over the wrong commercial or the wrong spot placement. But my point my goal is not the negative that can happen, but to empower them to learn. Because we if you have children, I do. How old are your kids?

Three and a half. Almost two. And one’s cooking.

All right. Mazel tov.

Thank you brother. The.

The lessons that we impart on our children are very similar to the lessons we try to impart on our employees.

Yeah. You’re right.

How many case managers do you have in your firm that were never a case manager before?

and the best case managers are the ones who were never a case manager before.

You know why that growth mindset?

Open mind and willing to learn.

You trained them the way you wanted. Yeah. Your kids, your two plus, they learn from you and your wife. Probably a different place than normal to do this. Two rules that could not be broken. Never get in a car with anybody who’s had a drink or a drunk. Don’t have unprotected sex. Everything else mom and I could fix.

That’s smart actually.

So here’s another great one for you, because you’re going to need
this one more than anything. What are your kids names?

David and Jolie.

David Jolie, I just want you to remember this. As you get older, mom and I will become smarter because you have no idea how dumb you are. And if you think about it, reverse it for your parents. Your parents gave you lots of advice that we all don’t listen to. What the hell do they know? They’re old people. They grew up in the olden days and never changes.

It doesn’t. It’s that same cycle over and over again.

But today, when you look back at all the mistakes that you did make, that your parents had given you advice on, and you still took the chance. Fortunately, they were small mistakes.

They were. I am thankful for that every day. Love.

Here’s. Here’s the best one. I was getting married the first time. I’ve been married and divorced twice. But we’re in the car and my father, my father says to me. For some strange fucking reason, this woman wants to marry you. But you have no idea what love is. You don’t understand. Mom and I. And you really shouldn’t. But the moment Pam gives birth to your first child, everything will make sense in a moment. Now, you don’t love David and Jolie. Different. You treat them different, but you don’t love them different. But you. I didn’t know what that was until Sidney was born 32 years ago. But it changed my life like that. By the way, how a law firm deals with their clientele, with care and compassion can change the perception of lawyers every single day. Because there’s no other profession other than car sales. And guess what? Both are put at the bottom of the fucking barrel. But people don’t realize what a difference  you really make in this world, and that’s what you should be proud of.

I love that it resonates. So much within me because

and just to tie it back again to trying cases with juries,

every time I pick the jury, everybody, there’s nobody wants to be there. Why am I here? Waste of time. I have work, I have this, and every time we’re done with a jury trial, all the jurors come. They talk to us, they say, wow, what an incredible process. I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to be involved in it, to be able to make a difference in somebody’s life. And every time I do that,
it gives me goosebumps. And I had goose bumps right now.

Have you ever been defense?

Absolutely.

Did you have the jury come up to you and tell you the same thing?

Sort of, but in different ways.

But isn’t it interesting that the process, whether you win or lose and you can’t win them all, the process is still the same. Your arguments, your opening, your closing. They The words are different, but the process is still the same. How do you get great at processes? And again, you may or may not know who
I’m going to bring up. You should from being from California
and in LA. The name John would

not immediately ring a bell.

He was a legendary coach of the UCLA Bruins basketball team.

This makes sense. I have zero sports knowledge, so this makes sense. And I have heard the name

okay, but John Wooden would take his team every year. Everybody had to take their shoes off, and then everybody had to put them on. And tie them. Because we all do it the same. We all walk. See then his saying was perfect. Practice makes perfect. So I get you’re not a huge sports guy, but you know that there’s five
basketball players on the court.

Yes, five on five.

John Wooden in practice took his starting five players and they practiced against ten. You know why?

That’s pretty cool.

It would slow the game down. So when it was five on five, they were lightning fast. Tactics matter in law, no different than they do in sports. If you don’t practice and get prepared for that trial, you can tell everybody on your team we’re going to lose. Because guess what? I didn’t prepare for this. Now, just because you’re prepared doesn’t mean you’re going to win. But you cannot win. If you did not prepare, of course you don’t even have a chance. Well, guess what? Have you ever gone up against a defense attorney who was unprepared?

Yes.

Have you ever watch somebody on the plaintiff’s side that went in unprepared?

Yes. It’s not a pretty scene.

but is it? So again, if that perception is understood by the public. You told your story. I met you 57 minutes ago, and I know more about you and how you do work than you think I do. Because guess what I did? I ask you questions just like you asked me.

And I know.

people want to tell you their story.

Gary is an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Thanks for dropping all of those golden nuggets for us. Tell our viewers where they can find you.

I can be reached on Instagram. Gary Saunders or ROI 360 plus. My cell phone is (954) 560-6371. How are you to write that down? But you could listen to it.

I got the, I got the transcript

I’m not in the job. I’m not in the business of just selling. I’m here to help people. And whether somebody could hire us or not. It doesn’t matter. If you have a question about marketing. I’ll be more than happy to spend a half hour with anybody.

You’re the man, Gary. Thank you for that.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks for joining us today on Harry Handles It. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and found some valuable takeaways. If you’re facing challenges in your own life or business, remember that you’re not alone. Together, we can handle anything that comes our way. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if you liked what you heard. Until next time, keep pushing forward but holding life with confidence.