IAM1806 – CEO Provides Marketing Specialised for Law Firms

Why it was selected for “CBNation Architects”:

In this episode, Gresham Harkless Jr. interviews Stacey Burke, a 20-year attorney who provides consulting services to law firms. Stacey discusses her journey in entrepreneurship, including how she transitioned from practicing law to consulting for law firms in marketing and business development.

She also shares her expertise in the legal industry and how it has helped her provide specialized marketing services to law firms, such as website design and development, content writing and marketing, advertising campaigns, and search engine optimization (SEO).

Additionally, Stacey shares her CEO hacks, including making your own company a client of your business, and her CEO nugget, which emphasizes the importance of being conscious and active in decision-making when engaging external vendors for marketing or any other service.

Overall, the episode provides valuable insights and inspiration for entrepreneurs looking to provide specialized marketing services to law firms or other industries.

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Transcription:

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Stacey Burke Teaser 00:00

Making your own company a client of your business is not detrimental, right? It is positive. You have to prioritize working on your own business as well as working for your clients to be successful, in my opinion.

Intro 00:14

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:40

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit over 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, the business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, and what I like to call a CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month we are focused on the visibility game, a.k.a. Marketing, Advertising, PR, and Sales. I would just say the name of the game is being found and these tools will help you to do that. We have heard the philosophical question, if the tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? If there's a really, really great product or service and no one knows about it, how great is it really? What impact does it ultimately make? This is where we will go into this month looking at visibility, branding, marketing, public relations, sales being the life of businesses, building meeting companies, and so much more.

This is probably one of the most exciting and probably the most excruciating topics, but we hope this month to demystify, or maybe even vanquish the fear and help and arm you with the tools to be able to increase your visibility. So buckle up and sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Stacey Burke of Stacey E. Burke PC. Stacey, it's great to have you on the show.

Stacey Burke 02:14

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to join you today.

Gresham Harkless 02:17

Yes. I'm super excited to have you on as well. You're doing so many phenomenal things. So super excited to dive in a little bit more and hear a little bit more about that. But before we do that, of course, I wanted to read a little bit more about Stacey so you can hear about some of those awesome things.

Stacey is a 20-year attorney who provides consulting services to law firms. She has worked with over 300 law firms in a wide range of practice areas across the United States. She litigated in the field of consumer advocacy before transitioning to a consulting career over eight years ago. She has won legal industry accolades including the president's award from the Houston Bar Association and has been selected as a Texas super lawyers rising star. Her work has been published in the Texas Bar Journal, Trial magazine, Forbes, and legal business world.

Her consultant company has won the American marketing associations, crystal awards for online marketing and Google Analytics, and for print collateral or direct marketing company or organizational brochure. She lives in Houston, Texas with her husband, two teenage daughters, and two French bulldogs and eats a lot of popcorn.

And who doesn't love to do that? But I love everything you're doing Stacy. Super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Stacey Burke 03:26

Absolutely.

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Gresham Harkless 03:27

Yes, absolutely. I love that. So, of course, to kick everything off, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about that popcorn. No, I'm joking.

I wanted to hear a little bit more about like how you got to all the accomplishments that you've been able to achieve. Could you take us through what I like to call your CEO story?

Stacey Burke 03:40

Sure. Yeah, thank you for that lovely introduction. So I started off my career before I even went to law school working as a law clerk who filed papers in what we call Redwells, the folders where we used to keep papers before things were paperless. Then ended up going to law school, worked as an associate, then a senior associate, and was hired away to a very lucrative law firm partnership. I ended up leaving that partnership for a variety of reasons in 2013. And upon my exit, I just figured I would take a pause, spend some time with my family, and eventually go back and work at another firm. That's why I went to law school, to practice law and work in a law firm.

However, a lot of my former competitors from the firm where I was a partner and my prior firm asked me for consulting help as soon as I left, and thus, my business was born out of a need in the industry. My company does consulting primarily focused on legal marketing and business development. I did start off doing some business operations consulting as well, and I still can, but I've grown to love and understand that the marketing side is a little bit more profitable. So it's a little bit more marketing and business development heavy these days.

Gresham Harkless 04:58

Nice. I absolutely love that especially seeing that I always say success leaves clues. And that's the saying, so it almost feels like once you were able to reach all the accolades and experience and accomplishments that you had, people were trying to get some of those clues in that experience from you.

Stacey Burke 05:13

Yes, absolutely and it was very flattering. I started out where the firm that I was a partner, when I decided to make my exit, they were actually lovely. They said we'll be your 1st and best client. They could have just said, get out. Thanks for nothing. And they handled it and they were my first client.

So I just had very few clients in the beginning. But now as a business owner, I understand the value in that and preserving relationships regardless of the employee's status with you. I have an employee that left like my only one that's ever quit and we're still friends and I still think she's wonderful.

So I just think it's good to preserve relationships and not burn bridges because you never know what can bring value in the future.

Gresham Harkless 06:00

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that as we go through the journey of life, sometimes we don't realize where people will end up, how a lot of times our journeys overlap over people's journey. So that's why it's so important to practice and preach and execute on that golden rule and make sure that you are ultimately building those relationships in business and even outside of business as well.

Stacey Burke 06:19

A hundred percent. Very well said.

Gresham Harkless 06:20

Awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know we touched a little bit upon how you work with clients, and how that process goes, could you take us through a little bit more on what that looks like and how you serve the clients you work with?

Stacey Burke 06:30

Sure. So we do both project-based work where we design and develop websites, or we design and help print and fulfill, print pieces from full-scale brochures to postcards. So we do a lot of project-based work, but our most common ongoing monthly work is content writing and marketing, social media marketing, website work, and paid advertising campaigns.

I would say probably 60 to 70% of my revenue comes from the content, social and SEO components of the services that we provide to law firms.

Gresham Harkless 07:08

Awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more and ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself individually, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Stacey Burke 07:19

Such a good question. It's funny. I always ask my law firms what are your points of differentiation. They're all like, we're trial lawyers and we've had great results and we care about our clients. I'm like, tell me something that everyone else hasn't already said. Then I also say my elevator pitches are too long. I think what makes me unique in the marketing space is that, as you said before, I'm a 20-year lawyer, so I'm licensed to practice in all Texas state courts. I'm admitted to two federal district courts in Texas and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

So I actually practiced law in a variety of settings. So I understand both the legal market as well as how law firms operate, how they run their businesses in a way that a marketing agency never would and really aren't interested in knowing. One other thing I guess I would say is that being a lawyer and being involved in professional associations and speaking a lot, I understand the advertising rules that govern our industry in a way that generalist marketers don't.

Lawyers like doctors and accountants, professional services providers are governed by very specific and very lengthy rules as far as what we can say, how we can say it, where we can say it, and so on. So I work to ensure that every piece of content that's put out by my business complies with the state bar advertising regulations of the state where the attorney is advertising. And a lot of my clients are in Texas because I'm in Texas and I'm the most familiar with the Texas rules. But there are also American Bar Association model rules. And so I have a pretty good understanding of all states.

That's something that your general marketer won't even know exists and won't know how to do. So every piece of content, every social caption, I read it before it goes live. I like to keep my business out of size where I can do that because I believe that's part of what I'm selling.

Gresham Harkless 09:15

Yes, absolutely. I love that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Stacey Burke 09:28

It's a good question. So I read a lot of good books. I'm not a huge app or podcast person, maybe because I'm a little older. Although I love my CRM for my business and I think having processes and procedures that are streamlined through software that everyone you work with uses are very important. I would say probably my most valuable hack, if it's a hack is that I was advised to do this very early on and I have made my own business a client of my business. So every day there are tasks that are to be accomplished. List for Stacey Burke PC by the employees of Stacey Burke PC.

So, when my team does, we do a monthly file review, which is really law firm jargon where you go through your files, but I've kept it. I've been in the business over 20 years, so I've kept it. We review Stacey Burke PC as a client. And everyone who works for me has duties that are assigned to them that benefit the business. So it's both good because you need to work on your own business, but also helps, I think my employees, team members feel more invested a part of the business.

I think it serves like a doubly awesome function in that way. Plus they add so much value, right? Like my person who's amazing at making social graphics, I want them making social graphics, not me. I'm not amazing at that. I know what I like and don't like once they make them. And so short, making your own company a client of your business is not detrimental, right? It is positive. You have to prioritize working on your own business as well as working for your clients to be successful, in my opinion.

Gresham Harkless 11:09

Absolutely appreciate that. So you might've already touched on this, and this is what I like to call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Stacey Burke 11:23

It's a problem, I guess that I've seen with all of the lawyers that I've worked with. So I've worked with several, 100, but I had initial consultations with probably thousands now. And one commonality is that lawyers, for whatever reason, and it's probably across a variety of verticals do not pick the best vendors, they sometimes pick the cheapest and the closest, which should not be the criteria that they use. Then they don't check references, look at their previous work and they don't own and control their own digital assets or maintain necessary copies of their engagement agreement with these vendors.

Because I also do audits, sometimes I'll come in and audit everything that they're doing and say, keep doing this, don't do this, don't do that. And it's shocking to me every time that they don't have access. It takes us forever to get access to these accounts and that they don't know what services vendors are supposed to be providing to them, so they can't hold them accountable. So I would say to every business owner be very conscious in your decision-making. Be an active decision maker when it comes to engaging external vendors for marketing or any other service.

Check the references because you're gonna get locked into a contract with them, some of them for a very long time in the legal industry, minor months, a month. But a lot of people do, 24, 36, 48 month contracts. Before you sign on to that, you need to talk to someone else and make sure that they're happy and make sure that you understand the deliverables you're supposed to receive every month. Remember that you're the client, so that if you have questions, you're entitled to ask for more reporting, for more calls, for all of those things. You are the one in the driver's seat.

And if you don't understand, lawyers have a hard time saying that sometimes say, I don't understand what this word means. I don't use key performance indicators every day in my legal career. What does that mean? And why do impressions matter? Why does reach matter? Ask the questions. So I guess that's my advice. My nugget.

Gresham Harkless 13:28

Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on the show. So Stacey, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Stacey Burke 13:38

I like this question. I think it's very thought-provoking because I don't think about it all the time. I really don't think of myself as like a CEO, even though I am, because I consider everyone that I work with on my team. I don't believe in a hierarchical structure. I like to work all on the same level. I always say they work with me, not for me. I think that language is really important.

However, being a CEO, I do feel a responsibility to me. It means responsibility. I'm responsible for both the professional happiness and success as well as the financial livelihood of not just myself, but everyone on my team, as well as my clients. And so that's pressure to deliver, but it's also motivational for me to continue to try to improve my systems and processes and add more good people to my team so that I can continue to do better and be both internally and externally.

That also means that the buck stops here. That my business is my name. So I'm Stacey Burke. It's Stacey E Burke PC. It is my name. So when something goes wrong or a client gets unhappy, some lawyers, Gil Ornery, I have instructed everyone that I work with that when that starts to happen, they immediately like stop the conversation and send it to me.

I do not let anyone that works for me have to deal with negativity or borderline abuse that's for me to handle. And so I handle it. My reputation matters. But I also think that regulating what I will and will not tolerate on behalf of myself and the wonderful people that I work with is a very important part of my job as a CEO.

Gresham Harkless 15:25

Truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more, Stacey. What I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get ahold of you, and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Stacey Burke 15:40

So the best way to find me is my website is staceyeburke.com. I'm also on Twitter and very active and it's StaceyEBurke is my handle on Twitter and on LinkedIn, you can find me Stacey E. Burke, P.C. in Houston, Texas. Those are the best ways to find me. And my website has my email address, as I said, I'm always happy to chat. I'm a good talker. So thank you. Thank you for having me. This has been a really enjoyable experience to chat with you.

Gresham Harkless 16:11

Yes, absolutely. I truly appreciate you. And of course, we will have the links and information on the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Stacey Burke 16:19

Thank you so much. You too.

Outro 16:21

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at ceohacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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