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BluShark  0:00  

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s spotlight shines on the rising stars of the legal world, where young firms, bold ideas, and smarter systems take center stage, standing tall at the intersection of law and leadership. He’s the digital strategist, the legal growth architect, the man with the mic, making some noise for your host. This is legal currents with Will McCreight.

 

Will  0:29  

All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Legal Currents podcast. Legal currents podcast, a modern legal podcast designed for forward-thinking attorneys who are looking to build smarter, leaner, more tech-savvy firms. Today’s guest, we have David Vicknair. He might look familiar to some of the AVID listeners of the podcast. The founding partner of Scott Vicknair, Injury Lawyers, host of one of his podcasts as well, which we’ll talk about, the overruled podcast. And I think I mentioned this last time, but my favorite, maybe the most famous pizza reviewer on the internet. I might go as far to say, Dave, welcome back.

 

David Vicknair  1:05  

Will thank you for having me back. You know, I will talk business with you anytime, meeting you across different conferences. We just have always just kind of hit it off as buds, and so I love talking about this stuff, and I’m just thankful to be back to chat with you for a second time. So I’m ready to get into it. Thanks for having thanks

 

Will  1:23  

Yeah, we met way back out and, gosh, it must have been New Orleans maybe a couple years ago. Absolutely hit it off, right off. 

 

David Vicknair  1:31  

I think it was three. I think it was maybe four, but I don’t know if it was that long. It was definitely at least three.

 

Will  1:37  

Although I am still waiting on my appearance on one of the pizza reviews, so we’ll have to make sure we get that scheduled. 

 

David Vicknair  1:44  

Now you have to own a small business, because we’ve pivoted out of pizza reviews. We reviewed about 53 different pizza shops and ran out of pizza places in Louisiana, and I was sick of eating marinara sauce and pepperoni. And we’ve gone into a new segment called Small Biz Big Wins, where we’re highlighting small businesses in the low community, but I’ll always still do a pizza review for you, if we ever

 

Will  2:07  

Or a small business in the New Orleans area, whoever comes first. So for anybody who doesn’t know, you know Dave, right, you are absolutely somebody that is on the circuit, right, like you are always attending different conferences, different legal events. Also, just one of the friendliest people that you’ll ever meet out there, and somebody who has really done a lot to grow and scale, you know, your firm. I guess, to start things off, for anybody who doesn’t know, tell the listeners a little bit about your journey specifically.

 

David Vicknair 2:40  

Sure, so I’ve had my own practice for 10 years, but really six of it was a mixed practice of business and construction litigation, with like some word of mouth injury claims mixed in. and probably about a mix of a few things to shorten the story. Back in 2021 testing out some internet marketing, reading the book Fireproof written by which I would have never known back in 2021 my friends Mike Morris and John Nachazel who are now close friends of mine, and going to the Great Legal Marketing summit with my law partner, Brad Scott. Now I’ve become close friends to Ben and Brian, who I’ve always admired and look up to very much. That kind of set off this journey of us really focusing my practice on injury work and marketing and growing the firm.

 

Will  3:28  

Yeah, awesome. And we’ll talk a little bit more about some, because both of those groups that you mentioned are fantastic groups. And you know, one thing I wanted to start with as it relates to that kind of growth. I saw a post that you put out on LinkedIn a couple days ago. Maybe it was, you know, within the past week or two, about the ability to kind of be able to step away, take a couple days off with the firm. And I was curious to pick your brain on that a little bit more, and maybe how that’s evolved for you. But you know, really, how you’ve been able to get to that point right where you felt like you’ve been able to take a couple of days away and know that the firm is going to operate, you know, smoothly without you there.

 

David Vicknair 4:13  

So it’s a great question. It’s a long emotional journey and attention to focusing on your mindset. So what I first learned from listening to Ben Glass in 2021 is something that’s a very bitter pill to swallow for a trial lawyer and a litigator like me. Which is generally speaking, there are many lawyers who are just as effective at what we do as a lawyer on the file, and you’re not as integral to the result of the case as you might otherwise believe you are. And I’m sure there’s lawyers listening to this thinking that I’m full of crap and all that stuff, and that they alone are the greatest trial lawyer ever created. You know, all these things are not true. 95% of the cases in your firm don’t need you. And growing your firm and hiring people to manage cases and clients in the right and effective manner does not mean that you have to cede your role and your existence as a trial lawyer. What it means is that you need to rethink your role and refocus your role and only being involved in the cases that necessitate your involvement and warrant your involvement, because time is your most valuable resource. and it really becomes for me now, the way I think about things which I never thought about four years ago, maybe not even a year ago, is who, not how. I used to always have this mindset of, how do I do this? How do I fix this? Most situations in our professional lives and personal lives, for that matter, are solved by thinking of who can help you solve that problem. Who can help you implement that system, implement this thing, rather than, how do you have to refigure it out or reconfigure it on your own. And so for me, it started there with Ben convincing me over his podcast, not even knowing that I was listening, that I was not the most critical person to manage my files. And then you have to go find really good lawyers who you trust and you can build a good professional relationship with and I’m not talking about somebody straight out of law school. I’m talking about a good litigator with experience. You either train them up in your firm, or you go bring them in and you have them take over your cases, and you get out of your cases to the extent that maybe you’re not managing 80 cases. Maybe you can keep a little docket of five or 10 cases, but like, I’m still practicing law. I’m still involved in cases, but I’m involved in pieces of cases, and in the manner in which I think are the best use of my time and are the best for the client and the firm. And that’s the difference.

 

Will  6:51  

And I can only imagine how challenging it is to get to that point, but

 

David Vicknair  6:55  

Very.

 

Will  6:57  

something you said was super interesting, and you know, I’m curious to pick your brain on this a little bit more, because I think a lot of firms look at growth and they have a timeline in which they want to achieve said growth, and it almost sounds to me like really, you have found it to be more beneficial to find the right people. And I’d imagine the right people don’t always come across at the perfect time. What has that experience been like for you?

 

David Vicknair  7:25  

A very hard one. I mean, I am a very nice person, so I struggle with having to make decisions on terminating people. But we’ve had to terminate a lot of people over the last four years, and sometimes you have to terminate or let somebody leave on their own. You know, sometimes you get lucky and they just know the culture then, like, say, the culture spits them out. But like the culture and the order, they just know sometimes. They leave on their own. But you have to go through the process of figuring out. Once you get in the habit and the rhythm of, let’s say you have one position and yet, you have to terminate two people to finally get to the right fit at number three. But when you have number three, you’re like, Okay, now I get all the mistakes I made with one and two and all the things I did wrong and identify one and two. and you never get perfect at it, and it’s always one of the more complicated things about running an organization is identifying talent and the interview process and selecting somebody that’s going to be the right fit and is going to be a good team member. But that’s just a part of the pain that comes with growing and understanding how to run a good organization, is having that muscle memory of all the mistakes that you made on the path to get there. Another piece is just building the culture of the organization so that it is a place that people find meaningful and want to stay. And so we’ve put a lot of work in on that front in the last two to three years, and we really don’t have to fire people that often now. We’re better at being slower and more deliberate in the hiring process and identifying talent and potential culture fits for the organization, and that, along with building out the culture of the organization, has really allowed us to to get to a point where we can have more team members who are here for the long haul, who are here for longer periods of time. And we’re not in this state which we were at one point, to be honest, like you felt like you’re always cycling through people, right? And a part of that was probably like, we had probably had deficient people, if I’m going to be honest, in our administrative teams who were not any good at identifying talent and hiring people. And you know, there’s only so much of the owner you can’t, like, clone yourself and have octopus arms all over the frickin place. So it’s like, you go through those things and you go through those stages. But what it boils down to is, if you make, if you make the best decisions possible from a place of love, not fear, over time, consistently, you will go through those stages. And finally, I believe, get to a point with a lot of good decision making from a good place where you find the right team members who help you build the right.

 

Will  10:01  

Team, yeah, are there any defining characteristics that you found to be shared amongst the right people for you?

 

David Vicknair  10:10  

Hmm, that’s a really good question. Attention to detail, organization and being professional. this is the hardest one, I think having professional pride in their work. So Jeff Bezos with Amazon, talks a lot about this, having pride in the work that nobody else will see, right? So if you’re a lawyer, that means that appellate brief that you spent 30 hours on is going to be very important to that client and to the legal team who worked on that case. But pretty much nobody else is really going to read it, besides maybe, like some judges, law clerks and some judges like. Nobody’s on you’re not home on Saturday night, being like, Man, I can’t wait to see what Reese, with David’s firm down at Scott Vicknair, did in that fifth circuit brief. I got to go read that. Like nobody, right? Like so and for the case managers, like we talked about this, for the case managers, that means how detailed notes are they putting on the file for the clients file in the case management system, or they calling the clients in our outbound call program. We want every client to have an outbound touch point every single month. Are they hitting that every month at 100% for their clients, and we measure that now. And so those types of small things are like having professional pride in the work, and so finding people who have attention to detail and are organized and care will typically result in somebody who is open to training, open to accountability and open to growing with the firm to a point where they do kind of have that professional pride in the work, not maybe at 100% like you would as the owner, but at 80% at 85 or 90% and those are going to be high performing, quote, unquote, a players, in my opinion.

 

Will  11:51  

And I think Jeff Bezos talks a lot about that, and some of his like letters to shareholders as well, right where he defines the A players is essentially having that buy in, right? As if they are, like, I think he calls them day one players, right? So, like, along the lines of how you described it, how do you view, you know, different vendors is a part of that buy in as well, right? I know a lot of the people listening to this, right? Either they work with vendors, agencies, one way, shape or form, whether it be their CRM, you know, whether it be, you know, digital, right? How do you view an agency fitting into the mold there, and do you look for the same characteristics out of them that you would for your team internally?

 

David Vicknair  12:37  

100% it’s a great question, and I unqualified, unqualifiedly, would say, yes, I think for a vendor who we see is just a third party who’s a part of our team, you know, you work with a vendor, and a good one is going to take responsibility. When they drop the ball, they’re going to be accountable. They’re going to want to correct it, and they’re going to want to succeed for you, even though you don’t see a lot of the things behind the scenes that they’re doing to succeed for you. Right? I’ll add another good one. A good vendor will also be the type of vendor if you decide to move on from them and go to another vendor, will continue to have a relationship with you, will continue to root for your team and will always just professionally support you, because what makes them a good vendor when they do that is they’re not stupid, like they want to learn from you. They want to learn from that experience. Maybe there’s not necessarily anybody who’s right or wrong, right, like, it’s no different than having an individual team member in your firm or in your organization. That doesn’t work. Nobody necessarily needs to be right. Nobody needs to be right. Nobody needs to be wrong. Sometimes it’s just not the right fit. And so it comes the same thing with vendors, right? And so I think we really do this in the same way as as a lawyer, as a litigator, like working on your mindset and how to see yourself in a role other than being the only person who could get that $5 million trial verdict or settlement for your client. Same shift here to team members and vendor relationships. Okay, the team members aren’t always wrong or or right, and you’re not always wrong or right, like sometimes it’s just not the right fit with a vendor or a team member, and so a vendor who leaves working with you but still develops that relationship with you, is still supporting you. Like, that’s a good company, because they want to learn from the experience, and they probably acknowledge that, like, hey, this didn’t work out with us, but we learned along the way, while you learned, we got something from this relationship, not just in you paying us, but we learned. We made some mistakes, we grew, and then we can self assess, like, why didn’t we get to keep you as a client? How does that make us better as a company for the next client? And so that type of vendor is a good vendor, because for me, like, right, we’re not going to be perfect with all our clients, even though I think we are. We’re not, like, we fail. I had a meeting with an attorney this morning on something that popped up over the week. And I just know, like, it wasn’t, like, a huge mistake, but there’s something we kind of dropped the ball in a particular file for a client that sent us a message. And I was like, we need to own it. We kind of dropped the ball here and here. Let’s get on it and fix it and make it right now. And so, like, we’re all humans. We all drop the ball. We all aren’t perfect. And so good vendors, good team members, want to be accountable and want to learn. I think it’s that simple.

 

Will  15:20  

Yeah, you know what? That reminds me of. Something else I saw you talk about recently, and I believe this was you that mentioned a review that popped up on your Google business profile where you reached out. Would you mind sharing that story?

 

David Vicknair  15:35  

Yeah, that’s a good one too. Like, all this shit is hard to will, right? This is easy, like, it’s easy to talk about, but in the moments, consistently, day to day, they’re not. This shit isn’t as easy as, like, just, you know, exposition about it. And so like that, that article was about, like, you know, when we get a store for you, I think we are very proud. We have something like 2600 reviews now between our now six or seven Gbps Google business pages. We just put two new ones online last week. As you know, I’m very proud of all of our reviews. When we get a one review from a one story view, it’s frickin like somebody took a dagger and just shoved it in my heart, right? That’s literally how it still feels to me to this day. But, you know, I would say my mindset three years ago would jump to attacking and deflecting and immediately becoming suspicious of the reviewer, whereas now I’m immediately trying to figure out who it is. If it’s a client, sometimes it’s not like the last one we got. We can’t even identify who it is. It’s anonymous. Apparently, it has a new Google program. Thanks a lot Google. It’s anonymous. We can’t even source the client. But in our profession, right, as a lawyer, we can’t even, let’s say I identified who the client is. We can’t even go into it, because a lot of it’s protected by attorney client privilege. In any event, that one star review is very likely an opportunity for you to have a learning lesson with your team and improve and get better and potentially rescue the relationship. One of the most important things, besides taking it as a lesson, is using it like I like to say now, like, if we mess up, if we screw up, it’s too expensive to waste the chance to learn from it. So let’s learn from it. Let’s figure out and discuss with that team who worked on that particular thing, how could we improve from it and get better next time? But then, like, we still have the opportunity to win that client back. Like, if we own it with that client and we do better, we may turn, not only just turn the review to a five star review, but more importantly, long term, we turn them around as a fan of the organization, and get positive word of mouth referrals moving forward, or maybe just at the least, make them not say bad things about us as an organization, at least mutually respect that we owned it and tried to make it right. And so to me, that’s the mindset as leaders of law firms that we need to shift into if you want to be a successful and good organization, and, you know, get enough reviews to where you cover it up for the most part. But like, that’s a piece of it as well. But like, you know, when you get them a lot of times, we’ve kind of a lot of them have not been fully justifiable, right? But like, one of them was connected to our Uber campaign. Like, we probably could have been more thorough in our text messaging the people to let them know please check your spam messaging, because that Uber credit went to on New Year’s Eve went to their spam email. So guess what next New Year’s Eve, this past one, we sent out messages warning people to check your spam, like if you don’t see in your email, it’s probably in your spam folder. And then we were sending more messages ahead of time, and so we had less people who had issues getting their Uber credit this time. Still had some small ones, but not many. And so we improved from it. And so that’s kind of the lessons I’ve learned from from the and what I was writing about in that one store review post,

 

Will  18:54  

and did I remember correctly that you were able to get that changed in this

 

David Vicknair  18:58  

and we’ve had, probably, now, in the last two years, I would say, three or four one star reviews that the reviewer some in our giveaway programs, like I mentioned the Uber campaign, that there was a glitch and glitches there that we turned them around into a five star reviewer. A client, one client, who we probably dropped the ball on, did some of the communication around settlement after the case settled, and we’re the disbursement process was taking a little bit longer. It really was a communication issue, which 95% of things are, by the way, and we were able to have her turn it around to five stars. So you know, and that when I got involved, even though it was a pre litigation file, because I take it really seriously, and I want the client to know I take it really seriously. And so I called her myself. I talked to her for 30 minutes. I got together with the pre litigation pod, who was working on that file. We set out a plan to correct it. We talked about some things that they each were like, you know, I really think I could have done this better. And one of the case managers that was a lawyer, one of the case managers, I think I could have done this better. Like, okay, let’s learn from it. Now, let’s go execute it and win her back. And they did. And so.

 

Will  20:02  

Yeah, I think that’s so wise, especially as somebody like yourself. You mentioned that you guys have such a high, you know, quantity of reviews. You have a great process in place for getting reviews. I feel a lot of firms may be scared of establishing that some of these processes are really going after reviews, because, you know, the more you ask for reviews, right, you increase the chance that stuff like that may come through. But it sounds like you’ve built a really strong culture around listening to those reviews and knowing that they’re coming from somewhere, whether it be, you know, an extreme example, or something like a message going to spam, right, which you really can’t control that much at the end of the day. I think that’s, I think that’s incredible.

 

David Vicknair 20:50  

Yeah, I mean, some of it you can’t always control, but some of you just don’t foresee, right? Like, you don’t think you’re gonna get issues. Like, so that was, like, the first year, we rolled out our Uber campaign. We gave free Ubers around New Year’s food to prevent drinking and driving in the community. And so you don’t just, you don’t foresee with some of this stuff, like, I need to warn people proactively this would go to spam and be really alerted that they’re you’re trying to get ahead of the issues that may transpire. It’s like the quote from a Mice and Men, the best laid plans of men off mice and men often go awry. So we have all these ideas and these things we want to do in our firms, and sometimes they’re just unintended consequences. That’s a great example of like, an unintended consequence from us doing a good community initiative so we get a bad review. But like, we just put processes in place to make it less likely that that unintended consequence will happen the following year. And so what has happened on a micro level, but of that particular program in the marketing department of the firm, is we’ve learned a lesson. We’ve grown from it, and then we get better. And when you do that over and over again in different pieces of your firm and in your organization at a macro level, you foster and encourage a culture that is a safe environment, something that’s talked a lot about in leaders eat last creating a safe environment for your team to be their most creative selves so that they can be creative and not fearful of mistakes. They know the culture is not a culture that’s going to come down on them for making mistakes, but a culture that’s going to make the mistake is an opportunity for everybody to learn and get better. And so that’s what you’ve done at a macro level, when you start doing those things at a much more micro surface, on the ground level, as you begin to build that culture for your team.

 

Will  22:31  

Yeah, you know that’s when we could talk about the importance of reviews and everything there for hours, because I think you guys do such a great job with maximizing the opportunity there. And, you know, I actually want to go back to something where we talked about, kind of the vendors, the outside investments, right? I think that the current landscape, there are a lot of things happening in a lot of places, you know, whether it be like new shiny objects, whether it be AI, whether it be things that are tried and true or maybe more traditional, is the right way to approach it. It’s something you mentioned the last time we spoke was almost in line with the cost of inaction, right, and how you really look to make a decision, right? Because the worst, I think, you mentioned something along the lines of the worst decision is no decision or being slow, right? Make a decision. How do you evaluate all of the different opportunities for investment within the firm, whether it be marketing infrastructure, right, like processes to decide what is worth putting resources into, as well as things that are worth trying but maybe are nothing more than trying them out off the jump, I guess. How do you assess all the different opportunities and things that are out there?

 

David Vicknair  23:47  

That’s a great question and a hard one to answer, because it’s complicated. What would a lawyer answer? I think the first step is to get a budget. We know for your law firm to not be in a cash flow crisis. You need to have your labor costs controlled and your marketing costs controlled. And by controlled, I mean at a manageable percentage of your revenue. So your labor costs should, and these are just general terms, are different for everybody, right, at different sizes, at different stages. Generally speaking, your marketing should be 20% of your revenue and your labor costs, total labor costs between both attorneys and non attorney team members should be 40% or less. And so that is a general commitment of 60% 60 cents on every dollar that comes into marketing and labor. Now not everybody on this list is spending that and not everybody believes they should spend that much or spend that little. Some people are spending more in the same vein. You know, you could be $100 million in a revenue law firm, a massive plaintiff firm, and you’re spending 13% of revenue and marketing, but you’re spending $13 million on marketing. So it’s all relative, but generally speaking, those are some guideposts. So you have to make a budget first, and. The budget has to be mapped out and intentional for what you can allocate to do certain things, and then you make strategic decisions on what you can and can’t do. So the simplest example that I could give on that is, let’s talk brand for a second, not digital. There are three general brand buckets that I think of: broadcast, billboards and radio, right? And there’s some other things you could probably say as a brand but to me and my marketing brain, those are the three biggest buckets. And every market is different. But in New Orleans, for example, I know strategically that I don’t. I’m not spending a lot of money on marketing. Like some people would be shocked at how much money I’m spending on marketing, but in many ways, what I’m spending on marketing is nothing in this market. It doesn’t, in my mind, strategically allow me to put money into more than one brand channel, because I think to maximize penetration of my brand message in the market, I have to use the money that I have available to do brand marketing in one bucket. And that’s why we’re only on TV and not on Billboard or radio yet, and that will change as we’re able to spend more money and allocate as our firm grows, that I can go into a different channel. But that is a strategic decision that I’ve just made, right, wrong or indifferent. That is a decision I thought of have intentionally reviewed, have pinged other people’s perspectives on over the two and a half years now, or two years and two months we’ve been on TV, and I strongly believe in that theory of mine, and I’m going to stick to it, because I think it’s been tested and true and worked for us. But that takes into account that, like, I’ve got to allocate a certain amount of money that marketing spends to search engine optimization. That takes into account that I’ve got to allocate a certain percentage of that to PPC ads. That takes into account that I’ve got to allocate a certain percentage to LSA ads. So I think, generally speaking, that that is the way to do it if you have to think in terms of funnels and channels that you would like to be in, and where you can be in and when you’re just starting out you can’t afford a brand. That’s just my two cents. I think if you go brand first, it’s a mistake that the stronger way to enter into a market as an organization is to do some of the things that Ben and Brian teach when you’re starting out, is to focus on list building, on print, on direct targeting and digital, and once you have strengthened those foundations, you can decide whether you want to, you may not want to do brand marketing. Guess what? That’s okay. You can have a great law firm. There are a lot of really good law firms in Louisiana who do zero brand marketing on the plaintiff side, and who build very good law firms through list building and focus on referral based cases and digital. So that’s kind of the way I think about it.

 

Will  27:46  

How do you account for spending with where you’re at currently, revenue wise versus spending for where you want to be revenue wise.? Do you find those breakdowns right, like 20% of revenue? Does it change? Do we look at projected revenue? Do we look at, you know, where we want to be? How does that impact things if at all?

 

David Vicknair 28:06  

It’s a great question, too, and it does. I mean, like so last year, we spent 28% which is way too much, but it’s because our revenue didn’t hit our forecast last year. And so hopefully you have an owner who has financially sound and stowed away nuts in the tree for when winter comes. so that that you know, I don’t, I have made intentional decisions in my personal life financially, so that I didn’t ever overextend myself at the firm and be in a position where I had to take on a lot of debt, because it’s just not something that I’m interested in doing. And so it does. But you know, the larger if you grow, the more, the better team members that you get on, or the longer you do it. You don’t necessarily just have to get more people to get good at this. You get better at budgeting. And what we’re doing now, for example, active cash flow management, active budgeting. So like looking at now this year, for the first time, we are looking at financial trends from the last three years. What are the months like we have this percentage of revenue? Where are we in that month year over year? If we’re down this much, why is this just a one month thing? What does that mean for cash flow for the next three to four months? How do we address that? How do we watch it? So you got to have a budget. You have to monitor the budget at least monthly and compare it, compare what you projected to what’s happening, to be able to actively manage a large marketing speed and strategically ensure that you’re putting your marketing dollars in the right place.

 

Will  29:39  

Especially in a super competitive market, right, like the New Orleans areas, as you mentioned in personal injury, specifically going back to the grassroots piece, I’m surprised that you didn’t mention the overruled podcast is part of the broadcast metrics, right? But I’m curious to shift gears there a little bit.a lot of the firms and attorneys that I speak with ask about podcasts, right? And is this something that is helpful, you know, for anybody who has not listened to the overruled podcast, right? Great, great series, right? You guys talk about a lot. It ranges from things that are in the legal world to, you know, things like the saints, which we’ll talk about. But I want to hear a little bit from you about the effort that you’ve made there, because it has been a consistent and intentional one. You know, what have you found to come from that effort? Tangible or not tangible?

 

David Vicknair  30:33  

Great question. I’m a huge proponent of podcasts. It’s one of those things, just like TV, right, where or radio or billboards, or whatever it is, where people, I think can be intimidated out of it say, Well, everybody’s doing a pocket, not as many people as you think. And if you look at the statistics, most podcasts just shut down, like 30 or 40 episodes in. I forgot, you know what really convinced me on the durability of it, and besides, this just was something me and Brad Scott were just having a good time doing. We still have fun doing it. Now it’s become really easy, but I want to, like, say, you know, we started in 23 I think at some point in 23 and so we’ve only been doing it for, like, we’ve been doing it for two or two and a half years. We’ve done 90 episodes and 91 episodes, which is great, but it’s not like we’re filming a podcast episode every other day. So like to do it well, you know, you can do two or three shows a month, or you could do one a month to start, just to get a rhythm going. I think the key is just getting a rhythm going and not quitting. Because there was Brad Scott, and he went to some presentation. I forgot what it was, and it was like, I think, I think I may be butchering the number will, but it was like the 47th episode. Like, if you take the podcast through that episode, it’s like, you look at Doom, like it just takes off like that, and followers and downloads and listeners, because most of them just stop. They don’t understand it. They don’t know that people are listening, and they stop. I was telling you some weeks I got like the report. I get an automatic report from the podcast program once a week. It’s like two weeks ago I had like nine downloads. I’m like, Well, that was a pretty bad week. This morning, I got in my email 111 last week, which is insane. And so some weeks, like, of the last month, there have been two weeks, or like, over 101 was 111 one was like 130 downloads in a week. And so you got to keep doing it, you got to keep putting good people on and you know, people will listen. People will for me, like people are here in the jingle. They’re getting to know me. And it’s not just about the downloads that I get from that report. I mean, when I go to our YouTube channel, there’s like 100 views of each episode, maybe 50, 60, 70. For clients who are thinking about hiring us, they can go in long form and watch me talking to people. They can get a sense of who I am, how I treat other people, my intelligence like my demeanor. You know, they get a sense of you. You know, it’s just not hiding yourself over 50 minutes of video and audio on a podcast episode. So, you know, I think it gives you good content. It gives you backlinks. The things that y’all care about, and I care about, they’re like little gold bricks I’m collecting as I go down, like the gold brick road, I’m like, backlink, backlink, backlink, collect them. That’s what you’re getting. And so I really, and lastly, I’m just gonna say you’re building relationships with all the guests that come on your show. And marketing and business are just relationships distilled at its simplest form. And so for me, I check every box. Let’s like, as lawyers, get away from this attribution disease. I call it. We suffer from attribution disease. But David, I can’t measure it. Who cares? Okay, you can’t measure a lot of the things that work from a brand awareness and relationship awareness, type of marketing effort and a podcast is one that I think analysis paralysis of lawyers, we all suffer from. It is the worst enemy. You just, just not to steal it from Nike, but just do it.

 

Will  33:57  

Yeah, yeah. Do you find that people? Because what I gather almost sounds like you and I agree with this. For what it’s worth, I feel like people overestimate what they can do in a short period of time, but maybe underestimate what can be done with consistency over a longer period of time.

 

David Vicknair 34:16  

Yeah, you know, I actually listened to a podcast this weekend, Chad Dudley, aka Dudley Debosier, who they are, a competitor of mine, technically a competitor of mine in New Orleans. I don’t really think I like to listen to people who I’m technically competing with, or see what they’re doing, and learn from it. I don’t have a view I have. I like to say I have customer obsession, not competitor obsession, but I am interested in people like him, because he’s just interesting. And he described when they started the firm back in ’08. Now there’s 150 employees, you know, and I, I couldn’t help but relate with the comments that he made, which is, like, there’s no silver bullet. There’s no like, secret thing, like. Everybody who’s selling you some secret solution to everything. all food and majiggy crap. Like at the end of the day, like the things that work and the things that are sustainable and meaningful and lasting, or the things that you commit to for a long period of time and do consistently over and over and over again, just like every other facet of our life, you’re a big runner. That’s how you become good at running. It’s the same with building a firm. You don’t just find silver bullets, and they don’t just happen in a year, but you’d be shocked at how much you can accomplish in five years, but you got to keep going. Most people just stop. They do, they just quit. And if you just stay in the game, and you keep going and you make constant improvements and get a little bit better each day, you’d be shocked at how much you can go in five years, but you can’t really do as much as you think you can do in one.

 

Will  35:54  

Yeah, yeah. I very much agree. You know, doesn’t matter how many times I bench press over the course of 24 hours, right? Like, you know, can only, can only do so much, but long periods of time can create those substantial outcomes. Is there anything that you feel like came from the podcast that was unexpected, right? Whether it be a connection that you had or, you know, potentially just some odd takeaway that you wouldn’t have guessed? 

 

David Vicknair  36:19  

Man, a lot. I never would have guessed that 6000 people on YouTube wanted to watch me and Brad talking about the prison breakout in New Orleans, but they did. I have learned so much from the podcast. I have learned about local organizations that I wasn’t familiar with, and got to learn about the amazing work that they’re doing to make relationships, connections with those people that have led in different directions. We’ve done it reverse, where we’ve gone to highlight and do collaborations with local companies, and then they come on the podcast after, and we get to know them a little bit better. Yeah, I’ve learned, met a lot of people. I have learned a lot, and to me, that’s a win. Yeah, I’m a constant. Wanting to learn, wanting to get more information, not just for the law firm, but, you know, learning about, for example, what son of a saint does in New Orleans and in the community as a mentoring organization that the guy who started that his story is amazing. Having all the local pet shelters here that we did a pet adoption event last fall, individually on the show and learning how those organizations run and what it takes to save those animals, care for those animals. Those are just two examples. But like, the examples are very lengthy, and honestly, it’s just been a lot of fun.

 

Will  37:37  

Yeah, yeah. And honestly, I think it’s a great way to create some impact, right? That is not just digitally beneficial, but also those grassroots you know, have those grassroots benefits, especially with large firms, right, stepping into every market and trying to compete. I think a lot of the things that you can do to protect yourself are create those grassroots relationships.

 

David Vicknair 38:00  

and you never know where that’s gonna go. Okay, so if we take it like from a micro level down to the firm, and this isn’t why you do it, but you just never know where it’s gonna go. So, like you and I had a relationship already, so you being on the podcast isn’t a great example, but let me use Guy, a competitor of y’alls attorneys. Gee is an example. So I had never really gotten a chance to talk to a guy. I really have heard great things about him, and he was on my show a couple weeks ago, and we just had a great discussion. I love talking to him. He shared it okay. Where is that gonna lead? I don’t know, like maybe somebody that in his network is gonna see it and need a lawyer in Louisiana one day and and wreck and use me as local counselor and refer the Kate the client to me to work with us, because they saw Guy was associated with me, or maybe guy will have a client who needs a lawyer in Louisiana one day, then say, Hey, I was on become friends with David Vicknair. He’s top notch, like he’s got a great team. I know you’ll be in good hands with him. So that’s where those relationships could lead. That’s not the reason to do it, but you just never know. And that’s why I say, like in business and marketing, everything’s about relationships,

 

Will  39:03  

yeah, and I think it’s a great shout out. I’ll shout out Guy as well. He’s somebody that absolutely approaches the digital front in the right way, right? And he’s a great person to connect with on social media who, you know, asks very thought provoking questions, looks at data like, you know, has the best interests of the firms that they work with in mind.

 

David Vicknair 39:23  

It’s the same mindset that y’all. You Nalini and Seth, that Jason, that Guy, that Conrad Sam, like all these that you know, Corey Vandenberg with Clicksee. I think of some of the leaders in the digital space that I have built relationships with like this. Enough work for all y’all, like, no different than in that. So I sometimes don’t understand the injury lawyer myopia. We’re like, oh, like, we’re comparing ourselves. Like, get stuck comparing ourselves to each other. We’re like, think some of them, not everybody, but some are, like, in this silo of their market. So it’s like, get over like, you’re like, there’s enough work for everyone. You really need to be more focused on building relationships with people you technically compete with, and figuring out how to learn from each other and get better for the customer.

 

Will  40:08  

Abundance mindset, right is spot on. Now I would be ashamed to let you go without talking some Saints here,

 

David Vicknair  40:21  

I just slapped my desk in anger.

 

Will  40:24  

Misspoke, because I was gonna ask you about Tyler Shuck.

 

David Vicknair  40:27  

 Yeah, 

 

Will  40:28  

You know, we spoke when we were last recording this jury was still very much out. He’s definitely shown some promise, and I need to hear a record prediction for this year, a highest or best possible outcome. And then what you think the floor is for the New Orleans Saints 2026.

 

David Vicknair  40:48  

Chuck and Wright, I am all in. I’ve seen enough, eight games. And you know, we started the season off with Spencer starting. And Spencer’s a great member of the Ross Spencer rattler has really come a long way. And he played pretty well. And I think shuck really elevated the play at that position when he came in the eight games that he started. And it was so elevated that people believe, people, being me, that McMillan from that, McMillan from the pants, winning the Rookie of the Year Award over him was a grave injustice. He should have been the Rookie of the Year. And in any event, I’m really high on Chuck. I think a lot of Saint Saints fans are really high on shuck. I think we saw a lot of good instinctual plays, like not holding the ball too long, making decisions, some dumb things. But overall, the performance of the eight games that he started, it’s tough to see that type of performance out of a rookie quarterback, and think some of that probably goes to the fact that he was in college for a lot longer. He’s 26 years old. He had a lot more playing time, a lot more maturity before he got to the league and was really excited about what we saw in the first eight games and hoping that he can stay healthy and really build on that next year. I believe we’re probably going to go. I think we’re going to win 11 games. We won seven this past season. A lot of people say we’re going to only win, I’m sorry, we won six. A lot of people say we’re going to win two. I predicted the record of six and 11. I’ve been on a victory tour of that prediction, which I got ass lucky on, because Chuck played pretty good. But I think we’re gonna go 11 and six. I think the high mark will probably be 12 wins. But I think that is very realistic to expect. With a year of maturity in him. We had a great rookie class, almost everybody we drafted, besides Vernon Broughton, had significant playing time or contributors, probably one of the best draft classes the saints have had since 2017 and I think with a lot of additional cap space, which we usually never have, that is very realistic between a decent draft coming up and bringing in a few key pieces that we could win 11 games next year. I think 12 is the ceiling. I think the lowest will be eight to nine.

 

Will  43:05  

Yeah. You know, in my, my advanced analytics research department for the legal currents podcast also wanted to point out that second easiest schedule with 2025 records going into 2026 so that’s absolutely something we got to take into account as well.

 

David Vicknair  43:23  

Yes, and that is something I saw as well. I did not prepare him for the show, but I had been reading, and. I think we, I didn’t really look at how it fell at the end of the season, but going into the season, we were ranked, like, one of the hardest schedules in the league. And it was like, Man, I think that’s why some people had predicted it to be as much of a bloodbath as they did. It’s like a rebuilding season. No questions at quarterback, all around and the one of the hardest schedules in the league, it’s not going to be good. And they won six games at the break here, there. They could have won eight or nine. Hell if they win eight games, they’re in the playoffs, and given the state of our division. So it was a better, much better season than people predicted. And I suspect we’re going to win 10 or 11 games next year.

 

Will  44:11  

I love it. Well, we’ll have to, we’ll have to check back, you know, between now and then, or maybe, you know, watch the tape when we get back season. We’ll cut this up. We’ll see, we’ll have two years of record predictions, and maybe, you know, launch you into a new role as analyst on ESPN.

 

David Vicknair  44:29  

You know, we have a local sports company called Boo Crew media, who has a podcast that covers the Pelicans, the saints, LSU Tulane. They have a bunch of different online accounts. We have one now. We’ve been two or three years marketing collaboration with them, and I keep telling the owners, every three months, I’m like, look at that. Look, I know what I’m doing here. Like, just call me in. Just call the bullpen and let me come in and give you some commentary. I’m not just a lawyer. I can talk football, but they. Me. They have not called me yet. So I’m just, I’m waiting.

 

Will  45:03  

We’ll send them the tape of this, and I’ll also, I’ll save the good vibes here. I don’t want to ruin them by talking about the pelicans, so we’ll just leave them out of the mix there.

 

David Vicknair 45:13  

Let’s just put that aside. That’s a painful experience to discuss right now, but I will say it’s also been fun that I have close friends in the personal injury space now, in the Tampa market, in the Atlanta market and the Carolina Market. And so those are our three divisions, the Panthers, the Falcons and the Bucks are in our division. And so it has been a lot of fun talking crap to them.

 

Will  45:37  

Sports is a great, great, great, great means for communication. And David, it’s a pleasure to have you on again. You know, like I mentioned early on, you’re absolutely one of my favorite people in space. You’re somebody that is always going to have a smile on their face, like a great person to come up to say hello. And you know, somebody that is not just approachable, but also has a lot of great information, right? And clearly willing to share that information. How can people get in touch with you?

 

David Vicknair 46:07  

Well, that’s very kind. It means a lot to me, and the feeling is mutual, my friend. They can, like you said, I’m writing twice a week on LinkedIn, so you can pretty easily find me and what I think or what I’m in the mood to talk about on LinkedIn every twice a week. We’re also on every social media channel. Scottvicknair.com our main number is  5045001111, so you can find us anywhere on the website, any of our Google business pages, phone number and all the socials, amazing.

 

Will  46:35  

And then I think this is something that you do on your podcast that we’ll leave everybody with. What’s a good book that you’re reading these days? We talked about Shoe Dog in our last episode.

 

David Vicknair  46:45  

You know, I picked up an old one that I kind of skimmed the first time and didn’t really pay attention. I don’t know why I just picked it up two days ago. It’s Purple Cow by Seth Godin. And I’m like, on page 38 I’m just reading it slower, and it was written. I was written. I was like, when was this written? It was written in 2000 to some marketing book, and it still is highly relevant today. So I would definitely recommend Purple Cow by sepcot, and that’s what I’m reading right now.

 

Will  47:10  

I love it. Well, I really appreciate it. Dave. I look forward to seeing you sometime soon, I’m sure. And thanks for jumping on the podcast.

 

David Vicknair 47:15  

Thanks for having me back, Will. Good to see you.