BluShark Digital 0:07
Welcome everybody. We’re very excited to have a special guest with the name Michael Ponce, managing partner of Ponce Law. Welcome Michael.
michael ponce 0:15
Thank you. Glad to be a part of this.
Seth Price 0:17
Well, look. I’m thrilled to have you here. I’ve known you for quite a while, and one of the things that I admire so much is you have taken a practice in a competitive market and have taken sort of, I don’t say a different approach, because you’re doing a lot of the fundamentals that all the big boys do, but you’ve done a number of things as far as grassroots or community marketing that really seems to have set you apart to share with a little bit about that your experience there?
Speaker 1 0:43
Sure, I think the genesis of this is that we’ve been we’ve been marketing and advertising, doing broadcast, a lot of the things that injury attorneys such as myself have historically been doing. But because of the rapid growth in Nashville and the number of, you know, national law firms that have come into our market. We needed to do something where we were trying to match them dollar for dollar in an aerial campaign. So we decided, if they’re going to forget match them on an aerial campaign, we’ll do it on the ground campaign. We call it a boots on the ground approach to marketing, we still maintain our regular traditional advertising on broadcast television, on streaming, Billboards, radio, but we’ve really emphasized a lot of our community work, and it’s really paid dividends for our office.
Seth Price 1:38
Talk to me, big picture. What does that mean? Like, what’s the universe of community marketing to you?
michael ponce 1:43
Well, this means that we appear at a lot of community events. We sponsor events. I think it’s a lot of times it’s our physical presence, not just sending a check, but being there at events. And so it is a lot of extra work & time commitment.
Seth Price 2:02
It’s ironic because Jay Ruane just had a LinkedIn post today, but co host on the Law Firm Blueprint. He was always talking about it. His big mantra for 2026 is community marketing. And he was talking about, stop paying for a Little League team, putting a banner out there, show up. Or, you know, in the case of, and I see it like when we do things, like we do a backpack giveaway when we’re there, physically, it changed the dynamic. Let me ask you a question, how much of it so I’m gonna put three different categories of people that can go to an event right there, or four. There are four categories. One is your community outreach person. I assume you have staff, one or more people who are doing. How many people do you have on your community outreach team? I know you probably grabbed from other places, anybody dedicated to that specifically?
Michael ponce 2:55
Um, really, it’s myself and my wife that really focus in it on primarily. we have two other people, though, that spend a good portion of their time also focused in on community events. But when we have community events, we kind of develop which ones we go to based upon the interest and suggestions and input that we get from other team members, so that if we have a team member or a couple of team members that are really involved in the Humane Society or a teacher organization where they’re interested you’re Yes, and then they’ll be involved in that as well,
Seth Price 3:29
theyre picking their charities, and which is brilliant. What’s your split out? Take yourself and your wife got for a second. We’ll get to you guys in a minute. If you have an event, what’s your split between staff that goes and attorneys that go?
michael ponce 3:43
right now, it’s typically more staff than attorney than attorneys. It will vary from event to event, but I’m almost always there myself.
Seth Price 3:53
Another question. does this only work with you face a firm from the billboard or your wife, and what an amazing one two combination you guys have. I think it’s just brilliant. The way you guys have branded it. Does this work as well? So if you don’t go, I mean, obviously it’s not on a per event basis, but do you notice a big, big difference if it’s staff versus you and staff?
michael ponce 4:16
I think as long as I’m there a lot of the time, I think it still works. I think it always works better if the person that they see on the billboards, the person they see on the television, is there, and I don’t know that there’s a real substitute for that.
Speaker 2 4:33
Well, that’s the question, though. I’m gonna push you on this, because it’s great. I love the fact that you go and that you’re able to make the time, and you and your wife can do this together. So it’s not like, hey, you know, I’m not, you know, sometimes you go by yourself, but I’m sure we get to go with her. It’s extra, you know, time together very often it’s for a good cause. But you know, one of the things they that we aspire to be is to make us, you know, dispensable. And you’re going the opposite direction, in a sense. Is there a way? Have you? You know, one of the things I see some law firms do is have a spokesperson, having that community marketing person who is out there, who very often could be even more personable than you. I know it’s hard to imagine, but like somebody who is known, the downside is, if that person leaves, you lose some of that goodwill. Have you experimented with a deputy that is sort of in your stead when we’re not there?
michael ponce 5:23
Yes, and in certain areas for our Hispanic marketing, we have people that are in that community a lot, and so they have their own personal relationships that they’ve developed over years based upon, you know, our supportive organizations and my physical presence at some of the events, not necessarily all, all of them. It’s a it takes time to build those relationships. But yes, we do have, we do have that, and it is very effective.
Seth Price 5:55
Tell me, look at me a smattering. What have been the most effective events that you sort of said, “wow, this is, this is this is getting traction.”
michael ponce 6:05
I think one of the things we did, we installed free fire alarms in partnership with the American Red Cross.
Seth Price 6:13
smoke alarms?
michael ponce 6:14
Yes, smoke alarms, we test we test them. We have developed some really critical
Seth Price 6:21
in people’s apartments, or, how do you, how do you, how do you do this?
michael ponce 6:23
These are often houses will have a neighborhood that has been known maybe as not having up to date smoke alarms. And we’ll just Canvas the community advance with with our partnership with the American Red Cross. They’ll get a heads up, and we’re going to be in the community offering free smoke alarms, and we’ll come in and stall them in their homes.
Seth Price 6:49
And these are, I assume, they’re not hardwired. Obviously, the battery smoke alarms. You put battery smoke alarms. Do you have extra batteries if they need them for their other ones? Or how do you how do you handle it? Is it planned to go back and touch these people, is that, you know again, they’ll know it needs it because beeps. But that’s something that like one of those reminder things that you can do, or is that not, have you not tried that?
michael ponce 7:12
We have not tried that as far as getting their contact information and reaching out to them, you know, a year or two later, asking if they would like to have the, you know, have you do
Seth Price 7:24
Is there a sticker on it? Like, what is the what is the tie in to your firm? Like, when you hand some of the smoke alarm, how do they know that this is Michael’s firm that’s doing this?
michael ponce 7:33
Well, we have people with our logos that are actually coming in, in our shirts and stuff. And I mean, physically putting them on. Are you taking down the old ones or just, you know, we take down, we take the out the old ones, replace it with it with a brand new one.
Seth Price 7:51
And when you do that, is that, do you leave anything? Is there any literature left? Is there an opt in? Is there anything to sort of stay in touch long term?
michael ponce 7:58
We have a, there’s a literature on fire safety, with the with the American Red Cross. It’s their literature. And then we’ll leave a card of our own if they ever need business card. There was Yes, just a rather business card.
Seth Price 8:13
Just very, very old school
michael ponce 8:15
Very old school.
Seth Price 8:16
very cool. Tell me some other stuff. What are the other things you’ve really liked?
michael ponce 8:19
I think our biggest project that we do annually have been doing for a long time is our outstanding teacher contest. This is one that we get a lot of traction into our website. Our if you look at our website traffic, it just balloons when we have this contest going on. every elementary and high school are available, and you can nominate your teachers by going to our website. You have to give your contact information so we can verify that you know the same person is not voting more than once.
Seth Price 8:56
are they opting in to stay and have you guys stay in touch or you’re not even doing that.
michael ponce 9:01
Yeah, we stay, we stay in contact with them at that point. Then they’re added to our cheer drips.
Seth Price 9:07
and you’re Doing an award for every school. Or how are you? How are you doing this?
michael ponce 9:11
We give an award that goes out to every teacher that’s nominated gets a certificate that they’ve been nominated. The top 10 all get awards. They’re invited to a reception that takes place at our office where the awards are presented to them. We have our team members there. We toast them, we celebrate them, and then they get money. And then the top schools, top two schools, also get money as well.
Seth Price 9:38
And what order of magnitude do you give that to the teachers in schools?
michael ponce 9:43
We give $1,000 to the school, and then the top, the top five teachers all get 500 and $100 for everyone after that. And then everybody gets, everybody who’s nominated gets a swag bag and a certificate.
Seth Price 10:00
Well, awesome. I love it because it’s multi and then people are, people are voting, and they’re, they’re, they’re reaching in I think that’s that is brilliant. Sure.
michael ponce 10:09
I should also mention our top 10 teachers are also featured on our digital billboards as well, so they get to see for on the Teacher Appreciation Day that you can see their own face up there.
Seth Price 10:21
You take a picture of it and send it over to them?
michael ponce 10:25
Yes, we do. That’s awesome. And we give them a heads up that it’s going to be on there so they can tell their friends and stuff to check it out too.
Seth Price 10:33
That’s great. And so tell me, in your experience, Is there stuff that you’ve done version one, Michael, version one, where you’re like, “yeah, I thought this was going to be great, but didn’t get the traction you would have thought?”
michael ponce 10:47
Mm, hmm. Some of the giveaways that we’ve done in association for where it’s not just us, where we’re giving, like, food giveaways at Thanksgiving. we’ve had kind of limited success. I think sometimes on those, because people come in and grab food items and they’re out, and it’s not just us. And I don’t, we’re not able to really capture a whole lot of information on them. And so depending on.
Seth Price 11:21
That’s probably more, for your staff, almost giving them an opportunity to give them without the recognition, you know, it’s not, I could see it, you know where you know it’s a feel good, but not a doesn’t necessarily check the box on the other side of the equation.
michael ponce 11:39
Yes, I would say that, that’s true. And I would say, though, that that is a real benefit. And aside from the marketing aspect of doing community marketing like this, I think it helps us recruit the type of team members that we want on our team. The fact that we’re out there in the community that we’re doing good works that we’re seeing, it brings kind of good people to your to your office. It helps us recruit really high quality team members that want to not just work but be feel good about what they’re doing and where they’re working.
Seth Price 12:12
That’s awesome. If you could sort of summarize, and you’ve been doing this for a fair pit. What do you what are the lessons learned? What do you think that you know? What would you want other law firms that are considering doing this to take, you know, to take away? what do you think the biggest takeaways you learned in this process?
michael ponce 12:29
I think the biggest takeaway is it really does work. It won’t. You’re not going to have one event, you know, a year and probably see any sort of meaningful effect on your intakes. But when you do a lot of events, you do them over time, and you develop those personal relationships, you or your team members with these organizations, they’re going to they’re going to remember that, and whenever anyone that they know, it’s part of their organization needs in a legal services. They’re going to, they’re going to call you, you’re top of mind.
Seth Price 13:05
And I think that these events, you know that that is part of it that you are really trying to, you know, differentiate yourself. And Mike Morris talks a lot about it, sort of, you know, as the big guys come in to the market, not that he’s not a big guy, but as some of these out of town, our guys come in, it’s the moat that you create that they can’t, hopefully do. They can spend money in media, but they’re not going to have the boots on the ground. Sure. Tell me a little about the team you have supporting you to do this.
michael ponce 13:37
Yeah, actually, if I could back up, I did want to mention that I’m not able to attend every event, but when I’m not able to attend, we actually have a cardboard cut out of me. It sounds kind of ridiculous, but people, I thought it was crazy when some of our team members suggested this, but we have a lot of people that love to take a picture with a cardboard cutout, if it’s an event I’m not able to attend.
Seth Price 14:05
Tremendous. what you know, as you’ve gone through this process and you you’ve put these things in place, talk to me about what you’ve done, what you’ve built internally to support this. I understand you’re going but obviously, these things don’t happen without people reaching out, putting things together. How have you structured a team to make this happen?
michael ponce 14:28
We use the team members that have the most interest in going to these events, and then at the beginning of the year, we’ll come up with a with a list of the events that we want to be a part of that we feel like we can gain traction from because we’re going to be, you know, certain organizations push these things more than others, and if they’re not going to feel like they’re going to support our office, then you know, we’re going to take a look at whether or not we want to use a different opportunity, and we want to make sure.
Seth Price 14:58
I get that. I’m going to push a little bit just zeros and ones like. So you have, I understand you’re looking for people that are interested, and you have some marketing assets at the firm. You know, are you allocating bandwidth hours, however you want to put it, for people to work the phones reach out, you know, help coordinate these things. How do you sort of, what are the logistics necessary for somebody to be able to support such an operation?
michael ponce 15:29
I think you’ve got to have a couple of team members that are really focused in at least half their time on community work, because it is a time, time consuming thing, and it it, you know, we, of course, they’re being paid for this as well.
Seth Price 15:47
Are you taking people that are already at the firm doing something else and giving them a lesser caseload so they can handle this? Or are you taking people in marketing that you’re hiring for it?
michael ponce 15:58
So far, we have used existing people, and we have reduced their caseload, reduced their work that they would normally be responsible for. I think within this coming year, it’s likely that we will have one or two people whose sole job will be working on this, and it’s probably going to be existing people that are just kind of, they’re really passionate about it, and we’re kind of gravitating them more and more towards that direction.
Seth Price 16:28
that’s awesome. Any outside the box ideas that you’re like, Hey, man, I’d really like to try this in 26 and haven’t gotten around to like, what’s, what’s your, you know, what’s the big goal for this year?
michael ponce 16:40
I think this year, we’re likely to stick with a lot of the tried and true programs that we know have been successful. I don’t have a specific project, although it’s early in the year, almost inevitably something that’s not on our plans not on our our marketing calendar will pop up, and it will be a good opportunity.
Seth Price 17:08
That’s awesome. Well, look, I applaud you, Michael. I think it’s something I’ve struggled with. We do events and fits and starts, but to have a consistent plan. But I think my biggest takeaway from here is to figure out who is passionate about it from your existing tribe, because I know that when you bring you know those people are will are likely to be much more successful. We all, you know I was just saying I talk about in business, and I think you can appreciate this. People do what they like to do. We all do you like doing this. So it happens I love digital. So I did more digital. It made me sit and write essays or do briefs. I would be terrible at it, that not, you know, and I would it would, it would be slow and not on time and not right. So I think that one of the pieces I see brilliance here is figuring out what people are passionate about and then pushing them in that direction, giving them the bandwidth and the resource to do it. So I applaud you for that. Anything you want to leave the audience with before we part ways today.
michael ponce 18:09
I would suggest when, if you’re coming up with this list, start off slowly, but be persistent with it, because it will not you’ll not show immediate results. But if you stick with it, it will, it will pay off, and you’ll really feel good about it as well. It’s something that we enjoy doing, and I think that our team members really make it a part of what they proud of, proud of what they where they work, as well.
Seth Price 18:40
Well, you’ve inspired me. I’m going to go back to my team and have a Teacher of the Year contest, and maybe use some of our local TV buy to feature them, because I figured, like, do they really want to see my mug on TV less so? But they that that might get that might go a long way. So, Mike, I appreciate your longtime friendship and inspired by your story here, and hopefully get to visit the mothership. I know I’ve been to your office before, but I want to see how the community itself is reacting, and visit some of those digital billboards.
michael ponce 19:16
We would love to have you down anytime you’re in Nashville. I think you might be heading this direction. Let me know. And we’d love to, love to get down to the the details with you, and anything you ever want, just let us know.
Seth Price 19:30
May have to you know, have to send an airplane ticket. Have you come up and evangelize in front of our firm? We just had our first annual, or a third annual, first offsite Price Benoitz Summit, and I can I spy my next summit keynote, Michael. Look forward to it, and hopefully can get to share the wisdom, because I think when you do good for others, good comes back. Absolutely.
michael ponce 19:57
Thank you, Seth, and thanks for all the amazing work you guys do.
