Ted DeBettencourt: The Human Advantage in Legal Intake

By Steve Fretzin on February 16, 2026

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Ted DeBettencourt discuss:

Making prospects feel heard before they hire
Fixing intake as the real growth lever
Optimizing website conversion channels
Adopting a builder’s mindset in business development

Key Takeaways:

Emotional needs matter as much as legal expertise when someone is choosing a lawyer. If prospects do not feel listened to or cared for, they continue shopping. Human connection is often the deciding factor in a crowded legal marketplace.
Many firms invest heavily in marketing but lose revenue at the intake stage. Speed of response determines success, as delays of even 24 hours can cost the case. Clear criteria for qualified leads protect attorney time and improve conversion rates.
Law firm websites must make contact effortless through visible phone numbers, live chat, text, and forms. Human-powered chat and SMS are increasingly driving higher engagement and signed cases. Firms that reduce friction in communication dramatically improve conversion outcomes.
Opportunities rarely arrive on their own, even with strong credentials. Growth begins when professionals stop waiting and start creating value. Taking initiative and solving real problems can open entirely new career paths.

“Running a law firm 101: don’t answer your own phone, because you’re never getting any work done.” — Ted DeBettencourt

Check out my new show, Be That Lawyer Coaches Corner, and get the strategies I use with my clients to win more business and love your career again.

Ready to go from good to GOAT in your legal marketing game? Don’t miss PIMCON—where the brightest minds in professional services gather to share what really works. Lock in your spot now: https://www.pimcon.org/

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About Ted DeBettencourt: Ted DeBettencourt is the founder and CEO of Juvo Leads, a human-powered intake and chat service helping law firms convert more website visitors into signed clients. With a JD/MBA background, Ted shifted from pursuing traditional legal roles to building solutions that improve law firm marketing and intake performance. He focuses on speed, connection, and ensuring prospects feel heard — proving that human engagement remains a powerful differentiator in a digital world.

Connect with Ted DeBettencourt:

Website: https://juvoleads.com/

Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

Instagram: @fretzinsteve

Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.

Website: Fretzin.com

Email: Steve@Fretzin.com

Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!

YouTube: Steve Fretzin

Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Ted DeBettencourt discuss:

Making prospects feel heard before they hire
Fixing intake as the real growth lever
Optimizing website conversion channels
Adopting a builder’s mindset in business development

Key Takeaways:

Emotional needs matter as much as legal expertise when someone is choosing a lawyer. If prospects do not feel listened to or cared for, they continue shopping. Human connection is often the deciding factor in a crowded legal marketplace.
Many firms invest heavily in marketing but lose revenue at the intake stage. Speed of response determines success, as delays of even 24 hours can cost the case. Clear criteria for qualified leads protect attorney time and improve conversion rates.
Law firm websites must make contact effortless through visible phone numbers, live chat, text, and forms. Human-powered chat and SMS are increasingly driving higher engagement and signed cases. Firms that reduce friction in communication dramatically improve conversion outcomes.
Opportunities rarely arrive on their own, even with strong credentials. Growth begins when professionals stop waiting and start creating value. Taking initiative and solving real problems can open entirely new career paths.

“Running a law firm 101: don’t answer your own phone, because you’re never getting any work done.” — Ted DeBettencourt

Check out my new show, Be That Lawyer Coaches Corner, and get the strategies I use with my clients to win more business and love your career again.

Thank you to our Sponsor!

Rankings.io: https://rankings.io/

Lawyer.com: https://www.lawyer.com

Ready to grow your law practice without selling or chasing? Book your free 30-minute strategy session now—let’s make this your breakout year: https://fretzin.com/

Connect with Ted DeBettencourt:

Website: https://juvoleads.com/

Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

Instagram: @fretzinsteve

Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.

Website: Fretzin.com

Email: Steve@Fretzin.com

Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!

YouTube: Steve Fretzin

Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Narrator [00:00]

You’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer Coach Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Fretzin, hey everybody.

Steve Fretzin [00:27]

Steve Fretzin, here and welcome to the be that lawyer podcast. We are the only show on the entire internet that is focused on legal business development and legal business development alone. We are here to help you crush it and be that lawyer, confident, organized in a skilled Rainmaker. In fact, if you Google legal, business development podcast, we will be the number one on Google. So I’ve got that. That’s like, all I have. I’m just like, leaning into the head like the rest of my life is falling apart. But I have that, no, everything’s groovy here. I want to thank you all, and I want to welcome Ted. How you doing, buddy? I’m great. Thanks for having me on the show. Steve, excited to be here. Yeah, and you got a little pipe, a pipe bursting in North Carolina. So that’s no fun.

Ted DeBettencourt [01:06]

We got a foot of snow Friday, and it’s still in the ground. We don’t, I’m from Boston. We don’t get snow out here, but we did since I’ve

Steve Fretzin [01:13]

been here. That’s why you got there, right? To, like, get away from Boston snow. And then it doesn’t

Ted DeBettencourt [01:17]

matter, 100% correct? I gotta take a shovel in my car, but they got to do it, apparently.

Steve Fretzin [01:23]

Well, I’ve had my share. I could tell you some offline stories about some plumbing issues I have where it was a shitty story, if you know what I mean, I hear you, and here we go. And always love to start with our quote of the show here. This one is Kaylee teresis, who’s been on our show before. People have to feel like they are heard and they’re cared about, or they’re going to go somewhere else. That is very true. So Ted, welcome to the show and tell me why you like that quote.

Ted DeBettencourt [01:46]

Well, I think it resonates true for our business as well. So I listened to that podcast and heard Kaylee talk about I’m just like, Yeah, you know what? You said it better that I’ve been trying to say it for the past five years now. And what we find is That’s especially true. So I run a human power chat service, and everyone for the past three four years is saying, Oh Ted, AI is going to take you out. Oh yeah, is going to take you out. We haven’t grown at least 80% each year for the past five years. So we’re started realizing that why that’s true is because people need to be heard. So when someone’s had something bad happen to them, they’ve been in a car accident, you know, they need a lawyer for whatever reason. They have legal needs, but they also have emotional needs. The emotional need is needing to be heard. So they want to tell you not only their legal needs, but their personal needs. They’ve been a car accident, something got injured, someone they love, got injured, God forbid, someone died. They want to feel like someone’s listening to them. And we just see a lot of the services out there, a lot of law firms don’t let people feel heard, and we just know that it’s a key differentiator for our businesses and the firms that we work with, so that really letting people feel heard, having that emotional connection, is what separates the law firms out there.

Steve Fretzin [02:57]

Yeah, so you’re saying that if somebody has an answering service that says if you’ve been, you know, burned alive in your car. Press one, if you’ve been tragically dismembered. Press two, you know, I think you know, as AI continues to develop, and people are, you know, going crazy for it, of course, I do believe that you’re onto something, that there’s going to be a lack of human connection that we crave and that we need, and it’s not going to be in every area. Like if I want to buy something on Amazon, I go on Amazon. I don’t ever want to see or talk to anybody about my pen or about, you know, a cat dish or whatever it might be. But if I’m talking to someone about a legal matter or coaching matter, a consulting matter, and all I’m getting is AI, you know, that sounds wonderful, Steve, why don’t you? Like, I know ours is AI, like, that’s not going to necessarily resonate with me when I’m looking for a human connection. Yeah.

Ted DeBettencourt [03:50]

And so kind of unrelated to, well, not unrelated, but so I have a I bought a new house, and my plumbing just burst. But aside from that, and last week, I was told my circuit breaker on the wall isn’t sufficient, like it keeps stripping some circuits. So I had to go online and find an electrician. I’ve never done it before. I don’t I’m not handy by any stretch of the imagination. So I went to the first local electrician site, and they had this little form I filled out. Tell me about what happened. And you know, you fill out your name, you fill out your thing, you’re clicking Next, you’re clicking next, and then I do that. I’m like, Well, what’s happening now? So they say, Great, we’ll be in touch with you soon. I never heard back from the No, that’s the worst. Like, I’m stressed out. I got to fix this problem. I had 30 minutes to get in touch with electrician to get it handled, but I haven’t talked to anybody. So immediately I once I filled that form out, I went and called three more electricians. Finally got a hold of one of them, but I didn’t want to didn’t want to feel like I completed the task of getting in touch with electrician until I talked to somebody, until I talked to somebody like my emotional needs of like feeling like my issue has been addressed hasn’t been resolved. And we’re seeing that’s even more true for law firms. You’re not dealing with electrical panels on your wall. You’re dealing with people that it could.

Steve Fretzin [05:00]

Have been dead, yeah. Well, I have a feeling that this conversation is going to get much deeper as we go, but we have to take a step back to take a step forward Ted, and that means introducing you and so everybody Ted, DeBettencourt is the co founder of Juve leads give us a little take on how you came to be and how you started this business, because it’s not an everyday type of business. Someone starts,

Ted DeBettencourt [05:19]

sure, well, I guess, born and raised in Martha’s Vineyard, went to college in Rhode Island, went to law school immediately after, I was on debate team in college, and thought like being a lawyer meant like going to debate tournament. Turned out it’s a lot different than that. So when I was in law school, I realized, I don’t think this is for me, but, you know, I’m already $60,000 in debt after, you know, 1l but that my school had a business program as well, that you get out of the program with both JD and an MBA after three years. So it’s like, all right, that works for me. It was a lot of summers of taking classes, which wasn’t fun, but I knew I wanted to do that. So I dread out of law school and business school with knowing, wanting to focus in business. So after kind of rolling them around aimlessly for a few years, I got into an SEO agency up in Boston. It was more of a content farm. They’re not even out there anymore, and they were creating content for law firms. So I like what they were doing, but all these firms are like, All right, well, producing the content, but we’re still not getting the clients. So I was like, All right, well, yeah, you need SEO. And they’re like, Well, who does that? And I was just an account manager at this company doing content. I was like, well, maybe I’ll try to spin it out. So I started SEO company, learned how to do that, had about 10 to 15 clients at my peak. You know, five years later, I left that agency, and then I started using chat for my clients. This was probably 2011 2012 I liked what the chat was doing, but it kept screwing up my chats for my firms. So they’d say the wrong thing. They do the wrong thing, and at one time, they took a lead that was like a commercial vehicle accident resulting in death, and they told them my firm couldn’t handle it. That was the potential for a multi million dollar case. My firm was flipping out. I don’t blame them. They were kind of yelling at me. I was like, It’s me. It’s a jet company, and I was there. Like, fire him. Fire him out. Get what you do. Get this fixed. I’m like, All right, well, I’ll start answering chats myself. It was more just like a holdover, because I didn’t want to do it, because it was really hard, yeah, but when I did it for about a month, and I was doing all the call tracking, all the form tracking my firms leads, one of them about 50% so I said, Oh, wow, maybe, maybe there’s something here. So you know, fast forward, two years after that, I’m now answering chats for a lot of law firms, and we spun it out as its own business. And now, you know, 10 years later, we have about 1100 firms we work with answering their chats and their text messages and their LSA messages.

Steve Fretzin [07:46]

Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. And it’s for those of you who are wondering, you know more about it. It’s it. You know, like, every time you go to a website and they want to have a communication with you on the website, there’s a chat bot or a chat box, right? That opens up a chat, but a chat on the cloud. It’s like an ass that you just see on the screen, and then it talks, you know, the

Ted DeBettencourt [08:05]

talk we are, our motto is, butts, not bots. Butts in the seat.

Steve Fretzin [08:10]

Butts not bots. Okay, bots, okay, there’s our new quote of the show, butts, not bots. So that’s trademark. By the way, I have that trademark. I know you do, but so it’s really, you know, the issue is that lawyers struggle with time, and many of them, even the ones that are not in, like personal injury, for example, could get value by having better intake or having better opportunities to kind of qualify the people that are coming to their website and trying to convert them. Isn’t that really what this is all about

Ted DeBettencourt [08:46]

at the end of the day, it’s just maximizing the leads from the traffic you’re getting from your site. Yeah? So you’re spending all

Steve Fretzin [08:51]

this time and money and energy like driving things to your site, and then you lose it at the site level, and then who’s default, you know, who’s who’s to blame for that? Yeah?

Ted DeBettencourt [09:00]

And what we see is, at the end of the day, chats and engagement tool. How do you get more visitors from the site you’re bringing from the traffic you’re bringing that traffic can be expensive, yeah? Instead of getting one lead, every 20 visitors

Steve Fretzin [09:11]

get two. Yeah. Okay. So do you have an idea, like, how out of 100 websites that are in I mean, is it better for, like, B to C versus B to B. So like, the big corporate IP attorney that has, you know, it’s a big firm. They’re not gonna have a chat bot, I don’t think on there,

Ted DeBettencourt [09:29]

no, yeah, everything you said was correct, B to C, consumer facing law firm websites, okay, the PI family, criminal those are the really big ones.

Steve Fretzin [09:39]

Maybe business and trademark, because even trademark might be like a small business or an individual that it’s in trademark, because even trademark might be like a small business or an individual that is looking to get something trademarked, right? So I think that might even work.

Ted DeBettencourt [09:53]

Yeah, we have a fair amount of soft IP. Not the hard yeah, soft IP.

Steve Fretzin [09:56]

Soft IP. And okay, and then so people are just like. Slapping sort of a software onto their website that allows them to chat. And what are the current model that you had in the past? And what people are still using is, is just

Ted DeBettencourt [10:10]

a bot lead. We never did bot lead. We always did, but lead, you know, butts, not bots. No, no. But you know about bot? Yeah, there are a lot of people that use bot models. So the problem with the bot, bot models are great. It’s a lot cheaper. It’s a lot easier to do. You know, you have a bot pop up and ask a few simple questions. They’re honestly getting a little bit better, but the problem is kind of the one we touched on originally, a person, no matter who they chat with, doesn’t feel heard if they don’t talk to a person, yeah, so when they’re chatting with a bot, they’re the in the chat. They’re like, All right, well, what happens next? And they don’t hear from anybody. What are they doing? They’re immediately continuing to shop their case until their emotional need of being heard has been met. When you chat with a bot, the emotional need has ever met, we see we get not only 50% more leads by using people, but 50% more cases because our people feel heard well.

Steve Fretzin [10:56]

And the most important thing, maybe, of it all, other than conversions, which is pretty damn important is lawyers are busy, and they would rather focus their energy on talking with people who are qualified that have already had a conversation and they’re ready to, like, talk about the matter, and maybe the butt in the seat that’s doing the chatting sort of recognizes and knows enough to know that, hey, this is not you don’t have a case. I mean, you fell at home, which I did on Sunday, and repel on my shoulder. But like, who am I going to blame? The person who, you know, who cleaned my floor last, or the the person who sold me the wool socks that were extra slippy? It was my own damn fault. My own damn fault, so, you know. But I mean, again, you you want to, there’s certain moments in your life when your internet goes down when you need a lawyer, when you need a doctor, like you just want a human.

Ted DeBettencourt [11:46]

Yeah, 100% correct. And we see that makes a big difference when on the filtering side. So different practice areas are different. But how our model works is we work with the firm to figure out what’s a good lead, what’s a bad lead. Some firms say, Ted passes everything we want to talk to everybody. Some firms say, like, we work with a bunch of criminal law firms, and they say, Ted, I get so many people that want to talk to me, but I talk to them and they can afford my services. So what we do for them is we say, hey, just so you know, for us to even consider taking your case, it would be at least $2,000 this is something you’d want to proceed with. If they say, No, well, we just saved the lawyer 30 minutes from having to, yeah, have to take that phone call and deal with that person. So not only can we get him more leads, we can save him a lot of time for having to filter out a lot of junk.

Steve Fretzin [12:30]

I was gonna ask you, like a case study, I have a client who deals with plaintiff side employment issues, and he will, people will talk to him for an hour. He’s a fourth he’s a $4,000 minimum. He charges 1000 an hour. He’s very high end. And these people, many of them, just can’t afford him, or they’re just their cases aren’t cases, and so he’s spending a lot to way too much time. Is that a website? But I keep saying, but I wish there was a different word for like, in person or post some person chat, a chat person bot. Or is it something that maybe should be done by a phone of like they send them to the to an internal person that takes a call and sort of qualifies and screens it from a phone versus or from an email or a phone versus a box that pops up on the website? Because not all firms are going to do the box on the website? Yeah.

Ted DeBettencourt [13:22]

Well, regardless if you use Well, the two toughest ones are, well, the three rather employer, mega malpractice and immigration, they all fall into the same route. Everyone that gets hurt by at a hospital wants to sue their doctor. They have a case. One out of 100 bot leads turn into a case. Same with employment, you get fired, probably don’t have a case. One in 100 leads turn into a case of employment law, immigration, similar issue, but just not everyone has the cash. So regardless if you use a chat to answer the phones say to answer chats, or if you use a phone need someone screening those because if you’re having the lawyer answering those phone calls, and you’re turning one in 100 phone calls into a case, you’re going to have a hard time actually practicing law. All you doing is filtering, filtering the jar from the wheat from the shaft there.

Steve Fretzin [14:08]

Yeah, okay, but I think every firm needs to figure out, Is this a conversion tool and an intake tool on the website? Maybe that and a phone number that people call, and then maybe there’s some kind of receptionist or some kind of associate or paralegal level person that’s handling the call to sort of screen it so that the $1,000 an hour attorney isn’t wasting three hours a day. You know, that’s 3000 tellers a day lost on bad, you know, bad leads that aren’t, don’t have the ability to pay

Ted DeBettencourt [14:41]

Yeah, running a law firm, 101, don’t answer your own phone because you’re never getting any work done.

Steve Fretzin [14:46]

Yeah, yeah, there’s I used to have a lawyer, and every time I called, he pick up. And I said to him, I go, I really appreciate you picking up my calls. Do you pick up everyone’s call him? I just specially goes, Oh, I tried it my best to pick up everyone’s call. When they call, I go, do. Get anything done. He goes, I get nothing done. I get nothing done all day. Okay, well, I think, I think we figured something out here. Yeah. I said, here’s the moving forward. Just take my call and no one else is. I said, hey everybody. Steve Fretzin here and@lawyer.com They don’t just market law firms. They help them grow from connecting millions of consumers to trusted lawyers to smarter intake and industry leading events, they’re building stronger connections across legal visibility, intake, events, growth. That’s lawyer.com Check them out today, with proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm. Rankings.io. Prides itself on proof, not promises. Mentality. The best firms hire rankings.io. When they want rankings, traffic and cases, other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver, get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free consultation@rankings.io today. Hey everybody, it’s Steve Fretzin as the you know, I’m the host of the be that lawyer podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling chasing or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch, it’s a real 30 minute strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to fretzin.com and grab a time that works for you. And let’s make this your breakout year. So let’s take a moment and let’s talk about some of the values around tools on a website, there’s not just one tool. There’s maybe two or three different types of tools that you might have on a website that could help with conversion. What would you say are some of the ones, the top ones that you’re seeing, make your phone

Ted DeBettencourt [16:38]

number prominent, no matter where they are. If they’re on mobile device, they can click it and call. They shouldn’t have to dial anything make the phone button clickable. Yeah. Rule number one, don’t miss this. You’re always gonna get a lot of leads from people that call made easy as possible to call you, no matter where they are. Two when they call, pick up the phone if it goes to voicemail, you failed. Don’t let a phone call ever go to voicemail. If it does, you’re doing a bad job first answer. You know, easy to say this. You fix that well. Money. You hire people to answer the phone. If you can’t answer your phone, you’re a backup call answering company. If you can’t hire a backup call, answering company, use AI. There’s some AI tools out there. They’re not as good as a person, but never let a phone call go to voicemail. You’ll lose prospects indicates is quite quickly. Two, have chat on your website, obviously self serving. If you’re not giving them chat, you’re losing 50% of your leads. So having a human answer a chat, or any chat whatsoever, is going to immediately increase your conversions quite substantially. Three, have a form on your website. So people should be able to go to your website, click a button and fill out a form if they want. Every year, we see less and less people filling out forms, but they’re still important. Four and this is the fastest growing communication channel for law firms. Most people aren’t aware of let people text you. If you don’t let prospects text you, you’re missing out on opportunities the minute we put text message answering on a site. We know that mobile sites getting at least 20 21% more conversions every year. That number grows up when we increases when we started back in, you know, 2015 2016 it was about 2% of conversions coming from SMS. Now it’s about 21%

Steve Fretzin [18:16]

you know, that is so crazy and also brilliant, because I think texting for some like I’m using I love text, like I prefer text, maybe over all other forms of communication. At this point, although my teenager and I have no idea what we’re talking about when we text each other, it’s just, what are you talking about and what are you saying? And we just go back. Eventually I call him and goes, you know, we talk it out, but with normal humans, not teenagers. I love texting, and so I hadn’t even thought about what would happen if I put my phone number up on my website and said, if you’re interested in talking with me about my services, here’s the number to text or having something that automates that on my website. But that’s absolutely brilliant. Do you think I mean? What do you know a lot of lawyers that do that is that like a the fastest rising way that their lawyers are thinking

Ted DeBettencourt [19:05]

about it depends on your practice area. So for criminal law, immigration law, probably about hacker leads should be coming in from SMS. If they’re not, you’re throwing opportunities out the window. For pi, it’s about 20% bankruptcy, probably about 25% every practice area is different, but it’s an immediate, quick win. But I’ll say this, if you put on text messaging on your website and it’s going to your personal number, don’t do it. It’s the same problem you have with that lawyer that picked up the call every time you called, yeah, also in back and you don’t answer it, or don’t have somebody answer for you for under 30 seconds, you may as well not use it. So you have to have it on either feed it to somebody in your team who could answer it or use the service that can answer those for you. Is there a do you do that? Is that part of your service or no? Well, since he asked, Well, what a layup that was. Yeah, yeah. We do the text message answering for Okay, got it,

Steve Fretzin [19:55]

got it. Well, that is very cool. That is very cool. Yeah, I get that. And. And so, you know, look, the way that people are communicating is changing all the time, the way that people are comfortable, like some people don’t want to talk on the phone at all, right, especially the younger generation. And so the fact is, is that if you have a text option, and there’s a Gen Z that gets in an accent or Gen Z, and they have an option to text and just deal with it and hash out at least the initial stages, that way they’re going to be thrilled, yeah,

Ted DeBettencourt [20:22]

especially those younger drivers out there, you know, they’re not always contacting lawyers.

Steve Fretzin [20:26]

Yeah, they’re the ones getting the accidents, you know, testing and driving, and then they got a text to get you. Yeah, exactly right. That would be ironic, though, if they got any accident because they were texting, and then they had to text to get the lawyer.

Ted DeBettencourt [20:37]

So, well, you’re like, you don’t need to solve society’s problems.

Steve Fretzin [20:41]

That might be a good commercial. Yeah, yeah. Since you’re using the text anyway to get in the accident, you might as well just keep texting

Ted DeBettencourt [20:48]

and call the lawyer. Did you get in the accident for distracted driving? We can help Texas.

Steve Fretzin [20:53]

All right. So any other thoughts about like you’ve seen websites change a lot in the last and I mean, there’s a lot of people with old ass websites. I mean, 510, 15 years old, you see those ones that just show up in the middle of the screen and stuff that are not dynamic and yeah, what are the biggest moves for people that want to improve their websites? Maybe outside of the chat and text and phone

Ted DeBettencourt [21:15]

that’s really it big, as easy as possible to video contact you using the method they choose. That’s number one, yeah. Number two is, you know, it’s 2026, now, if you’re mobile, if your website isn’t mobile responsive, you’re probably throwing you’re probably disregarding about 80% of your visitors. 80% of your visitors right now are visiting your site on mobile. So make sure that set up even bigger than your website, though, your GBP profile made easy for people to see that other people like you, social proof reviews get listed everywhere you can blog on other websites, anywhere where you have other people talking about you, driving to your website is a win.

Steve Fretzin [21:55]

And what’s it called? It’s the not called the Google My Business anymore. It’s called something else

Ted DeBettencourt [22:00]

Google business profile. They change it every few years. I get screwed up with the acronyms.

Steve Fretzin [22:04]

Why they do that? Yeah, it can be frustrating, for sure. So there are some attorneys that are doing a website for conversion purposes, right? They’re looking to drive leads and generate business. There are other lawyers that would love that. But really, it’s more of a, like a position. It’s more of like, you know, like a just a profile about them. It’s to back up and support that they’re like a brochure online. Do you think that that some of this stuff would be good for them too, or is it really more for the lead? The lead focused SEO pay per click, the ones that are getting high volume.

Ted DeBettencourt [22:37]

Great question. So we have a lot of firms, say, Ted, I don’t really use my website to get traffic. I get all my traffic from referrals. Yeah, meaning an attorney down the street, they feed me half my cases. Well, that attorney who fed you a case, they gave your name to somebody, somebody Googled you. You are now in the conversion game, whether, regardless how they came to your site, you still need to capture their attention once they’re on your site, to convert it still. The best way to do that is having your phone number prominent, make it easy for them to chat with them, and make it easy for them to text with you.

Steve Fretzin [23:10]

Yeah, I love it. So then what? What are some thoughts then to how this all comes together. You’ve got sales and intake and websites and all of this and like, what should be the like, what’s the system that you’re seeing the most successful law firms use, like, as a pack, like, step one, step two, step three. That takes people through the whole system.

Ted DeBettencourt [23:31]

Well, I can talk about it in reverse. Okay, so we work with a lot of, probably about 1100 firms now, and what we see is the difference between a lot of them is how good their intake is. So once a lead comes in, what happens next? So if we get a firm a good lead, and they’re ready to sign a case, but the firm calls them back 48 hours later, well, they probably lost that lead. So a lot of firms hire great agencies. They do great SEO work, the M ranking. They’re doing all this stuff. But if a firm isn’t able to take the ball from a lead and turn into a case, that is the open frontier in the legal world, figuring out how to get a lead into a sign retainer as fast as possible, the longer that delay is, the worse the firm does. So that should be the first and foremost thing that all firms focus on, before they worry about where they’re ranked on the website. In Google

Steve Fretzin [24:28]

got it and then just out of curiosity, and I don’t know if this is maybe too much to ask, but what are some of the most popular questions that you try to ask leads in an intake in a box on a website to get to the meat and potatoes of is

Ted DeBettencourt [24:43]

there a matter here? Sure. Well, it depends on the practice area. Well, let’s pick one. Let’s pick personal injury. All right, so let’s say it’s a car accident. The most common ones are reasons why. So we asked the question, when we onboard a firm, when people call in, what are the top reasons why? I You can’t take their case for PI Part One is there’s no physical injuries. So they have, you know, they have vehicle damage. Part two is wrong state. Part three is there are some injuries, but they’re not serious. So, you know, I got a Hangout, or, you know, something might very mind there’s no treatment, not a case beyond the statute of limitations. So those are all clear bright line rules, which we can ask in chat or, you know, intake to figure out if it has a case. But you want to put the ones that that’s qualified the most amount of people up top, and then refine the chat or the lead or the the phone call as you get deeper in the question. So you want to kick out the bad ones early and often, and then talk to, you know, weed them through the questionnaire.

Steve Fretzin [25:43]

And again, this is all being asked and talked through by a human

Ted DeBettencourt [25:47]

exactly right on the chat side. But yeah, everything we’re doing on the chat side, it should be mirrored on the intake side as well.

Steve Fretzin [25:52]

Okay. And then how does that change for, say, an immigration or a criminal where there is a fee component, it’s not all based on, you know, on the back end,

Ted DeBettencourt [26:03]

for fee components, it’s coming down to businesses are different, but some, a lot of the immigration of the criminal law attorneys, or even the family law attorneys, you know, family law usually have a 123, $100 consultation costs. So making that apparent up front and saying, Hey, we can do this. But by the way, we don’t do pro bono, this will cost X amount to be able to move forward. Is that something you’re okay with? But it really comes down to the firm, if they get a lot of leads that fall outside that run.

Steve Fretzin [26:28]

Yeah, I know I had a client who in divorce, who she was getting like, like, cancelations, and people were kind of blowing her off. And I said, Yeah, you got to move to a retainer, and that retainer can be used towards their project, or, you know their matter with you, but ultimately, you know they need to pay up, you know, 250, 300 to make sure they show up. And how serious are they about moving forward and talking with you, because they’re just going to sign up and blow you off. So these are, these are, I think, all important things that lawyers should be considering that just totally save them time that they’re not, they’re maybe just not thinking strategically about it. You know, they struggle with handing things off, right?

Ted DeBettencourt [27:06]

If they struggle with that, there’s going to be other issues in the firm as well. So I would focus on that first, for sure. Let’s talk about all their other issues.

Steve Fretzin [27:14]

Is this a half an hour show, or is this a three hour show? Let’s talk about your problems. Let’s what’s Ted’s big mistake.

Ted DeBettencourt [27:23]

Big mistake. Probably when I related to my business or life in general,

Steve Fretzin [27:29]

something where something bad happened, you learn from it. You came back stronger.

Ted DeBettencourt [27:33]

Sure what you’re pipes. Oh, yeah. Don’t make sure you put covers over your pipes. When it freezes out there you go. Aside from that, when I got out of law school and business school, I kind of thought the world would be served to be on a silver platter. I got out, I had this big degree. I love telling people I have a JD, MBA, and it felt really good to say that out loud. And then I applied for jobs, and I started with the $250,000 jobs. Oddly enough, indeed.com, didn’t get me many responses, so they went down to the, you know, the 150 the 100, and then I couldn’t get a darn job. So I was working for the first year out of law school at this boutique insurance company, doing something around health care records. It was miserable, and I was stuck there for a year because I kind of didn’t know that you kind of have to grab it where you shouldn’t and make it work for you. So then I kind of said, All right, Ted, what you’re doing isn’t working. Let’s see if you can kind of do what you’ve always wanted to do, and that’s help businesses grow. And kind of, when I got in that mindset, it really took a metadoya, a mind shift changed for me to kind of not think the world would be handed to me, but go out and get it, yeah. And I started really applying myself, and that’s kind of where my life

Steve Fretzin [28:47]

started changing, yeah. But I think, like with most people, it took having a sort of a bad experience and having your dreams sort of like not get realized the way you had thought or planned. And it’s like people that go to Harvard, I’m from Harvard. Well, okay, great. You’re from Harvard, but, you know, do something, yeah, without now, what? He did that now? What? Yeah, all right, well, listen that, that’s why I asked the question, because I think people are going to make mistakes. People are going to fail. They’re going to make a bad decision, they’re going to be at the wrong firm. They’re going to, you know, not build a book until it’s too late, and they realize too late that they should have I mean, there’s a million reasons. It’s what we do with it, right? It’s how we have, how we flip back and and get in a positive mindset and take take charge. It sounds like

Ted DeBettencourt [29:30]

you did it for sure. Very cool. I wish I learned it earlier, but it took two years for me to get out of that, but I did it all right.

Steve Fretzin [29:35]

But you know what? Maybe two years that, you know, if you didn’t have those two years, maybe things wouldn’t be these wonderful as they are. Now, that’s right, that’s right. Yeah, thank you, man. And let’s thank our sponsors. We’ve got lawyer.com if you’re looking for a great directory and a way to get found, lawyer.com rankings, io, for some killer maybe you know Chris dryer, over there. Maybe two you guys should collaborate. I don’t know if they do what you do, but yeah, I know Chris. Yeah, they’re getting some good conversions, if any. One’s listening and you’re working and you want to talk about sponsorship on the podcast, we are not alone. We have we’re up on above the law. Attorney at work, legal broadcasting company is now syndicating the show, and of course, happy to talk with anybody about that. And if people want to get in touch with you and juvo leads Ted, they’ve heard and loved everything you said. What’s the best way for them to find more on you?

Ted DeBettencourt [30:25]

Go to juvo, J, u, v, O, leads.com and just start a chat. Find out who we are. Find us if you like it. If you want 50% more leads for your website, and like the idea of free 30 day trials, give us a shot. You got a chat but in there, right? Chat butts, not chat bots. That’s right.

Steve Fretzin [30:41]

You go, all right, I love it. That’s, is that all over your website? By the way? No, it should be, oh my god, we’re right on middle of your website. Chad, put the button to see I like that. Yeah. Well, talk offline, but Thank you Ted, and thank you everybody for hanging out and again, you know, we’re talking about intake, talking about conversions, talking about, how are we saving ourselves time, all important elements of being that lawyer, confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker, take everybody. Be safe, be well. We will talk again soon.

Narrator [31:12]

Thanks for listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, fredson.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal, business development and marketing trends, for more information and important links about today’s episode. Check out today’s show notes.

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