Recently, I was talking with our Partners Club Captains, the volunteers who lead our peer groups. During that Captains’ chat, someone shared a stat about Morgan & Morgan: they invest over $200 million a year in advertising and represent almost 10% of all U.S. law firm ad spend. Some folks were shocked. I wasn’t because this is what we teach: when you find a lead source that works, you go deep.
You likely know Morgan & Morgan, you’ve probably seen the billboards and TV commercials. That was their primary formula: build massive brand awareness in a geographic area and business follows. I’m not condoning or condemning, just noting they found something that works. I don’t know their exact revenue, but he says he’s a billionaire. I don’t want to be a billionaire or famous; I want to help this niche. So let’s reverse-engineer the math.
Many Personal Injury firms aim to spend 30-40% of gross revenue on advertising/marketing. (That’s not my recommendation for fee-based firms; I prefer ~15% or less.) Still, I’ve seen successful P.I. firms that do spend 30-40%+. If I had to guess, Morgan & Morgan’s revenue is around $500 million. I’d suspect they keep ~20% to the bottom line (could be more or less; P.I. firms can be wildly profitable at 50-70%, though at scale there may be debt/interest, etc.). Let’s say owner profit is roughly $100 million annually. Great for them. But that’s not where they started.
Go back to the origin story: Yellow Pages, then full-page ads, double-truck spreads, front cover/back cover, then billboards and TV. They found a formula, conquered one market at a time, and scaled.
So what should a firm doing a few hundred thousand, $500k, or $1M that wants to get to $2-3M (or a $2-3M firm wanting to reach $5-10M) earn from this?
The core principle: More → Better → New.
That’s the growth secret.
Step 1: Find ONE lead source that works.
That’s often the hardest part. It could be:
- Digital: SEO, Google Business Profile + reviews, LSAs, Google PPC, Facebook ads, TikTok ads, organic TikTok/Instagram/Facebook.
- Traditional: TV, radio, newspapers, direct mail, billboards.
- Pay-per-lead providers: agencies that go out and provide you the lead, these typically convert at the lowest rates, but they can certainly be profitable and have a solid 3-5x ROI.
- Referral development marketing: referrals from existing or past clients or allied service professionals
It doesn’t matter which quadrant; you just need one. Ideally, choose one you can scale with more dollars. Direct mail, for example, is powerful but list-limited and often time-sensitive. You can mail a list 2-3 times, but there’s a ceiling. PPC often has a higher ceiling. (Historically, TV/radio and billboards had higher ceilings as well.)
The point: find one source and do more of it.
What does it mean when something “works”?
Your CAC (cost to acquire a client) and LTV (lifetime value) must be in a healthy ratio… think 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, even 8-10:1 LTV:CAC. When a source hits that ratio, increase investment to acquire more clients at a similar CAC.
Step 2: Do it BETTER.
For example, if you're running Facebook ads for $1,000 a month, and it's generating you 3 clients, then your client acquisition cost (CAC) is $300.
Next month, spend $2,000 and see if you're getting 6 clients. If you are, the month after that, spend $4,000. More, better, new.
Try to continue to grow that particular lead source that's working, rather than going out and finding a new lead source. Take what works and do more of it. Do it better.
If you're running Facebook ads, and they either stop working or you can't get them to convert, then you try different ads, you try different conversions, you try different hooks, headlines, different everything, and you test.
The same thing with all digital, traditional, pay-per-lead, and referral development.
Test, test, test… most firms stop too early. Do it better by testing and improving and making changes.
As you scale, returns may diminish. Improve creative, funnels, intake, speed-to-lead, follow-up, offer framing… whatever moves CAC and LTV back in line.
Step 3: Add something NEW, last.
New is hardest. It has the biggest learning curve and takes the most time to dial in. Don’t switch because your main source “broke.” Add new while the first is still running, so you end up with two. I want you to have at least two, ideally three, but not at the expense of starving the one that already works.
I’ve got a firm doing multiple eight figures ($20-30M in gross revenue) that still focuses on one primary source. You can do that. But when you have only one, you’re exposed.
If you already have something working in digital, maybe find a referral development program. If you already have referral development, maybe start something in digital. If you've never used traditional, you can try to use traditional, but know that it's more expensive. If you want to go to pay-per-lead, it's one of the fastest but lowest conversions tools.
So the playbook is simple:
- Find one lead source that works.
- Do more of it until you hit diminishing returns.
- Do it better to restore healthy LTV:CAC.
- Then add new to build a second (and later a third) scalable source.
Most of you can build a multi-seven-figure firm, even multiple millions in revenue, keeping $1.0-$1.5M (or more) at the bottom line. At ~$5M in revenue, you might keep $1.5-$2.0M. And you can get there with just 2-3 main lead sources. You don’t need ten. Find one, do more of it, make it better, and only then add new until you have those two or three you can run deep on.
