Tim Semelroth

Kevin Daisey (00:01)
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the managing partners podcast. I’m Kevin Daisy and I’m your host as always. And today I have a new friend, Tim Semelroth on the show. And I got to meet Tim recently at Ben and Brian Glass’ a great local marketing summit in Phoenix, Arizona. And Tim was just super nice guy. we went and worked out together. We, had dinner and, just great getting to meet him

But also getting to hear him talk up on stage and share really what he’s done with his law firm and how successful he’s been and teaching others on how they can apply what he’s done. So got Tim on here today to share some of that with you. And I think you’re going to really like what he has to share and, Tim, welcome to the show.

Tim Semelroth (00:52)
Hey, I’m excited to be here. You know, I, when I got the invitation, I went down the rabbit hole of listening to a bunch of your podcasts. And so it’s a real honor.

Kevin Daisey (01:05)
I appreciate that very much. yeah, obviously, your friend Ben and Brian have both been on the show and, you know, just excited to add you to the list. So I appreciate you for coming on. So, so tell me, you know, tell everyone, listen, if they don’t know who you are, that’s crazy. But if let’s just pretend they don’t, tell us a little bit about yourself and your law firm.

Tim Semelroth (01:27)
All right, so my name is Tim Summelroth and I’m a lawyer from Iowa. And that alone probably makes me unique to a lot of your listeners because Iowa isn’t a very big state. We only have three million people in the entire state. And so a lot of times, particularly when I’m at conferences like where we met, I’m the first lawyer from Iowa that a lot of people have ever met. But my firm,

is the largest plaintiffs firm in the state of Iowa. We have locations in three cities. We’ve got 16 lawyers. We’ve got about 40 support staff. And we do every sort of plaintiffs work imaginable. Everything from personal injury to workers’ compensation to plaintiffs’ employment side work. We have lawyers who specialize in nursing home cases, medical malpractice cases.

If it’s a plaintiff’s case in Iowa, we handle it.

Kevin Daisey (02:30)
Well, it sounds like a good referral opportunity out there for people listening. If you don’t handle Iowa and you need a good source, Tim Jagai. So, and so that’s a pretty good claim right there. We’re the biggest plaintiff’s firm in the state. It just happens to be Iowa, which is a smaller state, but still a pretty awesome claim.

pretty cool.

Tim Semelroth (02:49)
Yeah, we didn’t intend for that to happen, but it was kind of one of those things that once you start doing some things pretty well, like for example, my partner, Presley, is probably one of the premier nursing home lawyers in the country. And then all of sudden you get contacted by other lawyers who want to be part of what you’re putting together. And it’s just one of those things where in a state our size, if you

If you aren’t doing it all, then you can’t keep everybody busy.

Kevin Daisey (03:23)
Well, yeah, mean, to your point, you know, you focus on the right things, you build the firm the right way and focus on that and doing the hard things, you know, the right way. And boom, you’re successful overnight, right? People don’t see the work that goes into it.

Tim Semelroth (03:39)
Well, it wasn’t overnight. Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Daisey (03:44)
You know, I think, you know, you know, think normal people, see success as being like, they’re so, so lucky, but it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of effort to do the right things, put the right things in place to, you know, attend things like, you know, great legal marketing summit, learn, go back, apply, go to the next thing, learn, apply, right. Listen to the podcasts, and constantly trying to improve your firm and you’re helping more people, right. And you’re going to grow.

Tim Semelroth (04:14)
Absolutely. you know, the, the, the growth that we’ve done has been based around talent. You know, so you get the opportunity to bring a lawyer in who’s great at employment law. Okay. Well, does that fit within our brand? Okay. Let’s bring them in. Or you, you recognize that a lot of your injured workers need help with social security disability claims. Can we find a great lawyer who does that?

and then do that in-house so that we can be a one-stop shop. That’s how we’ve grown. People ask, well, why did you go to this city as opposed to this city? And the answer is always the same is, and that is I had a chance to hire a great lawyer who lives in that city. And that’s why we expanded.

Kevin Daisey (05:01)
Nice. That’s smart, you know, following kind of that path versus trying to, you know, force it, you know, and get creative with it. So, that makes a lot of sense. Well, Tim, you know, kind of when we talked a little bit and, and when you’re speaking at the summit, you were really talking heavily about referrals and, kind of what you have in place to, kind of build and strengthen that. so we just really want to get you to talk more about that and share what you’ve done and.

Hopefully some lawyers that are listening can learn something from it. So if you want to kick it off and dive into that a little bit. Yeah.

Tim Semelroth (05:38)
Absolutely. Yeah. So part of it comes from being in a small state, right? We don’t have millions and millions of people who are potential clients for us. And so we really have to take advantage of any opportunity that we have. And so a lot of that comes from the traditional

marketing challenge, right, is to get people to know, like, and trust you. And so who are the people who get you a long ways there towards the sale? And those are your past clients and the lawyers that you’ve interacted with. And so hopefully you’re a good lawyer, right? So your past clients think well of you. Hopefully you’re a professional.

So the lawyers that you work with or work against think well of you. And then the question is, what can you do to make sure that those people don’t forget you? And so let’s take it one bucket at a time. So one bucket are your former clients. How do you stay connected to your former clients? And so we do that in a number of ways. First off,

Anybody who is a former client of ours, they are getting a birthday card and they are getting a holiday card from us every year, hard copy in their mailbox. And these aren’t, know, Hallmark cards that we’re just picking up off the street. You know, these are designed so that, you know, that they have our branding associated with them. But the…

Kevin Daisey (07:13)
for life.

Tim Semelroth (07:27)
The reality is that a lot of people don’t get mail anymore. And you can probably count on one hand the number of people who still send you birthday cards. And so that’s step one is making sure that we are connected to people that way.

Kevin Daisey (07:44)
I send out cards all the time, handwritten. Yeah, it stands out today.

Tim Semelroth (07:49)
Yep. And that’s exactly the thing is the next step are our thank you cards. And so we have special branded firm thank you cards and we actually have a contest with every member of our staff. And that is every time that you send out a handwritten thank you card, whether it’s to a vendor, whether it’s to a doctor, a

a anybody who you’ve interacted with professionally, if you send them a handwritten thank you card, your name goes in a drawing, a monthly drawing. And then we meet as a firm once a month and we draw out that name and they get like a $50 gift certificate or something like that. Then what happens is if you have sent out a thank you, a handwritten thank you card,

every month of the year, then you’re eligible for an end of the year bonus. And so that’s our, we call it our operation gratitude. But the idea is that, like I said, we’ve got over 40 people under our roof and all of them are sending out cards, handwritten cards to people, reminding them who we are and hopefully reminding them why they like us.

Kevin Daisey (09:12)
That’s, mean, if you do the math right there, 40, you know, that’s a lot of cards going out.

Tim Semelroth (09:14)
So then.

Absolutely. So then the third step is our newsletter program. And so and this comes from, you know, lessons that I learned from Ben Glass over 20 years ago. Everybody who has ever reached out to our firm to get a consult, they’ve been a client of ours, anybody who we have a mailing address for, they go on a

mailing list and once a month they get a hard copy glossy four page newsletter. And it primarily is consumer information, sort of readers digest type stuff. There’s always a recipe from a member of our firm. They will occasionally throw in things like a really good Google review we received. And there’s one

article per month that is actually related to the work that we do. But the idea is that every month we are invading their mailbox. And even if all they do is sort their mail over the wastebasket and they say, yeah, those are those lawyers from Iowa. And they flip it over and throw it away. Even if they don’t read it, they remember who we are.

Hopefully they remember the way we treated them. So if something bad happens to them, their family, their loved ones, we’re going to be the people that they think of and that they recommend.

Kevin Daisey (10:59)
That’s awesome. love that. Definitely a bin glass lesson right there. And we’ve, we are looking into that ourselves. So I love that. That’s going on every time. So kudos on that. And any recommendations? Do you use someone local? go ahead. Sorry.

Tim Semelroth (11:12)
Yeah, because you’re,

We do. We do. use a local printer who mails those out. And this is all automated, right? We don’t have people licking stamps in the office. We hire that out. We have vendors who send out the cards. We design the cards. The only thing that’s being handwritten or the handwritten thank you note is that the staff member sent out.

putting that system in place, it’s all being run by our marketing director. the goal is that anybody who’s interacted with us is never going to forget us. And they don’t go off the list unless they call and say they want to be off the list or we get a response back that they’ve moved or died. And that’s the way that we, in the words of Dan Kennedy,

put a fence around our herd to make sure that they don’t stray over to some other lawyer when they need somebody like us.

Kevin Daisey (12:28)
Smart. I love it. mean, I’m a digital marketing guy, but, this stuff makes sense. It works. And, know, if you’re just billboards and TV and all that stuff, but you have a customer that you’re sending something to their mailbox, to their home on a regular basis. Everyone has things happen in their lives or friends or family, that are going to need someone like yourself. So, I think it’s a great, remarketing tool. So awesome. What’s, what’s next on the list?

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Tim Semelroth (14:17)
Well, and don’t get me wrong, you know, we we do e-newsletters too. You know, those go out. You know, that’s a great way to drive those people who are on our list to our blog. You know, typically our e-newsletters are, you know, have links to bring them to our website, to our blog, you know, so that we’re connecting with them that way too. But, you know, the reality is, is that, you know, all of our our

Email inboxes are probably overstuffed and fewer and fewer people are taking the time to put a stamp on an envelope and sending it out. So that’s where we think there’s the opportunity to maintain that relationship.

Kevin Daisey (15:04)
I totally agree. I send out a podcast, like an email for this podcast every Thursday. It’s like 3,500 lawyers. Do they all open it? No. Do they all click on it? No. And so it’s consistent, but you know, hitting the mailbox, the real mailbox, I think is, is that extra step that most people don’t take. So kudos on that.

Tim Semelroth (15:26)
Yep. So that’s the first bucket. Those are the general public, right? And then we have the lawyers who refer us cases. And as anybody in the legal industry knows, your best cases are referrals from other lawyers. They’ve been vetted. People have probably reached out to a lawyer that they trust. And if they’re making a recommendation that that person then speak to you.

They’re pre-sold before they get to you. And so the question then becomes, how do you make sure that their heads are being turned by the latest lawyer to come into town or the latest guy or woman to get a great verdict? And so we do that in a couple of ways. First of all,

we have what we call our MAVENs program. And again, this is an idea that I learned at Ben Glass’ Great Legal Marketing, which is we identified the lawyers who consistently send cases to us, and they’re on this list. And what we do is we try to identify gifts that we can send to them once a quarter, maybe one time a year, it’s a food item.

Maybe one time a year, it’s a book that one of the partners has signed. Maybe it’s a piece of firm swag, but just something that they’re getting, not dependent, it’s not in relation to a particular case that they referred, but they’re just getting it, reminding them who we are. So it can be anything from, I think the most recent thing was beach towels.

Kevin Daisey (17:13)
Nice.

Tim Semelroth (17:20)
with our firm logo on it. Other people have really liked the barbecue tools or blankets or things like that. So sending out those Maven’s gifts is helpful because even in the contingency fee world where in Iowa referral fees are commonly paid out in personal injury cases, paying out a referral fee is just table stakes, right?

I mean, they assume that they’re gonna get that from anybody. So what can you do to create goodwill with those folks? So the MAVEN program is something we’ve been doing for years. And then if you still wanna hear me ramble, I’ll tell you about the latest thing that we’re doing to try to stay connected to the lawyers in Iowa.

Kevin Daisey (18:01)
you

Well, for sure. Definitely want to hear that. yeah, I like the maven program and I think like, do you have like a committee where you’re kind of planning out, Hey, what’s the next quarter’s gift and, and, kind of meeting to kind of structure that whole thing.

Tim Semelroth (18:20)
Yeah, so it’s, I mean, it’s a committee of two. It’s our marketing director. You know, she brings me ideas and then I, you know, I look at things and then, you know, occasionally we’ll ask the other partners, you know, cause we want something that’s nice, right? I mean, we don’t want the, you know, kind of junk that you pick up, you know, when you’re walking by a table at a conference, you want something that is nicer than that, that they’re going to keep, that they’re going to hold onto. And so that’s.

you know, that’s challenging, particularly when you’re sending those out four times a year. But the cool thing is, is that every time we send out Maven’s gifts, we tend to get a thank you note from at least one person. You know, there was something about that gift, you know, whether it was, you know, a book that really inspired them or, you know, a set of emergency lights that they can put in their their wife’s trunk.

in case she has car trouble. Those are the sorts of things that cause people to write to us. And you figure, gosh, if they’re writing thank you notes, they’re not gonna forget us when a good case comes through their door.

Kevin Daisey (19:31)
Well, I mean, consistent too, right? So every quarter, like, man, there’s another gift from these, these folks. Like that’s, that’s dedication. pro tip for anyone listening, if you’re not where Tim’s at or have a system in place, there is a company out there called giftology. You can Google them, but they do kind of this program for you and they have like pre-selected gifts, like, you know, nice knives sets and all kinds of customized stuff, but.

We’ve used them in the past, but giftology is kind of like if you don’t have a team in place or you want to do this internally or not branded with your brand, there’s something you can look at.

Tim Semelroth (20:12)
Very cool. here, yeah, so 2024, I decided that I wanted to come up with a new way to connect with the lawyers in Iowa. And so it started by becoming purposeful with LinkedIn. And so I had never been, you know, I’ve,

Kevin Daisey (20:13)
So what’s the latest and greatest? What else we got?

Tim Semelroth (20:40)
I’ve been at the same firm for 26 years. I hadn’t looked for a job, so I didn’t really appreciate the value of LinkedIn and enough smart people recommended that I look into it. So I said, okay, I’m going to spend 2024. So here’s what we’ve done. I have committed to posting information that I think is useful and valuable to attorneys or just interesting to attorneys on LinkedIn.

three, four times a week. And then I’ve made an effort to connect with as many lawyers as I can on LinkedIn to share that content. What we do then is we look at the engagement rate from what we post and then we turn the best posts into a twice a month

e-newsletter that goes out to every lawyer who we have an email address for. And so a lot of the things that people are interested, appear to be most interested are just kind of the law firm marketing issues or management issues that we just deal with with the firm our size, maybe tech tips, things like that. So.

We do an e-newsletter and then once a month, and here was the cool thing, is that as a member of the Iowa State Bar Association, I am entitled to a mailing list of everybody else in the bar association once per year. So that means I’m able to get access to a mailing list of 5,000 lawyers in the state of Iowa. And so what we started doing,

Kevin Daisey (22:31)
Ha

Tim Semelroth (22:34)
in the first quarter of 2024 is we take the most popular articles from the LinkedIn posts, the E-newsletter, and we do a one-page front and back print newsletter that we call Firm Foundations. And we mail that out. And it’s amazing to me the response we’re getting. I mean, we’re getting, you know,

prosecutors, we’re getting elderly trust and estates lawyers coming up to us at bar events saying, hey, I really like that article or, that was an interesting approach to how to recruit new people in your firm. Have you tried doing this? And so that’s what we’ve been doing in 2024.

Happy to announce that we’ve seen an increase in the number of referrals that we’re getting from other lawyers. And a lot of that is, I think, just being top of mind.

Kevin Daisey (23:42)
That’s awesome. I love that a lot. So I’m big on LinkedIn. We’re now connected. and I start, I’m seeing Tim comments and his post and, interacting with a lot of the same lawyers that I I’m connected with. but I love the idea that you’re posting it, getting the response and taking the best content to, to then use and get in front of people that, didn’t see it yet. So very smart. Makes a, that’s a great idea. So,

That’s pretty cool. And LinkedIn is a good place to hang out. know, a lot of lawyers are on there. So if you’re a lawyer looking to increase your referrals and build relationships with lawyers, it’s great. And I think most lawyers think, it’s just for a job or for hiring people. and that’s definitely not the case. it’s, been very, it’s worked very well for me. That’s for sure. So that’s awesome to hear.

Tim Semelroth (24:35)
Yeah, I mean, that’s I was one of those lawyers, you know, as recently as it’s 2023. You know, I thought LinkedIn was a place but that you go to when you need a job or you need to hire somebody. And, you know, what’s what somebody very smart explained to me is that, you know, the the average age of people who are active on Facebook is getting older than the bananas on your on your counter.

And, and Twitter is really, you know, kind of a dumpster fire that, I, I love Twitter because I like it to get, Iowa Hawkeye sports news and, and, but the thing is, is that I have to wade through, you know, probably 10 posts that Elon Musk wants me to see before I can get, you know, find out, whether or not the, the wide receiver that we made an offer to is, going to be, you know, visiting Iowa city.

And so they, everybody said, you know, it’s like, Hey, people are migrating to LinkedIn. And the great thing is, is that, and I see this with my own kids. I have two kids in college. One kid who’s in high school is that, you know, back when we were in school, they would teach you how to make a resume, right? Now all these schools are teaching their kids and requiring their kids to make a LinkedIn profile.

And so you have this perpetually current system with LinkedIn. And so that’s why I’ve spent a lot of time on it this year. know, selfishly, know, Kevin, one of the most exciting things about being able to be on this podcast was I thought, holy cow, I bet I’ll get a whole bunch of new friends on LinkedIn if I talk to Kevin.

Kevin Daisey (26:11)
Mm-hmm.

There, yeah, yeah. Go connect with Tim on LinkedIn. when Tim was up on stage, they had like a panel at a Bing glasses event in Phoenix. And, from the stage, I was in the very back and I had just got, I think to the conference. Cause I took some employees. I have some, we have some employees from a radio show in Phoenix, took them to lunch. Then came to the conference. You guys were on stage when I walked in and I sat in the back with Brian and,

I remember you go, Hey, if you’re on LinkedIn, go right now and connect with me. And I literally, that’s when I went and connected. didn’t even know who you were yet. so I went and connected with you and like later that day you accepted it, I think, but yeah, LinkedIn is great. I mean, I spoke to a, entrepreneur class, a high school of about five, six years ago as a business owner. Like, Hey, can you come in and speak to our class? And I was like, well, what do want me to talk about? And they’re like, talk about, know,

entrepreneurship or, and I went in there and I just talked about LinkedIn and said, listen, if you want to start a company, if you want to work for someone, it doesn’t matter. Get on LinkedIn. Like who has it? Zero kids even knew what it was. Now this is high school, about four or five years ago, but, I showed them how to set it up, how to leverage it. And was like, where else can you go and connect with Tim?

As a brand new, like a law student and he connects back with you and you can message him and say, Hey, I want to work for your law firm. Like how, where else can you go to the CEO or the owner of a company and say, Hey, instead of going to the bottom and trying to work my way up, how about you go right to the leadership? Like LinkedIn can allow you to actually pull that off. and so for the young kids, I’m like, imagine the power of that. If you have a good profile that you’re active and show, you know,

that you’re willing to put in the time there, someone like a Tim or me or whoever will be likely to connect back with you. You have a following, you have connections. So how powerful that can be.

Tim Semelroth (28:36)
Absolutely. And, you know, I learned from looking at smart people like you on LinkedIn and the real secret is like giving value, right? I mean, it’s not social media in the sense that you’re posting pictures of what you ate for lunch or just bragging all the time about, we just did this or did that. There can be a place for those things. But the people who

Kevin Daisey (28:56)
Thank you.

Tim Semelroth (29:06)
I enjoy reading, you know, are people like you who are putting, you know, cutting edge information out into the world that, you know, that I clearly thought was interesting or I wouldn’t have connected with you.

Kevin Daisey (29:19)
Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, there’s just so many good lawyers. Like I’m a, I’m a marketer, right? But lawyers are my clients. but I follow so many lawyers that are friends of mine, like Chris Early and, Lloyd Bourgeois and a lot of other members of, of GLM that post really just awesome stuff. And it’s not just even law firms specific. It’s applicable to anyone in business. so there’s just really good content out there and LinkedIn is just that it’s valuable content.

that people can pull from or otherwise there’s no place for you there. It’s almost like, you know, like my city where I’m at in Virginia beach, if you have been a restaurant and it’s just going to be bar food and crap fried stuff, you will not cut it. It’ll, they won’t work. Like you have to have local, fresh, creative new stuff for it even be successful. And so.

Yeah, kind of similar to LinkedIn, So if you don’t have good content and you’re just trying to sell stuff the whole time, it’s not, it’s not going to work out. So good place to hang out.

Tim Semelroth (30:24)
Yeah. And the cool thing is, that, you know, what you share with people, you know, they will then develop beliefs about you. They’ll grow to like you or grow to trust you if you’re giving out good content. And that’s, you know, that’s the key, right? Is that, I mean, for somebody like me, you know, my goal is, is that when somebody thinks of a legal issue that

that they think of me, that they think of my firm, because if we can’t help them with it, I know almost every lawyer in the state, it seems like, and I can connect people with the right people. And so that’s the best way to, I think, to use LinkedIn is just to develop an audience of people who know, like, and trust you.

Kevin Daisey (31:04)
you

Spot on. That’s a great way to put it. And I think more people need to get on LinkedIn and take it serious. I don’t care what your position or job is. but it’s to me, it’s important. And I look at employees, LinkedIn’s and are they involved? Are they passionate about what they do or is it just a resume? and so yeah, great place. And, glad you’re on LinkedIn. Welcome to the party and, everyone definitely go connect with Tim. And if, if you’re not, or you don’t know how to find him.

You know, reach out to me, you can message me and I will make the introduction. well, tell me, mean, I appreciate you sharing. mean, these are, these are tactics that most firms are not doing the things that he talked about here today, the traditional stuff, the handwritten cards, the gifts. I think we all focus on digital and you know, newsletters and stuff like that. And as a digital guy, again, that’s great. Cause you can track stuff, but.

My inbox is solid full of crap and I just, I can’t look at all of it. So you got to stand out. You got to do things differently. And I think what Tim’s doing is a, is a great lesson here. So I appreciate you sharing today.

Tim Semelroth (32:34)
A pleasure to be here and I’m gonna keep following you and keep learning cutting edge digital stuff from you both online but hopefully in person again soon.

Kevin Daisey (32:46)
Yeah. Hopefully to see you soon. I’m going to be off the, well, by the time this comes out, Lottie growl and San Diego, but definitely looking forward to next year. GLM great event that Ben and Brian put on. if you’ve never been to a great legal marketing, check them out. Tim’s obviously learned a lot from them and he supplied it. So, you’ll get to hear Tim speak. I’m sure again, if you, if you go next year, but everyone out there, yeah, it’s all about connections.

LinkedIn and Tim, it’s all about being that connector, that resource. And that is where you’re going to, you you’re going to build value and then be recommended. So, Tim, good stuff. Everyone out there, listen to what Tim has to share today and go grow your law firms and do it the right way. So we’ll see you soon. Tim, thank you so much.

Tim Semelroth (33:36)
Good to see ya.

Kevin Daisey (33:37)
Bye, everybody.