From Spare Bedroom to $10M+: How a Unique Brand Fuels Law Firm Growth

0:00 Introduction – Why Branding Fuels Sustainable Law Firm Growth

2:15 Rental Attention vs. Owned Attention: The Branding Advantage

6:30 From Big Law to Solo Practice: Taking the Leap

10:40 Early Growth Strategies and Finding a Niche

14:20 The Origin of “The Patent Professor” Brand

18:10 What Branding Really Means (Hint: It’s Not Just a Logo)

22:30 Trademarkable vs. Generic Brands: What Lawyers Must Know

26:50 Why You Should Protect Your Brand with a Trademark

29:30 Using Education to Build Authority and Trust

34:40 How Branding Improves Client Quality and Reduces Distrust

38:45 Creating Pricing Power Through Strong Perception

42:20 Intake Strategies That Reinforce Your Brand

46:30 Niching Down Without Limiting Growth

50:10 Overcoming Internal Resistance to Branding

53:40 Building a Memorable Visual Identity

57:00 Letting Personality Differentiate Your Firm

1:00:20 A Simple Branding Framework for Lawyers

1:04:30 The Mindset Shift: Stop Renting Attention

1:07:00 Branding as a Long-Term Asset

1:08:30 Growth Professor Studios and Video Branding for Lawyers

1:11:10 The Patent Professor Rap & Final Takeaways

Jason Marsh (00:00)
On today's show, John Rizvi, founder of the Patent Professor Law Firm and author of If You Brand It, They Will Come. We'll be talking about how branding builds the foundation that fuels sustainable law firm growth. John shares how he built a niche IP firm from a spare bedroom into a $10 million practice, why trademarkable brands matter more than ever, and how branding shows up in places most firms completely overlook.

from specialization and authority to intake and even how the phone is answered. And stick around to the end because you just might hear the best lawyer rap and beatbox I've ever heard.

John Rizvi (00:41)
PPC and paid ads and paid social, I think of a lot of that as rental attention. but the moment you stop, that's it. the attention's gone. whereas branding,

ownership. If you take the time and you spend the money and and craft a brand, then it's memorable and it's something that doesn't just go away the instant your ad spend stops. That's really the big advantage.

Jason Marsh (01:11)
Welcome to the Alpha Lawyer podcast, a show dedicated to exploring what makes law firms thrive. I'm your host, Jason Marsh. Join me as I interview some of the smartest thought leaders and accomplished law firm owners in our space. Together, we'll dive deep into law firm operations, marketing, technology, finance, and everything else you need to build an incredible firm that allows you to live your best life.

Jason Marsh (01:39)
Hello, welcome back to the Alpha Lawyer podcast. I'm Jason Marsh and today I'm joined by John Rizvi. John, great to have you here.

John Rizvi (01:47)
Yeah, it's always a pleasure. Thank you.

Jason Marsh (01:49)
Yeah. So

be a surprise to say that a lot of lawyers and frankly, a lot of business owners tend to think about branding as a logo or some colors, a website, just something that's just purely visual, cosmetic, and not something that's core to like the real work that a business does. But you've built your entire firm and honestly, your entire professional identity around the idea that branding isn't.

cosmetic, it's an absolutely foundational component to the business. And the idea that if the brand is wrong, well, more marketing just means more wasted money. So before we actually get into how branding can fuel growth for your law practice, I want to give you a proper introduction. So John is the founder of the patent professor, a nationally recognized intellectual property firm that's been featured on ABC News, CBS and TEDx Talk.

He's a board certified patent attorney, one of the first in the country to earn that distinction. He spent years as an adjunct professor teaching patent law at Nova Southeastern University. built his firm from a spare bedroom into an eight figure, $10 million plus practice earning Inc. 5000 recognition and along the way developed a very intentional approach to niching, positioning and building a trademarkable brand that attracts the right client. John.

Great to have you on the show.

John Rizvi (03:15)
Yeah, thank you, Jason. I love being here.

Jason Marsh (03:19)
Yeah. So for me, feels like whenever lawyers talk about growth, the conversation almost immediately goes into tactics, SEO, ads, social media, course AI now, maybe some intake, all those things. And of course, all of those matter. But I think what often gets skipped is the more fundamental question is what is all of that marketing actually amplifying? And so I know you've been very intentional about how you talk about growth.

and the idea that branding has to come before marketing. You you've said if your brand is wrong, more marketing just means more wasted money. And for me, that resonates because I feel like a lot of firms feel like they're doing all the right things, right, tactically, but maybe not getting quite the traction that they feel like they should. So I want to talk to you more about how you define branding in a practical, actual operational sense.

and why you believe that that's a core asset to the law practice and a foundation really for everything else that your law firm growth is going to be built on.

John Rizvi (04:24)
Yeah, so like one.

fundamental way that I of look at it and all those things you mentioned, ⁓

PPC and paid ads and paid social, I think of a lot of that as rental attention. You're renting attention, you're paying Facebook, you're paying, if you have paid ads on other social media, Instagram or PPC, but the moment you stop, that's it. Like there's, the attention's gone. And if, whereas branding,

ownership. If you take the time and you spend the money and and carefully craft a brand, then it's memorable and it's something that doesn't just go away the instant your ad spend stops. That's really the big advantage.

is something that can outlast having to spend month after month after month. And then a lot of times, it's the moment you stop, even people that have seen your ads, they somehow, they start thinking that they're always gonna be there. But if your brand's not memorable, they don't remember where, know, there's like, who is that attorney that, you know, that did trust in estate work that I liked? if it's a family law or a divorce situation, like when a relationship

that point, they go back in their mind to try to remember it. They might remember the ads, they might remember where the billboard was, ⁓ but unless you continue and you have that billboard, they're not gonna find you again. But if they remember you, then ⁓ you show up on Google searches because that's what they're gonna look for.

Jason Marsh (06:01)
Yeah, yeah, this is, this is such a great point because I think a lot of people really, they think of branding, as we said, maybe as, a logo or some colors, but I had somebody once.

describe it to me more of something it's, the mind share. It's where you exist in people's mind. Do they know who you are? Do they have an idea of what you do? And most importantly, how you're different or better and ultimately, can help them. And anyway, I want to get into all the nitty gritty of that, but, before we do it, I want to rewind just for a second to talk to you a little bit about how all of this started for you. Cause I know you didn't build a massive firm overnight. You started as a solo, literally working out of a spare room.

⁓ and then over time built a team of specialists and scaled your practice into a multi-million dollar firm. And I think that is such an amazing thing to have done. And so maybe you can walk me through what did those early days look like? What did the firm look like when you first started and what were you doing at that time?

John Rizvi (07:02)
Yeah, I started my practice at... ⁓

a large New York City law firm. In fact, the firm of Fish and Neve is arguably the most prestigious patent firm in the world. their attorneys patented Thomas Edison's light bulb and ⁓ the Wright Brothers airplane, the telephone, like pretty much every single major iconic invention you can think of was by this firm. ⁓ my excitement because I was ⁓ in

engineer and when I became decided to focus on patent law like I envisioned the individual inventor I envisioned the garage inventor creating something that they ⁓ in their garage like these major corporations many of them start right like like no no the story behind Steve Jobs and Michael Dell and

Elon Musk, weren't always large corporations. was an individual, Jeff Bezos, ⁓ began, his original desk was a door put up on cinder blocks, you have that iconic picture. That's what I envisioned, and when I reached this firm, I found that my days were, it was nothing like what I thought I would be doing. I was basically working with MBAs and corporate lawyers, ⁓

moving

paper around representing companies like IBM getting their 30,000 patent. And it wasn't like five years in, I still had not met with an inventor. So my goal was to launch my own law firm and focus on startups and individual inventors. And this was at a time when it was considered nuts to do so. I mean, this was 2001 and I spoke

to the partners and they said, you're nuts. Nobody ever leaves this firm to do that. Most people go in-house to a cushy corporate position. To make matters worse, I was moving from New York City to back to South Florida where I grew up. My parents were here. I miss them and I went to the University of Miami. My connections were here and there's like South Florida that's like, are there inventors in South Florida?

that was that ⁓ you have to find your clients have to be where your firm is located. And that seems crazy now, but this was at a time when there was no such thing as Skype or Zoom or video conference calls. ⁓ So it was a leap of faith ⁓ on my part. I get given a lot of credit now that Miami's boomed and the Internet's changed the world and ⁓ remote hiring attorneys is common.

as if I had foresight, but I have to be honest, I did not have that foresight. was very lucky in a sense of how my firm expanded.

Jason Marsh (10:07)
Well, know, and that is right, such a big risk. I imagine for a lot of attorneys, particularly working for larger firms, the notion of leaving, starting your own small practice instead of targeting large corporations. Now you're targeting individual, just much smaller types of matters. Yeah, that's a big risk. And that's that's probably a scary process, particularly if you haven't owned a business before. You're not really sure what all the moving parts are. But once you started.

What was your initial strategy around growth? know, was it, you looking for referrals? What type of marketing were you doing at that point before you really, hit that inflection point around the brand?

John Rizvi (10:44)
Yeah, so.

It took, so I only wanted to focus on patent work and the advice I got and I sought a lot of advice from people who had started their own law firm and they said, John, your clients are like a needle in a haystack. Like you would go to networking events and there might be, you you speak to 30 people, but there's going to be people there that need to form a corporation or need a simple will or like all this, simpler family law issue.

why would you start your practice by just narrowly focusing on this? And, but I, that was what I wanted to do. And this was at a time when getting the word out about your practice area is, took time and took an incredible amount of money. It still does. But this was at a time when most state bars did not permit a law firm name that did not have the names of ⁓ the lawyers.

in the name. So there's no such thing as trade names for lawyers. ⁓ But because I was going to focus on patent law, I needed the name to be memorable and nobody would remember John Rizvi ⁓ as being a patent attorney. It would be John Rizvi, PA. ⁓ the way that the lawyers that were ahead of the time, the way they would try to get their brand in is by getting a a ⁓ slogan

And then they would have both. They would have the name of the law firm, John Rees VPA, and the slogan, or brand.

Jason Marsh (12:21)
And so it would be kind of the John

Rizvi would be the brand and then the slogan would essentially define what that brand was doing or meant to meant. so for you, you're saying like, that's not the way to go about it. You have a more specific way of addressing that. And so how did that all come about?

John Rizvi (12:42)
Yes, now if

you're...

You know, most state bars permitted. Now you could simply, the name of your firm could be the patent professor. It doesn't have to be ⁓ John Rezvy, PA, the patent professor or Goldsmith and something, the patent professor. It's whatever it is. You don't have to do that. But one thing that ⁓ they didn't even have, the concept of split testing is now very well known. Back then, I guess it was only specifically really serious marketers.

understand that concept but without knowing it I was split testing because my firm was my business cards the building everything had John Rizvipa and then hyphen the patent professor and why did I call it a split test is everyone nobody could remember John Rizvipa everyone remembered the patent professor in fact we would get checks written out to the patent professor and it would be a hassle in the beginning like I'd go

to a client like, sorry, I can't deposit this. You need to rewrite this to John Rizvipa. And that was the split test. We'd have phone calls and no one would ask this John Rizvipa. It's like, is this the patent professor? So it was not even a close split test. And I, it was to me, I was like, why isn't every lawyer doing this? Like you, you meet lawyers, you don't know what area they practice. And then afterwards, after a networking event or something, you're thinking,

⁓ gosh, who was the lawyer that focused on whatever the area of law was? This was before or when the early days of traffic ticket law firms, which were at the forefront of this, the ticket clinic.

Jason Marsh (14:26)
Right. Now, it sounds almost like,

was it accidental in the sense that you had your, you your official firm name, John Riz, VPA, and then the patent professor, but it kept

People kept coming back to you and saying, patent professor, the patent, to the point where they're literally writing you checks and that's not your, that's only your slogan or your tagline. And that was the inflection point to say, wow, there's, there's something to this. I need to lean into the patent professor and the, the firm, official firm name less important.

John Rizvi (15:01)
Yeah, so it wasn't actually it was purposeful, but ⁓ but necessary because because I refused to go beyond this super narrow niche of.

Jason Marsh (15:05)
Okay.

John Rizvi (15:15)
patent work. And remember, you didn't have the ability, really a patent attorney would, it was very hard to close non-local clients ⁓ because first, first of all, they wanted to meet in person. This was the mindset. And so if you're in an area and you're only focusing on intellectual property and specifically patent law, then I figured I needed to have more than just my firm name. I needed instant ⁓

Jason Marsh (15:28)
Sure.

John Rizvi (15:42)
recollection among referring attorneys and put prospects to think of me because if I practiced more common areas, then networking would work and I could, you family law, would go to bar meetings and there would be or any networking environment and run across people that would need my services. This became really clear to me in the early days of my practice. My wife's a dentist ⁓ and we would sometimes go to ⁓ networking events together to

drum up business. Me for my patent practice and her for her dental office. She would come back excited and like I have like 15 potential ⁓ patients. all like all this work and like how did things go with you? And I said I met I was really hustling. I did my best. I met a hundred people but not one of them had an idea and I said it's not fair because everybody has teeth so every person you meet is a potential ⁓

Jason Marsh (16:21)
That's right.

John Rizvi (16:40)
client or patient for you and that's not the case for me. So it was more a necessity that ended up being so powerful that now I think even if your area of practice is something general, like if you do business litigation, ⁓ branding is almost a superpower. Like if there's still not enough lawyers doing it, although things are changing, but you absolutely can carve out a unique brand in almost every practice area today. ⁓

lawyers are embracing this.

Jason Marsh (17:12)
Well, great. So let's

talk more about that. And I do think that your type of practice area is particularly telling in the sense that, you can go out and meet 50 people and none of them are inventing things or need a trademark or a patent. And so the idea that you have a brand that they can remember and tell the person that they meet a month, a year later, you know what? I met the patent professor. should, here, I got his card or you can go find his information.

But that eventually like versus, I, you know, I have a, a hook, for a dentist, right? Everybody's got the teeth, so they need a dentist, but for you, it's going to take a few,

What do they call it? Like points of connection. So anyway, let's, so before we go any further, I want to slow this down for one second and let's just talk about what, a brand really is. Number one, and number two, more around your idea of a defensible brand. because again, I think

when a lot of lawyers and just even business owners hear the word brand, they're immediately thinking logo, a color, maybe a website design, a slogan, something along that. But you talk about brand very different.

almost as if it's like infrastructure to your practice or your business.

John Rizvi (18:24)
Yeah, so the brand basically is the perception. ⁓

to your ⁓ client base or customer base if it's not a law firm. perceptions, a lot of things go into that. Yes, the logo is one part, but a logo by itself is not going to differentiate one company

⁓ certainly not one lawyer from another law firm, unless that logo is incredibly memorable and it's really difficult to do in a logo itself. And it goes back to

⁓ the initial, like...

thinking that people had about a website is critical, but it's not enough. it's necessary, but not sufficient. So yes, a logo helps, but you don't have to necessarily have a logo. You need something quick and memorable that people can associate, and it should tie in with your practice area in an incredibly simple way. So a lot of times, I think what we're

lawyers make a mistake is that they're looking for a play on words that really is quite sophisticated and maybe other lawyers get it and can make the connection but their know their client base is not making that connection so it really has to be

very basic. mean, it's one of these, you have to know what the practice area is by the slogan or by the trade name. I'm not a huge fan of trade names that don't reveal the area of practice because the client base is still confused. ⁓

Jason Marsh (20:01)
So

in a couple of ways, it's like.

Number one, it needs to identify what it is that you're doing, or more importantly, how you can help people, but be memorable, but in some way, but overall, I think the key word there that you mentioned is perception. You're trying to create a perception in the mind, of your target audience, of who you are, how you can help them. And I think importantly, how you're different, right? Why you're better, whatever that might be. I've heard, branding where people talk about, pick what you're

unique selling product. could be price, it could be quality, it could be something, but pick it and make sure it's different than whoever your competitors are. So what's the difference between, ⁓ say for example, like a trademarkable brand or a memorable unique brand versus just some generic brand that doesn't work? Can you talk about that a bit?

John Rizvi (20:55)
Yeah, so, and that's a question. As an intellectual property attorney, I help a lot of businesses with ⁓ trademarking their brands as well. And it's almost counterintuitive because ⁓ from a legal standpoint, the more obtuse a brand, the stronger the protection. And for example, like there's brands like Kodak, for example,

It doesn't stand for anything. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't describe the goods or services. So from a legal standpoint, it's an incredibly strong brand legally. But from a branding standpoint, the company has to spend an incredible amount of money for people to associate the name Kodak, in this case, with film. So ⁓ if you're a law firm, unless you are... ⁓

huge, like I said, Morgan & Morgan doesn't need a slogan because they have the advertising ⁓ ability to promote themselves as Morgan & Morgan enough. But if you don't have the funding to do that, ⁓ you need a trademark that somehow describes the services that you're offering or the goods. Now, this is I say it's counterintuitive. So what makes a strong trademark from a branding standpoint and from a business

standpoint is something that conjures up what the product is. ⁓ But that makes a weak trademark from a legal standpoint because it's harder to protect a trademark if it reveals what the product is. some examples of marks that are that are fanciful and arbitrary and they don't give any ideas, Uber would be one example. ⁓

It's, from a business standpoint, terrible, terrible name because it takes a lot of. ⁓

of marketing power and spending for consumers to associate Uber with the services they provide. Lyft, on the other hand, and they got playful with their spelling, L-Y-F-T, and in Europe, it's like, do you need a ride? Do you need a Lyft? Is more common. So it's a weaker mark from a legal standpoint, but if it's used enough and for a long enough time period that it gets what's called

secondary meaning, then legally it becomes a really strong mark and it's got that advantage of consumer recognition where they don't have to associate ⁓ the type of service with the brand. Because if we're a small law firm, don't have the money that Uber did to associate Uber with the services. So you have to pick the investment that does that naturally.

Jason Marsh (23:42)
So I think.

Yeah, so I think you're making a very critical distinction here, right? Because when people think about brand, it's very easy to think large consumer facing corporations, whether it's Kodak or Uber. And as you said, they can spend an absolute fortune teaching people what Uber is or what Kodak is. A law firm doesn't have that budget. what I think you're saying is that you need a brand that's going to get to that a little bit quicker.

and define what that brand is without spending millions of dollars in advertising, but people can very quickly get a sense of what that firm can do to help them and maybe how they're different. Is that right?

John Rizvi (24:25)
Yeah, ⁓ 100%. And I mean, there's a bank that, maybe it's nationwide, but we see it in Florida quite a bit, Wachovia Bank. And maybe it's based on, I'm just guessing, the city, maybe where they first opened. But if you see Wachovia and you don't know it's a bank, you have no idea what it is. Whereas if a bank picks a name like Bank of America, know, all right, that's a bank. First Federal, it's like more bank sounding names versus

something that doesn't associate. Imagine instead of the ticket clinic they had a playful fanciful name for their service. It's a law firm that didn't have the word ticket in the name. Now consumers have a harder time and they have to spend a lot more money saying associating what they do with the particular brand.

Jason Marsh (25:16)
So you're saying, so, cause I, yeah, I want to, we're talking about large brands. want to focus on to what, what, does a law firm do? And you're saying, is the ticket clinic a good example of doing this? Well, because you pretty much read the name of the business and have a pretty good idea of what they're going to be doing for you.

John Rizvi (25:29)
yes.

Yeah, so the ticket clinics are...

great example. Under trademark law, if your name simply describes the goods or services, it could be seen as generic. So legally, it's a little tougher to get. You could not, know, like if you want to get basketball trademarked and you're selling basketballs, it's not going to work. It's generic. I'm sometimes asked because I am an actual professor, adjunct professor of law, and I would talk about the Apple example and I will have students

Jason Marsh (25:48)
Got it.

not gonna happen.

John Rizvi (26:08)
say, wait a minute, your basketball example, but what about Apple? How did Apple get protection? And I said, because they're not selling apples. If they were selling apples, then their brand would describe the goods or services and they would not be, could not get a trademark. But because they're selling computers and electronics, know, devices that have nothing to do with apples, ⁓ they can get protection. In that case, it was clever branding because initially their target market was

the education sector and schools and the apples are synonymous with teachers and that's where it tied in. They've now expanded well beyond that so the risk of getting a name that's too descriptive is that the trademark office could reject it. So instead of the ticket clinic if it was the ticket defense law firm

Jason Marsh (26:43)
⁓

John Rizvi (27:00)
they would have a risk of being seen as generic or divorce lawyer, the divorce lawyer firm. It's too close. So you have to be creative and playful, but not so creative and playful that people can't make the connection. So don't get too sophisticated with the play on words. People still have to make that connection that, it's somebody offering legal services.

Jason Marsh (27:26)
And so, for example,

John Rizvi (27:27)
The way they

take it, sorry, they were not able to avoid a ⁓ rejection most possibly is because it's technically not a clinic. Clinic is, that would be their argument. ⁓

Years ago, I had another trademark that I ended up not using as well. It was the Idea Attorneys for our brand. And I was prepared if they pushed back and said, hey, Idea Attorneys is the generic term for intellectual property law. I was prepared to say, no, it's not. We're known as patent attorneys, technically trademark attorneys, intellectual property attorneys. Idea Attorneys is something I've coined and it's made up. ⁓ But I never got that

rejection, but ultimately I found it not as memorable as the patent professor.

Jason Marsh (28:15)
Yeah, and so that seems to be the distinction when you look at the ticket clinic, the word clinic, as you said, they're not an actual clinic. ⁓ In your case, the patent professor, you actually are a professor, but that's not the service, you're not selling professorship services.

John Rizvi (28:31)
Yeah, exactly. And that was if I was

a school or college or offering somehow teaching service, then it could be different. ⁓ But I'm not. So it's similar to Apple in that sense.

Jason Marsh (28:41)
And then is it important that, you cause you've mentioned, you know, actually submitting this for trademark, is that important to be able to have that, I guess, protected or defensible, as you've said, to come up with that creative term? And then it's also, it's descriptive through an extent it's creative and memorable, but then also you can trademark that that's a key piece of the equation.

John Rizvi (29:04)
⁓ absolutely. Because without the trademark, you will not be able to stop others from encroaching on your brand. ⁓ and eventually that's going to dilute its impact and there will be, so much confusion that you'll have competitors playing on your fame because you've paved the way by becoming the well-known firm.

there actually will be potential prospects that end up hiring another lawyer because they thought they were dealing with you. So you absolutely have to file for a trademark.

Jason Marsh (29:41)
Got it, okay, so that's great to know. So now let's just shift a little bit.

Talk about the idea of building your brand and then how that ultimately can lead into attracting the type of clients that you actually want. And so for me, one of the things that really stands out about your brand and what you've created, John, is how education has played such a central role in terms of teaching patent law, writing books, speaking, hosting a podcast, doing all of these things to position yourself as the expert or a thought leader in this area. Let's talk about that.

How has that worked and how is that all fed into the actual construction of your brand and the perceptions created around it?

John Rizvi (30:22)
Yeah, so the most powerful brands are the ones where they're multifaceted. everything helps to remind.

prospective customers, clients of the brand. the reason I really love the professor name other than me being an adjunct professor, but even that helps because I mentioned that and now it's easier for people to remember patent professor because they remember John Reesby's a professor. I do a lot of speaking and you're right, you mentioned the Ted Talks and I speak at bar functions. And I always talk about my experience as an adjunct professor.

⁓ teaching what at most almost every law school in the country it's an elective course. So when I teach patent law no student has to take it. ⁓

So that means a lot of times what we get are, as professors, as students that might not necessarily be super interested in it, but the class fits their schedule and they need certain credits to graduate. And they have now it's like the hot cool area. So now I have more interest in it. But for years it wasn't, I didn't have passionate, excited students to learn patent law. And I knew this and patent law is the most complex, ⁓ actually dry area of law.

I can say that myself, even patent attorneys would agree. But non-patent attorneys, it was hard to get to teach this in a way that third year graduating law students would actually participate and be excited about. I had, again, what starts as necessity ends up being a huge competitive advantage. I think the branding for me in the beginning was a necessity because it's such a niche practice area. Coming up with examples

and analogies that were exciting was a necessity as a ⁓ patent attorney because it's stuff that's not in the student's natural realm of understanding. it's now, when I began teaching, there's no such thing as a show called Shark Tank where you had sharks and there was no talk about ⁓ patents and the importance of protecting ideas. So whereas law students studying tort law or

divorce law or any business law. They had criminal defense. They had examples. knew what ⁓ they were getting into. So I had to create these simple, easy examples. And I talk about this not only in Bar Functions. I explained that my brand is the patent professor. I take complex patent law topics and make them easy to understand. And that's what a professor does. Professors teach. So in all of my

law firms, educational materials, I talk about ⁓ retaining my firm. You not just get expert legal advice and high quality patents, but you have somebody that speaks in a way that you can understand what they're doing. And when you do that, that reinforces the brand professor. And because the patent part's not unique, but the professor part is. we find

searches when they go on instead of us competing with a ton of other patent attorneys for Patent Attorney Florida or Patent Attorney New York, once the branding kicks in, it's so memorable. They remember seeing us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. The searches are for patent professor and that's how we are assured that we're going to be first.

Jason Marsh (33:56)
And so this is interesting to me because I think probably for a lot of law firms, it's a competitive practice.

whatever practice area that you're in, often there's, even if you're just looking at your own geographical area, let alone national, you're looking at lots and lots and lots of other firms that are offering basically identical set of services, right? And so you can say that, essentially these are commoditized to a degree. And so it's your brand that's going to create that separation or that distinction. And so in terms of

you're teaching and you're speaking and you're writing and helping to educate your prospects ⁓ in an understandable way. Did you at some point see a noticeable shift in at least the quality of clients that you were getting once the education component became a part of your brand?

John Rizvi (34:53)
So quality in terms of, ⁓ were getting people that wanted us.

that wanted the patent professor. When my firm was starting to grow in the earlier stages, ⁓ it was, it's a double edged sword because when the patent professor was seen as me, as John Rizvi, there's this pressure that they want their consultations to be with John Rizvi. So I've had to make an effort to make clear that yes, I'm a patent professor. I'm the founder. I'm known as the patent professor.

but that the brand itself represents the law firm. ⁓ it becomes easier the larger the law firm gets because then that expectation that they're going to meet with the founder ⁓ goes down. Like nobody who hires Morgan & Morgan believes most prospective clients that they're going to be represented directly by John Morgan. So every law firm that starts branding, ⁓

Particularly if the brand can somehow also be seen as a lawyer, ⁓ then they're going to face a little bit of resistance for prospects to go to somebody else.

Jason Marsh (36:06)
⁓ So this is

a key distinction, I think, right? Because building the brand is critical, but I think what you're saying is you don't, I mean, I imagine you could, but you don't want the brand to become around you personally. You want it to be around the idea of what the firm does as a whole, because I've talked to others about this. Part of the problem is.

firms as they grow and everything is centered around the founder. It's very difficult for that firm to grow. Like for example, as every client that walks in the door is expecting to sit down and meet with you versus someone else in the firm that they already trust. Can you talk about that a little bit and how you engineer that shift from, I'm building a brand around a firm or a business, not just myself as an individual. Cause I think some other people talk about you need to build your individual brand and

And so, how do lawyers navigate that?

John Rizvi (36:59)
Yeah, and I have been asked that often. Isn't it a huge negative that the way you've branded yourself has clients asking for you? And I don't want to brand because I don't want to have to constantly fight the urge to have every consultation myself. And my answer to that is,

What's the worst that can happen if you hold a strong line and say, the consultation is with a member of my team? So the worst that can happen is that they won't, they may go to a competitor and say, if I can't get John Rizvi, I'm not gonna go, I'm gonna go with someone else. Well, if I didn't brand myself this well, it's a good problem to have. If people are showing up and begging to meet with you, yes, some are not going to,

are going to be upset and maybe go somewhere else. But if you didn't brand, you wouldn't even have a shot at those clients. So it's one of these things that it does get easier. instead of stepping back, I've even leaned in to that brand. When I speak, I have a rap about patents that I do for my firm. And that's talking about the different ways you tie in prospects so that

you don't have to continue renting attention. You buy the attention. And that's what I think of. If your brand is memorable enough, you have purchased the attention and it could be two, three years down the road when they have a need for your services, they remember the name just from what it is. And that's what, like the jingle for the patent professor talks about me being the patent professor.

Jason Marsh (38:40)
And now once you start to establish this type of brand that we're talking about here, do you start to see any type of noticeable shift in the quality of the clients that you start to attract?

John Rizvi (38:53)
yes, and in terms of one of the big factors, unfortunately, that lawyers face with prospective clients is distrust.

I believe that the greater a client's trust in a lawyer's ability, their ethics, their honesty, that reflects on the quality. Because if you don't have that, you find really strong resistance to not only your advice being followed, but every step on the onboarding of that client process is like an obstacle. We typically sign

non-disclosure agreements for our clients. When I started my practice, was one of, I consider a competitive advantage because a lot of lawyers, and they're 100 % right legally, they would take this position that anything you discuss with a lawyer is attorney-client privileged and confidential. Me signing this form is a waste of my time and it's superfluous and they just didn't do it. And I would get a lot of clients that when I sent them, they're like, oh my God,

you're the only firm that sent me a non-disclosure attorney-client ⁓ confidentiality statement. every firm could do it. Like, why not sign that? It puts potential prospects at ease. But the more your branding stronger that gets, the more your reputation builds, the less and less ⁓ you even find. Yeah, and now we have our intake staff. A lot of times they'll tell me,

I said, why didn't you send a non-disclosure? Why didn't you send a... They said the prospects said they didn't want one, they didn't need one, they're ready to speak to a lawyer right away. So that's the difference that I've seen ⁓ as the stronger the brand gets, the less distrust there is and the more prospects are coming ready to hire you, the less price shopping we find.

Jason Marsh (40:45)
Yeah, and that's key, right? Because I've also heard one of the biggest

most important things about building a brand is pricing power, right? Because even if you're in a commodity and you look at any consumer product, this is exactly what they're trying to do. They're like, we could spend a billion dollars building our brand, but we know we're going to make two billion in the extra profit that we're able to make because we've created the perception that our product that is relatively same is better. And I think you just gave a really nice example there in terms of the NDA, whereas a lot of attorneys are looking at it just from their

perspective, right? They're going, everything's the current client privilege. We're good to go. Let's get started. You flip that and said, forget, I want to look at this from my client's perspective. What's going to make them feel comfortable? Let's give them an NDA. That's common in the business world, especially for, for people who haven't had a lot of experience with attorneys or business. Boom. That's step one. You're going to make me feel like I don't have to worry about this.

I don't have to even understand client, know, attorney client confidentiality. You're starting with that. And I think even, and that suggests that almost every touch you have with the client is an opportunity to build your brand, right? And to differentiate how you're doing business versus how another firm is. So for, for lawyers listening, now let's just start, cause I want to start and get into like, how do they do, how do we do this? How can a lawyer, take something out of what they're listening to now?

and begin positioning themselves as a trusted authority, as a firm that does things differently or better, not necessarily becoming an influencer or this major content machine. What are some of the things they can do to start thinking about defining their brand and building it?

John Rizvi (42:28)
it's funny when he just reminded me of another aspect of the non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement.

And I help a lot of other lawyers with improving their intake process as well. A lot of lawyers have their intake staff trained on an information gathering ⁓ mode in the first few minutes of a phone conversation. what's your name? What's your address? What's your email phone number? And they ask question after question. ⁓ But a lot of those questions, if you can think of what's the advantage

like, not what's in it for me, what's in it for them? What's the advantage of them giving you their name? Because prospects don't see it that way. They're like, well, they just look at it more like a gatekeeper between them and the attorney ⁓ instead of a conversation. So our intake team is trained. ⁓ Initially, when they receive a call, they're trained to tell what the legal basis is. Just by the way, patents are granted to the first inventor to file an application.

Jason Marsh (43:15)
Right.

John Rizvi (43:32)
confidentiality is incredibly important to only discuss your idea with a registered patent attorney. ⁓ Before our firm asks you for any information, we'd like to send you a signed ⁓ statement of attorney-client privilege and confidentiality so you have documented evidence of this. Would you like to receive this? And now it's not, my God, they're getting all my information, they're gonna sell to me, they're gonna pitch me. Now it's like, wow.

No other patent firm has asked, has even cared to tell me that what I discuss is attorney-client privilege and they'll say, yes, I would like to have that. Now it's like, okay, we're providing something of value to you in order to send you this agreement. We need to get your name and your address and your email, your physical address and your email. And sometimes they'll say, well, why the physical address do you need that? Because the people are just so distrustful. They're thinking,

I'm gonna get sent junk mail or whatever and we'll say there's ⁓ the more we need to positively identify you, the more points of reference we have, the less likely it is that you'll be confused with somebody else. So if your name's like David Smith...

I don't want to send you a non-disclosure agreement just to David Smith and email because emails, they could change it to go to spam. So we have the address. So now we get our intake staff is able to get the name, the address and an email and of course a phone number and get all of this in a non-robotic way. It's not like, name, address, phone number and now the prospects engaged. ⁓ So that's the advantage. We get the information, but now we do have

the ability that if they don't book an appointment immediately we have ⁓

I have copies of my books about patents that I can send. They get into our, as a famous, well-known marketing expert, Dan Kennedy talks about is building a fence around your perspective ⁓ customer base. And now when you have that fence, now you can continue branding. And that's by sending out newsletters, physical newsletters, books. And so you purchase, that's what I consider it. I've now, instead of leasing interest, I've purchased interest. And now

I own that client's mind share for the patent professor. whenever they're ready to move forward with their idea, they're not going to go to Google and type in Patent Attorney Texas. They're going to type in the patent professor and come straight to us.

Jason Marsh (46:08)
Yeah, I think, I think that's an incredibly practical tip you just gave there in terms of the intake and just, instead of just rattling off a bunch of questions that are all about what the firm wants in that moment. Of course you need to capture it, but the way you've done it, you're going to lead with value. We're going to give you something of value. We're going to get this NDA set up. That's going to protect you. And we're going to collect all this information because it identifies you even better, but so much better than the, before the person can really even talk about

about what it is that they need or want, you're already getting to that and saying, before you do that, we need to get this in place. I think that's fantastic. And then all the information that you now have, it's framed in a really nice way of actually getting it. so, so that, yeah, so that was awesome. So I want to talk more about the niching and specialization as a way of building authority, right? Because I think a big hesitation, a lot of lawyers, lot of firms are going to have around the idea of branding is a fear that

niching down or specializing too much is going to somehow limit their growth, right? Because they're too focused. They're going to be leaving stuff on the table that they could otherwise get. But your experience, and I've heard this, certainly I agree, but your experience seems to suggest the very opposite of being all things to all people because it doesn't really work that way, does it?

John Rizvi (47:31)
it doesn't. I guess, you they say, you if you want someone to, you can tell somebody what to do, but if you want them to believe what to do, they're going to look at your actions. So when I was starting my digital marketing agency, instead of a name that could really attract anybody for digital marketing services, it was I put the word

law firm in there. my digital marketing agency is a law firm growth professor and there's certainly we can help non-lawyers and there was this fear that ⁓ if are you going to turn away business for people that need ⁓ assistance that are not lawyers. Like yes, if you want to attract you're going to have to really you're going to have to repel some people as well.

I know the brand name repels non-lawyers, but we still have some non-lawyers that retain us. the advantage of marketing to a law firm is that they now are much more likely to retain us because they see us as an expert in their domain, in their field.

Jason Marsh (48:38)
Yeah, and that's the key, right? You're creating the percent. And of course, if somebody, plumber comes to you, okay, I can take their business if I feel like I can help them. But you're talking about this is who we help. This is all we do. We know your industry extremely well. But why do so many lawyers, you're talking about an agency, but on the legal side, especially, I see a lot of practices, they have a lot of practice areas, they maybe have a variety of attorneys that can do different things. They want to offer all these things.

And it makes it so that it is hard to niche down. how does that work? How do you overcome that fear, that resistance within a law firm to say, OK, this is how we're going to market ourselves. Doesn't mean we can't take other stuff, but this is where we want to put our time and energy and what we ultimately want to communicate in a focused way.

John Rizvi (49:27)
So it gets, think the more decision makers you have, the harder it is to get consensus on, and certainly branding. When I help lawyers with branding, really put, you my pet peeve is law firms with two or more decision makers because it's impossible for them to agree on a brand unless it's something that's blah, that's so generic that everyone cannot find something to be upset about

with the brand. And to answer your question, the reason a lot of firms, say your firm has two different practice areas.

and there's lawyers that are decision makers in each practice area. I can imagine if I had a partner who did exclusively trademark law and I do patent law, it would be hard to get a consensus to brand as the patent professor because they would be like, what about me? What about trademarks? So it's a tough decision on a lawyer standpoint to choose that practice area that they really want to influence.

and we do, gosh, know, especially with all my branding work, a ton of trademark work, I still, in branding as the patent professor, I think of billboards. We've all seen billboards with multiple lawyers on them. And I'll ask you a question just as a test, like a live test right now, ⁓ to name another lawyer at Morgan & Morgan's, one of the largest personal injury firms in the country, name a lawyer at that law firm.

unless you know them personally, other than John Morgan. Yeah, you can't. ⁓

Jason Marsh (51:05)
Yeah, impossible. I couldn't do that. Maybe one of his kids

or something. I don't know. I take a guess. But yeah. ⁓

John Rizvi (51:12)
Yeah,

so and his branding is then that's that's and that's on purpose. There's a reason why ⁓ only recently have I started seeing other lawyers on his billboards because essentially it was his face back when their phone books. was John Morgan on the back of a phone book. The human mind is not capable of memorizing multiple

things, whether they're lists, whether they're practice areas, or whether there's people. So when you see a billboard with two or three lawyers, it completely kills the branding impact of their ad spend. I understand why law firms do it. If you have three lawyers, they're equal partners. And everyone's like, well, why does Joe get to be on the billboard? What about me? So the firms that really

can avoid that is when the founder before he has partners or you get partners with vision that understand that it's actually better for them if they pick one spokesperson and all of their marketing all of their branding is done under that spokesperson so that so that the brand's memorable you put I've seen four or five lawyers on a billboard and I think gosh what nobody going 45 50 miles an hour down the highway is gonna remember

any of them.

Jason Marsh (52:34)
Yeah, that's really interesting. And it seems like it could be possible that if you have a larger firm, is harder to move into a specific niche or a specialization or a focus. So is this something, let's just say you're a small firm or even you're a startup firm. It seems like this could.

is the perfect time to start figuring out what your niche or specialization is before you add partners, before you add additional practice areas. ⁓ Is that the case? And if you're a bigger firm, what do you do then? Like how do you go in and sit down with your partners and say, I'm gonna be the face of the firm. This is what we're gonna be doing from now. That seems like a hard situation.

John Rizvi (53:14)
It is, but I think it takes ⁓ a founder or an attorney to really... It takes courage because you really may lose some attorneys that don't have the vision to understand that they're all better if the branding is focused. There's an attorney that a lot of people know his name is Mike Morse. I don't know if you're familiar with Mike. He's in Michigan. And he's got a huge law firm.

personal injury firm. He actually has a coaching program called Fireproof and his phone number is think it's 1-800-1866-MIKE-WINS and his slogan and all the billboards, Mike wins. And I'm thinking, he had to make a decision and I can see a senior experienced qualified attorney going, that's bothering them saying, wait a minute, Mike's not winning. Mike doesn't even

try any cases anymore if that's I don't know if that's the case but I mean clearly the firm so large that 99.9 % of the cases are tried by somebody other than Mike but it's brilliant from a branding standpoint because The prospective clients they remember Mike they remember his face. He's the only one on the billboards And that's what just has to be done and it it is tough. So I'm sure there are

you

that don't like that and you're not going to attract everyone. Like we had when I talked about the the wrap that I have for the patent professor for our ribbon cutting ceremony for our law firm, we had an attorney that was really from another larger firm, had IBM in their background, professional corporate firm, and did not was really repelled by ⁓ patent attorneys.

rapping about patents at this ribbon cutting ceremony did not participate and soon, I think two or three months after ⁓ resigned. it was, when these things happen, it gives me pause because I'm like, wait a minute, I just lost a phenomenal patent attorney because they didn't mesh with the branding that I have. And that's where I say it takes courage because I could either at that point say, you know what?

I'm going to step back and be a little bit more corporate so I can attract those attorneys that want that environment, or I can dig in. And I decided to dig into what makes us unique. And that really made all the difference.

Jason Marsh (55:42)
Yeah, it does seem like

it can be an extremely difficult choice to make as a firm. But in your experience, once you do make that decision, how does that now focus or specialization actually expand your opportunity versus what a lot of people think is shrinking it?

John Rizvi (56:02)
⁓ it's completely changed everything. mean, for when we...

bought the building that we're in, I had two ways. Like I had an interior decorator that could follow the traditional law firm model with like mahogany wood or cherry and marble floors. And it's so it looked like a law office. ⁓ But I opted for red. And I said, I want the walls red. We have instead of leather traditional lawyer chairs, we have gaming chairs that are

red and black, and it was just so different. And I took the position, I said, listen, our clients are different. They're inventors, they're creative individuals, they're inventing new things, envisioning a world the way it can be instead of how it is. And I really want to emphasize that. So branding encompasses everything.

logos, website, slogan, and even down to the colors you choose for your law firm because it's that perception. Any clients that visit, they immediately know, wow, we're in a place at a law firm different than any other law firm that we've visited.

Jason Marsh (57:14)
And so that's where the visual identity can come into it and go, okay, we've defined who we are, right? Now we're going to start working on building a broader perception that does include say the logo or the colors or the design of your office. And it all goes in to the same concept being different or just being very focused.

John Rizvi (57:34)
Yep.

100%. And it's not just potential ⁓ team members or attorneys that every once in while will opt out. Like one of the, we lost early on, of our large client with several patents every single year sent in an email ⁓ in response to some of our, to the ribbon cutting ceremony where I had the rap about patents. And I still remember the email word for word.

like we have serious ideas and we need a serious patent law firm. And every time this happens, it's hard not to like take a small gasp and being, what am I doing? Am I, kicking myself in the foot by allowing my personality to show and by drooling down into our brand. But every time I resisted the urge to yield and double down and say, you know what?

No, this is who we are. Our results speak for serious results, and we are a serious law firm. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun and we have to look like every other patent firm in the country. Because if you look like everyone else, nobody will remember who you are. So every time I did that, the firm continued to grow.

Jason Marsh (58:46)
Yeah, it seems like.

Yeah, because it seems like as you differentiate, you let your personality shine through, that's going to help you stand out among a CEO, other, patent or trademark attorneys. ⁓ And I think, part of that is positioning yourself as the expert, or the go-to patent attorney, as opposed to just another option that they can find in Google, a list in Google or AI. So.

That seems to be really a key portion of it.

John Rizvi (59:15)
Yeah, 100%. mean, the more and you know, it's not just doing the thing, but it's being brave enough to talk about the thing. So when I, every time I speak, everywhere I speak, I'll talk about, cause not everyone visits our office and can see that. And in fact, typically my, normally I'm wearing, I have like a bunch of patent professor shirts, but our firm color is red. I just decided today not to wear that, but

Those that aren't here, they still hear about that because I talk about that. Our coffee machine is red at the office. The chairs in the reception area are red. The walls are red. But for those who aren't visiting, especially now with a remote virtual world where more more clients hiring attorneys without coming to their office, ⁓ I didn't hide any of this from our website. ⁓ So it's everywhere and their website colors are

include red as well. that's what the goal is. If somebody stumbles onto our website, we want them to remember it as being different from any other law firm website that they visited. If they come to our office, we want that memory to linger. The longer it lingers, the more we go from renting attention, but constantly paying to owning that attention.

Jason Marsh (1:00:34)
Yeah. And being less of a generalist and where they can really identify you all as the experts, the focus exclusively on this subject matter. ⁓ I want to start wrapping up here, but before we do that, and for attorneys listening right now, John, if you had to boil everything we've discussed down into maybe a simple branding framework for a law firm, what are some of the core components to be thinking about?

as you try to do this.

John Rizvi (1:01:05)
So, what are the earliest decisions you need to make is look into your state bar and see if, make sure it's one of these state bars that permit a trade name.

⁓ And if it is then you can brand ⁓ with the trade name that doesn't necessarily have your law firm name in it you're permitted to do so ⁓ but does that mean if your ⁓ State bar is behind the times and hasn't permitted that that you can't brand no Then you simply brand the way that I initially did it was the name of the firm and then have the slogan And I promise you this will be your split test. It'll be eye-opening if you do

that you'll start finding clients calling. ⁓ and of course, train your receptionist. When they call the office, instead of saying, the bar doesn't care about that. it wasn't when I got calls in the early days. It wasn't John Roos, VPA. was, ⁓ it's a great day for new ideas at the patent professor. So, ⁓ I'll again.

Jason Marsh (1:02:06)
⁓ great tip. That's a terrific tip, right? Just

from answering the phone, you're really solidifying that brand and what it is that you're trying to convey and differentiating. Yeah, I love that, right? Because everybody just answers the phone, XYZ Law Firm, ⁓

John Rizvi (1:02:22)
Yeah,

and if you can get your practice area into that first sentence, it's better. Instead of, Dillard and Robertson, how can I help you today? the prospect, who's Dillard and Robertson? What do they do if you do whatever music law?

then start out, say something about music law and hopefully your brand, your name, your trade name has some association with music and then say that in the intro. Even if it's a state that doesn't permit trade names, there's no violation of the bar for you saying your slogan when you pick up the phone. Like ours is, it's a great day for new ideas. that's, it's specifically, immediately the prospect.

knows, wow, this firm is different. It's not Richard and Birkinson, PA, how can I help you? You're telling them how we can help you. It's a great day for new ideas. Thank you for calling the patent professor.

Jason Marsh (1:03:17)
I love that. I mean, I think that that's a fantastic. think any firm could easily start doing that to start just sharpening their positioning. This is what we do. ⁓ If you had to. I guess give lawyers something to help with their mindset in terms of shifting,

into thinking about branding, being different, how to focus, what things would you tell them to just start thinking about? Because I do think there is a mindset component here that really is the biggest obstacle that has to be overcome.

John Rizvi (1:03:47)
Yeah, so I think it's if they start looking at.

at other law firms and attorneys and start thinking about which ones do they immediately know the practice area for, I think it's going to be eye-opening for them because they'll, as soon as they do that and they go back and they'll realize the ones that they remember are the ones most likely that they have have trade names with the exception of personal relationships. of course, if an attorney,

really well, but once you go to start scaling your firm, you've got to go beyond friends and family if you're going to get your firm larger. You've got to go beyond that and then you have to have recognition of your practice area from those that hear it. So that's the more attuned you are to...

to that, I think it's going to persuade you on its own. like if you're looking for to buy a Honda Civic, only then do you start noticing all the other Honda Civics on the road, whereas they're invisible to you before. But the first step is make a decision that I'm going to be memorable. I'm tired of continuing to spend money renting attention. And anytime you have ad spend month after month, that's what you're doing. You're renting attention. You don't own

anything because the day your ads stop or the day is the day that most prospects if they've seen your ads will they remember who you are if the answer is no make that decision I'm going to brand and that in a way triggers something in your subconscious similar to I'm gonna buy a Lincoln Navigator or I'm gonna buy a Honda Civic you make that decision now you're gonna notice it could be a parking lot full of a hundred cars and the Honda Civics are gonna jump out at you so make the decision I'm gonna brand I'm going

to leverage name recognition amongst my clients to reduce my ad spend. once you make that, now you'll notice another attorney. When you say, wow, cannabis counsel. I'm just throwing it like this, another firm, cannabis counsel. I know exactly what they do.

It's not like drug-related defense or something like that. That's not memorable, but cannabis counsel is. ⁓ But that's what you do. Now you're like, every time you see another lawyer branding, now you'll realize, wow, I'll be in good company. There's a lot of law firms out there doing it, but you don't realize that until you make that decision to brand yourself.

Jason Marsh (1:06:11)
Yeah, that is really such an interesting point there. And in terms of just a last point that I want to touch on with you, because of everything we've talked about here, know, what essentially you're talking about, as you build this brand and all the ways you go about doing it, this becomes an asset for the practice, for the business that's going to compound over time. And it isn't just a one-time project. We're going to design a logo, slap it on the website and the business cards off we go. But this is something you're building and reinforcing over time.

John Rizvi (1:06:40)
Yeah, 100%.

Jason Marsh (1:06:41)
All right, well, I'm here with John Rizvi. He's the founder of the patent professor. He's a patent attorney author. And we're talking about why branding.

It isn't cosmetic. really is the growth engine behind a scalable, profitable law firm, particularly a multimillion dollar law firm like John has. He's the author of If You Brand It, They Will Come. This lays out why branding is a real growth engine behind a scalable, profitable, multimillion dollar law firm. He's also the author of Think and Grow Rich for Inventors. Escaping the gray when launching your idea full throttle is the only option. mean, clearly John putting together all this content to really

with inventors. Somebody really, really knows his stuff.

John Rizvi (1:07:25)
Yeah. ⁓ thank you. Thanks. That's a

Jason Marsh (1:07:27)
Yeah, no

doubt. And I think that's important because you're not just talking about it, you're actually doing it. John's got his latest book coming out. John, I might have to have you back on this. This makes me smile. It's called Dirty Secrets Digital Marketing. Dirty Secrets Digital Marketing Agencies Used to Rip ⁓ Lawyers Off.

Sorry, think I had that. Well, let's do that one more time. Dirty secrets digital marketing agencies use to rip lawyers off. I want to read this book. I definitely would love to have you back on to talk more about that, because certainly you have the experience, having probably worked with a lot of different agencies. I just want to point out John also hosts the Patent Professor podcast, again, reinforcing, his focus in patents, trademarks. He's also now just launched

⁓ It's called the Growth Professor Studios. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that one, John.

John Rizvi (1:08:20)
Yeah, so one of the things in my agency that I found out, a lot of lawyers don't have good, unique video to brand themselves. And ⁓ it's really hard for me to ask to get that information because they don't have the ability to do that. So I've created a and we're launching in March a twenty five hundred square foot ⁓ video content and podcast studio for lawyers that want to podcast.

and they don't know how the technical aspects ⁓ can be an obstacle. This way, in the time it takes them to go to lunch, they come into our studio, we'll set them up, do their podcast, and then they leave. They don't have to worry about editing. They don't have to worry about how do I get it on Spotify? How do I get it syndicated? We take care of all of that. And then we get them content that really brands them. mean, unfortunately, sometimes the content I'll see from law firms are, ⁓

cookie-cutter content. The slow walking on courtroom steps, right? The lawyer and it's high quality video. The equipment's phenomenal, but there's nothing juicy or memorable about the content. And I don't want my clients that are lawyers putting advertising spend into something that is not going to last. So I try to, ⁓ with our studio, have content that's so

magnetic and juicy that it's memorable and then you get from renting attention to owning it because clients would be able to identify and remember the ad and hopefully to the trade name so they can remember the attorney as well.

Jason Marsh (1:10:02)
Yeah, that sounds awesome. So in other words, they can come into your studio, spend, I don't know, a few hours a day, half a day, and then just get months worth of content that you'll be able to distribute across all the different channels in a nice, easy, basically done for you way.

John Rizvi (1:10:19)
Yep. And if they're clients that are within like an easy drive of our studio in South Florida, ⁓ in two hours, we can get them a month's worth of content. So they come in for two hours, get a month's worth of content. But those were in sunny South Florida, so especially now, it's why not take a vacation from the cold, come down, spend a weekend, and you come down three times, four times a year, and you have enough content for the entire year.

Jason Marsh (1:10:49)
Sounds easy. like a no-brainer to me. I love it. And so, all right, you can find John at the law firm, growthprofessor.com. He's on LinkedIn. All that information is going to be in the show notes. John, is there anything else you want to add? Any other places that people can find you or, get signed up for the Growth Professor Studios? Is that all on your website?

John Rizvi (1:11:11)
Yeah, that's all on the website. The law firm growth professor. I just, and they say if you have, here goes. When a new idea pops into your brain, call the patent professor. That's my name. A law school professor and engineer too. Math is fun and patents are cool.

When the patent office says your idea is not new, that's just red tape that will cut right through.

Jason Marsh (1:11:45)
man,

brilliant. You're the first one ever to be rapping on my podcast. That's for sure. I think that's brilliant. We're definitely gonna have to make some clips of that.

John Rizvi (1:11:49)
Yeah. ⁓

You

Jason Marsh (1:11:54)
Just

fantastic, man. Thank you so much for joining me today, John. This has really been an enlightening conversation. And like I said, I think I got to get you back on to talk about the dirty secrets that digital marketing agencies use to rip lawyers off. ⁓ Anyway, thanks again, John. Fantastic guest. Love the rap. ⁓ Yeah, look forward to talking to you again soon.

John Rizvi (1:12:08)
North.

Thanks.

Jason Marsh (1:12:16)
Thanks for listening to the Alpha Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Jason Marsh, and I appreciate you joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with other lawyers who might benefit. You can find more resources and insights on building a thriving law firm at alphalawyer.io or the Alpha Lawyer YouTube channel. Until next time, keep building the firm of your dreams so you can live your best life.