[00:00:00] Corey: Today I'm joined by Gabe Levine. Welcome Gabe.
[00:00:20] Gabe: Hey, thank you very much. Happy to be here.
[00:00:22] Corey: I'm super excited for our conversation. Would you mind introducing yourself to those listeners who may not be familiar with you and your background?
[00:00:29] Gabe: Sure. I'm an attorney. I specialize in representing, digital agencies along with, my law partners in our firm, matchstick Legal.
I have been practicing law about 20 years now. , I live just outside of San Francisco and, Ride a lot of bikes these days cuz I can't run. That's, uh, that's, that's me in a nutshell.
[00:00:48] Corey: That's awesome. And so, , your law firm you mentioned is, is Matchstick legal and you focus in on, , digital marketing agencies.
Could you share a little bit more about the type of work you do with digital agencies? Like what are your services, what do you typically get involved with?
[00:01:02] Gabe: I mean , we want to be, and we are sort of soup to nuts, business council. from inception to hopefully acquisition or another successful exit.
and everything in between. There are a few things we don't do, but we do, partner, founder, shareholder agreements and entity setup. we do the commercial transactions that happen day to day, which most often are client transactions between the agencies and their clients
Sometimes disputes, sometimes modifications. We do partner and shareholder, member buy-in buyout. Mm-hmm. We do trademark and copyright work. there's employment work and vendor contracts. and like I said, you know, hopefully to, uh, successful exit IT mergers and acquisition. Beautiful.
[00:01:42] Corey: Thank you for that.
And just for context for the listeners, what could you share about maybe the size of the law firm? A number of clients, revenue, whatever you're comfortable sharing. Uh,
[00:01:51] Gabe: sure. there are three lawyers. One intern who's a third year law student, I suppose these days. There's actually four lawyers. We just brought on another lawyer.
Nice. and a full-time do everything else. client services director, Andy, who's integral into our business. It can range from about 75 to a hundred clients that we do work for in any given month. you know, our sort of current client roster is probably about 200.
and hoping to grow, not aggressively, but modestly over the course of the next, you know, five to 10 years. And when, , the partners can hopefully ratchet it down a little bit at
[00:02:24] Corey: that point.
Sure. And what is your role there as sort of the principal founding attorney?
[00:02:30] Gabe: Yeah. so my partner, Josh and I founded the firm. we combined our two firms,we are fairly egalitarian in the way we work. Um, between me, Josh, and Jen, Officially, my title is our corporate title. I'm a president. we made Jen the c e o, Josh, the c e o recently when Jen became a shareholder in, uh, on January 1st of this year.
But really, we sort of operate together. I have the things that I focus on in the background operationally and, and each of them do as well. but we all manage the thing together. we all lawyer together as well. Okay. Yeah. All
[00:03:06] Corey: right. And so you're, you're managing your own, book of clients in addition to sort of running the business a little bit?
[00:03:12] Gabe: Yeah, and I mean, we, we also try to very much work on all the clients together, but we all, with most of the clients, they primarily come to one of us because mm-hmm. That's where they started their relationship. And we all have sort of, Certain specialties that we've in prior lives done.
You know, I did a ton of employment work and dispute resolution litigation. Josh has done a lot of corporate work in m and a, so you know, Jen has picked up trademark in some of the corporate practice. so those are the, we have things we, we specialize in, but we all work for all the clients.
Has
[00:03:43] Corey: the law firm always focused on digital marketing agencies or did that evolve over time?
[00:03:47] Gabe: So, as a firm, we have, both. Josh and I, and about the same time turned our practices to that vertical. And that would've been, about 2011. you know, my personal story is interesting. If you want me to go into it now, please, that'd be great. so I graduated law school in 2003, started with a large.
law firm in San Francisco doing primarily employment, , and labor, you know, negotiations, litigation, that sort of stuff. and after a couple years, decided like, I don't wanna say most, but many, people who come outta law school and go to big firms, and it wasn't really right for me. and joined a smaller, you know, upstart business practice in, San Francisco where there were three partners and I was their first associate.
so I was a couple years in and right out of the gate, you know, a month after joining him, I got my first client, was referred to me by someone who would later become A partner of mine and then retire essentially, or semi retire, that client would become Mule Design Studio, who in San Francisco was very well known, one of the early web design studios, and still the two principals, Erica Hall and Mike Montero are very well known in the world of, design.
I've seen them from there. It was, yeah, it was sort of an outgrowth, uh, a natural outgrowth [00:05:00] into that community in San Francisco that was just, Booming back in 2005, the early two thousands. Um, and then, you know, fast forward six years, I had a little book of business and, um, I did a, a talk with, with Mike, Mike Montero of Mule called, fuck You Pay Me.
IAnd it was incredibly, Successful in that, you know, back in 2011, it was not all that easy to amplify things on the internet and it had a million views very quickly, which was extraordinary,
and my practice just exploded. I got through my participation in that talk and the success of that talk. I had. What we might now refer to as digital agencies banging down my door. So shortly thereafter, um, you know, at the time I was still an associate. I was on the cusp of partnership at that little firm and, and I liked the guys I worked with, but, they kind of couldn't pull together an offer.
I don't think that would've kept me there. Um, so I essentially harken out on my own and started a practice focused on. Just serving these digital agencies. Don't cut off other people or stop working with people that I like to work with, and we still don't. If somebody, if we can help somebody and they do.
Things that, you know, we think we can help with and we like them, we'll work with them. but really focusing in on this niche is a, was a thing I wanted to do and has been a smart move. And at the same time, you know, Josh, I don't know his or can't remember his entire story, but he was really focused on more corporate and m and a work, but things were exploding up in Portland.
Um, he had young children and he'd always, you know, drop him off at school in Portland. Talk to designers. As you do. Sure. Everybody was a designer. Sure, yeah. Big designer community up there. Yep. Yeah. And he harken out on his own and opened a law firm focused in the same sort of vertical, you know, mine was maybe edged towards tech a little bit down here, and I started doing more work with startups.
But, um, you know, Josh maybe edged towards, more of the, the designer side of, of, of the fence at that point. And, uh, he reached out, um, when he became aware of the Fuck You Pay Me Talk. And it was, you know, people were talking about it in Portland and the need for a lawyer and it generated some interest.
And he says, helped him, you know, create his own firm, which at the time was called Create Legal. and uh, we became, I actually had a fair number of lawyers reach out, um, for various reasons at that point. Um, you know, in and around 2011 and all of them, eh, except for Josh. And so I became friends and colleagues with him and, uh, we worked together on various things and, um, I kind of introduced him to what would become the bureau community through Carl and.
Um, it was, you know, more than I could eat. Um, I had no problem with another good attorney being part of it. Um, and as both our practices grew, you know, eventually starting in 2018, we like, okay, we're doing this, we're emerging and creating a thing. And by then he'd hired Jen and I'd hired a couple people who hadn't worked out.
and, uh, in 2019 we emerged
[00:08:05] Corey: and the rest is history. And the rest is
[00:08:06] Gabe: history. And along the way, you know, along the way, the very first Bureau event was actually called Shop Talk and there was no bureau. Mm-hmm. Um, at the time it was just a. You know, a gathering of, specialty web design firms who were well known in the industry in 2012 in Portland.
And I, Mike helped wrangle me an invite and I got, you know, half of the room as clients, if not more. and it was great. I met Carl at that event and helped all the machinations of the bureau become a thing and transition, you know, from the legal side and a little bit of. Rabbi counseling along the way.
So just deeper and deeper into the community that I really enjoy being part of. That's
[00:08:47] Corey: awesome. And just for, the listener's, benefit, the bureau that you're referencing is the Bureau of Digital that I believe was founded by Carl Smith that you're referencing, Carl.
[00:08:56] Gabe: Yeah, I mean, it was initially founded by the boys who sort of owned Happy Cog Greg's story and Greg Hoy.
Okay. Um, and shortly thereafter, Carl became a part of it, and then he, you know, Bought them out, And has run with it since then.
[00:09:10] Corey: just for further context, it is a new community that I've recently joined.
That's how I got introduced to Gabe here at an offsite meeting down in New Orleans, which was amazing. And, um, it is for agency owners who may not be familiar with it, it is a very. Uh, it's a great community, really, um, supportive, uh, folks who are really leaning in and engaged. So definitely something worth, uh, checking out for.
Sure.
[00:09:34] Gabe: I agree. It it
[00:09:35] Corey: is, yeah. Yeah, it's very unique in that way, I would say. So, just to feedback your, what you share with me, 2011 or thereabout, you became an associate at a firm and you got involved with this, content that was kind of viral, let's say, that really spoke to a lot of agency owners.
Go ahead.
[00:09:54] Gabe: Back in 2005, I became the associate at the firm. And then fast forward six years later, 2011 is when we did [00:10:00] that talk and it absolutely was viral as fuck. Got it.
[00:10:03] Corey: So, so you were, you were an associate for a while and that really, in, in some ways created a lot of demand for invisibility, for, uh, for you, and that was primarily driven from sort of the creative space, digital agencies who were really sort of, were exposed to that.
Exposed to you, and that that led to, sounds like a lot of opportunities, and that at some point at the firm you decided to step out on your own and then, and eventually partnered with, your existing partner in 2018.
[00:10:33] Gabe: That's right. Yeah. Okay. I think officially launched January 1st, 2019. Yeah. And so
[00:10:37] Corey: when you, when you were, stepping out of that associate role, what gave you the confidence, I guess to, to know that, hey, I really have an opportunity to, to sort of step out of my own.
And was the focus at that time primarily agencies then?
[00:10:52] Gabe: it was absolutely. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, agencies and startups to a certain extent. I've been very lucky in my life, privileged, if you will, to have supportive family and friends and no economic struggles. Mm-hmm. Um, I was in a relatively comfortable, um, economic spot at that time, because we had a small, small mortgage, and I was making a fair amount, a good amount for the time at, a big law firm that you know, was excess.
I didn't need it. what I was making at that firm, I was pretty sure I, yeah, I was sure all my clients would come with me, which is very permissible in the legal world.
You tell your clients they can come with you. and, you know, the n ran the numbers and I just, I, I didn't need to. Kill it to make enough money. Um, and so I had that opportunity and capitalized on it, and it went pretty much as expected, um, and grew a lot actually. It grew a lot faster and my practice grew a lot faster than I expected.
And a lot of that was driven by some lucky timing because, know, 2011 through 2013, 14, it was just, it was a boomy time in the Bay Area for. Expenditure of funds on digital products. Um, so my clients engines were, rooming and it, and it did the same in my practice.
[00:12:11] Corey: How has being a specialist in digital marketing agencies.
how has that been impactful in your ability to generate more business in that community? what's the value of being a specialist versus just being a, a, a business
[00:12:23] Gabe: law firm? immeasurable. Uh, I mean, I think we lean so heavily into that we like it, we're exceedingly confident in this vertical that we're the best.
We just are, we, we know the most. and we say that and, and believe it with confidence. Uh, so, you know, be part of that is really understanding your clients' businesses, and really figuring out how we can help them, in ways that also is good for our business. you know, to be fair with what we charge and how we charge it.
Make them tighter and better, and know how to do that in a very specific way rather than sort of a general legal way, which doesn't apply. because while sort of professional services, um, which is both us and our clients, have some similarities, there's huge differences that any service provider of these businesses, just like any other vertical can give if.
You know what you're doing. Sure. And you understand what, what the client is doing.
[00:13:27] Corey: Would you say that a digital agency, let's call it a vertical, has an insider language?
[00:13:33] Gabe: Yeah. I mean it's, a lot of it is common parlance with, shared or, or industries, you know, their clients tend to be technology companies or mm-hmm.
Not always, but there's a lot of them. And there's some, some shared language there, But yeah.
[00:13:47] Corey: Is it important for a service provider, let's say, who's looking to sell into agencies to learn that language, to learn the lingo and the insider jargon Yes. And all that? Yeah. Yeah. Andhow do you do that effectively?
Like, what's the best path to get there?
[00:14:01] Gabe: Whew. well, I know how we did it, which was just Sure. You know, a bit of luck and a bit of just doing the work. Yeah. Um, but you have to, As with any type of service provider, you, you have to take an interest and you have to dig beyond sort of the surface of the transactions.
The Bureau and other, things like that have been huge for me. just. The opportunity to be in the room and have those conversations. Um, the bureau facilitates literally rooms of people having conversations about their businesses. Um, and that's been hugely helpful A, in understanding, um, my clients and our clients.
And b, as a small business owner, you know, you're in a room with people who've grown shops from one to 100. And everything along the way or more. Um, and so, you know, just being exposed to that and taking an interest in it and spending the time and the money, um, to invest [00:15:00] in that sort of stuff.
[00:15:02] Corey: You've established yourself as a leader in this space now.
how do you attract new digital marketing clients? You mentioned participating in the bureau, but how else are you tracking new clients?
[00:15:12] Gabe: Um, well, so, I mean, a lot of, yes, participation in Bureau is huge. It puts us in front of, and, you know, we become a recommended resource, you know, trusted resource for a thriving community of potential clients.
Um, but you know, a couple years ago we hired our own marketing agency, um, to, you know, to really invest. We did real well in 2021, um, and we were like, Jazzed about that after, you know, the pandemic not sort of Sure. Destroying our business as everybody else was worried about. Mm-hmm. Um, and you know, we, we could have sucked all the money out, but we kind of decided to reinvest it and we spent a good chunk of dough on some serious marketing efforts in 2022 that we carry on for the most part into 2023.
Um, And, you know, that's content based, I will say. Okay. And so we've create a ton of content with their assistance. Um, but it's mostly driven by us. Um, and, you know, they help us get it out and put it in front of the right people, in the right places. we, you know, we rely heavily on, referrals, but, you know, from existing clients, from other professionals that we know.
but. We don't wanna rest on that laurel. And so we make those outbound marketing efforts
[00:16:27] Corey: Beautiful. So is it actual outbound where you're, you're sending stuff directly to agencies or is it, uh, is it some form of inbound or combination?
[00:16:35] Gabe: Yeah. we have the full marketing spectra from, LinkedIn.
We don't do Google or anything like that, but we have LinkedIn, both natural and paid. Um, you know, we do, email. list and, and we send things out when we post them on our blog, and have gated assets and all the, the whole stuff that we've learned from our market. Emergency to do. Yeah. To do. And we, I think we've kind of figured out what works well.
Um, I mean, that's an ongoing, evolving thing. Sure. Um, but what works well, what we like to do, what we can afford to do, all of that.
What's
[00:18:05] Corey: the impact of word of mouth within the digital marketing sort of industry or vertical? Uh, how has that impacted your law firm?
[00:18:12] Gabe: Yeah, again, it's immeasurable.we're in a trust-based business, and I think we're very trustworthy people.
I know we're very trustworthy people when it comes across in our personalities. but when, peer business owners tell each other they, they've enjoyed us. Helping them and they trust us. You really can't, you know, measure the effect of that. How
[00:18:35] Corey: do you, how do you create word of mouth in your opinion?
[00:18:37] Gabe: Well, I mean, there's the natural just doing a good job and mm-hmm. And being somebody who's pleasant to work with, Mm-hmm. I mean, really a lot of lawyers aren't, right. So we have an advantage there. Like digital agency owners are like, you know, digital agencies can be kind of pleasant to work with. Not all of 'em, but you know, By nature, they're more pleasant to work with.
Ooh, we created a cool thing versus, ah, like, damn lawyers. Um, so that it makes a difference. but putting yourself out there in front of people too much of the same way I mentioned, you know, doing these things with people like you. putting yourself out there for the bureau and talking at other events and creating content.
and participating in activities that your clients participate in, in the bureau stuff. Yeah.
[00:19:16] Corey: You've been a, you've built a successful law firm focusing in on the digital marketing space. What would you say are the positive aspects to verticalizing a business?
[00:19:26] Gabe: Um, there's a lot.
I mean, confidence is really huge. Like we, you can't. Say you're the best IP lawyer in the world, or the best, you know, commercial litigator in the world, you just can't. Right? Um, but we think of ourselves as the best lawyers for digital agencies in the world, at least in, you know, a particular size of digital agency.
Maybe not the thousands of employees, but we think we can help them too. Um, so there's confidence, um, in being good at what you do. Knowing, knowing you're good at it, being able to say, we're really good at it.[00:20:00] and then behind that confidence is you really learn. You can be a super effective service provider, so you have a huge amount of intellectual capital that enables you to use it efficiently and effectively for your clients in a way that they see value in your pricing, but you still get good revenue from that, you know, If you pick right, you get to work with cool people.
And that was honestly one of the big reasons for my focus is like I found that back then my web design clients were just enjoyable. Yeah. Compared to the general business clients that I had. Um, you know, 20 to 30 somethings at the time. Trying to create these interesting businesses who trusted what I said, rather than, you know, 50, 60 year olds who work with 15 lawyers and, you know, I was just one in a line and they hated them.
they were just necessarily evil. So if you pick right, you can work with cool people and that's really what we all wanna do every day. Right. Besides making some money, is work with cool people as clients and, coworkers.
[00:20:58] Corey: What are the negatives, if any?
[00:21:00] Gabe: Well, I mean, you cut yourself off from opportunities.
Mm-hmm. Um, there might be opportunities that you otherwise might like to take that you really don't, really can't take. If you want to sort of maintain your expert stance as our marketing agency gurus like to tell us. I mean, you're susceptible to market conditions, you know, so if there is something that significantly impacts your particular client vertical.
[00:21:23] Corey: Yeah, it's funny, it reminds me, I used to work at a large agency, we, worked with attorneys a lot of, uh, like personal injury, criminal defense, and we also worked with home services. And in the pandemic some of those business verticals did better than others.
For instance, you know, attorneys who focused on DUIs, Got the business got really slow because
[00:21:43] Gabe: everyone was drinking. Nobody was driving anywhere.
[00:21:45] Corey: Yeah. But, uh, home Services, which was an essential service. Uh, if you remember back in the day where Oh yeah. The, the plumbers and the, you know, the HVAC folks, those,
[00:21:56] Gabe: everybody was working on their homes, right?
Every, yeah,
[00:21:59] Corey: exactly. And people were using the facilities at home a lot more cause they, you just didn't go into the office. It was just more Right. Right. More work to go around. And so those, those verticals did really well. But you, you know, to, to your point. If you are, not diversified across verticals, you run the risk of the vertical that you're focusing in on now, in your case.
I'm not, I'm not worried, but that can, that can happen for other vertical, you
[00:22:22] Gabe: know, specialists. Yeah. We didn't know, the budgets come from for our clients work come from various places. Some of them are marketing budgets, some of them are r and d, some of them are. Other than that, you know, some core.
CapEx thing, I don't know. But we were worried that, you know, marketing budgets would dry up. and in certain, you know, we had clients, hotels and restaurants like obviously shit, they were in bad shape for a while, but that focused on hotels and restaurants. But we had clients, I mean, it did not dry up.
Um, and you know, there, there's been some rough times, particularly in 2022. Um, but. we were very happy that it didn't hammer our clients and we kind of got a little more confidence that our client's work is evergreen. you know, the big thing now of course, is AI and all that, but
[00:23:09] Corey: that's another, I'm just gonna say something about that.
Yeah. You gave a talk at the offsite about how. You know, how to manage that transition and how that impacts, um, a lot of the aspects of the creative business. And, uh, it makes me think, you know, if anything that is more job security, just the, just the, the rate of innovation as it relates to what are the legal, you know, impacts to not just ai, but you know, we're, you know, it seems like technology continues to evolve at a faster and faster rate and being able to, Be a guide to your clients in those situations who may not have a legal context for what's going on.
Absolutely.
[00:23:45] Gabe: Yeah, absolutely. Just like, you know, standardized CMSs and e-comm and all of it. Yeah. I mean, none of that has killed the business of digital agencies and I don't think AI will either. It's gonna have an impact, on all of us,
[00:23:58] Corey: sure. Um, I noticed that you have productized services.
Quote unquote, on your website and wanted to just kind of change the subject, talk to talk to you a little bit about that. when you launched the firm, uh, with your partner, did you launch productized services then, or how did that, how did that
[00:24:13] Gabe: occur? Nope, we did not. that occurred both naturally and in discussions with our marketing firm.
you know, our revenue. It goes like this. Um, and we wanted it to go more like this. Yep. Um, and to have a more stable footing. And we, are exceedingly responsive to our clients, but we don't charge for that. So, you know, we're moving even further in that direction. Um, I don't think it's gonna end up costing our clients anything more.
And it may be less, but. It will give us peace of mind. and ultimately where we want our business to go is with people who want to think of us as a part [00:25:00] of companies that wanna think of us as part of their team. You know, like a fractional GC for mm-hmm. General counsel for companies that can't yet afford or don't need their own general counsel.
Yeah. Um, and those are the relationships we want to have. And so we're aiming in that direction. with retainers and subscriptions, whatever you wanna call it, then, uh, that provide certain base levels of services that then, we will be putting a tool out on our website where, uh, Potential clients can, and existing clients can build their own retainer.
Oh, cool. Um, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, because yeah, cuz one thing that lawyers don't do well at all is talk about their services and what they cost. I mean, lawyers are getting better at it. Mm-hmm. Um, but we're trying to communicate well and relatively clearly about that on our website and to give people more information, perspective clients, more information and more choices that they can kind of play with and explore.
And how has
[00:25:52] Corey: productized services had an impact on that or maybe in your law firm overall
[00:25:56] Gabe: so far? Uh, I mean, we don't have a ton of it, but we have enough of it where it has stabilized revenue a bit. Mm-hmm. Um, I think there are, you know, 15 or 20 clients, if not more, doing a more substantial sort of retainer, um, than like some low base level retainer.
and. Most of them are getting really good value out of it. so where I'm really loving it is, in the relationships with agencies that are big enough that they kind of buy a retainer that allows them not to pay anything, to have us negotiate their client services agreements. Whether those client agreements are inbound or they're sending their standard agreement and it's getting marked up, which we've created for them.
Mm-hmm. Um, and I. I can own that process and not have to worry about billing time. Yep. Or overbilling or under billing or whatever. Mm-hmm. Um, and they can feel confident in that. And they're very comfortable with the amount of money they're paying for it, um, which is like a quarter or less of what they would pay their own gc.
I'm loving that and I want more clients like that. We all do. Me, Josh, Jen, the whole firm. Um, And I think that's, that's a generally a bigger client with at least 30 to maybe 40 employees. And we don't want to cut off the more emerging growth companies that do this stuff. so we're not like requiring everyone to do that.
But it's, yeah, it's really enjoyable getting into the business, understanding what they prioritize, helping to teach them what we think they should prioritize, and coming to a place where, That contract negotiation process gets optimized.
[00:27:33] Corey: so for creative agencies and digital agencies that come from a bespoke, like a hundred percent bespoke approach, a services focused, you know, where, like you said, you're very responsive, you over-deliver. how would you advise, or what, what advice would you have for. Those companies that are thinking about productizing their services?
Like what's a baby step that they could take in the direction of productizing?
[00:27:56] Gabe: we tried to dip our toes in the water with lower cost. Options, that we thought would be attractive to our clients.
and I think they were. Mm-hmm. But we didn't hit the mark right out of the gate. Yeah, there was a lot of iterations. So if there are lower cost things that digital agencies do, and they don't really charge for them or they charge a minimal amount for them. if those can become productized, retainer-based type services, try it, you know?
Yeah. I hope not too many folks are hosting anymore, but um, I imagine that a lot of folks are, for example. Yeah. Um, some of our clients are providing, support services. A lot of them are providing ongoing support services because there's a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot millions of smaller. Businesses out there of all types, you know, that aren't huge enterprise orgs, that have websites, need their websites to be effective and don't want to spend the time to really understand how Shopify works to sell their shit.
Mm-hmm. Um, so they need somebody, they need, or you know, how WordPress works and they want someone to just handle all that. that type of support. You know, you can structure the legal agreement in a way that makes sense for both parties, where it's like for X amount of money per month.
We're, we will do these things, these four or five things, and then if you have additional requests, we'll do 'em up to, you know, three or four hours or five, whatever it is per month. and you know, if it goes more than that, we'll get your permission to charge you our discounted hourly rate or something.
Yeah, yeah. Um, so that's a really easy retainer, right? We're gonna do these basic support services. Um, and then, you know, beyond that, you get this many hours per month of any other support requests that you need, that we can. Do, you know, and it's whatever the price is, 1000, 5,000, whatever fits for your, your market and your work.
[00:29:58] Corey: [00:30:00] Beautiful. And one of the things that you stated, I wanna underline that it is, Uh, it's a test and you can optimize this and play with it and change the packages over time. That's really, that's really cool. Um, two more quick questions here for you, Gabe. One is, let's say there's someone who's listening to us right now and they have a, digital agency.
They're doing a lot of bespoke work, but they're also more importantly for this question. They are sort of, uh, a generalist. They work with businesses of all shapes and sizes, and they do pretty much anything the client asks for. And they're realizing that, hey, they need to consider specializing their firm on a specific vertical.
what advice would you have, for them at that moment in that sort of process of thinking about verbalizing.
[00:30:48] Gabe: a few things. I wouldn't make the decision too quickly. I would want to get to know. I mean, maybe they already really know the vertical and they're already really entrenched in it. in which case go for it. but put yourself more out there. Put yourself out there as much as you can in that vertical.
You don't wanna be obnoxious, but I mean, you know, go to events. try to speak right. Write things because to that vertical, your particular expertise are not something that they know about. So you talk to that, that group of business owners or, or management or operations, whoever, whomever you need to talk to, marketing at, at those businesses in a way that, that they really go, oh, this person gets our business.
and they provide services we need. so get out there, put yourself out there. Take the time to make the relationships speak, create content, all of that. But you know, if you're not very familiar with the vertical, I mean, do the same, but do it in a way that lets you learn about the vertical and meet the people you might be serving because it might suck.
Yeah.
[00:31:54] Corey: That's beautiful. Uh, last question. What's your motivation?
[00:31:58] Gabe: at base it's sort of like happiness. I'm always striving to just be happier, which involves a lot of things including stress reduction. Mm-hmm. because I'm Type A and, you know, stress is here and a lot of us are, and, and the world we live in is kind of stressful these days for a lot of different reasons.
so, you know, that's, that's family and friends. but it's also very much who you work with. We, let's be honest, most of us spend. Most of our waking hours on this shit. so try to find something that you at least don't mind doing for me. I'll be honest, like I don't love being a lawyer. but I very much like who I work with both on my team and my clients, and that for me has been like, The optimizing point that I've been trying to reach ever since, you know, 2011, which, you know, before that talk with Mike, I was like, eh, I'm doing okay, but this lawyer shit is exhausting.
and then I got to kind of pick my clients, and pick who I worked with and that, that really helped the happiness level go
[00:32:59] Corey: up. Yeah, that's beautiful. how can people reach out to you and, connect with you?
[00:33:04] Gabe: Yeah, sure. our website is matchstick.legal. Mm-hmm. our marketing firm would very much like you to go there and use the contact submission form.
Yes, I'm sure they would. Um, you can also email me at gabe g abe matchstick.legal.
[00:33:20] Corey: Beautiful. And I'll make sure that goes into the show notes. Gabe, thank you so much for joining, uh, today. It's been a great conversation.
