From Computer Science to Trial Lawyer to Agency Owner

I asked Gyi what he was doing before Attorney Sync.

He started out actually as a trial lawyer himself for a very brief period of time. His educational background started out in computer science (this is like the late 90s to date himself). He just realized hardcore coding lifestyle wasn't for him, pivoted to a philosophy major, decided not to go into academia, so went to law school.

He loved practicing law, did that for a very brief period of time. But really the genesis of Attorney Sync was talking to other lawyers at the time about: what are you doing to grow business, specifically with respect to the internet?

A lot of it was: people just don't use the internet to hire lawyers like us. That sentiment was (and it still comes up even today, but it's a lot less than it was 17 years ago).

"Finally left practice in 2007 and founded the business in 2008 and been doing that ever since. It was really kind of like: this can't be right, people are using the internet to hire lawyers and get referrals and all that kind of stuff. Fortunately we came down on the right side of history on that one," Gyi said.

The Painfully Difficult First Few Years

I asked about the first few years of Attorney Sync: was it easy sailing or a little difficult?

Very difficult. It was painfully difficult. If there are any entrepreneurs getting started, it's hard. Gyi was there, he was working in his tiny studio apartment, his business partner and him still laugh about those days (fortunately they can laugh about them).

The stats are anti-small businesses succeeding. In fact they actually started out as a lead generation company. There was a company called Total Attorneys at the time, they were the national leader in lead generation for lawyers. There was a question of whether lawyers could even pay per lead.

"We were tiny, we were like we can't fight this fight. And so we pivoted to the agency model. But it was a roller coaster ride. You know part of me too, people ask me why did you leave the law, the practice of law. I get excited about solving problems and working in that kind of environment. Even though it was terrifying, it was super interesting, exciting every day and it still is," Gyi explained.

Being in local marketing, it's exciting. There's always new challenges, platforms change, search changes. If you're interested in problem solving in a fast-moving industry, marketing and local marketing might be for you.

Why Vertical Positioning Is Everything

I mentioned that Gyi started out as an attorney so he knew the space really well. I think that's something to note: if you're thinking about starting an agency or even freelancing, you should go into an industry that you already know about.

Gyi loves this. For listeners if they're not familiar with David C. Baker, he wrote a book called The Business of Expertise. He talks about this in the context of positioning.

It's much easier and much more effective to market a vertical specific agency (pick one category and go deep on that category) than it is to be: hey we're going to be everything to everybody. Your message gets diluted, you're not going to deliver the same value because you don't know that industry as well.

"You might pick horizontal positioning, that would be like picking: well we're just going to focus on search but across categories. But to me I think one of the biggest learnings and things that we've benefited from is that we were very specific: we just do digital for lawyers. That vertical and horizontal positioning has been a huge leg up in terms of our growth and our ability to deliver results for clients," Gyi said.

Why Google Maps Is Your Best Link Building Tool

I asked Gyi what exactly they do in terms of digital marketing: is it SEO, Google ads, what exactly is it?

Pretty much if it's online, they do it. They have account directors that set the strategy. Firms come with all sorts of different needs. Some are like: I've been listening to the podcast and I just haven't really done anything online, I want to get started. That's a much different campaign and marketing blueprint than somebody's like: look I've been around for the last 30 years, we've invested heavily in digital but we're not seeing the kind of traction that we want to see and we're not outpacing some of our competitors.

They'll partner with other experts (especially when it comes to video production). They're a distributed team but if they've got a client that's in a local market, people on the ground, partners on the ground in those markets make a big difference. Partnering with local organizations, partnering with local journalists.

"When you're local, when you're a local marketer, you've got to think local. I tell people all the time: the best tool in your arsenal from a digital marketing standpoint for local is Google Maps. Go find all the businesses and organizations in your clients' local communities and start finding ways to build partnerships with them. It makes all the difference in terms of link building, in terms of PR, in terms of co-marketing partnerships, event marketing, all that stuff. The local stuff is that's the key cornerstone for local businesses," Gyi explained.

The ChatGPT Attribution Problem Nobody's Talking About

Gyi mentioned that people can say social media all they want, but to him social media is brand. If you're doing direct response on social media and having consistent success with it, he knows there's a couple firms that are.

Search has intent. It always has. People are there to go find those lower funnel head term business type lookup searches. That stuff kills.

"The local, if you can get your local services ads to spend, that is the premier real estate. You got high intent, you're paying per lead. If you're working those leads, that to me is still the place to be. Now I think the hard part is sometimes people complain it's hard to get them to spend, we don't have that much control over them, that's the whole thing," Gyi said.

But they're undergoing probably (since he's been doing this) the biggest tectonic shift in what's going on because of AI.

Here's the critical part: people make sure you have got qualitative attribution going on at your business. Ask people how they found you. Do not rely solely on Google Analytics and pixel fires.

"I will tell you from experience: people will put in 'how did you hear about us?' I found you on ChatGPT. I found you on whatever it is that's coming. We're in, I'm saying Google still right now today, but a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, this could be the first time in 20 years that I might not be saying that," Gyi explained.

Why Pixel Fires Optimize Campaigns to Total Trash

I asked Gyi to tell me more about ChatGPT and where that's going.

If you take your target query list and take it over to ChatGPT, those might not be the ways that people are actually looking for you in ChatGPT. You've got to figure out: survey potential clients, ask friends and family, ask people in your local community like: hey if you were going to go look for X business on ChatGPT, what would you type in?

Then go and see what ChatGPT is using as the source data.

In legal, it's heavy on legal directories. There are some law firm websites. A lot of the studies (SE Ranking has a lot of great research and studies on ChatGPT and genAI sources across a bunch of categories), but in legal there's a high correlation between legal directories. If you rank organically (not in the local pack but in the traditional organic results), there seems to be a strong correlation to showing up in the GPT results.

But it changes all the time. It's all over the map. It still gets it wrong.

"People really look down at ChatGPT but this stuff gets better so much faster. I wouldn't count it out of the race. Already consumers, because it's more of a conversational dynamic, it's more Star Trek computer, people are gravitating there. They like that experience, they like to be able to refine queries, they like to be able to ask follow-up questions," Gyi said.

In Google, for a variety of reasons, they're not quite there yet. They're losing some market share. But Google is still king. People that are talking about the demise of Google: it's a little bit premature. They've still got a data window right now even in the generative AI landscape and they're number one.

The Critical Point About CRM Data and Media Buys

I asked how involved exactly is their company when they work with an attorney company, what does that look like, how involved are they in making sure they're actually converting these leads into customers?

It's all over the map. Some firms will come and say: hey look, we've got an in-house marketing team, we just need someone to kind of look over our shoulder. They'll try to help them build accountability systems. They'll connect CRM data with ads.

"That's another thing too that I tell people: especially if you're spending a lot of money on ads, you absolutely must connect your sales data to your marketing data. I'll tell you one way to do it (there are simpler ways and less expensive ways), but we export everything into BigQuery, clean the data up from all the different sources, and then use your client CRM data to inform our media buys. If you're buying Google ads and you are not connecting it to your sales data, you're at a huge competitive disadvantage. You cannot rely on pixel fires. Do not feed Google pixel fires. They will optimize campaigns to total trash," Gyi explained.

Some firms just want some consulting. They want help getting their data infrastructure in place, they want help delivering reports, composing strategy. Other firms it's like: we're deeply embedded with everything they do. They're listening to feedback from clients, they're looking at trying to help them with reviews, they're interviewing stakeholders and clients and potential clients to get a sense of what are the issues.

It's really all over the map depending on the needs.

Why Dashboards Beat Reports Every Single Time

Gyi mentioned something critical: dashboards over reports.

Clients should be able to access their data anytime they want. They shouldn't have to wait for you to email them a PDF of their report of what's going on.

The reporting function is not to deliver information. It's to talk about what you did, why it was valuable, what you're doing next to improve those metrics. That's the insight and analysis report.

"You don't, people don't need you to pull up Google Analytics, they can do that themselves. Create dashboards that have meaning, that are connected to CRM, that talk about business metrics. Then report on the actual insights and analysis of the campaign, not just you got this many visitors last month. Who cares? That's not helpful," Gyi said.

Finding those bottlenecks, showing them their blind spots. A lot of these small business owners might not even realize that people are trying to call them and they're not answering the phone.

Imagine the value you add to a business that's already getting phone calls but it's just not answering the phone and you help them answer 25, 30% more of the phone calls. That's real money that's coming into their business and they will be like: you're the best thing since sliced bread because they're going to feel that tangibly in their P&L.

The LinkedIn Local Targeting Strategy

I asked about social media: are you doing anything specifically for social media with clients?

Mostly consulting. But they manage paid social advertising.

Especially in legal, small business owners tend to separate referrals from direct response. Gyi's like: huge mistake. LinkedIn campaign, local LinkedIn campaigns. Because LinkedIn targeting is amazing.

You can target other business professionals on LinkedIn in your local community. You're not doing your direct response ads, not like: hey I need a lawyer, free consultation. But you're like: here's some charity work I've been doing in the local community, here are some local restaurants that I'm helping support.

"You get that content in front of people, people will remember you. When it's when they need, because legal is on demand (it's like you don't need a car accident lawyer until you're in a car accident), but they'll be thinking of you because they're thinking of the people that are supporting the local community, they're active in the local community, they're leaders in the local community. That's the stuff that sticks in people's heads," Gyi explained.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest lesson from talking to Gyi is that qualitative attribution matters more than Google Analytics pixel fires. People will literally say "I found you on ChatGPT" when you ask how they found you. Do not rely solely on Google Analytics and pixel fires because they will optimize campaigns to total trash.

Gyi's journey from trial lawyer to agency owner proves that vertical positioning is everything. It's much easier and much more effective to market a vertical specific agency (pick one category and go deep) than be everything to everybody. Your message gets diluted, you're not going to deliver the same value because you don't know that industry as well. We were very specific: we just do digital for lawyers. That vertical and horizontal positioning has been a huge leg up.

The ChatGPT tectonic shift is real. In legal it's heavy on legal directories. There's high correlation between legal directories and showing up in GPT results. People are gravitating there because it's more conversational dynamic, more Star Trek computer. They like that experience, they like to refine queries, ask follow-up questions. Google still king right now today, but a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, this could be the first time in 20 years that might not be true.

The CRM data connection to media buys is non-negotiable. If you're spending a lot of money on ads, you absolutely must connect your sales data to your marketing data. Export everything into BigQuery, clean the data up from all different sources, use client CRM data to inform media buys. If you're buying Google ads and not connecting it to your sales data, you're at a huge competitive disadvantage. You cannot rely on pixel fires.

The Google Maps link building strategy nobody talks about: the best tool in your arsenal from a digital marketing standpoint for local is Google Maps. Go find all the businesses and organizations in your clients' local communities and start finding ways to build partnerships with them. It makes all the difference in terms of link building, PR, co-marketing partnerships, event marketing. The local stuff is the key cornerstone for local businesses.

Want to learn more from Gyi? Visit AttorneySync.com, follow him on LinkedIn, listen to Lunch Hour Legal Marketing podcast. Gyi is happy to help any small business owner with questions in any way that he possibly can.

Listen to the full episode to hear more of Gyi's insights on why Google Analytics lies about attribution, the ChatGPT discovery method stealing market share, why pixel fires optimize to total trash, and the LinkedIn local targeting strategy that builds brand in professional communities.