Company: Lawsome Digital
Owners: Chris Majernik
Year Started: 2013
Employees: 1 – 10
Welcome to the latest episode of “An Agency Story,” a podcast series that offers a glimpse into the real-life adventures and challenges faced by marketing agency owners across the globe. Hosted by Russel Dubree, a former agency owner who turned his business success into a coaching career, this series provides a platform for listeners to learn from the highs and lows of industry peers. This episode features Chris Majernik from Lawsome Digital, who shares her entrepreneurial journey, from pet-sitting to pioneering digital marketing strategies for law firms.
Chris Majernik enlightens us on the specialized niche of Lawsome Digital—an agency dedicated to enhancing the online presence of solo and small transactional law firms. The discussion delves into the origins of the agency’s catchy name and explores the unique challenges and strategies involved in marketing for the legal sector, highlighting the importance of compliance and tailored content in this highly regulated industry.
Listeners will find Chris’s backstory particularly engaging. Her entrepreneurial spirit shone early on, from running a pet-sitting business at eleven to teaching flute lessons before venturing into marketing. A humorous highlight from her youth includes babysitting turtles, an unconventional choice that underscores her innate knack for business. Chris’s journey through unexpected job losses and the creation of her first agency post-redundancy is both inspiring and relatable for anyone who’s faced career setbacks.
This episode is packed with engaging discussions about the strategic pivot during COVID-19 that led to the formation of Lawsome Digital. Chris’s ability to adapt and focus on transactional law firms as her client base during the pandemic illustrates a proactive approach to business challenges. The conversation also covers the practical aspects of running two agencies, the strategic use of branding, and the insights gained from working with a specific clientele.
Tune in to this episode of “An Agency Story” to follow Chris Majernik’s compelling narrative that highlights resilience, creativity, and the savvy understanding of niche markets in the digital marketing landscape. Whether you’re a marketing professional, a small agency owner, or someone fascinated by the entrepreneurial journey, this episode offers valuable lessons and inspiring stories. Join us as we explore how nuanced strategies and personal experiences shape the growth of marketing agencies. Don’t miss out on this insightful exploration into the world of marketing for law firms, where Chris’s story leaves you contemplating the dynamic interplay between personal growth and professional development in the agency realm.
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Show Transcript
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. From the excitement of starting up the first big sale, passion, doubt, fear, freedom, and the emotional rollercoaster of growth, hear it all on An Agency Story podcast. An Agency Story podcast is hosted by Russel Dubree, successful agency owner with an eight figure exit turned business coach. Enjoy the next agency story.
Russel:
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast. I’m your host Russel. In this episode, we explore the vibrant world of marketing with Chris Majernik, founder of Lawsome Digital based in Charleston, South Carolina. Chris shares the unique positioning of Lawsome Digital as a niche powerhouse for transactional law firms, a leap inspired by her entrepreneurial journey from pet-sitting to marketing guru. Delve into the humorous story of her early entrepreneurial ventures a including a summer spent babysitting turtles highlighting or innate creative spirit. Chris also recounts the significant turning point of starting her agency the same week she lost her dream job. A pivotal moment that set her on her path to success, to name, to learn how Chris has blend of humor, resilience and strategic insight has shaped her small, but thriving agency. Don’t miss this episode, full last lessons and the kind of savvy advice that could change the way you think about marketing and the legal sector. Enjoy the story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Chris Majernik with Lawsome Digital with us here today. Thank you so much for joining us today, Chris.
Chris:
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Russel:
Well, we’re excited. Let’s get right to it. What does Lawsome Digital do and who do you do it for?
Chris:
Lawsome Digital, I like to say, is an awesome marketing agency for solo and small law firms and specifically transactional law firms. We can get into the distinction of that, but we work with small and national law firms.
Russel:
We will definitely dig more into that, and I can’t wait to hear this one. What is behind the name Lawsome Digital?
Chris:
We named it Lawsome because it’s awesome, for lawyers. Awesome digital marketing for lawyers.
Russel:
That might be the best naming story I’ve heard yet. I love it. I imagine that has to stick in people’s minds on that very basis alone.
Chris:
I hope so.
Russel:
Before we get in all the good stuff that you’ve got going on in the business, let’s go back. What was young Chris doing and how does that compare to where you’re at today?
Chris:
Young Chris was always an entrepreneur. I remember when I was 11, I borrowed my parents computer, made little business cards for a little pet sitting business. I had passed them around the neighborhood and I was babysitting turtles for an entire summer. That was the it animal, but, uh.
Russel:
Did you say turtles?
Chris:
Turtles, lots of turtles, lots of cats, a couple of rabbits, watching pets. And that was my first little, I didn’t have a lemonade stand, but I had a little pet sitting business. Then after that, I taught, flute lessons for quite a while for my middle school to high school years. Then went into marketing in college and graduated, got a job, and then opened my own marketing firm.
Russel:
Always loved the young entrepreneur, very similar to myself. You graduated college, obviously a marketing focus. If I recall correctly, you landed your dream job, but the dream job didn’t last so long. Which, now, looking back, sounds like maybe a good thing, but what was that all about?
Chris:
To go way back, I worked in, financial planning in 2007. That was my real first job, financial planning 2007. I was an administrative assistant and then everything happened in 07 that really hurt financial markets. Switching around from that job, and then I landed what I thought was my dream job. It was like this really cool project marketing manager at this cool startup. I lasted there six weeks and then, was no longer part of that dream job. That’s the same week I started my first marketing agency, which was called Green Bag Designs. I started it that week. I haven’t looked back since it was really eye opening to know that you could go into work one day and be happy and leave in tears and have what felt like at the time my whole life destroyed by one person.
Russel:
Yeah, that had to be really tough and I’m really curious, right? It doesn’t sound like you were too far into your career where you were just, was it the experience of itself that said, you know what? I’m not going to be in this position again, this is why I’m going to start my own business. Or how did you actually decide to go from that situation and starting your business?
Chris:
That job had been my first quote unquote marketing job after I graduated. I had worked as an administrative assistant and executive assistant and office manager, as you move up in that line of work, but I had never been called something with the word marketing in it. At 25 that felt like such a big deal to finally have the word marketing when I was a marketing major. It felt like such an accomplishment and it didn’t really matter if I liked the job or not, I just wanted that title. I wanted someone to recognize me as a marketer, as like that job that I’ve been craving for since I went into college at 18. To have it ripped away was just really, I was nearly married. I had bought a house, those had happened before I got this quote unquote dream job, but I had a lot of things on the line and to go from having an income to having no income, having health care to, oh, I still barely have health care. It’s just a, such a huge thing. I had to go to my dad and tell him that I was fired from this job. It made me feel like such a disappointment or such a failure in my life. If I had done something, if I had made a mistake or if I had, you know, I don’t know, I feel like it would have been better. I was let go for not really fitting into the culture. I think I was too happy go lucky. I was too energetic for a startup. And also startups really do need more knowledgeable people, I think they, you know, to get balls running like that. I just wasn’t as experienced as I needed to be to really be in the position that they had hired me for. It just felt devastating, but yeah, it definitely made me think about what I wanted in life and what kind of life I wanted to lead. I had always had this urge to, to be in control, I guess, is what it boils down to, and to be able to set my life in the path that I’m going to.
Russel:
Were you, even in that time period, I mean, obviously a very bad experience as you shared, and thank you for sharing that. Did you consider going and getting another job or was it like, again, I’m going to go blaze my own trail because, one, going back to your pet sitting roots, why that was the decision, because I could totally see, again, all these things and the uncertainty of the income, looking for security, especially maybe at a younger age or not, or maybe that’s helped. When I think about my own, business journey starting at 25, it’s like, there’s no other options. I don’t know any better and I don’t have a lot of expenses at life so let’s go for it.
Chris:
I think it’s so interesting, this conversation of like, well, how did you start? When I talk to some other business owners, they’ll be like, oh yeah. I set off and I found my first client and I, like, did it. I ended up, I mean, I got a full time job again. It wasn’t in what I wanted to do, but it was a full 40 hour a week job and then I started my business at night. I took about five weeks to find a new full time job and I started my other business at night. I built my website. I set my logo. I did all of that at night. Then I started looking at Craigslist because Craigslist was not a scary thing when I was doing this. I found my first couple of clients on Craigslist, you know, these random design jobs or random social media postings or whatever it is. Just started working from there. Eventually I found a part time job so I could look at work in my business part time and then I think it took two years before I was able to do my Green Bag Designs full time.
Russel:
That makes a lot more sense in terms of your context. There’s no one way or right way about how to go about this whole thing. It sounds like it was just kind of a balance tipping of income to busyness, from working down your corporate life, so to speak, and then moving that into Green Bag Designs. Was that a really cool feeling when you finally cut ties with the working for the man, as they say, and actually working on Green Bag Designs full time?
Chris:
No, it’s terrifying. It’s terrifying. I didn’t think about it cause young, so I didn’t really think about my 401k or my dental plan or how to structure my days properly. When you’re at an office, you’re given a list of things to do every day. When you work for yourself, you have to come up with that list. You have to create that list. You have to create your schedule. It’s so nice when we say, oh, well I can run at my own schedule. I can take off Friday if I want to, but what I think most people don’t hear is then I have to work Saturday. You have flexibility, but you’re still having to create your workflow and you have to eat what you kill, or you can only eat what you kill is the thing. I don’t know whatever the saying is. That was a hard part for me.
Russel:
Killing and eating.
Chris:
Yes, right. I had to go out and find money, find people who were willing to trust this, you know, beboppin unexperienced marketing girl who, was just carrying this Green Bag around and hoping that someone would let them you know, handle their marketing. It was very terrifying. I really appreciate those first clients that took a chance on me and let me get some projects under my belt. So you lived the marketing, and I know we didn’t start off the introduction of this first iteration of your agency, but so you live the marketing and the branding of what I hear there, carrying around a Green Bag? Oh yeah, no. That was my shtick. I still have it. I have a Green Bag. I, bought it for$300, which at the time just felt so exorbitant. I was like, my first business expense, and I named my whole business after that bag and I carried it around. I took it to lunch meetings and I would say, oh, just look for the Green Bag. That’s me. It was really helpful because when I would go to networking events, they didn’t have to remember my name or my face.
Russel:
I love that. I see other business doing, I don’t often, I don’t know if I come across any agencies that do that specifically. Not to say there’s not out there, but I always wondered is would that work in an agency type environment? What I’m hearing is yes. And it even applies to the name behind that. What is behind the name there? Because I imagine there has to be some even more connotation to why you’re carrying around a Green Bag.
Chris:
We would say, you know, your marketing plans all in our bag, are all in the bag. We’ll make you a custom bag. And so we would design this custom marketing plan and we’d call it In the Bag, for each of our clients. That’s what we did.
Russel:
Perfect. It always goes down the line when it comes to marketing and things like that, it’s not weird if it works.
Chris:
I would say this was pre-COVID. Obviously we were doing a lot more in person networking and now most of my clients aren’t even in the town I live in, but at that point, all of my clients were local and I also am in like a smaller town.
Russel:
You’ve got to hustle and you find your clients, kill what you eat, eat what you kill. How long did it take, or did you get to a spot where you’re like, I got this. This is going to be all right. This was the good move. The past is behind me and all, all eyes ahead, or I’m sure there’s some other better saying for that too, but.
Chris:
I think around year seven, I felt really good. I felt like, all right, I know what I’m going to do. Seven sounds like such a long period of time, but it is really. You’ve gone through a lot of phases of your business and of the types of clients you want to work with and when you hit seven, but then COVID happened so everything changed anyway. Honestly, last year I finally paid off all of my business debt.
Russel:
Nice, congragulations.
Chris:
And after that, thank you, it took so long. After that, I felt so much better because I don’t have that weight over my shoulders of, well, you know, I’ve got to pay all this off, these people are counting on me, or whatever it is, so that I think is where I felt that real accomplishment.
Russel:
I do talk to a lot of folks and, there are certain expectations that we might put on ourselves in terms of how long this should take and the reality is there is no, no timeline. As you were saying that, congratulations on getting out of debt, if this was the Dave Ramsey podcast, I think you’re supposed to do some kind of get out of debt scream.
Chris:
Dead free.
Russel:
I love it Nice. Then as you mentioned, COVID came in, right. That was just a whole slew of things for, in so many different ways. As I understand it, it became also the birth of Lawsome Digital. How did that idea come about?
Chris:
I started Lawsome Digital during COVID and I think it was a strategic decision based on what my favorite clients had been previously and also, what clients I really wanted to focus on in the future. That was lawyers, specifically transactional lawyers. When I say transactional lawyers, I mean your estate planning attorneys, your family lawyers, your, real estate closing attorneys, typically the attorneys that are not, like, going into court and fighting in front of a jury. Those are more litigators and what it really is determined in my head is more of a proactive or reactive lawyer. Are we waiting for the car crash to happen? That would be maybe not a lawyer we want to work with, actually definitely not a lawyer we want to work with. Or are they on a billboard? Probably not a lawyer we want to work with. There are so many great marketing companies that work with billboard lawyers and all minds and all the things but we really like to focus on our solo and small, under 10 people law firms that are really trying to be proactive. There’s a lot more education elements, a lot more downloadables, infographics, blast emails. A lot more upfront communication to take that cold beat to it warmly.
Russel:
If I’m hearing correctly, this was essentially a COVID pivot, right? Like a lot of folks, maybe you were losing some clients, on the other side and it’s like, we need a strategy to, get more clients and business. It sounds like you took your fav types of clients and projects, and then just turned that into a whole business, which in some ways is a very natural evolution for a lot of agencies, just going to the niche route. However, you decided to just create a whole different agency behind it. What’s the thought process there? I’m very curious.
Chris:
I really liked the idea of niching down into this group. I think whenever you niche now, the more targeted you can get your marketing, the better. Green Bag had been so professional service focused for so long that I think changing it into a, law firm focused business would have just been not logical. We wanted the new name and the new branding, but the other part is, when you’re starting a new business, no matter if you’ve already had one, there’s a three to five year period before you really are profitable or making it quote unquote. I wanted Green Bag to stay in action. I mean, it still had clients. It’s still doing well. It’s still known in my area and so I didn’t want to shut it down. I just wanted to create a marketing firm that was really just targeted towards lawyers. The other thing is, lawyers are very litigious. If we run into a situation, which I hope we don’t, knock on wood, where we come across a litigious client, we want to protect ourselves. I actually have a little bit stronger insurance on Lawsome than I might on Greenbag. Also, the reason why we really wanted to niche too is because lawyers have so many different, regulations, different restrictions on their marketing. For instance, we can’t say the word, specialized. I can’t say, oh, my lawyer specializes in estate planning, or my lawyer specializes in divorce. We also can’t say they’re an expert. Oh, she’s an expert divorce lawyer. We can’t say the word expert. Can’t say any definitive, 100 percent language. That was another reason we really wanted to get really knowledgeable about this restrictions of what you can and cannot say.
Russel:
I felt a little tinge of pain when you say that, like, I can’t imagine how nervous I would be if all my clients were lawyers. Every time I sent over a contract, I would just be like, oh, here we go again. Is it like that?
Chris:
Most of them just rewrite it.
Russel:
That’s what I have to assume.
Chris:
They just take it and they’re like, no, no, we’ll just send you our own and then you have to send it to your lawyer. We have to send it to our lawyer to have them read it and make sure we’re not, you know, missing out on anything. It’s sometimes a bother, but you know.
Russel:
Gotta include it as a, an obvious or hidden line item there in the process. That you started this and got it going and it’s not very, I do come across a lot of folks when they go down to trying to specialize in the niche path that even if they don’t change their branding and things like that into a whole new business, they say those words. I feel like I’m running two separate businesses now. You just embraced that and, applied separate branding for it. Now that’s a few years behind you, what is it like having two different agencies essentially?
Chris:
I thought about, behind my wall, having a changeable photo that I can just pop in and out. It’s really fine because now everything’s so, and this is one thing I am grateful for with COVID, everything’s so much more digital. We’re able to meet online and it feels almost as natural as meeting a real person. When I work with my clients, it’s easier for me to get in touch with them. It’s easier for me to connect with them and it’s easier for me to keep track of them. I haven’t found it to be too terribly difficult, but we do a lot more, I would say screening and editing on the Lawsome side that we do on the Green Bag side, just to make sure we’re not doing anything incorrectly.
Russel:
Are you leveraging very similar processes, talent, or is it literally like you’re running two separate businesses? Where does some of those, I’m going to use the, the cliche business word of synergies, across both brands and how is that working for you?
Chris:
It’s so interesting because our clients, as far as processes go, our clients come to us with usually with tools that are specific for them. For our lawyers, we’re integrating with Clio, we’re integrating with their CRM systems, and so we’re utilizing different blast email systems. Or we’re utilizing, different social channels. Our lawyers are mostly on LinkedIn whereas maybe our business coach is more on Facebook. That’s been interesting to see what channels we’re utilizing for social or how we’re building their marketing plans. As far as our teams go, they’re all working on all of the things all the time. As long as they’re educated on, what the do’s and don’ts are. It’s been pretty fine. I wouldn’t say we have so many clients that it, causing an issue. We’re a pretty small agency ourselves.
Russel:
When you think about the longer term, do you see one going by the wayside and going all in on the other, or how are you looking at that path for yourself?
Chris:
I definitely built Lawsome with the intent of being able to sell it off when I retire as a goal. We have been putting in more, systems in place to track changes, to track passwords, to track all the things that we need, basically brain dumping more so for all Lawsome clients. Where as our Green Bag clients, because they’re small and, they’re generally solo run or a different industry, we haven’t had to be so, rigorous on that. I think that’s probably the biggest difference. I can definitely see Lawsome being my, hopefully more structured company that would eventually be able to have a partner join or be able to have new ownership.
Russel:
Don’t let me read into what I’m also hearing there, but maybe the same way we wait might get a second shot at parenting or something like that, where you’re taking the lessons you, you maybe wish you would have applied from the get go in Green Bag and, dare I say doing it right in air quotes, for Lawsome, but, making a more sustainable long term, whether you choose to sell it or not, that’s generally probably the same, those are good practices to hold nonetheless. Is that accurate? Is that kind of how you’re viewing it?
Chris:
When I started Green Bag, we’ve already talked about, I hadn’t worked in an agency. I’ve never worked in a marketing agency. I’ve never worked really at a marketing job because even the startup was starting up, they weren’t really sure what they needed either. I don’t have a background of seeing how other agencies structure themselves. I’ve definitely gone through the gamut of like different CRM systems and, you trying different processes. Honestly, I think a lot of those processes work for very, very structured people and creatives are not very structured people. Sometimes it’s hard for us to, to gauge good practices and good systems. So yes, I feel now like I’ve worked in an agency after building my own agency and now I can build a hopefully stronger agency.
Russel:
Very few people have I ever talked to said, man, I worked in this really awesome agency that showed me everything, how I need to do everything and so I’m going to go start my own. It’s usually quite the opposite. Man, I hated this place. It sucked and I can do this better. There is value in experience and how not to do something. It seems like very few folks, totally leverage, or they actually intentionally go the opposite way of the experience they may have gained in other agencies, go figure. Maybe there’s some human psychology there. I love the way you’re approaching this. It’s almost like you’re planning on Lawsome and being the 401k you didn’t contribute to, when you were, when you got let go from your previous job. When you think about really the longterm goal for you and your business, what does that look like for you?
Chris:
I think there is a hole in the market that, that this agency is definitely trying to fill with small law firms. When we talk about law firm marketing, most people do jump to the personal injury or the criminal law or standing in front of a jury and say, you’re out of order. That’s not how it works. I think 70 percent of law firms are solo and small, and a lot of those are the transactional law firms or even, I mean, there are criminal lawyers and personal injury lawyers that are 1 to 3 people. When you’re talking about that, they have different budgets. We can’t assume that every lawyer is raking it in, pulling in more money than, they know what to do with. Most lawyers are making, low six figures, if not high fives. They don’t have huge budgets for billboards and TV commercials and radio ads. They need to be able to have a marketing plan under a thousand bucks. That’s what Lawsome is really trying to fill, is creative, good marketing that is going to be effective, be consistent and that, you know, they’re actually going to be able to benefit from. We do a lot of communication with our lawyers, on all of our clients, but it’s a lot of, meetings as a lot of opportunities to pivot. If something isn’t working, say we’re running a Google ad and it’s, 300 bucks in and hasn’t converted. Let’s pause it. Let’s stop it. Let’s retry something else. Maybe we try a boosted LinkedIn post. Maybe we try the Facebook ad. The communication allows us to stretch our budget farther and it allows it to be more beneficial for our clients.
Russel:
I love it. There’s so many different markets. It’s easy, I think a lot of times in the agency business to want to go after the bigger, better firms, the bigger companies, but I’m a big believer myself in, in small business, the power of small business. It’s always great to see someone like yourself helping those folks out in the world, because everyone needs good marketing and especially probably these types of lawyers more so than the ones you’re saying you don’t work with. We want them to have less good marketing, I guess is probably what we might say. If I see another billboard for personal injury, it’s crazy.
Chris:
Yeah, it’s a lot, but that’s what you need because it’s reactive. When you get in that car wreck, your first thought should be 9 1 1 and then the second thought should be what lawyer do I call and that’s why they do it because they need it to be so ingrained in your head that it’s the first thing you think about when you’re panicking.
Russel:
They do have the worst.
Chris:
It’s a different, it’s a totally different marketing plan. Totally different marketing tactic and like, than what being proactive is.
Russel:
I’m sure we could all, all benefit in being more proactive in so many ways. Very cool story. Very interesting story. Love the path to where you’re at. As someone that started out as an entrepreneur at a very young age turtle pet sitting, very curious question for you. Are entrepreneurs born or are they made?
Chris:
I think they’re made. Absolutely. I think we’re all a product of our upbringing, of how we respond to things, of how our families are, how our community is, how supportive our partners are, or our friends. I think that all plays a factor in it. My father was very encouraging of me to like, go out and knock on random doors and ask people to trust me with their animals while they were out of town. I think if he hadn’t, been as supportive as he was, I probably would have lost interest in it.
Russel:
That’s a really cool answer, especially coming from someone that might sound like a born entrepreneur. That was a very emphatic made answer. For good reason, right? There’s probably many folks out the world that, their first entrepreneurial endeavor got shut down hard and, might’ve been their last attempt to do so. That’s very good perspective out there. There you go, folks. Don’t tell your kids no when they want to bring home random animals and turtles. They could be a successful agency owner someday. If people want to know more about Green Bag Designs or Lawsome Digital, where can they go?
Chris:
On all those socials and on online, lawsomedigital.com. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and then greenBagDesigns.com. Same thing, facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.
Russel:
Thank you so much again for being on the show today, Chris. Absolutely entertaining and inspiring and thought provoking story. I appreciate you taking the time to share it with us today.
Chris:
Thank you so much for having me. This was fun.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. Are you interested in being a guest on the show? Send an email to podcast@performancefaction.com. An Agency Story is brought to you by Performance Faction. Performance Faction offers services to help agency owners grow their business to 5 million dollars and more in revenue. To learn more, visit performancefaction.com.
Chris:
I’ve had two companies, two clients that have called me asking for marketing, which is great. Both of them had very suggestive business names for very innocent businesses. For instance, one of my clients has a, I can’t even, think of the word to say because I don’t want to out these clients, but it has a very, sexual word in there, but she’s a landscaper. I saw the company name and I was like, oh, okay, expecting a completely different industry and she’s a landscaper. Then I have another company that has a, a dot biz as a domain. The name is very suggestive, but then it ends with a dot biz, and I thought it was going to be a, a phone operator business. It’s actually a company that works with children on their, speech impediments. Sometimes it’s an awkward conversation to have to be like, this might not be the best name for you, or when you have a company that comes along and they have a really bad logo that’s very insinuating of something you have to be like, oh great. We get to rebrand you now because this is not appropriate for marketing.
Russel:
Business naming. I imagine people are at home saying just tell us the name, but I can totally respect why you wouldn’t.
Chris:
They’re fully functioning and lovely businesses that are still running and. It’s great.
Russel:
Makes perfect sense. Discretion is fine. They can go do their own research and I’m sure there’s no shortage of interestingly named businesses that have nothing to do with what they do, but might suggest otherwise.
