Ari Levenbaum Law Tigers CEO #437

What is up, everyone, and welcome back to the Fast Life Podcast.

On today's episode, I'm sitting down with Ari, the man behind Law Tigers.

You've seen him all over the place, Sturgis, Born Free, Texas, many events.

If you're lucky enough to have a local guy running around your city, your state,

supporting events, these are the guys doing a lot for the motorcycle industry.

Both on the front end and the back end, keeping you safe.

We're talking all about that today.

I think it's a great podcast for you to listen to, get some information, some education, if

you will, on how this process works, how they can help you save a lot of money, or

get paid, or get just taken care of in the unfortunate event of an accident.

Before we get into it, let's shout out our sponsors real quick.

You already heard about Law Tigers, they're on here today.

We also got Arlen S Motorcycles.

If you need some cool parts of your bike, they are the ones to call.

Calgary Harley Davidson, if you need a newer used motorcycle, they are down in Austin,

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Custom dynamics with all the badass lights, head to toe, front to back, however you want

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My guys over at RWD Performance, V-Twin, they are getting you dialed in with some of

the best suspension on the market.

You got to check them out.

They got some good stuff, guys.

Don't sleep on them.

All right, let's get into this episode with Ari from Law Tigers.

Hey, guys.

You ready to let the dogs out?

All right, man.

We're doing this.

Give it to me.

All right.

First off, you know how to do a podcast.

So keep this mic close to you so that we can keep the audio on a good time.

Yeah.

My good?

Yeah.

They're good.

Okay.

Well, I do appreciate you coming out.

Actually, I appreciate lunch.

I appreciate the conversation we had.

That was good to get to know you a little bit before we actually sat down.

And I think that we still have a lot of meat on the bone to talk about and get to know

you and the brand and what not, you know, now.

So sure.

Law Tigers, how does how does that even like in all the things to do in the in the

world of law that you're a part of in the motorcycles?

Yeah, how does that come together and become this?

Well, that's a loaded question.

Yeah, I know.

I had one.

I know, I know.

We talked about that.

Not on my belly is full.

Yeah.

And that was a good lunch, by the way.

I enjoyed that.

So Law Tigers is really an idea that my father, Warren Levin, came up with 25 years ago.

In fact, we're 25 years next year.

And it really was born out of this partial necessity, partial passion to do

something different, not be like everyone else, just representing, you know,

general, you know, PI clients, you know, motorists, not dealing with divorce

and criminal, which is law from in Phoenix for, you know, 20 plus years was.

It was very general, right?

So you take that and the changing marketplace even 25 years ago with more

competition and something called the yellow page zone of your pre Internet

and it just more competition and greed on on advertised part couple that

with a passion for riding, which my dad and I did growing up at a 70

ATC 185 S 250 R 80 Excel 80.

So that passion for riding dirt and ultimately street and bring those together

and he creates this brand to essentially support riders in their time of need

when they're in a motorcycle accident.

And so that's that's how it started.

And my dad's always had kind of a entrepreneurial spirit.

He's had a bunch of failed businesses before Law Tigers, but he never gave

up and he took this passion created a brand.

And and was able to then, you know, see have a vision of replicating it

through kind of a membership model where we bring on like-minded law firms

and we we support the marketing, but they take care of the clients

and we vet the lawyers to make sure they do that right.

And that's really what it is.

And then I come on about a year later as a school teacher for eight years

teaching science and was in law school for one month at USC

and dropped out because I quite honestly didn't want to be a lawyer

and I was there for the wrong reason.

So got roped back in doing some marketing part time and teaching.

Yeah.

And then just kind of worked my way through and figured out what to do

to create a brand and and and and, you know, support a community.

And obviously I'm a rider and I love it.

And really it's become our my passion is riding helping riding community

and ultimately taking care of people.

Yeah.

And they get hurt.

Have you always been based out of Phoenix and just Arizona in general or what?

Yeah.

So we started my dad was born in Boston grew up pretty poor

in Dorchester, not too far from the Parwitz is and and was either Arizona

or California and him and my mom moved with basically very little of EW

and and that was in a U-Haul.

My mom flew with me and I cried the whole way on the plane is from what I

was told and haven't stopped since.

And then he drove out in the U-Haul in the little little car and works

kind of turning his office for a while and then opened up his own shop

and then again 25 years ago kind of with this idea this notion

to create a brand and and and represent injured motorcycle riders.

Yeah.

So it's been it's been a long journey.

But yeah, Arizona is where we're based.

It's where I live.

I love it.

Well, Arizona is literally one of the, you know, for lack of a veteran hot

bed for motorcycling, you know, being the hub of MMI all year

weather riding a little bit cheaper lifestyle than California.

Not much is catching up.

Yeah.

So it's just always been a place of a lot of the motorcycles.

I don't know, innovation structure, a lot of that a lot of big brands,

a lot of really well-known builders and parts manufacturers out of

there.

So yeah, it makes sense to be there.

It's like a it's a Mecca.

It was a coincidental though.

But honestly, like, you know, I was telling you earlier,

like when I first started working for the company and it's

before I, you know, bought in and now Cohen with my father

and run it as a CEO.

I was just a worker bee.

So I was going to events, going to shops, kind of like the

first market.

I was the first marketing manager.

Yeah.

Now we've got over 40 of them across the country, but my head was down

and I was just there to try to, you know, check the boxes,

but relationship building with like people in the industry,

identifying really who was and wasn't there in terms of manufacturers.

That wasn't even something I was aware of until probably

honestly, like eight or nine years ago when I could back off

and then start really looking out.

And then I realized, wow, I mean, this is truly the Mecca for

custom motorcycles for parts.

Yeah.

Trask, gaffy, you know, you've got so many, just to name a few,

but you know, Cruzy's there.

Obviously, you talked about 20 May, you know, even Nassie

who's recently retired now.

But yeah, I mean, it's just, I'm fortunate that I happen to

be in a market where it's popular and continues to innovate

and continues to, you know, drive a lot of opportunity

for our brand because of those partnerships with people in

the industry.

Yeah, I think that like from my outside perspective,

looking into the brand, I mean, I think law tires in general

has done a great job of like logo awareness brand.

You know, you know, you know the thing, right?

Um, I think that like it's at a point now or it has been

a point now where it's good to now start to fill in the

information behind it, like what, what you provide,

what you help solve, what you do.

And I mean, it's one of those weird things, right?

You're, you're, you're trying to help people, you're trying

to get ahead to help them in case.

Which they don't want to know anything about because they

don't want to think about getting in an accident.

Yeah, it's not, you don't plan that.

Do you want to plan to, you know, you want to design

your own coffin or you buy your own like burial site

or figure out where you're going to get cremated.

It's kind of morbid, but seriously, same thing.

Do you really want to think about, and that's one of

the questions I ask when we do these man on the street

interviews is, what would you do if you're in an accident?

And most people don't think about it because they

don't want to think about it.

And do we really want to push that on people when

they're not in an accident?

You got to still define what we do.

Yeah.

And people think we sell insurance because of the

logos and the mascots and the presence we have,

you know, like Geico does at big events, but we're

actually the other side.

We're, we're the good guys.

We're the guys that go against the insurance

companies when you as a rider gets hit and

either the other person's insurance doesn't want to

pay or doesn't have the ability to pay or your

own insurance that you have, which is uninsured

and uninsured motorist, which we'll talk about later,

doesn't want to pay.

So the lawyer, us has to get involved.

Yeah.

It's funny because at lunch we had talked about

how, you know, 20 years ago, the motorcycle

rallies and events were funded by beer and cigarettes.

Right.

And now it's, you know, like you guys and

insurance companies, which are kind of like the

Bloods and the Crips.

You know what I'm saying?

That's true.

Yeah.

Well, Bloods and the Crips are both.

Oh, the same.

Yeah.

I look at it as like Han Solo and Darth Vader.

There you go.

But I didn't know.

Actually, they're both necessary.

Like if there was no insurance, I wouldn't exist.

Yeah.

And insurance is important to have.

Like I don't think insurance is a bad thing.

What's a bad thing is when you have insurance

companies that are driven by profit motive,

driven by stockholders and dividends and people

that work for them that are bonus based on

what you save, not what you spend.

So unfortunately, you know, or fortunately,

depending on you look at it, you need an advocate

that you have to pay.

Yeah.

Big misnomer is you pay upfront or pay hourly.

We work off contingency basis.

So we get a percentage of whatever we collect

if we collect and it varies depending on whether

we have to go to trial and litigate or not.

But you need an advocate and the insurance

company is not going to give you what you want

or deserve or need without being pushed

and sometimes threatened in a legal way to pay up.

Yeah, it's funny.

I remember a long time ago, the first time I ever

heard about this or saw it actually, a girlfriend

at the time.

We're talking 20 years ago gets in a car accident

and then the insurance adjuster, you know,

comes over.

Are you okay?

Well, here's two grand.

Right.

And then we found out that if you sign that check,

if you take that money, then you pretty much

are signing away any ability to come back at them.

So they're trying to give you something.

They're, oh, shit, two grand or whatever this is helpful.

They're going to be there later on to help me more.

But that's kind of like the hush money to go away.

Yeah, it's like signing away your rights here.

You know, and here's the other thing you don't realize.

You get in a motorcycle, even in a car.

Sometimes those injuries take time to manifest.

And sometimes they don't even show up.

Like, you know, the big thing now is, you know,

getting an MRI when you get hit, which I recommend you do.

And, you know, because you can get concussed.

But there's still people that can suffer

from a traumatic brain injury without it showing up

in an MRI scan because of the severity of the impact.

And what does that mean?

It could eventually lead to memory loss.

It could lead to, you know, long term issues.

There's even like you can get PTSD from being in an accident.

So you really need an attorney

that can help you identify not only short term

but long term issues that may manifest themselves

as well as the accident.

Now, hopefully there's insurance,

and that's why I push uninsured and uninsured motorists

so that we can claim against that on your behalf

to get you the compensation deserved.

But yeah, there's people that get hit and, you know,

month later back pain, neck pain, you know,

being hit on a motorcycle is a pretty traumatic thing.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's why I want people

to make sure they have proper insurance, you know.

Yeah, I mean, it's crazy because if you think

about like the Harley side of the motorcycle world,

I mean, it's forever not really been a helmet based industry.

I mean, I have David Mann posters down there

with guys hitting a state line and throwing the helmets

and the lightnings hitting it, right?

Right.

Like people hate it.

You look at those easy riders.

It was like they did not like the fact that, you know,

there was helmet laws, right?

It was cool.

Yeah.

Or don't tread on my rights.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I mean, I do like the idea of like you having the right

to choose to wear one or not, right?

But it's awesome to see like as the performance side

of motorcycles has become now the more mainstream thing

that with that brought in helmets and that helps.

I think for sure helps save a lot more lives.

You know what I'm saying?

You're absolutely right.

So when I was coming up riding, you know, street bikes,

I got my first Harley 23 from Hossian already Davidson,

Rick Hatch.

It wasn't cool.

Arizona was not a helmet lost a still isn't yet.

So it wasn't cool to be wearing helmets.

We go to Acme bar and Grill.

We go to, you know, all these places, Billabar,

Myron's old place and we wouldn't wear helmets

because it just wasn't cool.

Yeah, but he did it.

So and you made excuses like I would impair your,

your visibility and your hearing, but, but I've been wearing

my wife obviously is a big, big proponent of it

and the business I'm in, I believe in it.

Again, I don't want to impose it on anybody,

but I think it's, it's for me beneficial.

But, you know, now with the new technology,

you know, talking about the carbon fiber lightweight,

they don't bother me.

And actually, I feel like I ride better

because I'm not like squinting or having the wind hit me

like I used to.

And you know, it has transformed most of the people

I ride with and a lot of them are Harley riders.

It's just normal, not aware it's accepted

and it's just something that's part of it.

But I think it's important that I can tell you this much

when you do get an accident without a helmet

and you do sustain injuries that are related to that,

they can use it against you insurance companies, juries.

So you got, you get hit.

We have to go to trial.

You have a head injury.

They can say, well, look, you weren't being responsible.

You didn't take the necessary precautions.

You have some culpability here.

You shouldn't get the same amount as if you're wearing a helmet.

Now, you could also then go back and argue,

well, you know, helmets, you can still get concussions.

You can still get rare.

I tell people, look, it helps prevent, you know,

the, the scrapes that helps prevent does absorb some impact.

So is it going to save your life?

Always. No, you can still die wearing a helmet.

Yeah, you can still get concussed,

but it's going to at least absorb a good amount of that impact

and the scraping and road debris

that can tear up your face, your head.

Yeah, I mean, we all, it seems like it happens a lot

whenever you put the visor up,

you get that grasshopper or a rock comes in there.

So you always think like, man,

like if I didn't have a helmet on

and that thing just when it hit the screen,

it knocked my head back, you know what I mean?

So I like the idea.

I'll be honest with you sometimes

when I'm on the chopper like Ramona and I,

we, we both rode the bikes around the lake over here

and we did throw helmets on, we just cruised.

We took that risk, but you know,

like riding here to Dallas,

like you guys just came from Dallas out here

to my side of town.

It's like, man, I'd rather just throw it on.

Well, I can tell you this,

we probably want to hear this,

but most accidents happen

within a five mile radius where you live.

Yeah. Yeah.

So you're not decreasing your chances

even if you keep it local.

But I get it.

Look, I've got a chopper.

I've got that Susie Q chopper that you have

he built for biker build off and no two or three

against Perowitz.

And I ride it and they're like,

look, I want to, I want to be like old school, man.

I want to ride it without a helmet.

Yeah.

And I may go around the block once in a while,

but, but you know,

I was with him going to going to the prowl

a couple of years ago on that bike.

And I got bucked on an overpass

with the road that sunk in

and threw me up in the air,

came up, thought I was going to die,

came down, foot shared off the peg.

For some reason, my foot didn't hit the ground,

but you know, that could have been a serious accident.

And I've had a bunch of close calls.

So to me, I just rather play it safe.

You know, obviously there's certain things

I probably should do that I don't do

like wearing more protective gear.

I wear jeans.

I wear, you know, boots or tennis shoes.

But you know, really, if you want to be safe,

you know, you should be wearing, you know,

something that gives you some protection on the arms.

If you do crash, it's going to absorb some of that

that impact and, but again, nobody's perfect.

You know, my big thing is make sure you have good insurance.

That's the best way to protect yourself.

Save it, save, you know, whether you're buying Chrome

or an extra, you know, a custom part on your bike

and you don't have the extra money.

Make the investment in good insurance.

It's a few hundred dollars more a year for you and you I am.

Yeah.

It's not, it's not a matter of if it's when

hopefully it's not severe.

But, but just invest in yourself and your own well-being

because no one else is going to.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Yeah.

Yeah, I got a little, little natter some over there.

Yeah, I do attract like mosquitoes.

I think I have that pheromone that insects like.

I get bit up all the time.

I don't know what's going on in Texas right now.

I think that they didn't they like dump like a bunch

of flies at the border to fight some kind of thing

that was coming from South America or some weird thing.

Yeah, it was like like they dumped a fly that's supposed

to eat at feast on some type of parasite

that I don't know they're going to say the dump flies

at the border to keep people from crossing or something.

No, no, no, it could shield them on the way in.

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the nation law Tigers has been a major supporter

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But yeah, I don't know, man.

It's it's the thing.

I think the first time I I think I had Howie in here

when he used to be here because I didn't know

at the time I didn't know for sure

like the details of what Law Tyres was about and stuff.

And and I, you know, listen to them.

Tell me what y'all do.

I also immediately started thinking like, well,

man, I would just focus on exactly what you're doing now

talking about what people need to have,

right, preparing people for, you know,

the the unfortunate event, like you say, right?

Insurance is weird.

I mean, I mean, I I've done a lot of repair work on bikes

over the years and worked with insurance insurance

companies to get things solved and fixed.

And it seemed like around 10 years ago,

they were much more willing to be helpful.

Like, oh, yeah, we'll take care of that, too.

Or did you have a helmet on?

Do you have a riding jacket?

And now there's just there's they're really trying

to penny pinch every aspect of their side of their business,

right?

And it's it's a pain in the ass to even try to get things fixed

on your bike.

Yeah, I tell people that's a good point, Nick,

like to mention, so when you get insurance on your motorcycle,

like you've got FXRs, I've got FXRs, you know,

you can buy an FXR for two, three, four grand, right?

Like that's old and stock, but you know,

if you're going to put 20, 30 plus grand into it,

yeah, you've got to do what's called stated value,

not market value.

And people don't know that.

So again, if you want to get what is going to cost

to replace that bike, you got to pay the extra insurance

for it.

So if you have a custom bike, you have a bunch of

custom parts on your bike, call your insurance broker

and tell them you want stated value, not market value.

And it's going to cost you more money,

but it's worth it.

But your other point, so we used to be able to, on the whole,

when we make a claim on behalf of a client,

get about three times medical.

That was around the norm.

So you've got $30,000 in medical bills,

let's just say, between hospital bills, doctor bills,

and you have enough insurance that is available

from either the other party that hits you

or your own UMUAM.

On the whole, we could get about three,

maybe four times that amount, okay?

Nowadays, they fight you for like two, try to get two X.

That's where you have to have skill for lawyers.

Now, fortunately, we can get the medical bills

and liens reduced.

So it's not necessarily what you take home,

but what you save much like we did with Adam

and he talks about having like 100 grand medical bills

and not having the insurance medical insurance to cover it.

So we got that thing knocked down nothing.

So we can do that by negotiating with doctors

and hospitals.

But anyway, the insurance companies nowadays,

because of competition, because of their marketing expenses,

because of claims that happen,

because let's look at it, cars for example,

windshields are more expensive.

All the technology in cars, all the technology in bikes,

they get totaled more often now.

They do blame the lawyers whether they agree with or not

for taking them to trial and fighting more.

That drives up costs

because they have to pay more theoretically,

which is good for the consumer, right?

They also talk about natural disasters

because they underwrite homes and other stuff.

So as a result of all those factors,

they are not willing to pay out like they used to

because again, they're driven by profit.

People realize the insurance companies

do operate on small margins.

I'll acknowledge that because,

but they also spend a lot on marketing, right?

Yeah, they have other expenses.

So when they get hit with a big disaster,

natural disaster or they're seeing more expenses

from technology and bike

and cars bikes needing to be totaled

or the repair costs are much higher

because of the technology in cars and bikes.

That's what drives that.

So they're gonna argue about this repair

or is this necessary?

It's just sign of the times.

In fact, my auto insurance, my motorcycle insurance

and my homeowner's insurance went up second year in a row

and no claims.

My homeowner's went up 70%.

I remember being a kid, like the whole idea was like,

man, when you turn 40, like your rates go down

or when you turn 25, like these,

maybe they're just like myths now or urban legends,

but you used to think about all these like milestones

where like you become a more,

what do you call it, like a responsible driver, right?

But now since everything I believe is done

through algorithms on computers,

like it's just an average and a baseline.

So I don't think they see,

it's not as much of like, oh, well,

we see you've been with us for 10 years

and not had one claim.

So we're gonna drop it.

You're a part of this pool and this part of town

and there's an increase coming over here.

And you're in that pool.

Yeah, you have no choice.

The only option is you go somewhere else.

So I have a broker I use and she is awesome.

Coriano Insurance out of Phoenix

and I don't get paid to say that.

I just great service.

And every year she shops my rates

because I have homeowners.

I've got cars, bikes, business insurance.

And generally, you know,

she can find me an alternative that's a little less

but sometimes she's like, that's it.

She's like, you're gonna pay more with another cut.

We shopped it.

I mean, the prices are the prices.

That's just what it is.

But I did recently increase my uninsured

and uninsured motorists and my liability.

So people aren't aware.

Again, I'm not an insurance guy.

I'm just speaking on behalf of what I know I have

and what I recommend people should have

so that if you do get in a motorcycle accident,

we can take care of you, okay?

So I just rubbed mine.

So I have what's called, I have the max UMU I am

I can get, which for most policies

is either a half a million or a million dollars

and then I got an umbrella, which is over that

and I used to have it at like, I think a million to me

and I put a, I'm at 10 million.

So that's, so I have a million base UMU I am

and 10 million over it.

Same thing on liability.

So the liability is when I hit someone

and they come after me,

I have that that they can claim against.

It's really just protecting my economic interests

so that if someone comes after me,

I don't have to come out of pocket

and also if something happens to me, my wife,

my loved ones are taken care of

because I have all this extra insurance

and I'm not advocating to go out

and spend a ton of money

but you can get an umbrella for a million bucks

I think for five, six hundred a year.

That's not bad.

UMU I am coverage up to a million

is three, four hundred dollars a year.

It depends on your policy

but call your broker and increase it.

I'm telling you, I don't want to say you'll thank me

but you'll appreciate if it ever happens,

having that extra layer of coverage.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

You think you can turn the fans off?

I forgot to turn those off out there.

There's like one upstairs and downstairs.

My bad.

So fun thing about like camera stuff.

It's all good.

I'm like, I was listening and I was like,

I was like, fuck, I left the fans on.

The AC hum kind of comes through the podcast

every once in a while, but it'd be miserable in here.

No, no, that's great.

It's great in here.

It's nice.

I was sweating my balls off at that.

But that window behind me at the restaurant.

Yeah, yeah.

It was hot as hell.

Yeah, it's looking cool.

Thanks bud.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, man.

Yeah.

So what do you think was some of the challenges

that you've kind of faced?

Like, you know, you know, having your role

and like trying to keep up with the ever changing industry

that we're a part of, like how trends change,

scenes change, the culture changes.

Like how do you, I don't know if the question is how

or like how do you, how do you go about it?

Like saying, how do we fit into this still?

You know what I mean?

So, you know, it's always been a bit of a challenge

and fortunately because we put in, like you and I talked

about the time, you know, investing in community,

investing in culture and people hiring the right managers

that are part of the community, marketing managers.

It's, we've really seen a transformation.

Originally when we first came on the scene,

I think people were like, oh, it's another fucking layer.

Yeah.

You know, they're just trying to capitalize on people's,

you know, people's misfortunes.

And, you know, it wasn't cool to wear a lot tiger hat

or, you know, a lot tiger shirt.

And then I think about, you know, probably five

or six years ago, I saw this transformation where people

were like, hey, can I get a hat?

Can I get a shirt?

Where people were in the industry, builders, manufacturers,

shop owners were willing to, you know, see us as, you know,

a viable part of the industry.

Yeah, because they were scared at first.

Like manufacturers, shops.

Right.

They, I think that I heard this from their mouths over time,

like, well, I don't want to get involved with lawyers

because if I put that tire on that bike and that dude

Rex, he's going to sue me and it's going to be.

Right.

That's one of the first things I asked Gabriel

when I met him.

Right.

I was like, so what is that?

Like, what do you do?

It's like, we don't go after shops.

We don't do it or manufacturers or dealers or anybody

that is associated with the industry.

Our job is to go after the person that hits you on, you know,

in their vehicle.

Right.

So I have a policy signed letter by me goes with all the

managers that tells them, look, we won't take those cases.

But, you know, I think it's just, again, having the right

people on your team like Gabriel that are part of the

community that give, give more than they ask that show

that we're willing to do the heavy lifting and putting

putting others first in their interest first, sometimes

to a fault, but that's okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Is why we've been accepted and why we're looked at

differently, I think than others.

We're also when you think of the Law Tiger brand, you know,

I liked liking us to more like a lifestyle brand, right?

Now, no, we're not, you know, producing, you know,

coolers like Yeti or parts like Harley or, you know,

but we're contributing to the lifestyle in our way by

being present by supporting and covering the costs of

certain events by trying to educate people on, you know,

what to do, you know, if you are in an accident.

So that transformation has been comforting and rewarding

because it makes it a lot easier now to get into

dealerships to support events.

But on the other hand, we're not just about writing

a blank check either, you know, I have competitors

without naming names that are more about check writing

and buying us out or keeping us out of events.

And that's not part of our ethos, part of our philosophy.

To me, people should have a choice.

Just like you can have Harley and Indian and other brands

present at events or in shops.

We are the same thing.

There's not, you know, there's only so much business

one can handle.

I mean, Texas has like 10,000 accidents a year,

motorcycle accidents in Texas.

Yeah.

There's no way in hell my firm can, I have two law firms

here in Texas that are a lot tiger law firms.

They can't handle all that.

So it's okay to have competition and it's okay to have

choices and options.

That's good for the consumer and it's good for the industry

and quite honestly, it's good for us because, you know,

it shows people there is such a thing as motorcycle lawyers

and it is something you should consider versus

a general PI lawyer that's not in the community.

That's just trying to capitalize on your injuries,

which we're not doing.

So I've always kept the idea of like looking at the motorcycle

world as a small economy.

Yes.

And if I have a buddy, say if my buddy Ramon here has a dry

cleaners, he's a biker.

Well, I'm going to go to him because the money I spend there

I know through some form or fashion is going to come back

into this industry because he's a part of motorcycling.

Yes.

And I think that like that's one, you know, I'm a

painter, but I'm also like I don't paint cars.

Right.

I'm a biker painter.

Right.

So the money that I make painting your motorcycle goes

back into Sturgis and my trip there and and other products.

So the money stays within this this community or this economy.

It's when you mentioned that because I was talking to my

guys that are with me shooting all this stuff.

And it's like, you know how fortunate we are that we

have the ability to be able to have videographers take

this trip, showcase what not only we do, but what

Rick's doing and born freeze doing.

Yeah.

So a lot of the money we do bring in, you know, I'm not

going to I'm not going to lie.

I live a very comfortable life.

I'm you know, the legal industry, you know, can be

profitable, right?

I'm not ashamed to say that, but we put a lot of money

into sponsorships, education, team members and and and

to me it is recirculating those funds.

You have a bunch of brand ambassadors with whom we work

and pay, of course, they've got to get paid, but I agree

with you.

But one thing I think people need to be aware of is you

can't just and we were talking about this earlier lunch.

You can't just, you know, hang up a shingle like a guy

that wants to maybe be the real estate guy.

You can't just say I'm the real estate guy and I'm

a rider.

So come hire me.

Yeah.

Still got to you got to contribute.

You got to show up.

I mean, we've been doing this 25 years and again,

the first 15 plus it was an upward, you know, upward road

because uphill uphill road or battle because bias against

lawyers, you know, I'm so proud and happy to say now

that we work within this Kirk like every time you order

a package in his Kirk, you're getting one of my

cloths from you because Bob and Tammy are good friends.

We support them.

We promote them.

We work with them to me.

That's like, wow, we're a lot firm, you know,

a legal brand.

They're doing that for us.

Komodo, which is RevZilla, JP Cycle Cycle Gear.

We do co-brand sticker sheets.

I help them give them their half.

I have my half on the back as their RPM program on the back

is why you should call us if you need us.

800,000 sticker sheets.

They burn through them in like four months.

They want more.

But to me, that's because I have a good friendship

with the VP and we sponsor the Cycle Gear bike nights

and my guys show up to those and we promote it.

So those relationships are what I really enjoy

and thrive on.

You know, yeah, I'm the CEO and yeah, I have to look at P&L's

and sit behind a desk, which I don't always love.

But really why I do this is because of the relationships

because I can go out and ride and be part of the community

and because of the motorcycle bond and brotherhood,

not because we're in the personal injury business.

Yeah, I mean, to what you were saying,

it's like, you know, I've been in the industry

for a little over 20 years now.

And when you see, you see when the vultures come in,

you know, you see when something starts to get hot

or something starts to happen

and you see these things that never existed come in

and just start picking off the table.

They never put food back on it for anybody, right?

Every market we're in, I see that now with lawyers.

They all say, where are the motorcycle lawyers?

They put up a billboard or they show themselves on a bike

or they buy a tent and hire someone to show up.

They see, you're right, they're opportunists.

They see what we're doing.

I go, we're gonna do that because we want to make money.

Yeah, so it kind of, I mean, I wouldn't say it sucks,

but it's part of doing something on the right track

is that as you guys have put the right people

in the right places, sponsored the right events,

the right riders and things like that,

you change the idea of like people

are not scared of you anymore.

You're like now accepted into this culture

as like part of it and a great resource for it, right?

And so now that you've kind of done the work

and made the bridge across the moat,

now all the other people want to,

oh, I guess I'm gonna be a biker now

and go, we're gonna be law liens, you know what I mean?

Right, well, it's funny you mentioned that

because to me, the difference is the people

that we work with, part of our team,

all the managers, my regional directors

because it's really, it's the people that represent the brand,

the people behind the brand that really makes the difference,

but it doesn't bother me that much

because generally when someone does do that

and they kind of get an upper hand for the short term,

give you an example, there's a Colorado firm

and yeah, I'm not naming names,

but they've pushed us out of a couple shops

because they wrote a big check.

Same thing in LA, same thing in every market we're in almost.

So I kind of laugh and talk to my team members

like look, don't worry about it, it's short lived.

They're gonna write a check,

then they're not gonna show up,

they're not gonna contribute.

Finally, someone in that dealership,

hopefully it's the person that's in charge of marketing

is gonna realize that the dollars that they got

really don't help them as a dealership

and that doesn't even translate into business

as a law firm because you're paying the owner

and it's the staff that refers you to cases and shops,

not the owner who's either not there

or is doing other stuff for the business, right?

So it's short lived and generally speaking

within a year, sometimes two,

they come back to us and say, okay,

yeah, we need to have some sort of financial transaction

but it's minimal, but the real value is

in the co-branded doc holes we print for them

that go out to all their employees,

co-branded tents, social media promotions,

setting up at events, supporting and helping

to pay for the food for their hog chapters.

Stuff like that, leveraging our TV, radio, outdoor media

and social media to promote their events

and their interests, getting a radio station

that we have a deal with, show up and do a live broadcast,

giving away a bike at their dealership

or stuff like that that's more of a partnership

and not as much about money but more about partnership.

Yeah, because you're trying to bring people

into the dealership.

Right.

And so it's a mutually beneficial thing

for you guys to help, say, set Harley dealership,

do this event and whatnot

and you're, you know what I mean?

Right.

Yeah.

Well, I would ask this is like, you know,

when you run your own business,

like marketing becomes a hat that you wear, right?

Yes.

And it's kind of easy for me to market myself

and my one-man operation in this

but when you're thinking about a nationwide thing

that's got lots of different markets

and as someone like you that I know

has been all of this culture

or all of this country in the motorcycle scene

from your Laconia's to Sturgis to Daytona

and, you know, everything in between, right?

You know, it's, there's a commonality in motorcycles

but there's almost like a,

it's a different scene, a different vibe.

Yeah.

And I think that like I'm asking,

I think I'm asking a question.

I'm sorry.

Do you look at each one of those markets

and say, we have a, we have a structure.

We have an idea of how we,

we should go about what we can offer

but do we also embed ourselves into this community

and see how we could be of a better service

to like form fit into this world?

Does that make sense?

100%.

It's funny you mentioned that because it's so timely.

Like I recently formed a committee.

I had my man.

So I was talking to Gabe in fact about this

because I, my guys have access to me,

managers, regionals,

and, and, you know, we've grown so much

over the past four or five years

and we have a template.

We have a structure.

We have KPIs.

We have certain number of shop visits a day,

certain number of events,

but what's come to my,

came to my attention was

you can't have a one size fits all approach

in every market

because managers are in different stages

of their, of their relationship.

Relationship.

You know, Gabe has been there,

you know, I think four or five years.

You've got some guys

that have only been there a year, some 10.

You also have guys that have certain strengths

over others, certain skill sets.

Some guys are better social media than others.

You also have some markets

that are more competitive than others.

Yeah.

All these variables, right?

Yeah.

So when he and I spoke to that,

it kind of struck a quote,

not struck a quote,

a light bulb went off and I'm like,

you know, we need to do a better job

of listening to our managers

and the community,

especially the ones that are successful.

Yeah.

And, and figure out

where are the disconnects

between corporate,

if you want to call it that,

you know, the mothership,

whatever, you know,

headquarters and the individual markets

because I do have,

you know, a full time,

a full team at,

in Phoenix,

I have SEO,

I've got PPC specialist,

I've got a web developer,

I've got two media buyers,

I've got, you know,

you know, data person,

the list goes on.

And then we've got these managers

that really have their finger

on the pulse of their market.

And then I have,

you know, five regional directors,

each of whom oversees,

you know, eight managers in a region.

So what we decided to do

to address those potential differences

and also to make sure the manager being heard

is we formed this,

like, I kind of like Congress, right?

So there's five groups,

five territory regions.

Each one has a Lex, a manager.

They now meet with the regionals

and my VP once a month

to share things that they think

should be addressed

or changed or improved upon.

And so they have a whole list

of things they're working on.

Is it perfect?

No, we still have work to do

because this is recent, right?

Yeah.

But the premise is,

let's obviously we have a certain,

certain things you got to do.

But then beyond that,

let's give some latitude to the managers,

especially once they've proven

that they're good and know what they're doing

to maybe make some changes

or tweaks to how things are addressed.

Yeah.

Especially if what they're doing

is already working.

I've always felt like this

when I think about like,

for instance, this podcast, right?

Once I started it

and I learned how to,

you know, manage audio

and things like that.

I'm like, all right,

now this is a well old machine.

It's working.

Well, that means I have time to breathe

and look at what the next step is going to be.

Right.

And while this thing's working,

it's not going to work like this forever

because the industry is going to grow

and I have to start working

on the next iteration of this.

So then it's like,

okay, now we got to figure out

how to get video in here.

So I have the comfort

and I've,

I've,

you know,

built a little bit of a nest egg,

if you will,

in time to be able to work out

the next kinks for the next phase.

So I would say that like,

in the world of marketing,

once you have something that works,

times change so fast

that you have to start thinking about the next

way you're going to go about it.

You know,

an algorithm on a,

on a social media platform

can be completely changed tomorrow.

Right.

And one day it's like,

you're supposed to hashtag

and the next day you're supposed to collaborate

and the next day you're supposed to do this.

And so in real time,

you see marketing strategies

have to end up changing

so quickly

through the social media world.

Well,

it's a little,

it takes a little bit longer,

I think in like,

in physical world,

right?

Going to dealerships

and things like that.

But what's funny,

it's funny because

that's another thing

you just brought to my attention.

So,

obviously YouTube just changed

where you can do collabs now.

So we're trying to take advantage of that

with our partners.

But,

you know,

when this company,

my company started,

it was grounded in shops,

events,

and some traditional,

which is traditional as billboards,

TV.

We've done more radio now

because it's,

we found some efficiencies

and endorsers

that are,

that are jocks.

But,

I was very hesitant

because I didn't understand social media

to jump in now we have,

but,

when we hire these marketing managers

and my senior guys,

when they started weren't,

my senior guys,

were not really adept at social media

because that wasn't a job requirement.

Yeah, yeah.

Up until,

you know,

really five,

six years ago.

So a lot of our old guard managers,

you know,

that weren't really adept at it,

it's been a challenge for them

to figure it out.

Now bringing on all these younger guys,

20s, 30s,

that,

they grew up with it.

So it's super easy for them

and they've really utilized it,

well.

And so now I see that in certain markets

and I'm saying to my VP

and my regionals,

well guys,

look all the cool shit we're doing here.

Now this guy may not be as well-versed,

but we got to get him up to a certain level at least.

Yeah, yeah.

But now the job requirement

of these managers isn't just

visiting shops,

going to events

and setting up branding,

it's putting out content

and finding partnerships

to help leverage those,

those opportunities.

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Like bring in your managers to like

I know y'all do like a yearly deal

where you bring together,

but I'm asking this,

would you put some kind of courses

or some kind of education

on social media

to help, you know,

build some of their skills?

Because some of those dudes

that don't know social media,

they have,

they're really good at talking

and walking in

and starting a conversation, right?

So they have a skill too

that's still valuable, right?

100%.

Because some of the dudes

that are really good at social media,

they suck at real

and like having a personality.

Absolutely right.

So you can't have one-size-fits-all approach.

You're right.

I can't,

I got a guy that's really good,

you know,

I mean,

my new Arizona manager,

I mean, he's a character.

He loves,

he's a natural.

So if you take Graff, right?

He fits into that market well, right?

But if you take Graff

and you drop him into Kansas City.

Right.

Does he,

I mean,

I know he'll do well

whatever he does,

but does he fit that market

the same way that,

you know,

somebody else might probably fit

that market better?

Probably not.

Especially you put him in like,

you put him into like a Midwestern market,

let's say like we're in,

you know,

let me give you an example like Iowa.

I don't know if you,

if he would associate real well in Iowa,

but you know,

but even,

my,

even with him,

like he's got a personality,

but then Jay,

my other manager,

even though he's great with shops,

great with staff,

he's not like as comfortable

on social media.

So luckily in Arizona,

I have two.

Yeah.

You think kind of

a plough to the strengths,

right?

But in many of my markets,

I only have one manager.

So to answer your earlier question,

so we do have an annual

marketing manager summit

in Arizona,

three days.

And every year,

we do have some social media

focus,

but we're in the process right now

of bringing in,

bring on a new social media coordinator

in Giselle's with us.

She was great,

but I want someone in the

in the Phoenix office

because I want to

interfacing with my videographers,

with my SEO people.

I'm really pushing to,

to bring as many,

with the exception of regionals

and market managers,

all my other staff in-house

under one roof,

collaborating working together

because we're a marketing company.

So when that person comes on board

in the process of hiring now,

there will be more structured

curriculum and instruction

that we develop

to help managers.

We also have a new program

we instituted

or reinstituted

where we have the managers

now go visit each other

once a year.

They swap.

So you're so there

with someone once a year,

then someone's with them once a year.

And we're perfect.

We're going to put the stronger social media people

with those that aren't

as well-developed.

But yeah, we still have some work to do

in that regard.

But at the end of the day,

you're still going to have certain people

that aren't good with technology

or they're not good

in front of the camera.

And they're never going to be

an A plus player.

But if they're a D now

and I can get them to a B minus

or a B.

Yeah.

It's always about progression

and growth, right?

Like, you know,

maybe the generation before me

I guess you maybe even older than you.

Like, you didn't have to completely change.

You can get a job

and kind of just ride this out

till you, you know,

crash into the deal.

Right.

But now it's like every 10 years

it's almost like you have to either pick up

a new skill,

add a new layer to like your

your whatever,

you know what I mean?

To be a valuable asset

to yourself or other brands

or a job, you know?

I would argue as a CEO,

I got to do the same thing nowadays

because, you know,

I spent years

kind of behind the scenes

you know,

growing the brand.

I have a whole B2B side

with the VP Biz Development

where we find law firms

and want to join our program.

Yeah.

And so I've focused on that a lot.

But now my next kind of evolution

is I'm going to be doing more

forward-facing stuff

on social media.

Like we talked about

I'm going to have a series

on YouTube where we take clients

on rides.

Yeah.

Share their story.

Surprising with an influencer

or a bike builder

that they look up to.

And that's going to be part of our

our strategy.

But it's put,

it's humanizing my brand

because again,

I have lawyers across the country

that are part of our organization.

But I don't have one individual

that kind of

is kind of the face of the brand.

So me and my VP

are going to go on the road.

Yeah.

We already started it.

We're doing it this weekend

and we're going to

we love riding.

So we're just going to basically

showcase what we love to do

and bring people along the way,

both clients

along with friends in the industry.

And that's a pivot

which I wouldn't have been able to do

because years ago,

number one,

I didn't think it was important or necessary.

Number two,

I was focused on

the fundamentals of growing our business.

So I think everyone

needs to grow and progress.

Otherwise things become stale

and look, I'm

I got competition too.

I'm not impervious

to people coming in

and taking market share from

from me.

If we don't stay

on top of our game

and evolve

and move with the times

you just have to have to.

So what do you think like

and I'm

you guys support a lot of events that exist?

Has the idea of creating an event

ever come to the mind of you guys

since you're already so involved

in all these markets?

Maybe,

you know,

I guess getting into the event coordination

thing can be another layer

of like a pain in the ass.

Yeah.

But it seems like sometimes,

you know,

like, why not?

Like,

is that a possibility

or a thought?

We,

my dad

is kind of a showman.

He can send herself the PT bar

and he's little eccentric.

You know,

he likes dressing up

and you know,

used to dress up

and,

you know,

like a PT Barnum at events

and had the Tiger Tamer

Tiger uniform on.

He's dressed up in military gear

for Veterans Day.

So we put on,

when we first started in Arizona,

we put on Motorcycle Mania.

And I think this was before

Jesse James Motorcycle Mania.

And we called to that

and we invited,

we worked with the

Maricopa County Sheriff's Office,

Sheriff Joe

and he supplied the

the escort ride

and we had,

we gave to their burn camp

for kids that had been,

you know,

was really burned

and we had a huge event

downtown Phoenix

and Sheriff Joe

bring his tanks

and we'd be doing things

during Halloween.

So we have a theme of ghost theme.

Michelle Smith came one time.

We had the guy from,

we had different celebrities come

and so we put on our own event

for about six,

seven years

as we were building the brand.

And,

and so that's something we did.

It was a lot of work.

We kind of outgrew it

and we're like,

okay,

we're trying to focus

and expand across the country.

So we kind of gave it up,

but we've,

we've,

we've toyed with it.

Like I,

we approached the guys

from the Laugh and River

on years ago

about maybe buying that event

and taking it over.

I've had people,

you know,

in Arizona approached me

about maybe doing some stuff with them.

It's just our business,

our core business

is not being an event promoter.

And let's be honest,

most people that don't know this

running,

running events

is not generally

a profitable endeavor.

It's just,

it's a thankless job.

Yeah.

Now it's great that it happens

and someone needs to do it

because it brings people together,

but,

but it's a lot of work

and it's a make or break.

And if you have a bad year,

whether it's a weather

or downturn in the economy

or whatever,

it can,

it can break yet.

So I'd rather just spread

our investment

and our support

across a bunch of events.

Yeah.

But we don't write

mega checks

for,

for events.

Like I used to be the title sponsor,

lawyer sponsor,

the surges,

a surges rally with the city.

And I walked away after the first year

because

my competitor came in

and offered a bunch more money

and I didn't think it was worth it.

And so now we deal with

a bunch of small businesses,

landowners,

farmers,

business owners

and we just kind of do

you know inflatable hair

or a sign there

or vending there.

And,

and to me,

it's a much more efficient way

to brand and market

across the Black Hills

and giving one entity

or two,

saving the buffalo chip.

Great people.

I like Rod.

He's on the surges board with me.

He's on board and Hall of Fame with me.

But I'm not in a position

based on our

strategy

to put

a lot of eggs

in one or two baskets.

We work with Glencoe.

They're great.

But my investment of them

is a fraction of what

my competitor pays.

Okay.

Pays

the buffalo chip.

Now there are events

where we will make an investment.

It may not be what they want

or what a competitor is willing to pay.

They may be willing to pay more.

But it's got to make sense.

You know, you can't just

write a check for

20, 30, 40, 50 grand

or whatever.

You know, some of these other lawyers

and insurance companies do.

In fact, some of the insurance companies

write checks for 100, 150 grand

to be the title sponsor of

either an event or a campground.

Yeah.

To me, the economics don't work.

Yeah.

Because you're putting

a lot of money into something

and how many people

you're really reaching.

Yeah.

I'd rather give a small amount

or just be a vendor

or a small sponsor.

But brand the hell out of the place.

Yeah.

And also use

lever social media or my radio TV.

So there's different ways to do it.

We were really, you know,

I don't necessarily pat myself

always pat myself on the back

but my team and I are very good

at field marketing

when we used to do

the Texas event in Galveston.

Long story.

We were sponsored with that

for one year too.

Generally, I sponsored an event

for one year and then

my competitors come in

and pay way way more

than we want to pay.

Yeah.

But we still figure a way

to like band at the event

through branding

around the perimeter or whatever.

Yeah.

But I learned when Budweiser

was there

that's probably 20 years ago,

15, 20 years ago.

They came in with a van

signed the shit out of the place

and I'm like,

we're doing that.

And that's our

that's our process now

for events

where we're allowed to do it

is whether it's on property

or around the perimeter

is just to have a lot

of branding elements.

mascot, inflatable signs,

tents, promotional items,

promo models.

And that's how

we really reinforce brand.

Now to your point,

we're really trying

to explain to people

who we are not now.

Not just what is law Tigers?

Yeah.

What do we do?

How do we help community?

Because the branding is only

one part of it.

Yeah.

It's like you got the attention

now now you get it.

Now you get a, you know,

this is what we do.

Glad you came.

And this is why I do stuff

like this with you.

Obviously, I'm enjoying

our conversation.

But I need people

to really understand

that we're not insurance company.

You really need to hire

an attorney,

even if it's not me.

Yeah.

Hire somebody

that's going to help

advocate on your behalf

because the insurance company

is not 60% of all

people call an insurance company

before they call alone.

And I guarantee you

most of them are not getting

near the value they could get

if they had an advocate on their side.

We can't always help everybody.

Sometimes limited injuries,

limited insurance.

I'll say to them,

look, just call your insurance company

because you look,

you got 25 grand in coverage.

The person that hits you

has no assets

or your injuries aren't that severe.

So we're going to

the insurance company

will give you some tips

and deal with them.

But we're not always going to be able

to help someone

if there's limitations

generally because of injuries.

Yeah.

So at that point,

you can kind of consult them

on what's probably

their best plan of action.

Yeah.

When some people call us

and some, you know,

there are times

where we can help

and we'll give them a letter

or tips, you know,

so that they can

deal with the insurance company.

But I can't tell

how many disappointed people

we encounter

that are hurt bad

and there's nothing

we can do

or any law firm can do

for that matter

because the other person

didn't have

any or enough insurance

or the person that

called us

didn't have

uninsured insurance.

Yeah.

I know I keep coming back to that,

but it's important.

Yeah.

Our buddy,

our mutual friend,

he actually

is the

taco,

MotoLoco taco.

So he's the one

that partnered

with you guys

in 805

to do the industry dinner

at Born Free.

Last year on our

we, I was already

in Sturgis

and we had a group

leaving to go to Sturgis

and he left his restaurant

and got

what,

a mile from the restaurant

and got

smacked by a chick

on her phone

not paying attention.

Was he okay

or not?

He messed his knee up

a little bit,

totaled the bike

and at the time

we,

I hadn't met

Gabriel yet,

but,

you know,

AK's

are got here.

So I think

that he ended up calling him

and had law tires,

you know,

kind of represent him

to my knowledge.

I don't know the depth

of the whole situation.

Sure, sure, sure.

But yeah,

he was pretty,

he was pretty messed up

for a while.

I'm telling you,

it happens a lot.

There are a hundred thousand

motorcycle injuries

and fatalities every year.

Damn.

Nationally, right?

Yeah.

Texas,

10,000,

California,

10,000

is approximations

Florida,

about 10,000.

Those are the big three.

Yeah.

Arizona,

we're around 3,000.

So you're,

you're,

you're concentrated.

Like,

I mean,

Arizona is a lot of open land.

So,

right,

Phoenix in that area

is pretty concentrated.

It is.

Yeah,

it is.

I mean,

I hear of an accident.

You figure 3,000.

That's,

you know,

that's

10 a day.

Yeah,

that's crazy.

That's a 9,10 a day.

Fatality rates,

nationally,

about one,

one and a half percent.

So,

figure 100,000.

There's about 1,000 to 1,500 people that die a year,

unfortunately,

from motorcycle accidents.

So,

it's a real thing.

Like I told you earlier,

about 100,000 registered,

I'm sorry,

10 million registered motorcycle,

Yeah.

Motorcycle,

motorcycles

throughout the,

throughout the country.

So,

you know,

you need,

you need to,

you need to be careful

and be vigilant.

And that's the other thing

we want to,

focus more on is like,

how do you prevent accidents

from happening, right?

Yeah.

You know,

left turns,

big one,

intersections,

huge.

We just were able to

Stacy and Adam

in the rain.

You know,

there's a lot of things

that we,

we're about to release

a,

a new video

that,

we're putting to,

James,

my video ever put together

that shows,

you know,

what can,

you know,

discussing ways to minimize

chance of being,

being in an accident

while riding in the rain.

But,

we've got a lot of obstacles

as riders

that we have to deal with

that motorists

don't.

Exactly.

So,

kind of pivoting a little bit

like talking more

about,

I guess,

the culture.

You know what I mean?

What do you,

like you,

you're in Arizona.

Arizona Bike Week

has been a rally

that's been around

for quite a while.

You mentioned

Laughlin River Run,

which no longer exists

to my knowledge.

Long by the way.

Yeah.

That's one of my favorites.

But you have the rally,

there's some rallies

I think will never go away.

You're never going to

get rid of Sturgis.

I think Laconia is embedded

into the culture there.

I think Daytona

kind of is.

It seems like

the city's growing.

It's kind of wanting

to push a lot of the bikes

up a little bit

out of the city.

Sure.

But,

you know,

it's there.

Phoenix

is kind of like Westworld.

You know,

Phoenix grew

in Westworld's

a small spot

and that's where

the rally was.

And now

you're kind of like,

and then you got guys

like Cruzy

that are doing

their own thing.

And then

Cave Creek's

doing its thing.

And you know,

and then,

you know,

you got Prescott

around the corner.

It's like,

Right.

What do you think

the state

of

rallies are

in the future

in 10 years

in motorcycling?

Or does things like

the Born Freeze,

the prowl,

these kind of things,

these smaller events

start to take

more market share

of like,

you know,

doing things.

You know,

people's attention.

It's a good question.

I think by the whole time.

So,

first talk

airs in a bike week.

So,

I used to be

a major sponsor

of that event

in

at Westworld.

My friend Brad

who

passed away

was the

was the major owner

of that,

Brad Bennett.

And

it's,

you know,

I don't want to disparage

the event,

but it's not

what it used to be.

Well,

you could kind of say that

like we were talking

about the marketing strategy.

Yeah.

All the years

it was doing good.

They had the

they should have been

figuring out

how do we

what's it going to be?

Yeah,

and you're right.

And there was some

talk about it.

And when Brad was alive,

he's like,

okay,

I'm going to do up top

where it's,

where it's free

for,

you know,

the vending at least.

And I'm going to,

you know,

they talked about bringing

in some flat track racing

because there's

a little horse track there.

So they were thinking

about it,

but you're

somewhat hamstrung

at Westworld.

Yeah.

And so,

you know,

it really,

it's now a lot of concerts

at night.

And then

some vendors,

but I think

the good news is

because that

was so

stagnant.

Mm-hmm.

It's being honest.

And we're still a vendor there.

Yeah, yeah.

Just not a sponsor.

Others saw an opportunity

to really do something else.

So,

obviously Mark,

friend of mine,

that owns a hideaway in the

Roadhouse,

he's been doing his thing

for a while.

Yeah, he's,

it's always been a part of it.

Yeah,

it's always been a part of it.

And it's got his

whole thing there,

which I like

because it's

kind of

one area,

got that street there.

But Cave Creek also,

you know,

sometimes

the city,

like,

I can't put an inflatable up,

tear drops up.

Like,

they're super strict on that.

But we still support,

you know,

Mark's events.

And,

you know,

we do all three of his

big events every year.

We have,

yeah,

I give him barstools,

signs permanently there.

Like I said,

great guy.

We've got a really solid

friendship and partnership.

So that's consistent.

But he's always

wanted to work

with theirs

on a bike week people.

But,

you know,

there's not on the same page,

the people that own it now.

I think one gal now

owns it.

His,

his,

mother of his children,

Brad's,

mother of Brad's children.

So,

she's kind of running the show

now.

Cruisy approached us last year.

It's like,

look,

I want to do this new thing.

And so we did sponsor that.

And it's probably

the biggest,

one of the biggest sponsors

that we do in the country.

Yeah.

Well,

sponsoring like stunt riding,

it's,

it's expensive to put on.

Yes.

Stunt.

Yeah.

I mean,

there's a lot of insurance involved.

There's a lot of permitting

and things like that.

So,

yeah,

but the vibe,

I mean,

it was awesome.

I was there.

It was like,

energy and fun and youth.

And,

you know,

I got in the drift car with them

and drifted and there's low riders,

it was popping on.

That to me is what it should be,

not going to an event,

you know,

random vendors,

many of which aren't even motorcycle related

and concerts by second rate bands

that,

you know,

are halfway in the grave.

Nope.

Yeah.

No,

no,

not,

not to,

you know,

be an asshole,

but that's what that is.

I mean,

so

I think that's the future.

Incorporating stunts,

you know,

incorporating action sports with the motorcycle bike shows

and with even other culture,

low rider meets,

you know,

yeah,

American beat twin.

That's really what it is,

right?

Modern culture deserves a lot of props.

You know,

we sponsor stuff with them in Colorado too

and it's not cheap,

but it's the future.

So,

I like that.

Same,

the proud.

We sponsored the proud.

Now,

I know they're going to take a break because this

because Bisbee's given him a hard time.

Unfortunately,

but that to me is like born free back in the day,

right?

Yeah,

born free was until it grew and become more popular,

right?

Which happens.

It's just when something's a nature of something that

works well,

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah,

it's good.

Yeah.

Thanks.

So I like that.

And I think,

you know,

it's old,

it's new,

right?

We talked about that earlier with flames.

I think,

you know,

if you can go back to the what what these rallies

used to be simplicity,

simplicity,

cool bikes,

not everyone's got a 50,000 on motorcycle like guys

that are coming there on their shovels and,

you know,

put all their money into it.

And yeah,

and it's about the passion of the bike and the culture

and just having a good time.

I like that.

And I think that's why born free has become what it is

today.

But again,

it's just any anything that's that's cool and

people want to be at eventually will will become

commercialized to some degree.

It's unavoidable.

Yeah.

So I hopefully more of that stuff to answer your

question.

But,

you know,

that's why I'm doing more and more social media and

more and more stuff like this because

the audience at events is small.

It's like less than 1% of rider like,

yeah,

you know,

you literally look at it.

It kind of goes back to what we were talking about

like like you don't support the magazine because

you you think it's going to get you a lot of return

on investment.

You support the magazine because that supports

the culture.

100% right.

And without the YouTubers,

the magazines,

the photographers,

the events,

right?

And we don't have anything to do with these

bikes.

We don't have we don't have a reason to

customize it.

If there's no show to take it to

100% or no magazine to showcase it or a

YouTuber that wants to do a bike check walk around.

I agree.

I mean,

so all these things kind of work together to

create the culture.

Right.

And if you're only taking from the culture by

extracting the most financial gains out of it,

then you're kind of robbing the culture of

the ability to exist and therefore you're

going to dry it out.

It's just going to be a useless marker.

You know what I mean?

I agree.

And you know,

I give Jordan a lot of props.

He you know,

took over this magazine.

He's not making a ton of money.

I mean,

he's got core sponsors and advertisers like

me and there's Motul and,

you know,

Saddleman and Trask and,

you know,

and that because they're like minded.

They want to support what he's doing and

this Tory did.

I talked to him.

In fact,

we're friends and I'm like,

how much you're going to lose on this

hop bike tour?

He's like,

hopefully not too much.

He's like,

I'm super stressed.

But putting on a traveling motorcycle

event,

you know,

he's doing it because it promotes culture.

It's obviously good,

you know,

for his brand.

But the other day,

it's a lot of work and it's not like he's going to be

making a bunch of money by,

you know,

taking people on the road from,

but it's it was to me a great experience to ride,

hang out.

And so I think there needs to be more of that.

I mean,

even the easy rider tours,

those were great back in the day.

I missed those too.

Yeah,

those,

but I don't think what people realize is these are not

generally profitable endeavors.

So someone's going to have to be willing to do it.

And it's it's a lot of work.

You know,

you know how this,

but I guess I'm saying to the audience listening,

like it is fucking expensive to do an indoor anything.

Yeah,

insurance,

usage of the of the of the space,

advertising,

staffing,

security parking.

Oh,

it's like,

you know,

it's it's it's crazy the cost to put on events.

And unfortunately,

it's just,

you know,

I had a guy call me a month ago and they are two months

was like, Look, I need some help.

We do this thing where you kind of ride on your own and you

hit milestones.

It's like kind of an iron butt type thing on your own.

He's like,

we're nonprofit.

We don't do this to make money and and the insurance company

won't underwrite anymore.

If if we have people go across state lines because we get

an accident associated with our event,

even though it's self driven self guided,

we can get sued and he's like,

we don't know what to do.

And so ultimately they had to stop doing the event

because they couldn't afford the liability insurance.

It's like a bureaucratic kind of death of things.

You know,

I'm saying tape is it's it's but so have you been to mama tried

yet?

I haven't.

I have my guys in there,

but I haven't been there.

That's one of my favorite events and and I love it

because it's in the winter.

Yeah.

So I'm not thinking about my bike trip down like I cannot

wait to get to this amazing city.

Sure.

It's probably going to be covered in snow.

Sure.

And just be a part of it.

You know,

and but I to kind of go to what we're talking about,

they do it in a really,

really cool venue and it's everywhere you look.

If you're a photographer,

videographer,

you have the best backgrounds for your content you're

making,

right?

Oh,

nice.

But I feel like it's so busy.

It's so so many people come that it's busting at

the seams of like,

you know,

it's hard to kind of walk around there on Saturday

because it gets so packed that I'm the next level

up of a venue is going to be like a the same place

you know that they do the computer show as my buddy

from heavy talks about it.

Sure.

It's like what's cool about like the one moto show

or you know,

we Southern throw down is an event that they now do

at Yellow Rose were born Frias,

but it used to be in downtown Dallas at the bomb factory

and that was an experience.

Right.

But now a lot of things are getting moved to like,

you know,

fields and outside and it kind of it's still bad ass

and fun,

but there is something about that January like a

we would always have the international motorcycle show

would come to doubt.

That's IMS show and it was always in January and we

would piggyback off that event and host a party

every year.

Yeah,

because I'm like,

okay,

everybody's in town.

Right.

You know,

after you walk that show in 10 minutes,

let's go party.

Let's go get together and network and and community,

you know,

have conversations and stuff.

So I like Donnie Smith.

I want to go to that show.

Yeah,

we that's that's another one we do sponsor.

Neal is awesome and Donnie's awesome.

They're the partners they put on the show and we were

fortunate enough to knock out a competitor once we came

back into the market.

Yeah.

And it's all it's a great partnership like they give

us a great location line on my VP does radio spots

for them and TV.

We co-market together and people are excited because

they've been cooped up for the whole winter and

this cool bike builds and bike shows and you know,

I get to get hang out with.

Is it right before or right after Daytona?

I think it's it's March March.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I think it's before I think it's before Daytona.

Yeah.

It's right before it was on a bike week actually.

It's like the week where it's on a bike.

Yeah.

That's a challenge for some people that need to

get to both.

But yeah,

so we have our whole,

you know,

we do don't I'm a hamster.

So so I do we get to do like Donnie Smith's

birthday and we get to hang out with other,

you know,

with each other.

So that one to me,

when our nationals is always yeah,

kickoff to my season.

I really enjoy you know,

I sometimes do fall foliage.

They've enjoyed a pair which is event.

It's a hamster event.

I didn't make it this year,

but I've done it the past three years.

Yeah.

My challenge is,

you know,

I got a balance like running a company with trying to

attend events.

You know,

there's an event every weekend.

Yeah.

So I'd like to do Mama try.

I'd like to do the one show.

I haven't done those yet.

Like to go do the Harley Davidson annual thing.

They do a homecoming you know,

I've done most of the others,

but I also have to go to lawyer events,

which is a completely different thing.

You want to talk about like,

you know,

a complete opposite like dichotomy.

It's like you're talking about like,

you know,

lawyer event,

you know,

in Miami,

for example,

or Vegas,

where these are strip clubs.

You know,

no,

not quite.

But so I do those because that's where we try to

find like-minded lawyers.

Yeah.

We want to partner with us on our program.

So I got those to go do and then I'm a big

work-life balance guy.

So my wife and I travel,

go on vacations and stuff.

So I'm not all about just work to me.

Yeah.

Life's too short and and you know,

I don't,

I work to live.

I don't live to work.

You know,

the way my wife and I do it now is like our vacation

is the places we stay on the way to the events.

That's cool.

Like we're on our way to Sturgis.

Well,

let's go to Colorado first.

They're on the way back,

you know.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

It,

you know,

it's staying relevant in this industry

when you don't have an online store to sell anything.

Right.

You got to be at things.

You got to show up.

You have to,

you know,

you have to build things and take it and be seen in real life.

And you know,

I'm not complaining about that.

I enjoy the way my life is,

but you know,

it's not a profitable like,

right?

You know,

it's profitable enough to keep the machine oil.

Right.

But you're not like,

you're not making.

Yeah.

I'm not going to get a speedboat next week.

What's funny,

you mentioned that because I have this company,

Paul Yaffe all the time

and he used to set up at Sturgis.

And he's like,

man,

I got to bring like the traveling show.

I got to ring like all the stuff to set up.

I got to pay for a space generally.

Uh,

if he's in one of the areas where a lot of foot traffic is at,

he's got to,

you know,

bring a step either higher staff or bring staff

that would normally be working back at home base

plus hotel,

plus food.

He's like,

just to break even,

I got to do like a hundred grand in sales

and most transactions don't happen there

on this on site.

Unless you bring teams that can install

as an incentive,

you get free.

But so you got to ship product there.

So generally,

most of these companies that are there that are doing

that kind of work aren't making,

you know,

well,

for brands itself,

you know,

thrashing does a good job of this.

It's like most sales take place online,

right stage,

right?

And the thing is like with when you look at an event

like Sturgis that started in this city and is now got

a 300 mile radius of things going on.

Right.

Well,

it's the Sturgis mafia pushed everything out.

Right.

And so to be in the city,

like you got to be a major brand.

You got to be an Indian,

a Harley,

you know,

I wonder if Indians going to be able to afford it now

that they,

you know,

they got a new thing going on.

They had that Polaris money for a while.

So it's like,

we'll see what that new,

but that bottom is going to do.

Yeah.

What if if you push out all of the substance

from the rally?

Yeah.

And they now have to be at these gas stations in the

middle of,

you know,

on at the end of spearfish or,

you know,

in Deadwood or,

you know,

tucked deep into one of the campgrounds,

you know,

north of Sturgis.

Then what is this now?

Is this the knife in the LED show and and and the

400 pinstripers and not to talk shit about it.

I don't like that.

Right.

I'm not going to Sturgis to see the pinstriper.

I'm going to Sturgis to see Yaffe's new build.

Right.

And then ride these hills and then

you know,

I want to see that part of it.

You know,

Main streets,

mostly just t-shirt vendors.

Yeah.

I mean,

let's be honest in a few bars.

I mean,

that's up and down.

Yeah.

There's a few,

you know,

like Knight Rider and some other guys,

but yeah,

it's mostly just Chachkees,

you know.

Yeah.

But we actually identified,

I identified with my team years ago that

it has expanded.

So we have signage and branding with like a hundred

mile radius,

because riders don't just stick to Sturgis.

They go Deadwood League.

Devil's Tower.

Custer.

Yeah,

I have we have shit there.

Yeah.

Devil's Tower.

So so wherever riders are,

we try to have some visibility,

but but yeah,

I'm very fortunate.

We have like,

you know,

our members,

you know,

our team of lawyers pay a co-op budget and we are,

you know,

kind of they pool money and we use that for Sturgis.

But really,

it's heavily about branding and then we do put out like

we put out 60,000 multi tools.

I had a great team.

Yeah.

Distributing.

I mean,

I sponsor all the stuff at,

you know,

the Thunderdome with Cruzy.

Yeah,

it was awesome.

You know,

Dustin LFG and Taylor,

Shifter Crew.

And yeah,

and that's what we're more transitioning towards now is stuff

like that.

We partner with the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of

Fame,

of which I'm on the board.

So we have a vending spot there.

We do the industry breakfast.

Yeah.

And we give away an award to someone that's had an

impact in the community and we have our inflatable on

the roof there.

And so to me,

those strategic partnerships are way more impactful and

fun.

You know,

I got to hang out and watch,

you know,

watch a stunt show and talk to a bunch of guys and at that,

at that,

and we help kind of facilitate that whole vending area and

that's helping other businesses.

Plus,

you know,

it's a great opportunity to showcase what we're doing.

To me,

you want to get people that aren't there to see what

you're doing so that you can entertain them and also

inform them and just kind of grow your,

your,

you know,

grow your audience,

if you will,

of people that are kind of just wanting to see what's

going on if they're not there.

You know,

that's,

that's more of the approach we're taking now.

So we're doing reels and instead of doing like recap

videos at the end,

we're doing more stuff real time.

Yeah.

Just so people can kind of get a sneak peek into what

they're missing out on and hopefully one of these days

they'll go themselves because they've seen all the cool

shit they missed.

Yeah.

Not being there.

So yeah.

Yeah.

It's like a long time ago.

We used to have to wait like three months to see

all the cool cars from SEMA.

Right.

And now it's like as soon you see them,

you see the Instagram stories and all the stuff

in real time.

Right.

So it's a it is cool.

Like I do enjoy that,

but it does kind of take away a little bit of a like a

man over here was shooting film earlier.

Right.

There's something about that.

It really is primal.

Sure.

When you shoot that you're like,

I don't know if I got anything good and then you

get developed and it's kind of nowhere near as good

as your digital camera.

You're like,

I fucking love this thing right now.

I love this,

this shot.

Yeah.

It's special to me.

And so there's some kind of appreciation that comes

with like,

Yeah.

Not the instant thing.

What's a two way street?

Right.

I mean you have that but then then you become your

brain becomes trained to want like instant gratification.

I get pissed when I go on Amazon and it's not next day.

I'm like,

what the fuck is this world we live in?

Right.

I know.

And I get and I get it tomorrow.

What the hell?

You know,

but that's the world we live in.

And then so and then as a marketer,

you got to you got to think yourself.

Okay.

Well,

how do I adapt to that so that I am,

you know,

like we were pretty good at covering day by day on

the HupAke tour,

but some of the stuff kind of missed the vote and

getting published.

So we publish it after and obviously kind of by that

point,

they've kind of everything's moved on.

So you really have to be mindful of timeliness and you

know,

striking while the iron's hot and but that's why like what

we do here and what we do back at our office with

podcasts to me.

This is like kind of old school.

It's like long form conversation.

Yeah.

It's not like your typical talk shows on TV where

you get five minutes and there's no substance and

it's,

you know,

there becomes more of an agenda based on the short

form stuff.

Like you have a message to get out and I mean,

you had you have a message to get out here,

but at the same time,

there's also like,

we got to talk about the main course meal here,

but let's have some appetizers.

Yeah.

Let's maybe a little dessert.

You want to drink?

Let's get a drink.

You know what I mean?

And that's the conversation, right?

Yeah,

a hundred percent.

And you know,

I think,

you know,

it's important for me to understand like,

yeah,

this is my business,

but I'm like,

you know,

a passionate writer.

I've got a bunch of motorcycles and I love to ride and

and you know,

it's not just about the business of law,

the business that we do.

It's,

it's,

you know,

I genuinely love riding motorcycles and hanging out with

my friends and just being part of this,

this culture that you know,

when I'm out of the office sitting on a ride and hop

by tour or riding like we're going to do in the next

couple of days with blockhead and you know,

going to born free like to me,

you know,

just I'm like,

I'm really lucky that I'm able to do this.

Yeah,

you know,

whether it's for,

you know,

work or just pleasure,

you know,

I go and ride with my hamster buddies to Laconia and

disturb just every year.

You know,

it's like,

yeah,

it's it's a little bit of work,

but it's a lot of fun too.

And where else can you do that where you can blend,

you know,

what you do for a living and what your passion is?

Well,

that many of the double-edged sword though,

right?

You know,

because what over the course of years of doing this

podcast when you would sit down with people that

have been in here for a long time or into the industry

a long time,

they built a lot of bikes.

Sometimes they you the industry will grind you down

and you won't enjoy motorcycles the same way

you you once did when you started your motorcycle

brand,

right?

Right.

So it is,

I think the commonality that I always found in all

these individuals when they would have that more

doom and gloom attitude towards attitude towards

motorcycling is because they stopped riding.

Sure.

They Sturgis became a place to sell something.

That's it.

The events was only I only went there because I

need to make money.

I don't go there because I enjoy motorcycles.

And so they doubled down on the part of it.

They don't like as much as doubling down as they

should have double down on what they loved.

Right.

So Yaffe,

I did a podcast with him early on and he,

you know,

after he told us that he designed the cowboy cheer

leaders boots he talks about like I try to ride

the Sturgis every year.

I can because it keeps me happy and loving these

things because when you're leading up to an event

and it's it's all hands on deck and there's every

problem can go wrong.

You hate these motherfuckers.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Like they they bring you a lot of grief and it's

the ride.

Right.

The the the finishing of the project that gives

you that.

Oh man, I fucking did it.

You know, you're absolutely right.

Yeah.

You know a couple people have done it right.

Like Paul,

he and he and I have been together now like six,

seven years.

And he's not he's not as focused on like I guess

that even I think last year I don't think even had

a booth and he just said he just rode and enjoyed

himself but even Trask he's got he's he's got

a pretty dialed in like he's got a team and

they you know so he can still go ride and

enjoy himself.

So I think there is a way to do that where

either you just don't set up or you have a

good team that can kind of run run the for you

and that's fortunately my case.

Yeah.

But that wasn't always the case when I first set up

in Sturgis 15 years ago when I say 16 years

ago I had to be on the booth.

I had to pass it out.

I had to make sure things were working properly.

But as we've grown and evolved and brought

on more team members now I literally check

and stop by the booth maybe two or three times

for just to hang out with the guys a little

bit hang out you know just check things out

but generally I'm just going to you know we

sponsor charity rides and events I do

that you know I do a presentation of

Sturgis motors like I mean the Hall of Fame

and award.

So now I get to do I do some of the

hamsters and stuff but to me that's why

I enjoy it because I'm not yeah any longer

going there to work but I did it for a

while so I can appreciate both sides.

Yeah exactly.

But yeah once it becomes like a job

and that passion is gone then I think it's

time to move on either you know you got

to figure out some some other.

Yeah 100% otherwise you're just you're

just miserable and you're why do it if

it's not fun.

Yeah so what what was the inspiration

to kick off your own podcast and start

doing that was it you know or I'm

I don't know let me think I'm trying

to think so I'd seen a few of them

that I'd been on and I bought a

building about three years ago and we

had this one space in this building at

the Scottsley air park and the reason I'm

in the air park is because we sell

promotional items to my member firms

and the managers give them out chotch

keys all the stuff for the shops for

events so this building I bought had

this really cool curved section and

it was and it's a space in there and

I'm like you know this is kind of a

dead space it's kind of got a cool

vibe to it and so I said we got the

space I see that this is a thing I'm a

big Joe Rogan fan and I said maybe we

can do something where you know it gives

me up to meet new people and also get

to know those that I know even better

and I have the space for it and like

let's be honest it's it's also I think

a good way to you know keep your

brand out there right yeah in a not

in an overt way because look it's

called motorcycle Mavericks it's not a

it's not you know the law tiger podcast

now it is powered by law tigers and I

wear you know I do have motorcycle Mavericks

hats I'll wear but I'll wear a lot

tiger shirt once a while yeah but you

know we just recently in fact started

James recommendation running like a

30-second kind of thing every 30

minutes where I just talk about what we

do so that at least people understand

there's some association with it but

yeah but really it just gives me a

chance to to learn more about people in

the industry and and you know chill out

and have a good time and yeah it's been

fun I don't know if it's has any

commercial benefit to be honest with you

yeah it's tough I mean it's anything I

was definitely into Rogan I still am

and then basically I'm like man I you

know because when we started the

podcast the only other podcast that

was around was my buddy danger Dan yeah

and he's kind he helped me get it

started he just lives here in Dallas

too so he covered more the chopper world

and I kind of covered more of the you

know the motorcycle industry and more

modern stuff and I've kind of now I'm

all over the place now but um yeah it's

it's a I what I was getting at was like

at the time I felt like eventually

almost every brand's gonna have to

have some version of this the same

way almost every brand has to have

like a social media or whatever sure

yeah it not every brand obviously but

like if you're a part of a community or

you you provide a service or product or

something it's like you know it seems

like you kind of have to have it now

you know I would argue everyone I was

at a maybe it's a youtube channel now

more than a podcast but on the game

are on on that level but the but the

podcast we shoot is for you to long

form and then we take short segments

and we use it for social media on

Instagram and Facebook so it is part

of a marketing strategy yeah but you

know I was just at a lawyer convention

in Phoenix last week and a lawyer got up

and spoke just a general PI lawyer not

no niche like us and he's like we now

have a social media person director

marketing videographer photographer and

he says and I think it's the ones

that are progressive that are doing that

he's like we spend less money on

traditional marketing now because it's

a crowded space and he says we do

30 pieces of content a week and this is

just a general PI lawyer he's got a

full marketing team now we can afford it

because he's a successful lawyer but he

said we pivoted like five four five

years ago and now realized you know the

new currency the new which is which is

really it's the attention right yeah

is is on social media is online and so

I've realized that a long time ago I

just wasn't quite sure how to how to

deal that out but that's why now

I'm about to hire a data analyst and I'm

hiring a brand strategist and we have

two full-time video team members and

social media person because to me

that's where we need to go where the

people are at people are our audience

our potential clients who are writers

are there on YouTube and Instagram and

Facebook and Reddit and and several

others take talk now so it's such a

fragmented media market now but you have

to be where people are or they're not

going to see you yeah and for me TV

radio outdoors great but it's very broad

and I'm competing with every other

general PI lawyer in the space so you

need to do both yeah and that's where

okay well what do you spend then how

to allocate that's where measurement

and tracking and you know we're

getting better at that and the

technical side the back end of things

you know using HubSpot we have my

manager on Salesforce but we're going to

phase them into HubSpot so everyone's

using HubSpot but if you have the

ability to measure and look at insights

and trends and attribution as much as

possible that means directly

directly attributable right so now that's

the next thing I'm trying to work on

is is being more refining our

processes and measuring yeah and

figuring out kind of where are we

seeing the best having the most impact

but it's an ongoing process you know

yeah it's a it's a deep wormhole or

rabbit hole or whatever fucking animal

you want to have yeah I don't know what to call

and we only I mean look we have a

well-known brand but I don't have

unlimited budgets I mean I don't I mean

my members each have a marketing

budget locally and we are good stewards

of that budget and I have some co-op

dollars but because we're so niche

and because our volume is not what a

general personal injury lawyer is

accustomed to it's all relative to

budgets like so you know if I'm a big

you have like the hammer here I think

and the Texas hammer Texas hammer who's

the other big guy here I saw so you have

Jim Adler Jim Adler yeah which is the

Texas hammer there's I'm thinking of

all the jingles in my head over the

years

uh fuck yeah I see I see the billboards

all yeah I mean you have you're like

Phoenix there's a million here so the

top guys in Dallas are probably

spending be on on outdoor probably

I know in Phoenix the top guys are

spending 400,000 a month on outdoor a

month yeah so it's probably equivalent

here close

not just outdoor on television probably

another four or five hundred a month so

so double so you're looking at TV radio

I'm sorry radio TV outdoor probably

eight to ten million a year yeah the

top guys and then they probably spend

another million on radio

so maybe ask this question

and it's kind of weird because I'm on I'm

kind of in this category so if you were

to take a fraction of that yeah and

invest into say a podcast or a

YouTuber whatever and gave them the

opportunity to grow themselves to

another level yeah you could possibly

see more of a targeted return on

investment in that way right versus

like I mean I know what billboards

cost I mean right and I know that

shit ain't cheap and I know it does

work because I always get fucking

this advertising work just did I'm like

god damn it you know I mean yeah yeah

those billboards that like they get you

like that to want to do it but at the

end of the day like could what you

spend on radio which I haven't heard

a radio and I mean

since Pandora sure you know podcast

and YouTube and the fact that like I

can you know I pay for premium

stuff so I can turn my phone off and

sure I don't know I'm you listen to the

rate it's like when you watch a

commercial on TV like holy shit like

I'm kind of interested in these I haven't

seen one of these in years you know

saying well radio like we have you

know a lot of the shops will bring

we'll have like classic rock stations

yeah true yeah so we do some radio and

and there's some metrics behind it

but that's not our only strategy and

it depends on the market but

um tn she requires you yeah I mean

you can diversify and save money

because my point is our budgets are like

a fraction of those yeah so that's why

we have you know five or six brand

ambassadors that we work with and we

may expand that next year but they

still have to deliver and provide

value right but that's why we're

running more and more now YouTube ads

like but they're not going to be just

ads or testimonials or content we

capture in the community and then we

you know they they're they're an ad

but they don't look like an ad kind of

you know yeah yeah for subliminal yeah

but uh but to me that's the game changer

for us is now that you've got

targeting and all these tools that

YouTube offers and Instagram and reddit

and I mean we're just looking to reddit

today I think they got our motorcycles

got like four million people behind

it there's riders subscribers whatever

you want to call it but but to me

that's going to be where the big

push is with our localized budgets

is taking more from traditional and

shifting it into uh into that but

we have to change out the ads way more

often too so don't get stale

our our frequency caps are like three so

we don't want people seeing it on

average more than three times the same

ad yeah

so but again the good news is you know

there's like I went and looked at like

the top 200 YouTube motorcycle channels

and now we serve ads on those right

along with some behavioral stuff that

suggests they're into riding yeah

so we just started doing a couple

months ago and I have a new paid

paid ads digital guides guy

and we're really going to play that out

but my videographers my social media

person have to come up with new ideas

so that a new content so we're feeding

that every month we change out with

new yeah yeah

but that's I think what's going to

really lend itself to our long-term

success and growth is the fact that

it's way more like targeted um

than traditional traditional advertising

but I don't think we'll ever

gravitate completely away from

traditional because let's look billboard

I still run billboards and

and we've we're in a lot of markets

people see our billboards because you

have a tiger head we just redesigned them

and move the tiger over made it bigger

simplified the messaging even more

and that has impact compared to some

guy some middle-aged dudes head sitting

there yeah hammer so

you know but you have to be you know

mindful you can't just buy two or three

billboards you know

in most markets we've got to have at

least 10 sometimes 20 or 30

but the big boys are have like a

hundred or more yeah

so um it's just it's just you know

working with what we have in terms

of budgets

and then trying to squeeze as much

opportunity and value i've got some

my media buyer she's a grinder you know

gal from uh gal from new york and

and she's she used to buy from Mercedes

and

big brand Hyundai uh when she worked for

began you see

so she's taken her expertise and i've

gotten her some software that allows

her like drive down costs and

and really get more yeah for the

money

with our limited budgets so that's

back to having good people

people right seats uh and and you know

i'm going to implement eos next year

which is a whole operating system for

running

running a business just to refine my

systems and processes even more yeah

just so there's more structure and

and a little more accountability when

it comes to

all the team members since we keep

growing and getting more people but

it's

as you know my job is to is to be

the visionary and to make sure that

people feel appreciated and also

that we're

we're evolving and growing and

improving and ultimately serving the

needs not only of

the riding community but my member firms

that

yeah us to

to drive value and drive business to

them

so that they see

that's what yeah and like i said it

you know

getting to know gave is what opened me

up to really wanting to be a part of

working with you guys and stuff like

that

but i'm also always i've always been

a proponent of like the things that

i see

going back to what we said earlier

things people brands entities things

putting stuff back on the table for the

community to have

existence you know sure and it you know

it's important

it's very important to me because i

understand

that aspect of it i got to go to easy

rider shows right when it traveled i

see

and now it's gone

i i was a part of the biker build

off whenever i mean i was on camera

but when they did rick's thing back

in 2004 i'm right there

fucking

sure

you know right

so

i get i saw all these things that

existed that don't exist for

us now right right and so i'm way more

aware when i see

something

putting

money and energy back into this this

industry this community

and uh and i like well shit i got to

support that you know what i mean

yeah and

you know like uh i mean you guys have

been with adam for a very long time

right and i've known adam for a

long time

and

you know we did our camp out up there

like i my my policy was no vendors

ever yeah i didn't want i wanted

like you there sure but as our

re right you know right right you know

i wanted you know the brands that we

worked with to come and just be a part

of this thing sure because i felt like

you can build a cult like audience

or following by being the guy drinking

moonshine around the fire right the

guys

that now they go home the next day

like you know what i fuck with that

brand right you know that's true

that's true they didn't even sell me a

product we didn't talk about but i

like that person right humanized

right and that's why it's so

important for us to like bring on

the right managers which

i'm really i tell my my vp line on my

regionals look higher you know you could

guys can learn but if they don't have

the right personality or the right

mindset

but they're not here for the right

reasons then we we we got a pass on

yeah we brought on a lot you know

with friends of probably a couple of

games friends now work with us of

course

uh which is great because you know

obviously if he's going to vouch for

him

you know that that goes a long way

when you have a good guy that's

doing well and he tells

you know says i got another guy

guy from oregon we just hired he's with

friends with the group uh

like i said arizona san diego i think

this

florida

so a lot of the new guys that bring on

it's what excites me is they are so

like entrenched in the community

and they are progressive and they are

willing to embrace social media and

and do things that you know ultimately

and look it pays off i mean we're

crushing it in san diego right now

yeah crushing it uh and when i say

that you know i don't mean it in

a disrespectful way it's just

we're having it's

i've had some really good years there

where

where we've grown our business and

and game deserves a lot of credit for

that and yeah we have a number of

markets like that even here in dalis

we've done quite well so

you gotta have good good people

representing your brand and i'm i'm

this is why i'm you know i have like

this

after 25 years now i'm reinvigorated

i'm not doing new things i'm getting

to ride

and experience stuff like this with

you

and hang out and and and really be

come back to being you know just

ari not the lot tiger guy yeah you know

and uh and i'm looking forward to doing

more stuff like that um

where my passion and my hobby is kind of

intertwined with my business it's

it's literally a work-life balance

right yeah but your your hobby is your

you know your work yeah yeah it's gonna

be careful because my wife's not part

of it so

she's not into motorcycles like i am

so

can't go too far the other way yeah

i'll be divorced yeah that's the

other side of the balance you're

bouncing

five different things on your limbs

yeah but hey uh man i i really enjoyed

this we have to do today i know we do

we got something going on i think a

kickoff party or something kickoff

party we got to go to and then we got

born free and you got a lot of stuff

going on yeah

but you know uh i i'm glad that we

were able to do this and i think

it's it's important for you know as

law tires has been sponsoring this

podcast sure i wanted my audience to

hear

you it at least you thank you to

understand like why i you know not

saying i chose but why i wanted to be

part of this you know i'm saying and um

you know give people an understanding of

what what you do what it's about when

they need to you know just educate

them right of course yeah you know yeah

and so that's i think we've done that

and uh i'm ready to ready to start

this whole born free texas thing off

now i appreciate that and if anyone

ever does have questions and you see

me or my team out and about

don't hesitate to come up to us and

say hey can you explain that insurance

thing to me or

you know i have a question on a legal

quite whatever i mean we're here to be

a resource we're not just here to give

away free shit right yeah you know free

shit's great but we want people to be

like well insured and well informed

and and that's why my team does what

they do so you know whether it's me

and if you can call them call one

hundred law tires and you know if you

need to talk to me or my team

members uh and you have a question

on on something that we can be

helpful of please let us know yeah

same thing for the industry if you're

looking for you know my team is probably

going to shoot me for this but if you're

looking for some support i can't

guarantee we're going to give it to you

or we're going to give you what you

want but we'll consider it so if you

are you know somebody it's in this

industry that maybe wants us wants to

work with us there's no harm in asking

and yeah we we accept a lot of stuff

and not we don't accept everything but

because we only have so much money to

go around and time but but i want

people to understand that we are

open-minded to to new

opportunities as well to support

whatever they're doing cool well aria

appreciate it my yeah thank you for a

lunch yeah uh yeah i'm ready i'm ready

to do it let's let's go let's go hit it

and uh go celebrate and have some fun

with uh with rick and uh lina and the

whole crew over at uh strokers i want

to see my tie-dye inflatable i i got

for them on the roof i haven't seen it

yet it's pretty well this is cool

thanks man thanks for that

who i want to thank aria for that

good time on the podcast educating us

on how this all works with the

insurance companies the the way the

lawyers can help you and uh how this

all pretty much just goes down i want

to thank him i also want to thank law

tires in general just for all the

support they've gave they've given us

over this past year on the podcast

it helps us keep this show going along

with things like our patreon which if

you're not on go check it out there's

a link in the description uh five

dollars a month gets you access to

another podcast that we do only on

patreon the garage talk i'll be

honest we've been slack on that for the

last couple of months while i was

building these motorcycles getting

ready for born free texas but uh we got

a recent episode we just dropped um

it's there for you there's plenty

other ones there for you if you're a

new subscriber uh if you're an existing

subscriber we got some more stuff

coming so want to support us that is

a great way to do it to keep this

show going i also want to say thank

you to all of our sponsors please

guys if you need anything from them

go use that offer code and let them

know you got it from us that helps us

as well and lastly i know i'm asking you

guys to do a lot but wherever you're

listening to this please rate it review

it it helps us stay relevant in the

podcast sphere and helps us get new

listeners and helps us stay on the

board so thank you i am about to do a

very very big podcast run and i'm

going to need all the support from

you guys to make this happen uh

to so we can end this year i would

bang so yeah i'm gonna shut up now

thank you we'll see you on the next one

peace

Ari Levenbaum Law Tigers CEO #437

About this episode

ATC 185

forged wheels

custom brake calipers

FXR chopper

Custom Dynamics

shark demon headlight

V-Twin

RWD

suspension

ride height

RS1 front cartridge system

compression

FXRT style front fairing

fenders

Indian

Harley

Polaris

Ford Mavericks

Volkswagen Rabbit

Volkswagen Eos

Tata Motors Aria

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