How We Market Our Brand

In this episode, Josh, Aaron and Dave explore how FVF Law built its identity around craftsmanship, care, and doing work for the right reasons. 

They share how prioritizing community impact over traditional legal marketing has shaped their growth, strengthened relationships, and earned meaningful recognition—while challenging other firms to rethink what success really looks like. 

 FVF Law is a well-credentialed, overwhelmingly 5-star reviewed personal injury law firm in Austin, TX. FVF strives to be the educational resource for the injured, available to guide those with questions about what comes next. It is FVF’s mission to ensure clients are prioritized and informed throughout the injury claim process, and to secure the best possible outcome. Josh Fogelman and Aaron Von Flatern founded FVF Law to offer a different kind of injury law firm, and a dignified alternative in the marketplace. They hope to show injured Texans that consulting a lawyer after an injury is a natural, and responsible thing to do.

Transcript

0:00:00.4 Aaron von Flatern: Hey, Josh.

0:00:02.2 Josh Fogelman: Oh, hey, Aaron.

0:00:03.0 Av: Have you ever heard of Aaron Franklin?

0:00:04.8 JF: You know, you're just so much better at that than me. Yes, of course I've heard of Aaron Franklin.

0:00:09.9 Av: He lives on Shoal Creek in Austin. Don't tell anybody. 

0:00:17.2 JF: I mean, I've hung out in those bushes. It's no big deal.

0:00:21.1 Av: Aaron Franklin is the world-famous barbecue tour who, I know I just made that word up, who put Austin literally on the map for barbecue. And as somebody who was here in the '90s, I can tell you this was not a barbecue town. We were adjacent to some counties that were adjacent to the real center of the barbecue world, like out in Lockhart. But in Austin, Texas specifically, we didn't have great barbecue until a few big players showed up on the scene, including Aaron Franklin, who... 

0:00:54.7 JF: I'd argue County Line was really good. I have a bias in favor of County Line.

0:00:58.6 Av: Great vibe. Good barbecue. As producer Dave would say, I'm a vibe person.

0:01:04.5 Dave Hawks: I'm a vibes guy.

0:01:05.9 Av: Dave's a vibes guy, 

0:01:07.7 DH: Yeah. Been to a number of professional dinners at the County Line.

0:01:11.7 JF: That was my first job ever was busing tables at the County Line.

0:01:18.3 Av: And that's a good...

0:01:19.0 JF: I still eat there.

0:01:19.7 Av: That's a great endorsement.

0:01:20.6 JF: It isn't a great endorsement because it's a great place.

0:01:22.9 Av: All right, well... 

0:01:25.4 JF: I've also heard Aaron Franklin's a super nice guy, by the way.

0:01:27.0 Av: He is, and what I was going to say about him before the County Line kind of crashed my party was that he is in it for the right reasons. If you know anything about taking care of barbecue pits in order to cook the perfect brisket, you know it's an almost 24-hour job. So the idea that he created this thing that blew up and had people, you know, to this day lining up around the block to get his brisket... Every day. He's either the worst planner in the world. If he was trying to create something that was going to explode and then cause him to be able to relax on a nice island in the Bahamas, he did the wrong thing. Because what he created just chained him even further, even more to those barbecue pits. But that was something, in my opinion, in my judgment, that he willingly did because he did it for the right reason. He loves the craft of barbecue. He loves the way wood and fire and smoke work. He loves the way the chemistry works and the meat and just like getting the temperature perfect. And he's in it for the right reason.

0:02:37.4 JF: He's an artist.

0:02:38.2 Av: He's an artist. And I say all that because that's kind of what I think our vision was for FVF Law. Maybe that's...

0:02:49.3 JF: No, I think that's fair....

0:02:50.6 Av: Too Self-aggrandizing.

0:02:51.6 JF: I don't think so. I mean, people don't line up around the block for our legal services.

0:02:58.3 Av: No.

0:02:59.9 JF: But we're pretty damn good.

0:03:01.3 Av: We're good and we're good because... 

0:03:04.3 JF: We care. 

0:03:06.1 Av: We care. And so when... As we started to look at like, well, how are we going to market this thing and we get off the ground and how do we get customers in and all that. And so one of the ways was to like shout from the rooftops our name and like hire a plane to fly a thing behind a plane to say our name, go on TV. We didn't do all that. We decided at some point and not just you and I got to pull producer Dave into this conversation.

0:03:35.1 JF: Caitlin, who's not here, but... Yeah. Shout out. It's her loss.

0:03:39.1 Av: Yeah. Yeah, it's her loss. She should be here getting some credit, but... For sure. We decided we would, you know, we'll do something different to market our services. We've got... We want to get our name out there, but why waste an opportunity to help our community? So that was... I'm going to put it that way and turn it over to producer Dave. Tell us about what it's like to be asked, you know, about being in marketing for a personal injury law firm in Austin, Texas.

0:04:06.6 JF: And in addition to answering that question, why don't we tell the listeners why we're talking about some of the things we're talking about today when you feel that's appropriate?

0:04:16.9 DH: Yeah. So whenever I tell people, oh, I'm in marketing for a personal injury firm, the first question usually is, oh, so you do those commercials? Like you work on that stuff because that's kind of the expectation is if, you know, you're in personal injury and you're in marketing, well, the marketing that I see most of the time is the commercials and the billboards. And so I always have a good amount of time getting to explain and talk about what it is that I get to do and why I love what I do. I came from the nonprofit world before being with FVF because I knew that I wanted to do work that was like helpful to people that actually made an impact where I could see what I was doing and how it made a difference. And so that's always been a core value for me. And so when I came to FVF, it was super clear within five minutes of reading the reviews that this is more than just a law firm from a product perspective. And now being, you know, on the inside, it is even more clear, especially kind of under the mentorship and tutelage of Caitlin Macaluso, who is one of the biggest proponents of doing good work in the community for the sake of it that I've ever met.

0:05:37.4 DH: And she's just continues to drive the ship of we're going to be like charitable contributors to the Austin community. Personally, like she herself is more involved than anyone I know, but also including all of us in that because FVF was built on this idea that business success and civic responsibility aren't mutually exclusive. They're actually mutually reinforcing. Right. And so we talk a lot about how, you know, rising tides lifts all ships. And so we believe that contributing to the growth and the health of other organizations in this community is better for all of us. And that's good business. And the reason that we've been talking about it recently is that FVF was actually nominated for an award through the Austin Gives program through the Austin Chamber of Commerce. And we actually won that award. And the awards were basically for businesses who are being generous in the community, meaning that their charitable work was built into their business strategy, that it wasn't just, oh, this is a program that they do because it's good to have and it looks good, but more that we believe that a part of being successful as a business is being involved in the community giving. And that's writing checks, but it's also volunteer hours.

0:07:04.2 DH: It's showing up. It's making lunches at Ronald McDonald House. It's sorting food at the food bank. So to answer your question, when people ask, like, what is it that I do? I'm very rarely being talking about making advertisements for FVF as a law firm. What I get to do is I get to tell the stories of how us as a firm spend our time out in the community. Like a lot of the content that I'm shooting is interviewing other organizations, learning about their mission statement, right? The calendar for this year, we picked different nonprofits to represent each month. And so I get to go to each and every one of them and sit down with them and interview them and say, hey, what is your mission? What is it that y'all are doing? Why is your mission? How is your mission changing the community? And how has FVF been able to help partner with them? And I just get to hear story after story of the years of impact that this firm has made, both financially, but also just relationally. Like we have friendships with these people. These people reach out to us and invite us to things that they're just doing in their free time because there's actual connection there.

0:08:15.2 DH: And from a marketing perspective, that's the story that's really compelling. When I hear stories from clients about why FVF was so impactful in their case, they always mention outcome, but then they always also talk about how they were treated, how they were listened to, and that they loved that the people representing them were also like good people, right? And so, Josh, you were saying like we're good lawyers. I think we're good lawyers because we're good people. And that to me is the like foundation of what I get to do is to like talk about it. You know, we just finished an episode earlier talking about basically the problems with bear tree in our culture and in the world. And it was like not lost on me that personal injury lawyers who are typically accused of being the problem morally and ethically in our culture are the ones sitting down with a call to action to invite other like civilian community members to be a part of taking up the moral responsibility to protect each other. And that's the like fabric of the character of this firm. And so I get to talk about that. And so like this is my, you know, 10-minute spiel when people ask me, what do you do?

0:09:39.8 DH: I tell stories about how our firm and the people in this firm are doing incredible things and serving the community. And it's so encouraging and rewarding when the community recognizes us. And so the fact that FVF was honored with being able to win that award, it's really encouraging to know what we are doing is being appreciated, it's being recognized, and it kind of means that the vision that y'all have started is being successful. That's the... The vision is when your mission is taking place and it's what I get to do. I love it.

0:10:14.1 JF: Well, yeah, I mean, one of the huge foundational tenets of the organization is to change the perception of personal injury law firms in the state of Texas. I mean, Aaron talks about, we talk about that all the time because it's so integral to who we are as human beings and the importance of the message really can't be overstated in light of kind of the value and the importance of our industry and what we do to protect fellow members in our community. And when you walk into a room full of literally some of the most prominent business leaders in one of the greatest cities, arguably in the world, certainly in America, an incredibly prosperous city with incredibly successful people, and you have those people invite you onto the stage to recognize your contributions. I mean, you being one of only a handful of organizations in this great community, the tens of thousands of businesses that are here, and you get invited up onto stage. It is an incredible testament to the fact that what we're doing is really working and working in furtherance of that mission, particularly when you compound it on, and I know that we're tooting our own horn here, but we deserve it.

0:11:44.0 JF: We earned it. I mean, we've been walking the walk. You compound that on top of other recognitions that we've gotten historically, aside from our incredible outcomes that we've got, like our recognitions that we've gotten from organizations like the Better Business Bureau for our highest level of business ethics in the community. You really set the bar, not just for other personal injury law firms to become better stewards of the community and to take less and to give more, but really for all businesses, big and small.

0:12:18.9 Av: Yeah, I hope this podcast is actually reaching some of the other law firms out there because I would implore them to consider if you have a million dollars to spend on marketing, what would be the result if you spent that million dollars and made a thousand friends, like real friends, because you connected with organizations in your own community and put down deeper roots and made your community better. I mean, the quality of those connections compared to, oh, we put this ad on TV and we got 100,000 impressions. Who cares about those impressions? Most of them were negative. Just about every single person who saw your TV ad hates you. 

0:13:01.3 Av: They might call you, but... 

0:13:03.2 JF: Yeah. So how about you take that same amount of money and go make your community better? And so in response to the issue of tooting our own horn, let's just say it's a call to action. This is something that we've wanted for ourselves and we want for other law firms out there. Do better. Prove to the public that we are fighting for the little guy.

0:13:25.6 Av: That's what we do. And it's us versus these big insurance companies, these giant corporations that only answer to juries if we're being honest. The idea that most of the public has the opposite reaction to personal injury law, that's on us. As a profession, we've done that to ourselves. And it's so easy to unwind that while also helping your community. So that's something that hopefully we're setting the standard for. And I can't thank Dave and Caitlin, Margaret, our whole team for making that vision a reality.

0:14:02.7 JF: Yeah. And maybe trying to wrap up here, but something that I think is really important for people who are considering their options of who to refer their friends and family to, or if they need legal services or personal injury law firm themselves. You know, one of the beautiful things about being able to sit here with you guys and toot our own horn about the recognition that we've gotten because we've earned it by giving back so extensively is when folks are considering choosing us, they get the added, aside from the fact that they're going to get phenomenal representation as is suggested by our voluminous positive reviews, you also can understand that you're contributing to being a part of something bigger and better. And the people that you're entrusting your case to and your situation to are going to try and take that negative and turn it into something positive, not just for you, but for the community at large. And so, you know, that choice of who you're picking up the phone and calling and who you're choosing to work with, that can perpetuate certain things. It can perpetuate more loud screaming and, you know, really flamboyant commercials, or it can help perpetuate a sense of community and giving and rising the tide for everyone.

0:15:37.8 DH: Yeah, I'm really glad that you also mentioned Margaret. That's something that I, one of the biggest lessons as an adult, as a human, as a professional that I think I've learned so far at FEF is the idea of providing value to people is more important. Like providing value to others is actually more important for your success than having a selfish perspective, like how can we get the most for us? And so I've been in multiple budget meetings where we're looking at the marketing budget and we're looking at the finances and the money that's allocated towards investing in our past clients and current, you know, relationships and just regularly being like, wait, we shouldn't be spending money there. We need to be like reinvesting in the people that trusted us. And even if it does not create any more business for us, it's the right thing to do because there is something that kind of transcends the financial reality of the business to this is a way that we say thank you. This is a way that we invest in people. And it's ultimately been what's been most lucrative for us because most people want to engage even professionally with people that their values align with.

0:17:07.9 DH: So people want to buy from places where they're like, I like that organization does something that I agree with and I like and I would rather participate with them than someone else. And I think that's also why reviews are so incredibly important to us. Not because it helps us rank better on Google and, you know, with SEO. That's all true. But it's a resource for others who are going to need the most important help they've ever needed up to this point. And there is something that's incredibly validating and powerful about knowing that you are able to give someone something that's actually good. And so when I meet someone or I hear a story about someone who's in a car accident, the level of confidence that I feel when I say, hey, you can call this firm, that allows me to feel like I'm doing something good because of the way the organization operates. And so in a lot of ways, if a client is considering leaving a review, I would always tell them, this is your way to serve someone else like you. Not to serve us. That's not primarily what this review is going to do.

0:18:24.4 DH: It's a way for you to serve someone else who is going to need the same thing you needed. And you didn't even know how much you needed it until after the fact. Help others understand why this is a place that they can be safe, both financially but also emotionally and socially and relationally. I get those revelations sitting in marketing meetings and budget meetings sometimes where it really is, no, we're not going to spend money there. We're going to spend money sending gifts to our past clients, remembering their birthday. That's not a trivial thing. We do giveaways and someone emailed us about the giveaway to enter and they were just like, also, I just want to say that I just am still so thankful. This case closed years ago. I just will always be a champion for FEF Law because of what y'all did for me. Just unprompted gratitude.

0:19:19.5 Av: So nice to hear. 

0:19:21.1 JF: It's why we do it.

0:19:21.9 DH: It was before I was here, and yet I'm getting to reap the fruit and be reminded of this is the place that does things like that. And that is such a better way of doing work and doing life. And you just can go to bed so much easier knowing that it's good stuff. And it also happens to be much better professionally.

0:19:42.8 Av: Well, thank you, Dave, and congratulations on that award because I think you and Caitlin really made it happen.

0:19:50.3 JF: Absolutely agree. Thanks everyone for listening.

0:19:53.2 DH: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you all.