#4: No More Random Acts of Marketing: Build a Law Firm Strategy That Works with Ashley Robinson

You’re not just running a law firm—you’re building a business. So why are you still treating marketing like a side hustle?

In this powerful episode, I sit down with Ashley Robinson, founder of Green Cardigan Marketing and a master of turning “meh” marketing into real momentum for law firms. Ashley pulls back the curtain on what’s actually working right now, what’s outdated, and the hard truths law firm owners need to hear if they want consistent leads, profitable systems, and a practice that runs like a business—not a rollercoaster.

We dive into:

• Why “referrals only” is NOT a growth strategy (and what to do instead)
• What every firm needs to understand about branding vs. lead generation
• How to spot if your marketing “problem” is actually a sales, intake, or tracking problem
• Why your social media silence is costing you clients (and how to show up without going full TikTok)
• What the best firms are doing now that others are too scared to try (spoiler: it’s video, and you’re overthinking it)

If you’re tired of throwing spaghetti at the wall, wasting money on marketing that doesn’t convert, or feeling completely overwhelmed by what to do next—this is your episode.

Ashley breaks it down with honesty, humor, and zero fluff. You’ll leave knowing what matters, what doesn’t, and what to do next to stop the guesswork and finally get results.

Ashley Robinson is the founder and CEO of Green Cardigan Marketing, a digital marketing agency that focuses on helping law firms grow and achieve their financial goals through marketing strategies that work! Since its inception, Green Cardigan Marketing has been hyper focused on helping law firm owners achieve their goals all while providing out of this world customer service. To date, Ashley and her team have worked with over 150 law firms across 37 states.

ASHLEY'S LINKS:

Website

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

LAW FIRM MONEY MATTERS LINKS:

Video Podcast
Socials
Core Solutions Group, Inc. Website

Transcript

Podcast Transcript 

All right. 
Ashley Robinson. 
So I know Ashley through networking groups. 
We currently host a mastermind together. 
She's a badass 
I know she's a badass. 
And you're about to find out why. 
So let's start. 
Ashley, tell us who you are and what you all do. 
Thank you Chelsea. 
Really good to see you today and talk to you. 
My name's Ashley. 
I am the CEO and founder of Green Cardigan Marketing. 
We provide really great customer service on top of our already great marketing services to law firms. 
It it's, it sets us apart in the industry. 
A lot of people do marketing, but we really like to think that our customer service is **** ***. 
So that's who we are and what we do. 
And that's such a foggy area. 
I know when I first started business, I'm like, cool, I'll hire one person to do all the things. 
Come to find out, that's like a whole team of people. 
So when you say marketing, what do you mean specifically like website intake, sales? 
Yeah, good question. 
So anything under the digital marketing umbrella? 
And still a lot of people when I say that are like, great. 
I still don't know what that means. 
So website SEO, which is basically ranking with Google, social media, e-mail marketing, paid ads and video marketing. 
So anything to really grow your firm. 
We do, we often find ourselves in the conversation of sales and intake. 
That's not part of our service. 
But those things really need to be buttoned up and their finances need to be buttoned up. 
But our role is to bring you in qualified leads and your job is to be a good law firm and convert them to clients. 
Yeah. 
And I love how you're acknowledging like there are pieces around marketing that are going to make or break your strategy, things like sales, which I'm sure we'll get into. 
But let's start with shattering some of those old ways of thinking that law firms are really grasping onto. 
What are some of the old school ways that are still showing up that you're seeing? 
Gosh, I mean, how, how much time do we have? 
So there's, there's so many. 
Why don't I, why don't I do this? 
I'll hit on a few. 
It's, I think it's obviously old school, but I still hear so many people saying I don't need to be on social media. 
That's not true. 
It really depends on your practice area. 
However, if you are a business lawyer, you don't need to be on TikTok. 
Your clients are not on TikTok. 
What what I would say is think about where your client avatar is, where did they do business? 
And that's where you need to be. 
So if you are an immigration lawyer, you need to be all over YouTube. 
We know that, for example, the Hispanic market, their most used search engine is YouTube, so you have to be on YouTube. 
So I would say the social media thing and then another one, a little bit more of an abstract thought is what is an outdated component of marketing would be doing random acts of marketing. 
And what do I mean by that? 
I think that used to work. 
I think when you were sold on putting your name on a bench at a park, you did it, and when you were sold on something else, you did it. 
That **** doesn't work anymore. 
You really can't do random acts of marketing. 
What's going to happen is you're going to just bleed money and the worst part is you're going to be convinced marketing doesn't work. 
You really have to have a strategy now, as opposed to even when I graduated school, and I'm not old, but even when I graduated school, it wasn't that way. 
You could kind of do some random ****. 
You now have to have it all buttoned up and A has to equal B has to complement CD has to complement A. 
It's really got to be a good strategy because the market is saturated with so many lawyers and there's so many things you can do. 
So if you don't have it dialed in and someone's helping you say, OK, A is going to go after high funnel clients, marketing, B is going to go after low funnel clients marketing, option C is going to warm them. 
So you really have to have somebody help you build a good strategy. 
Super emotion based answer, but it's probably the biggest frustration I see. 
No, it is so true. 
And I even see that from a finance perspective because we have conversations around marketing, but then I send them to Someone Like You. 
But yeah, social media, there is a lot of resistance to it. 
And you know, a certain age, let's just be honest, we're not discriminating as the fact, but a certain age group of business owners are more resistant to social media. 
And even after everything you just said, like it is overwhelming. 
There is a lot each, there are multiple platforms now and each platform has, like you said, that specific potential client avatar that either is or is not there. 
And so knowing which ones to show up on and actually doing it is really important. 
What would you say? 
Because I run into this a lot too of solo or small law firms that are very referral based and they're like, well, I don't want to pay for marketing. 
I really pride myself on the fact that I don't market. 
What would you say to someone like that? 
If you're wanting to scale, you've got to trash that belief. 
If you're not wanting to scale, OK, But if you're wanting to scale and provide any sort of consistency, you have to trash that belief because, and here's the analogy, and this is the Alabama and me coming out, but referrals are like casting a net. 
Sometimes you get a salmon, sometimes you get a boot. 
You're like, I don't know, I can't feed my family though off of that irregular behavior. 
And what I would also say is changed about referrals from the 80s versus now, even your referrals are going to do their due diligence on you. 
Check your own patterns, your own buying patterns. 
My husband and I just started working with a a wealth advisor. 
Both of them in our CPA recommended this financial wealth advisor right? 
Both of them were a referral. 
We searched both of them online and we went with the one who was active on social because we got to watch videos of her. 
I feel like I know her. 
I'm sure the other guy was just as competent, but I didn't get to know, like and trust him. 
She has a great website. 
I read all about her. 
I learned about her kids, I learned about her background. 
She's from a part of Spain we just went to visit from, but she had posted a visit a video about that. 
So even though both were referral marketing solidified the deal for both my husband and I. 
So watch your own buying behaviors and patterns. 
We nowadays, every industry is so oversaturated. 
We're not just going to go with a referral. 
We're still going to check them out. 
So that belief that referrals is is all I need. 
It's outdated and debunk. 
You can debunk that method in from every corner. 
See, I like that you brought that up because even if you're not looking to scale, that's perfectly fine. 
You should still be setting up a law firm that runs on systems so that you can exit profitably. 
And you don't want somebody worrying, well, can I keep this referral cadence up? 
You know, do I have an option that we've been, you know, playing with in media and on these platforms and stuff. 
So I love that you said that because I'm, I'm more of the mind that everybody should be dibbling and dabbling somewhat. 
And that probably means exactly what you said. 
But let people get to know, like and trust you when they go and search your website, look at your Facebook, look at your Instagram, your TikTok or wherever you're at. 
So I love that. 
My next quick question for you, because I know that there are some people listening to this. 
Do billboards still work most of the time, no. 
And again like we talked about every marketing channel or marketing, think of marketing as all these different levers you can pull. 
Social media is a lever, websites lever, billboards are a level lever, radio, TV, they all have a place to some degree. 
If you are a 10 to $15 million firm and you are doing everything right, you have a great website, you're using video marketing, you're doing paid ads, social media, e-mail, you're networking, you have great referrals, billboards are not going to hurt you. 
Billboards are just branding though. 
They're not going to be lead Gen. 
They're not generating leads. 
It's for the big firms who you see do them. 
That's because they're spending money in every other platform and they can if if you're a $3,000,000 firm and you're doing billboards, I'm going to say there's so many other things we could do to generate hard leads versus just branding and think of branding. 
OK, I hear a lot of, lot of lawyers say, look, I don't even know what branding means. 
Explain it to me. 
Put your name on your kids T-ball jersey. 
Branding, billboards, branding, just putting your name out there. 
Legion is when people search for you on Google, they find your website. 
That's our job. 
We're a lead Gen. 
company. 
Our job is to generate leads for our clients. 
And going back to your comment just a moment ago, Chelsea, that's also something when I talk to lawyers, sometimes I can hear them say like one of our initial calls, my sales team when we get on a call is are you looking to grow or you just want to stay consistent? 
And I've heard from a few smart Alecs, why am I contacting you if I'm not wanting to grow? 
And I'm like, no, no, there's many clients we work with who we're just trying to help them maintain because those are the ones who get it. 
They're like, look, I'm a solo firm, three employees, I'm grossing, my salary is between 8 and 900. 
My firm's bringing in 1.5, whatever. 
And they're like, I'm cool. 
I just want to be able to go on vacation and leads still come in. 
Those are the firms who get it. 
It's like marketing is not an option. 
It's just how much, you know, think of like the lever in your car. 
I want to stay where I'm at. 
Cool, let's just barely put the lever down, but we'll keep consistent leads coming in. 
And then you get to choose which leads you take. 
You can say, Nope, don't want those, but I've got great referrals. 
So I'll send those to and they send me referral fees. 
Those are the lawyers who are like, it's it's clicking is they want, they want to keep marketing just so they can maintain the level of comfortability that they're out. 
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. 
And you just made me think of something. 
I'm going to add something to our list of old school ways that are still showing up. 
Don't be an *******. 
That's a good one. 
It is. 
That's a role in our immigration. 
Don't be an *******. 
Look it ******* doesn't work anymore. 
We just fired a client last week because they were an ******* and we have no ******* policy. 
But seriously, don't be an ******* in 2025. 
It doesn't work anymore. 
Nobody's going to respect that. 
People has options and the saying the customer is always right in my opinion is dead. 
That is not the case. 
So don't be an *******. 
But yeah, you touched on some really good things and I think like to summarize and give it back to you like know and set the expectations, know the difference between branding, lead Gen. 
conversion goals and realize that just because you see people doing billboards, which is fine if you're looking for like a brand awareness and you're at that level, but it is probably not your first move to do so. 
I think that was really, really well said. 
Now, now building off of that, we've kind of talked about what are some of the things that people are doing wrong here, but what are some of the things that are missing around marketing? 
Like we touched on sales earlier, like connect the dots for us around the other things that law firm owners need to pay attention to outside of stellar marketing. 
They're tracking, Oh my gosh, they're, they're tracking of if, if I'm and we said we ask our clients on the first call, we call this our triage call. 
If we really just want to know where you at? 
If imagine a doctor comes in, in their your knee, they're checking your blood pressure. 
That is what our first call is, is how much of an emergency is this? 
What have we done in marketing? 
What is our gross revenue? 
What is our average client value? 
We're asking a litany of questions. 
Know those numbers. 
What is your average client value? 
What is your conversion rate? 
What is your closing rate? 
You, you need to know the numbers. 
It's just a, a steering wheel to drive your law firm. 
Know your financial numbers of course, but also just know your operational numbers and they, that's how you hold us accountable. 
That's how you hold your vendors accountable is by knowing the numbers. 
So again, we, we get pushed back sometimes as I don't know these numbers. 
How does that relate to marketing? 
It has everything to do with marketing because in six months from now, I know our marketing works. 
I have seen and I've built our product. 
It works. 
But in six months from now, if you're telling me it doesn't work, I want to be able to argue back and say it works. 
You're just not tracking, you don't know your numbers or it's a sales problem. 
This was a conversation with someone recently. 
It's not a marketing problem, it's a sales problem. 
Sometimes it is a marketing problem, but you need to be able to distinguish what bucket is it. 
Is it a cash flow problem? 
OK, you need to call Chelsea. 
Is it a, an intake problem? 
Is it a processes? 
You just need to know what bucket it belongs into. 
And that's where I see so many people are missing the, the, the high level vision of it all is knowing just those basic numbers. 
They're sales numbers, basically. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
That reminds me of like, it's not the blame game. 
We don't want to look for someone to blame. 
What we want to do is dig down to the system, know where to look and know how to fix it. 
We just had this happen in our company two months ago where we started some new marketing campaigns and they worked phenomenally, like we were blowing lead goals out of the water, but nobody was converting. 
Like our marketing was working so well. 
But then we knew, OK, that means it's sales. 
That means something is shifting in the sales landscape. 
And what we ended up finding, and this is the power of knowing where to look and how to interpret what you find. 
What was happening is we were very referral based, but we have been trying to figure out this marketing funnel to just like the safety net like we've been talking about. 
So for us, what happened is people were coming to us and meeting with Sam. 
She's our client success coordinator. 
She's amazing, very down to earth, very friendly. 
People were coming to us because they already knew like and trusted us. 
They were getting referrals. 
We're on every social media platform. 
I think that is there is out there like there are ways to find us. 
This new marketing campaign was bringing in a different set of people who did not already know like and trust us. 
So they're getting on a call with Sam and Sam's acting like their bestie because she will be once you on board as a client, but they don't know her. 
So because we knew all of these numbers and how all of these things work together and where to look, the month after last month, we broke our record of most clients onboarded in one month. 
That's awesome. 
That's awesome. 
Because you knew what you knew where to, you know what to pick apart. 
Yeah. 
So what was happening in the marketing terms is you were used to it. 
So you have the marketing funnel and referrals come in about halfway down that funnel, right? 
They already know Chelsea, they know somebody. 
When you're getting true cold leads, they're at the top of the funnel and you have to nurture them the way down. 
They have a different buying cycle than your referrals. 
So you have to educate, you have to build trust, you have to build authority. 
All these things you haven't had to do with referrals. 
It's a different lead. 
So you have to treat them differently. 
Sometimes they even have to go to a different person. 
Their intake process has to be different. 
So yeah, I hear you. 
It's, it's a problem for anybody who has multiple streams of leads coming in. 
It's difficult to know how to handle each. 
We, we talk about this constantly. 
Here is referral that comes in that knows me. 
Do I get on the sales call? 
Do I not? 
Do we sell them on this? 
Do I not Like, it's very difficult and it sometimes it's just situational. 
But as long as you know to treat them differently, you've solved 90% of the problem. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
And the truth is and why you need to keep up with these things on a regular basis is that changes are always going to happen. 
Pivots are always going to happen. 
It's either going to catch you off guard or you're going to see it coming. 
That's the difference. 
OK, awesome. 
We're on a roll. 
So next, let's talk about what are the Trail Blazers doing? 
What are the disruptors doing that is working that everybody else is kind of scared to do right now? 
Video hands down. 
They're all over video and and there's so many different ways that I'm that you can do this, but the answer is just frequent, frequent, frequent, frequent. 
Make videos constantly. 
Your social media should be littered with I'm walking to the car. 
Let me answer this quick question. 
I'm in the the pickup lane. 
You can tell I don't have kids. 
What is that called? 
Carpool. 
Like a plane. 
Yeah, that's it. 
You're, you're you're at the park with your kids. 
You're playing golf, and you're just turning up your phone and answering questions. 
Those who still think, first of all, who do not do video, like, get out of here. 
But even the ones who are like, OK, I'll do it, but I've got to be buttoned up. 
I want to pay for a production company to come to my office and spend 15 to $20,000 and we're going to get these videos. 
They're going to be outdated by next week because one of the attorneys are going to leave. 
The amount of times I've seen that they've spent 20 + 1000 dollars to have a production company fly in, they've flown the drone over. 
Those things are outdated immediately. 
But the ones who are just consistently doing video all the time, answering questions, telling funny stories, whatever your thing is, if you're more of a serious person, provide facts. 
If you're a funny person, tell stories. 
If you're all you're doing is just again, building that authority so people know, like and trust you. 
So those are the ones doing it. 
Those are the Trail Blazers is they might have more of the production full on production style videos, but they're doing them consistently. 
And then they're also turning up their their phone and saying, Hey, sorry, I don't have any makeup on, but I've got to tell you this, this thing has changed in the law today. 
If this is you, this is going to impact you. 
That's it. 
You don't have to end with a call my firm today. 
I'm just providing education, education, education. 
You said earlier, we have options now. 
You can't be an *******. 
So you don't have to end every video with my team can help you. 
You can end some of them like that, but just provide solutions, answers, helping people. 
That is what the the the Trail Blazers who are differently that of course their website's good, their SEO is good. 
They're probably doing paid ads, but they're putting video everywhere. 
Yeah. 
And I think, like, it's a human nature to like, stage fright, video fright. 
You are never going to feel ready. 
Do it scared. 
Do it unprepared. 
Do it even though you know you're going to look back in a year and say, oh, my God, that sucked. 
I can't tell you how many things that I've seen that I posted way back when. 
And I'm like, oh, my God, I put that out in the world. 
Right, but we just, we have to accept that. 
And I think another thing that the legal industry has working against them is that they feel like they're walking on thin ice sometimes There's a difference between education and legal advice. 
And I have heard in the immigration space specifically because I saw this lady, I follow her on TikTok. 
She is a trailblazer. 
And while most immigration attorneys were scared to put education and answers out there because they didn't want to say the wrong thing, she's over here doing a TikTok live with her husband in the background. 
She's moving. 
People are posting questions, she's answering every single one of them. 
And you know, that's a perfect example of, like, she's doing the thing that everybody else is scared to do and it is serving her. 
And she's a great person. 
Like, she gives all her TikTok proceeds to pro bono cases. 
Like she has great, good, pure intention and she's out here doing amazing things. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
My, my business coach talks about it in this way of give all your best stuff away for free. 
Now, again, as a lawyer, I understand you can't answer specific details, but you can talk around the problem in so many different ways. 
You can even just to say what it's like working with your team, what it's like working with your firm, provide updates in the the, the law and what might be changing in your state. 
There's so much you can give and all you're doing again is building trust. 
People see you, they hear you. 
The amount of time my sales team says that someone shows up on our first call says, oh, you're owners from Alabama. 
I went fishing in Alabama because they, and they say, I feel like I know you. 
So sometimes I'll get on like our second or third call with someone who's considering working with our team. 
This happened last week and the lady's from Tennessee. 
She said, I just feel like I already know you. 
And I act like I've never heard that before. 
I hear that from so many people and that's great, right? 
I need them to feel like they know and, and trust me because the fact is it's a big commitment to work with our team. 
It's a big commitment to work with a vendor, to work with you, to work with me. 
Even if it's not a big financial commitment, but you're really working with somebody to say, hey, I'm in trusting you, That's hard. 
As a business owner, that's hard. 
I get that. 
So I want them to really feel like they can trust me because I need them to trust us. 
So building trust can only be done through your face, your facial expressions, your voice. 
Sometimes it doesn't even matter what you say, it's just that people can can see you and feel like they can relate to you. 
What's that energy? 
Just sharing your energy. 
Yeah, yeah. 
And and you have the benefit of your accent, your sweet, Southern inviting, comforting accent. 
I'm going to try that on our on my videos. 
I'm going to take on the Ashley down. 
No, no, no, no. 
Don't do that. 
If I could get rid of it, I might. 
But I spent 30 plus years in Alabama and I just can't get rid of it. 
It's my favorite. 
Like I do it for fun. 
That's so sad. 
All right, with all of this being said, what can we see in the future of marketing? 
What do we know? 
What don't we know and how do you help? 
What does that look like? 
What can you see in the future of marketing? 
Then the immediate future, I think is more video because social, social stores not going anywhere. 
There's still a place for websites. 
You have to have a really great website, like something that's changed in the in the website. 
So now 90% of your traffic, if not 100% of your traffic is coming from a mobile device. 
So you, you have to ensure that everything works on this cell phone. 
Everything has to work on this cell phone. 
So that's maybe that's, if you're a marketer watching this, you're going to feel like that's an outdated comment. 
But again, just talking to everybody every day, that's something you really need to gear towards, which is why you're doing video on your cell phone, which is why you're looking at your website, Go to your website on your cell phone. 
Can you click the buttons to call your firm, submit a contact form? 
Can you complete a conversion on your website? 
If not, they're never ending gaps, right? 
Call someone, anyone to help you on your on your firm's online platform. 
So that's what I would say is, is been here, but it's just going to continue to evolve. 
And then how can my team or, or what does it look like my team can work with firms? 
Everything we've talked about today, that's what we do Website again, website, SEO, social, e-mail, video. 
What we found a long time ago, it works best is when a firm comes in to us, we say, like I mentioned that triage call of let's really take a step back. 
I know that this is different in the marketplace because I've worked at other companies before I started mine. 
And what I found was so many of these companies try to fit a square peg in a round hole. 
And, and that's where we are different is we're not a huge agency. 
We work with a couple hundred law firms and we're not trying to work with thousands. 
So we really have the benefit of being particular saying, do we really think we can help you? 
So in our first call, we, we, we want to hear your goals. 
You're at 8 retained per month and you're trying to get to 15. 
So we're going to build a strategy for that goal. 
So that's what it works. 
Looks like working with our team is we just want to hear what your problems are and your goals and your obstacles. 
And then we'll build a strategy around that. 
And we'll do our very best to try to explain it to you in a way that makes sense. 
But why you might need to be doing the things that we are suggesting that you're doing. 
Yeah. 
And I appreciate that step back because maybe you have something and it's not working. 
Maybe you don't know what to expect from your marketing person. 
Maybe you feel like something's off. 
Maybe you don't know what all those moving pieces are. 
I think the value for just that triage call is worth it hands down. 
And I think it's important to remind people like, look, this is a journey. 
You really just have to take it one step at a time. 
Book the call, do the triage, choose one place to start and keep building on it because it's always changing. 
So you are wasting your time trying to catch up because you never will. 
Just start somewhere and do the hard thing. 
Yeah, you, you got to start somewhere. 
And, and that's where that's honestly, that's the part where people get the most frozen is they just don't know where to start because the marketing industry is, it's hard to understand and it's constantly changing. 
I'm just like in, in finances, I'm sure. 
So the the best next step is just to talk to someone who you believe you can trust. 
And then it's probably best you start working with them versus what is your price? 
What are the deliverables? 
Do you feel like you can trust them? 
Because they're going to be able to guide you on what might be best during this season of your firm. 
What might be best during this season of your firm? 
It's going to be ever evolving. 
So feel make sure you start working with someone you really feel like you can trust. 
They're going to answer the phone when you call and then they can guide you in the best next steps. 
Yeah, absolutely. 
Well, hey, this has been great. 
I feel like we got some really good hard truths out there. 
We may have said the hard thing. 
It made to have been, may have been hard to take in if you're listening. 
But look, seriously, we're saying these things because they are so true and they are things that we need to do. 
There are absolutely things holding you back. 
And until we have the hard truth and the pain is big enough, you're not going to let go. 
We just want you to let go. 
We want you to step into what's working and we're here to help. 
That's right. 
Thank you for your time, Chelsea. 
Always enjoy talking to you. 
Absolutely. 
Thank you, folks. 
We'll have all of Ashley's links in the comments to this episode so you can find her and book that triage called and a rap. 
Cool. 
Good job. 
Yes. 
Wonderful. 
OK. 
Do you want me to meet you over on Dreamyard? 
Yep. 
Anything you need me to hang on here or are you good?