The Kawartha Small Business Podcast · The Kawartha Small Business Podcast

190: A Business Conversation With Paul Riley

·43 min·2 clips

Paul says his own divorce led to a judge asking, 'Am I going to have to call security?'

Brian and Matt open from the Thrive Podcast Studio at Thrive Coworking Community in downtown Lindsay, Ontario, at 18 Kent Street West. Paul Riley joins them for a loose business conversation. He runs the Riley Divorce and Family Law Firm on Kent Street, and says the office has been theirs for about four years. Paul says the firm helps professionals and business owners get out of bad relationships and fight to protect what is rightfully theirs. That is his elevator pitch, and he does not dress it up much more than that. He also explains that this is his second career. As a kid, he says, he only wanted to be two things: a news anchor and a lawyer, and he has now done both. Before law, he spent eight years with CBC in Toronto as a news reporter and anchor. From there, the discussion moves into the practical side of running a service business. Marketing keeps coming back into the room. The hosts and Paul talk about what actually brings clients in. They mention magazines, radio, Google Business, professional referrals, and former client referrals. Paul says the firm keeps close track of every source. If they land fifteen clients in a month, he can tell exactly where each one came from. That kind of tracking shapes where the firm spends its money. It also shows them when a channel is not pulling its weight. The conversation gets very specific about referrals. One client, Paul says, has sent him fourteen people. He also tells a COVID-era story about meeting a referral source for backyard tea while they sat at opposite ends of the table. The point is simple: people who are scared need empathy, a clear guide, and someone they can trust. They close by pointing listeners to the firm’s Kent Street office and the black-and-white building they jokingly call the tuxedo building.

As heard by us

A family law practice conversation that treats client growth as something you can actually track.

Paul Riley's segment lands closer to a small business case study than a legal profile. It follows how a local family law firm finds clients and keeps track of what actually works, with the clearest detail coming from referrals, Google Business, radio, magazines, and even the…

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Hear how a divorce and family law firm tracks exactly where each client comes from.

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