The Foster Consulting Story: How One Fax, One Lawsuit, and One Opportunity Built a Marketing Powerhouse
In an industry notorious for high churn rates and revolving-door relationships, Foster Consulting® clients stick around for years—often decades. Why do they stay when everyone else is agency-hopping like marketing nomads?
- Loyalty Over Profit. Tom brings Marine Corps values to every client relationship—and that means loyalty isn't for sale. The company doesn't jack up fees just because a client starts making bank. They don't trick clients into unnecessary expenses with shiny new "premium packages." Pricing stays competitive, and the focus remains laser-focused on results, not revenue extraction.
- Family, Not Transactions. When Foster accepts a client, they don't just add another name to the roster—they invest 100% of their resources into that client's success. The relationship isn't transactional; it's transformational. Tom personally builds deep friendships with clients, finding tremendous joy in watching them dominate their markets instead of just surviving them.
- Accountability at Every Level. Foster operates with military-grade chain of command structure. Team members are held accountable for the success of the clients they serve. If they fail, they're replaced. This isn't corporate fluff—it's disciplined accountability that ensures every client receives excellence, not excuses.
- Proven Systems, Not Empty Promises. Foster Consulting® can guarantee 10 new qualified clients in 90 days because the systems actually work—if clients let the team implement them fully without micromanaging every detail. This isn't hope marketing or wishful thinking. It's engineered success based on 30 years of battle-tested refinement.
- Selectivity Breeds Success. Foster says "no" to prospects with unrealistic expectations, those who won't invest in their own success, or those with a track record of churning through agencies like a marketing meat grinder. This selectivity ensures that every client in the Foster family is positioned to succeed, not just pay bills.
The Beginning
Every great company has an origin story. Apple started in a garage. Amazon began selling books out of a basement. Facebook was born from a college kid's questionable social experiment.
Foster Consulting® started with a lawsuit.
Not the kind of lawsuit that establishes legal precedent or protects intellectual property. The kind that makes you question your life choices while staring at legal paperwork and wondering if there's still time to get that accounting degree your mother wanted you to pursue.
Founder Tom Foster, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran with six years in military communications, brought military discipline and cutting-edge technical expertise into the emerging digital world. After pioneering fax-based direct marketing in the software industry—using the very first fax boards to reach customers while competitors were still cold-calling like prehistoric sales cavemen—Tom found himself at a crossroads when the internet disrupted everything.
Unemployed but undeterred (a dangerous combination in any veteran), Tom joined his mother-in-law's court reporting firm, Casamo & Associates, to help with marketing. He built their website. Then he built sites for friends and family.
Turns out, Tom was really, really good at this whole internet thing.
In a bold move that would define the company's future—and nearly end it before it started—Tom sent a promotional fax to 700 lawyers in Fairfax, Virginia. He received exactly two responses.
The first was a lawsuit for unsolicited faxing. Because apparently, lawyers don't appreciate being fax-bombed by enterprising Marines trying to sell them website services.
The second was from Ben Glass, a solo attorney and savvy marketer who would introduce Tom to a network of other lawyers. That single connection launched everything. Tom bought the web business from Casamo, founded Foster Web Marketing (now Foster Consulting®), and never looked back.
The lawsuit? It became the best conversation starter in marketing history.
The Innovation Era
As demand exploded, Tom faced a challenge: how do you scale personalized service without sacrificing quality?
The answer was Dynamic Self-Syndication (DSS®)—a proprietary content management system that empowered lawyers to update their own websites quickly with fresh, relevant content that search engines craved. While other web companies charged for every minor update, DSS® gave clients control and agility.
But Tom didn't stop there.
Recognizing that websites alone weren't enough, Foster became one of the very first companies to introduce video marketing to law firms. Tom built a professional video studio and flew attorneys in from across the country to shoot compelling website videos that connected with potential clients on a human level. This wasn't just a service—it was a revolution in how legal professionals marketed themselves.
These weren't isolated tactics. They were the seeds of what would become the Perfect Practice System.
The Expansion
In 2011, Tom met Rem Jackson at a marketing mastermind and annual summit for podiatrists. The conversation was revelatory: doctors were drowning in the exact same systemic chaos as lawyers. They needed more than marketing band-aids—they needed a complete practice transformation.
Foster expanded into healthcare with the same battle-tested philosophy that made the company successful with attorneys: genuine partnership, comprehensive systems, and an unwavering commitment to client success instead of flashy vanity metrics.
The results spoke louder than any PowerPoint presentation. Medical practices that implemented the Perfect Practice System® growth framework achieved extraordinary growth that made their competitors wonder what the hell they were doing differently. Some doctors, like Dr. Peter Wishnie, transformed their practices so completely that they were able to sell them for millions within just a few years.
Meanwhile, law firm clients continued to achieve the kind of remarkable results that make other attorneys cry into their billable hour reports. Hupy & Abraham, which started with Foster as a single office in Milwaukee doing about $1 million in case value, expanded to 11 offices across three states and now generates over $2 billion in case value. That's not growth—that's domination.
The Evolution
Through decades of working with hundreds of legal and medical practices, Tom identified a critical pattern: marketing creates a problem that exposes all the other problems.
When leads increase from 20 to 50 to 100 per month, practices with broken intake systems, overwhelmed staff, inefficient operations, and poor financial controls collapse under the weight of their own success. The marketing worked—but the practice couldn't handle it.
This insight led to the development of the Perfect Practice System©—a comprehensive framework that addresses every aspect of practice management:
- Marketing - Targeted campaigns that attract ideal clients
- Intake - Systems that convert leads into clients efficiently
- Operations - Workflows that create consistency and quality
- Finance - Financial management and profitability optimization
- Staffing/HR - Team development and accountability structures
- Technology - Integrated systems including the robust DSS® platform
Unlike typical marketing agencies that focus on a single channel—SEO, PPC, or social media—Foster Consulting creates congruence across all systems. When everything works together, growth isn't just possible; it's inevitable.
Are You Ready to Join the Family?
If you're tired of:
- Marketing agencies that overpromise and underdeliver
- Watching competitors succeed while your phone stays quiet
- Working 60-hour weeks just to keep the lights on
- Feeling like you're fighting the same battles every month
It's time to discover what our family of 200+ lawyers and 60+ medical practices already know: the right marketing partner changes everything.