Leadership In Law Podcast

48 How Podcasting & Video Marketing Bring Your Ideal Clients with Dennis Meador

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 1 • Episode 48

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Discover the extraordinary journey of Dennis Meador, the visionary CEO and founder of the Legal Podcast Network, who began his entrepreneurial path at just 14. From humble beginnings like snow shoveling and lawn mowing, Dennis shares how these early ventures instilled in him a fierce business acumen and strategic mindset. As his ventures evolved, Dennis found himself at the helm of a multi-million dollar business, only to confront the harsh reality of trust issues and betrayal in business partnerships. Listen as he opens up about the emotional turmoil of losing a company and the resilience it took to rise stronger in the fields of consulting and digital marketing.

Our conversation also uncovers the innovative strategies Dennis employs to revolutionize content monetization through digital marketing. Sharing his insights into harnessing the power of social media and podcasting, Dennis reveals the secrets behind the "stack" method and the game-changing potential of Google Business Profiles. His approach transforms how legal professionals engage with their audience, prioritizing meaningful connections over sheer numbers. For law firms, the episode is a treasure trove of strategies for building a formidable online presence, distinguishing their practice in a cluttered digital landscape, and fostering genuine client relationships.

Additionally, Dennis emphasizes the advantages of building a remote team and how treating contractors as partners can attract top talent. His plans to expand his team with creative minds dedicated to crafting unique content strategies underscore the importance of standing out in the podcasting space, particularly for legal professionals. Finally, the episode champions the invaluable sense of community among law firm owners, urging listeners to stay connected through resources like lawmarketingzone.com. By cultivating relationships and sharing insights, Dennis inspires attorneys to lead with vision and continue the dynamic growth of their practices.

Reach Dennis here:

www.thelegalpodcastnetwork.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennismeador/

The Law Firm Growth Guild is designed to help you learn and use proven marketing strategies, grow your firm smarter, and scale your law firm predictably.

Visit https://checkout.lawmarketingzone.com to find out more and to join the private community.

My team and I are adding new content weekly so you can be intentional about your growth and development each week.

Join our private community, Law Firm Growth Guild, Your Shortcut to Marketing Mastery and More Clients at
https://checkout.lawmarketingzone.com

Ready to level up your law firm marketing? Book a FREE Discovery Call with Marilyn Here: https://lawmarketingzone.com/bookacall

Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins
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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, dennis Meador, to the show today.

Speaker 2:

Dennis is the CEO and founder of the Legal Podcast Network and is dedicated to bringing turnkey podcasting solutions to professionals across the United States, particularly attorneys. With over 20 years of experience in marketing for the legal profession, he is passionate about helping attorneys engage more clients and establish themselves as authorities in their specific areas of practice. When he built his first business at just 14, selling snow shoveling, lawn mowing or paper route jobs while his team did all the work, this knack for business continued throughout his career, where he successfully grew three companies from under a million dollars in revenue to over three to five million dollars in just one to three years. His background is rooted in business and podcasting. In 2019, he had a successful podcast focusing on the food, music and life at Austin, texas. This experience gave him a unique perspective as he created high-quality podcasts. Now he combines these passions to offer innovative solutions for legal professionals. I'm excited to have you here, dennis Welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, good to be here.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. You've had a quite interesting and varied entrepreneurial journey. I'm excited to dive into that and talk about it.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. Yeah, you mentioned the first business I had. It was, I mean, you call it a business whatever, but it's kind of an interesting discovery. So I learned at a very young age probably eight or nine to just pay attention to money for different reasons that I won't necessarily go into. And then when I was about 14, I remember going and I had a friend who was his situation was kind of parallel to mine. I was one of well, six kids and so he was one of several kids and we were both kind of in a situation where we were around people with money, but we did. Our family didn't have money, and so you know, and our parents were the kind of parents back then where they'd say, well, if you want it, go earn it. This is what I'm buying you. If you want something more than these shoes or something more than these clothes, if you want the brands that are popular at the moment, then you need to make it happen.

Speaker 3:

So, at 14, in a private school, me and my friend had told me about he'd gone snow shoveling and he was like man. I earned like over $100 in a day and of course, to a 14-year-old that's a fortune. So we went out and started knocking on doors myself, my younger brother of about two years and then his best friend and we were taking turns knocking on doors. But they got to the point where we got maybe an hour in or so and I think we had maybe shoveled just a couple of driveways or sidewalks, and I think I was the one that convinced people to have us do it. And I don't know if I just, you know, batted my younger cuter eyes or what happened, but you know, got a couple of older ladies that said sure, boys, you can, you can shovel our walk. And so my brother and his friend we came up to was you know their turns, and they were you know one of their turn and they said I don't, I don't want to knock anymore, I'm tired of everybody telling me no. I was like, well, I'll knock, that's fine, it didn't bother me, you know, because I mean from a young age I've always had the philosophy If you don't ask, the answer is already no. So asking is just you know there's only upside to asking the question, that's right, which made me not so great of a kid all the time but definitely has made me a better adult.

Speaker 3:

So I'd go up to the door and I knock on the door and the lady's like, yeah, sure, just shovel down the walk here and the front walk area and I would and I'll give you $20. And I said, okay, can you give me a 10 and two fives? And she said, sure. So she handed me $20, a 10 and two fives. I wouldn't hand my brother a five, I handed his friend a five, put 10 in my pocket and I said, okay, guys, here's what we're going to do. You guys shovel this walk. By the time you get done, I'll keep knocking doors, I'll have another job for you and you'll just walk straight to the next job and we'll just make a ton of money. Today and they were like, okay, sure.

Speaker 3:

So, I just started doing that, knocking on doors, selling the jobs. Then I started taking down the people's address and writing it down and putting it in my pocket because I was like, okay, next time I'm just going to knock on these doors, you know. So I basically got those jobs my brother and his friend and then it started growing from there with basically anything within walking distance. It was snow shoveling, didn't come spring summer into early fall, because I grew up in Iowa, the Midwest, we would, you know, we, I got lawn mowing jobs. Same thing. I would go, I would get the job, I would collect the money, pay them half, I would keep half. And then I got into the paper route thing, resold all the paper routes, because they were like, wow, you're doing a really good job, you collect on time, you get everything out.

Speaker 3:

But it was my quote, unquote employees and my brother, who's now a super Walmart manager and has been for years and years. He always, when we get together as a family, he always jokes, he's like to think I was your first employee. And now here we are, all these years later, and you know, you've done this, you've done that, so you know. So that was my kind of my first adventure, where I learned you make a lot more money being the person that makes things happen than actually doing things Right?

Speaker 3:

And so that's how I got into it. Then, at 18, you know, I had always kind of told myself I wasn't going to be in sales because my dad was in sales and it was feast or famine it was. He was in home sales and you know, so, always canceling, oh, I'm stuck at this client's house and I, just to me, sales had such a negative connotation of just like owning your life. And so I took a job telemarketing while I was in college and ended up working for this big company at the time they were the one that had all the FOP contracts and calling and soliciting back in the 90s, if you remember that and I got into that and did very well at it, and all I did was I was just I got that and I got into that and did very well at it and all I did was I was just I got there and I was just like, put me, put me next to the two best people here and I just listened to them and I did what I called a second puberty, because they were all like guys in their 40s. Yeah, they're all like this is John with the fraternal order of police, you know. So they had these like kind of voices that would just like be booming. And so I did that and developed my voice. It took me a couple months but within I think four, five, six months I was the number one telemarketer in their whole company.

Speaker 3:

They ended up moving me into script writing, sales process development. They would say, hey, we think we could sell this and they would give it to me and then I would start talking on the phone. I would write it down, start talking, write it down, start talking on the phone, I would write it down, start talking, write it down. So I got into script writing, sales process development. And then from there it was just like I got into business to business sales, started selling ads and magazines, and I took that department from doing like $60 per person per hour to like $150 per person per hour and I was managing I was like 19 years old at the time and I was managing guys that are my age now 45, 47, and that had got passed over for the position, and it was a big jump into that sort of leadership. But you know, I just basically said guys, I'm not here because I'm better than you, I'm just here because they think I'll do a better job at motivating you. So what do I need to do to motivate you? And I just found out some people were like, if you leave me alone and you don't try to correct me and just give me my reports that I asked for, ok, sure, here you go, here's your reports. So that kind of snowballed into you know, from that point, on different businesses, I had some projects that you know, just like any entrepreneur, some projects that just kind of took off, just kind of took off at, I think I was maybe 20, 22, and a guy that I had worked with in advertising, selling, selling ads over the phone, maps, magnets, posters, and again just for whatever reason, ended up doing very well, was the number one rep in that company and they had I don't know four or 500 reps. And so he like he's like, hey, I started a company, will you come join me? Sure, absolutely. You know it sounded fun to me, I'd had. I'd done that in the past.

Speaker 3:

We started in probably six foot by eight foot room. We had to take turns making phone calls and within a year so I had come up with a product. It was called a just in case emergency guide. It was a six by nine refrigerator magnets and in the center it had poison control, animal control, on-call nurse at the hospital, emergency power outage number. And then around the side we had two by two inch squares that we sold to like one realtor, one mortgage, one insurance, one body shop. And then underneath it we had a little strip and we would have like a pizza place and then we would have two little logos and we would call the fire department, the police department. We'd say, hey, we've got these magnets, they've got these numbers on them. They do have local businesses, but nothing that would they as a business you'd be ashamed of, like they're big, big strip clubs, you know smoke shops or anything like that sort of controversial, and they would distribute them at their. So distribute them at their. So we would literally just call up a local business and say, hey, I'm with this company, but I'm working with your fire department. They're going to be handing out these magnets If you'd like to be on it. It's $500. Nice, so you know we would sell that. They'd get passed out. And that was one of the businesses that we took, literally took it from zero to within a year we were doing 500 or, I'm sorry, 5 million with a net 25% profit margin.

Speaker 3:

Wow, that's when I the first time I was able to kind of go remote. This was like 2000,. Oh, 2001, 2002. And I actually lived in Romania part-time, built a house there, went back and forth to Europe. My wife at the time was Romanian, so that's that's why Romania of all places at that time and 10 years out of communism, was definitely a different place. But it was a fun adventure. But yeah, so did that until moved to Tulsa, my partner convinced me to open up a second business and then, about six months into it, I'm using a lot of my passive income to build this second office and the agreement between us was that we were going to work together.

Speaker 3:

We had split the states, like he had these states, I had these states, and then I get into it. I've got like 15 people working for me, including like four or five members of my own family that have moved into the area. All of a sudden, one Friday there's no check in my account and I was like what's going on? And he said oh well, I talked to my attorney and you're competing against me and I said how am I competing when we share a name, we share a website? You're literally selling the product that I invented through the people that I train. And so basically I went and got a lawyer. When I went and got a lawyer, his lawyer suggested bankrupt the company and reopen it in his wife's name. So he did that, so that he went from a net 25 to a net 50. So then we split our ways. I did consulting for the next few years, because that kind of stuff like when you have to fire, sit down and fire people yeah, including your own family, and you know, in your mid20s it's a jarring experience.

Speaker 3:

It's terrible, just to sit there and, you know, have people that literally, like a month before, were just like you've saved my life, You're the best person in the world. And then, of course, you know I've learned a little lesson in life that anybody that you're paying it's not that you can't trust them, but they tend to express the most positive view of you that they possibly can.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

You know, it's not very often that you're going to get somebody who is getting paid well by you that's going to come up to you and be aggressive in some way. But all these people that you know made me just a short time before, made me feel as if I had progressed or as if I had saved their life, came back and were just like you're this, you're that, and it was crushing. And so it took quite a long time before I ventured back in. So now we jump ahead to like so did different consulting. I broke a lot of what I like. I did what I like to call breaking comp plans, and that's where people hire you at their typical comp and then you end up making more than anybody in the company and they get mad about it and including like the CEO, and like the CEO is just like your check is more than mine. And I'm like, yeah, and he's like I have to change that. And I was like why? That's the compensation that you agreed to. And he's just like, yeah, and I said I even told you that I'm very good at what I do and so I'm gonna make a lot of money. And they're like, yeah, but everybody says that when they start, I'm like fair enough, but still, like you know, or like you sell so much that they're that their fulfillment department kind of breaks, you know, because they just can't keep up with it. So I did that, you know, basically just like setting up, mostly like you know, two. You think about 2008, 2009, 2010,. When all that happened, a lot of businesses were like we don't know how to get business. Business just came to us so I would just come in, consult, set up the inside sales process, train the core staff and then basically have like a six month residual. That was basically how I was making my money, basically have like a six month residual. That was basically how I was making my money. And then, after a couple of like back and forth where they just you know I would I don't want to say I did too well, but they just didn't like how much I was making I launched my own agency and I launched it.

Speaker 3:

I kind of had this opinion early and like in the internet, especially like so I jumped on the internet 2000 and 2004. That was one of the first things I did. That's how I started working with 2003, started working with attorneys. That's kind of when I started and was like, oh wow, like these guys spend way more money than you know. I've been trying to get businesses to spend two 300 bucks with me and it'd be nice I could get 10 or 12 of them in a day. Then, all of a sudden, I started selling to attorneys.

Speaker 3:

At the time we were just basically, there's a company and they would just basically go in and buy all the Yahoo ads for next to nothing. And then we would show the PI attorneys, hey, google, personal injury, atlanta, and be like look right there at the top, there we are. And they'd be like, oh wow, you know, so we would sell them $5,000 a month and then have five in a market, so 25 grand per market, per practice area, and then we would just dominate that market, spend probably you know 20% of that on, you know, acquisition and own the Internet got the bigger. It would be OK. I knew that, like I was. Just like, everyone keeps talking about how the Internet is going to connect you with the world, but until it really connects you with the people right next to you, people aren't going to really plug into it that much.

Speaker 3:

Well, that was really kind of when Facebook was now becoming the social way 2012.

Speaker 3:

And I started an agency and it took off.

Speaker 3:

I called it Media Social and essentially what I did is I created a local, very hyper-local news outlet that was run completely by volunteers.

Speaker 3:

I had 15 people that were just passionate about different aspects of their community and I would give them a platform. We launched our page and, in a town of 150,000, we had 25,000 followers within a week when we launched our Facebook page. And so we, like I was going around, I was shooting video, I was shooting outside, I was doing all kind of like a 2012, 2013, 2014. I was like creating like all of these like really cool relationships with different types of businesses. I was like we had a couple of girls that were on the Voice at the time and like I managed to like basically be the exclusive person at their watch parties and stream it and like then had them for like I had this huge event with a local Chick-fil-A owner where we ended up like I don't know, we had probably a thousand people there. He gave away like over like a thousand Chick-fil-A meals, and then we had all these local businesses set up and then the girls perform, and then there's actually this lemonade that is now national that we launched at that.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow. Back then the Facebook pages were completely different. Games back then, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, I mean, it was. You know, the organic reach was disgusting, but we were posting 15 times a day and everything were more. We were just constantly posting. And so, like everyone in the town, like if there was a, if traffic was backed up, we'd get a text. And then I would say I would confirm it, Cause I'd always confirm. So people would just you know into the page oh, there's a fender bender at this corner, and I'd be like, okay, who's close to there? Hey, can you go check this out? Confirmed, Okay, cool, hey, everybody be careful. So like we were just doing news in live time, Wow.

Speaker 3:

And so, with, with confirmation, and so all the local media outlets hated us. They would cover everything we do, except for they wouldn't give us any credit for it. So they would just be like you know, like we had this, like we called it pray for Logan day. There was a young man on the cross country team at the high school that had got hit and basically had to start life over, and I covered it, and I really covered it very carefully. I didn't want it to seem like news, I wanted it to seem like, hey, this is, you know, this is our town, this is our people Like what can we do to help? Like you know, what can we do for this young man? And when his birthday came, a young girl said, hey, I got this restaurant, Do you think that you could help out with it? That they're going to donate a portion of their proceeds. And we ended up getting 30 or 40 businesses, Some of them like if they weren't restaurants. They did funds matching up to like five thousand dollars.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

And so we did. We did this. There were restaurants like Lone Star Steakhouse had a three hour wait that night. People were lined up out the door. The firehouse subs had to stay open an extra hour and a half.

Speaker 3:

I mean it was insane what we were able to do just by plugging a community together and it was like there was a bigger town next to it that it everyone would say they're from that town. It's kind of like I lived in Austin and then there's round rock just above Austin and a lot of people say, oh, I live in Austin and they really live in round rock. But people who are from round rock, they're like no, like we're round rock, you know, we're our own city, yeah, and so it was kind of that thing there. Like I just plugged in sort of mentality of you know, we're not this town, we're our own town and actually our town is older than their town just because they're bigger, blah, blah, blah, you know, and just kind of plugged into that. We go to the football games with like three cameras and like full like Friday night lights, the whole thing, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, like full camera crews and go around and we get everybody shouting our little tagline and so created all these cool videos. I mean, it's just everything that blew up and went really well until one day my wife was like listen, our kids are becoming teenagers and I need your help If you aren't going to be plugged in anymore, like maybe this isn't working. And I've always been of the opinion like I like my business but I love my partner, so I'm going to choose that over you know whatever. So I sold off that business for really pennies on the dollar of its value, but, you know, I made sure that they had good people to care of their stuff and I ended up in Austin, you know, so did the corporate life for a while and then relaunched this launch with another guy. He had a business, was SEO to attorneys and he had 87 clients when I started and then when I left, about a little over a year ago, closer to 500 clients, he was doing less than a million. When I started he was doing well over five when I left. So it was one of those things that and that was me knowing not to break like being very careful, because if you're like sell more, I'm like I'm not going to sell more, this is all you're handling. Every time I sell above that, then clients get treated poorly. I get emails like, no, this is. And then when you show me that you can handle more volume, I'm more than happy to do that. Yeah, so that's my entrepreneurial journey, just in the sense of what I've been able to be a part of.

Speaker 3:

I've always kind of had a knack is maybe the word, but seeing ways to monetize that are unique has really been my forte, because I was making money off Facebook. No one was making money off Facebook at that time and here I was making really good money because the way I did it is businesses would come to me and say, how do I work with you? And say, well, we've got these promotional packages, but also you want to be good at social. And I would just hire moms like stay-at-home moms in the community and they would manage like five of the accounts and they had to go in once a week for 30 minutes, take pictures, take a little video with the owner and they did all their posts for them and you know, I'd charge them 250 bucks. I'd pay the mom a hundred bucks and it was just like nice little side income and I didn't have to do anything. So I do. I always kind of figured out a way pretty quickly to monetize Same thing with like podcasting.

Speaker 3:

Like, coming into podcasting, I was like listen, podcasting to me. I didn't see myself as being able to get millions of followers, but what I can get is I can help people who want a handful of people that really need their services, like attorneys, I can connect those people. So, like, when I talk to attorneys, I'm like listen, because they'll ask me questions like well, this is this. I don't see any hooks. And like you know, because you can tell when they've watched the three to five minute videos on how to be good at whatever.

Speaker 3:

Right, yes, so they're like I don't see a hook on this and how is this supposed to go viral? And I'm like listen, if you want to go viral, then you know, learn how to ride a unicycle, learn how to juggle while eating a pickle and then drive off the edge of a pier, and you'll go viral. But if you want clients and you want to be respected for what you do, then that's what I do. Would you rather have 3,000 people see your video that you're never going to see, or 30, where five of them become your clients.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And obviously the second one is infinitely more valuable, and so understanding ways of monetization has really been like I said, it's been something that I've been able to kind of be like. That doesn't quite work for everybody, but I think I can figure out a way that it can work for most.

Speaker 2:

It is interesting I run into that all the time about how do you make this go viral. Is that really what you want? I mean, that is the question to ask. So you're with your new podcast network, so you're working with attorneys to get their voice out there and to be there the go-to attorney with their podcast. Are you focusing on level?

Speaker 1:

marketing.

Speaker 2:

Are you doing, how are you getting the listeners or what is your process?

Speaker 3:

So how are we getting them listeners? Primarily, we're using social media. So because we so we use this philosophy I call stack. So and it's really based off of, like Gary Vee, like I'm not going to act, like you know I don't know if that's what he calls it, but essentially, you know, one piece of content can become a million things and so, like we'll have the attorney sit down with us, for essentially it takes us a half hour to record one episode. So if they do one show a month, we need two hours every four months for them to sit down with us.

Speaker 3:

We take that, we shoot it streaming, just like we're doing now. We then take that, we edit it, we add skins, we add the lower thirds, you know, we make it look super professional for YouTube. We then also take, we obviously pull the audio, add the intro and outro for audio and then upload it to all through pod bean to like I don't know 23 different channels or something like that pond bean connects you to, and so we we then take, and so now we've got a full video podcast, we've got a full audio podcast.

Speaker 3:

We're on 24 different channels, and then we take, and we take that video and each episode we tell them we'll pull at least 10 shorts out of it and and then we're like, anywhere and everywhere you want to be Our big find recently and I say, fine, but it's been out there. I just have been so focused is GBP, google business profiles and Google my business? Right, because now you can add your own content. And if you are consistently adding your content, maps is where it's at You're going to jump to the front of the line. And so all of my clients, like I literally just hired a lady for a tent project that I've worked off and on with for years and I was like, listen, I need to get all the Google business profiles connected to all my clients because if I can help them with that, you know video is important, like, especially because you've got YouTube directly connected to Google, especially because you've got YouTube directly connected to Google.

Speaker 3:

So I always tell, like my attorneys, I'm like listen, you can outspend your competition or you can out position your competition Exactly and if you out position your competition, then people are going to hire you because of who you are, not because of you. Know and help them with that. You know video is important. Like process works with my process, I'll work with that. You know video is important, like, if my process works with my process, I'll work with them. But that's who we try to target is one to tens and you know most of the people that we work with they just they don't know. They're just like they know law. They don't understand social media and like well, how do I get TikTok? Like, what is TikTok going to help me? I don't understand social media and like well, how do I get TikTok? Like, what is TikTok going to help me? I don't have Instagram.

Speaker 3:

That doesn't help me and I'm just like it's not about necessarily getting clients off of Instagram. It's about getting the algorithms to start noticing you and getting the social clout to where you can be, in the places where you can get noticed. If you only do the things that you think are going to directly impact your success at the moment, you're going to fail long-term every time. And that's the problem with a lot of attorneys is they have that like old school mentality of like I give you 500, you put me in your paper thing or you put me on whatever. Then I get phone calls right away and I'm like listen, this isn't throwaway advertising, this is a pay-per-click. If you go spend $10,000 on pay-per-click and you're done and you got no clients, guess what that's it You're never going to get any clients from $10,000.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's turned off right.

Speaker 3:

Whereas with video, you know, it could be three years. Probably one of my biggest ways of getting clients is when we email or call them or reach out to them in some way and they're like yeah, actually, you know, I did a video like three years ago and my biggest case came off of it two years later and it was just a little video. I threw up there and didn't think much about it, and then I get a call and so I'm wondering if I had more videos and more content and more of this, and so we try to. Basically, my goal is to build a content machine for busy small business owners. I kind of want to be the, you know, I want to be the person that people think about.

Speaker 3:

They're like oh, are you a part of that podcast network? What is that? Oh, well, what they do is they build you a podcast, but also, like they do your YouTube and they do all of your social media, because we're getting everything in a metric Timing, their whole calendar. Like, if they do two shows a month, we're posting at least. Like once a day. They do a weekly show, we're posting twice a day for them. Like we're. We're coming in with a very holistic approach, because that is what's going to jump them to the front of the line. Google is good video. You know custom content. I always tell them this custom content on a continual basis that keeps people on the page will always kill it with the algorithms. That's the one piece of the algorithm that's never changed Since I've been playing with these algorithms from the very beginning. You have custom content that people actually engage with.

Speaker 2:

You're going to do well, but doesn't matter everything else and that's why it's so important that the post section of the google business profile so important that most people are not taking advantage of. You know the product services and posts. There's so many places and you know posts are expiring. But if you're constantly putting content up, it's new content going up all the time so you're absolutely spot on there and I love that you're doing.

Speaker 2:

you're taking those meetings, that you're recording and making the podcast and the video content. That's, that's fantastic. And are you doing this on? Are you focusing on any specific practice area or, like you said, just the size of the firm?

Speaker 3:

No, not any. I mean, I honestly originally thought because I pretty much for the most part worked with like consumer facing so personal injury, divorce, bankruptcy, like that help me. And they're like, and so we just do them on a national. Like we just launched a show for a guy who's an FDA lawyer. He's an expert in like FDA and imports and like all of that. I'm like, hey, like that works for you.

Speaker 3:

We just are in the production for another show for a guy who only does federal employer disability, wrongful termination, but they have to be employed by the federal government. And so it's like all of these like hyper niche sort of law firms that we're working with. That I'm just like you know, and we all say it, like niches and there's riches and niches, right, Right, and then like, but like you'd be surprised at how hyper niche these law firms get, you know, just beyond that, like we have a surrogate law firm that we do the surrogate corner, like I mean I could just sit here and just name off, probably out of our about 80 clients, probably 20, conservatively 20 to 25 of them are people that I would have never like picked out of a lineup to say that would be my client, wow.

Speaker 2:

But Well, you know it is interesting Some of the really tiny niches that that you know they specialize in it. Google it, they're going to come up. Or LinkedIn, they're going to come up. Very cool, exactly. And you're you're focusing on your you know the podcasting making it more an authority marketing. Are you getting them out there and making them an authority in their practice area? Like is it? Is it learning content? Not learning, but valuable content as well.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's all QA. So I actually have a content director, a lady named Tracy. Honestly, my team is like it's killer and I we're. I'm so lucky I launched this during kind of the remote age because, like Tracy, who I've actually worked with seven years, when me and my partner split or I should say he bought me out I actually had a number of people come over with me and they're just like hey, I want to work with you, nice, okay, that works for me. And so Tracy, who I've worked with for seven years, for over 10 years, she's done like interviewed attorneys for books, for website content and now for podcasts. So she understands how to like structure a content plan for these guys and we do everything based off of like FAQ stuff. We pretty much just everything isn't like how was your week? Oh, you know, tell me about your car. It's like we get into her like so what does you know? What happens during community property, that is, you know that preceded the marriage, what happens to that property during or whatever you know.

Speaker 2:

So no, I love that.

Speaker 3:

Like granular like, and so each podcast is like seven to seven to 10 questions about a very specific subject. Ok, so that we can then also repurpose that and divide it into news bites. We can also divide it into what we're going to be calling launching what we call question podcasts. It's only going to be like five minutes and it's going to be calling launching what we call question podcasts. It's only going to be like five minutes and it's going to be my host saying how does this work? And then them saying oh well, in the state of North Carolina, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, so about three to five minutes.

Speaker 3:

We also take the content and we transcribe it and then edit it into FAQ content and place it on their website for them, which helps with the SEO. Absolutely, you know they're like well, do you do the SEO? We're like, I mean, we could do some light SEO work. If you want to hire us for SEO, my team can do that. That's the world we came from, but that's not our focus. Like we can give it to your team, and if you have somebody doing SEO for your site, then you know they could do all they want with it. But yeah, I mean, I think that that's something like we were talking about stacking earlier, and then how we get it on that local level is we're really trying to backdoor through Google with the video, with the FAQ content. We're really just this is a content play to get them in the search engines and as a byproduct, as a byproduct of this machine, they'll also gain people who will listen.

Speaker 3:

I always explain to them. It's very rare that you're going to have people who are consistent listeners. What you're going to get is people who are going to have questions, search that question. You're going to come up as answering it with your podcast or your website, and then they're going to go to it. Now they're going to know you and then, because you've assuaged their fears and given them clarity to their issue, now they're going to like you. So you're already two thirds of the way.

Speaker 3:

What's the last piece? Trust. It's very simple. It's just a no like trust, updated for today's day and age. Yeah, because attorneys will tell you this, especially if they're like over. Just put them in front of me and I guarantee I'll close them. Well, sir, I hate to tell you this, but they are going to come in front of you until they're ready for you to close them nowadays. That's right. So you have to be who you are online, the same who you are offline. So many attorneys just have generic content online. It's just like I'm an attorney and I do this call me, and it's like, yeah, so do 150 other attorneys within a 30 mile radius, but what's different about you? But now, if they're answering questions, very specific questions, so we get very granular, like, okay, who is your ideal client? What is your ICP? Oh, divorce for high net worth individuals, primarily the man. Okay, let's speak to those very specific questions that they might have. Answer those questions consistently, continually talk about what's going on in the world that would affect them in their point of view.

Speaker 2:

That's fantastic. I don't know how. I can't tell you the number of conversations I've had with attorneys asking to do just that. Faq videos are the easiest thing to do and I love that. What you're doing is you're making it a bigger podcast and you're making it more omnipresence in their community, so that sounds fantastic.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, I love to take that approach and you know, really see, I just had one of my. So that sounds fantastic me. She said thankful for Dennis Metter for keeping on, for continually hounding me until I started the podcast, because it's built relationships and brought in clients and blah, blah, blah. So you know, that's what it's really about. You know, seeing that client that you have long-term, that's like okay, I let me understand where you want to go with this. Okay, are you? Did you just create your own job? Cause, if you just created your own job, then you just want, like, ideal cases, so, and you want to make an ideal amount of money. So how do I help you do that? Oh, you wanted to create a business, okay, so now you want a business, but does this business revolve around you or is it? Or did you want to create a company? And that's what is the job.

Speaker 3:

A business or a company is the way I kind of like categorize attorneys in my mind. The business guy wants to have you know, him and maybe two other associates, but he still wants to be like kind of the business guy. He doesn't even want it. He says he doesn't even want it, like he just wants to grow that thing and bring in more people and get more cases and did it. You know he's just driven and so once I kind of find out that goal then I kind of help tailor their approach to that goal.

Speaker 3:

And and I enjoy seeing the guy who comes in and it's just one and he's like no, I want to create a company. And then working with them for two, three, four years and then seeing a company and seeing it go from John Jones Esquire to Jones and Smith Esquire to Jones Smith and Johnson Esquire to Jones, smith, johnson and Jameson Esquire, with eight you know associate attorneys and however many paralegals and everything. And you know, you know you didn't do the hard work but you know that you were in the pit crew yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you're in the pit crew making sure that that that that car goes and goes as fast and as far as they want it to and need it to.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's I love that. I mean you're just you. They want it to and need it to. Wow, that's I love that. I mean you're just you're doing what we all need to do. And then if you add paid ads on top of that, then you're just multiplying the results. I love it.

Speaker 3:

And that's kind of our. Next thing I want to start doing is I used to do a lot of like five tens, you know, just minimal ad spend, but doing it on a radius and just making our guys like local celebrities. We're going to, you know, looking to start adding that, basically like an upgrade package, or even internally, because I like to sell in a way that this is what you're going to pay, this is all you're going to pay. I'm not going to raise your rate as long as you stay active with me. This is how much it is Like. That's always been something that I'd love to do for my clients and even if you keep somebody for eight years and they're paying a third of what everybody else is and maybe you're just breaking even still, you could point out and be like, oh, this guy we've worked with for eight years and when he started with us he was this size, and now we felt and we've seen this and we've seen this. So I love that kind of stuff, being able to impact other people.

Speaker 3:

I started to talk about my team and I know we're getting towards the end, but I want to talk about my team a little bit, because this is where this is where I honestly do take the most pride. I talked about Tracy and Tracy is, you know, a tremendous asset. We also have, like our producers front and back in. We we try to make sure that they have like 10 plus years experience. Our back end production guy he has, like he's done a Super Bowl commercial for Doritos. He does production for NFL. He's in Santa Monica, so he's like in the LA market he's worked with like Honda, the Economist, one Direction, the boy band from a few years back Major League Baseball Like his production credits are just phenomenal.

Speaker 3:

And then you know the advantage that in today's day and age of being able to get people like that is yeah, they are expensive, but it's not as expensive as if I was necessarily hiring as a Hollywood producer, because if you can give them consistent work, Right.

Speaker 3:

And then be understanding. When they get the big projects you can, they kind of like my guy. He'll be like oh, I'm on site, I'm working on your stuff tonight. Cool, hey, I won't bother you this week, because I know he's out there making his money. Then when he comes he still keeps his work done. And then when he comes back and he doesn't have anything for three weeks or three months, he's working with me putting out this like level stuff.

Speaker 3:

Months he's working with me putting out this like top level stuff and it's just a win-win for everybody. Nice same with my hosts. You know, you know background and like radio and then radio talk shows. And then now my primary host he's been doing full-time podcasting for six years and so he does a tremendous job and and that's that's. That's the advantage that we have is in this remote environment you can go get A players.

Speaker 3:

If you look at it from a like, if you pay them properly, you treat them properly. I treat all of my people that are contractors like that, as fellow business owners. I don't treat them like they work for me and I never use that word for me. And when people say, oh, the boss says I'm like, don't call me the boss, I'm just Dennis, we just work together. You don't work for me, you work with me and I might have to sometimes give you direction on where to go, but I don't want you seeing me as the boss, I want you seeing me as your.

Speaker 3:

I'm a much better motivator than punisher. If I have to punish somebody, they're not going to be on my team long, right. If I have to, you know they're only motivated by fear, not interested, right. But if you're motivated by, you know success, teamwork, the satisfaction of getting done, or if you're motivated by money, I'm okay with that. You know, hey, if you get X amount done, I'll pay you this, but if you get to Y, I'll pay you this, and if that all reaches the same level of quality, I'm all for it, like I'm all for doing that. So building a remote team in today's day and age, I think, is a skill I've had the privilege of off and on for 20 years doing so. I kind of learned the archetypes and learn with people what's good, what's bad, what works, what doesn't.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean we've all made bad hires, but I think having the process of getting that A player right away and the synergy you hire, the personality I just love the amount of talent you've got surrounded with. It sounds like if someone chooses you to help with the podcast and building that video content and making them the star of their local area, you've got a great team that can actually do high quality work and get their business growing for them.

Speaker 3:

Exactly. I mean, I tell them right off the bat. I'm like listen, with technology an eight-year-old can have their own podcast. Right now you could just take your iPhone, talk into it for 20 minutes, send it off to somebody in Fiverr and upload it to Apple. That's right. Phone, talk into it for 20 minutes, send it off to somebody in Fiverr and upload it to Apple, that's right. But it's like.

Speaker 3:

It's like back in the day you could say that you have a, that you have your own TV show, but if I, if I, tune in and it's on, you know cable access and you've got like a curtain behind you and you're sitting on folding chairs and you've got a grainy camera, I'm not going to be impressed. And it's the same thing. Today you can have a social media presence very easy, just shooting it yourself and doing it yourself. But most attorneys, they didn't go to law school so they could learn how to be a video editor, an audio editor, a social media marketer, a branding person. That's my next big thing this year is in the next few months, I want to hire a person that is literally just going to sit around and think of creative ways for our clients to present themselves and to do these videos and to you know episodes and their brand and just like, literally, that's all they're going to do is just be a creative mind. That just goes client by client, is just like, oh well, what if they did this? Cause I'm doing that now? I'm like we have a process server and I'm like why his show should be about when he went to serve papers, the crazy things that have happened, because attorneys will get a kick out of that. And you know, because his clients are attorneys, because I serve right now I'm serving attorneys Because I have a huge database about 200,000.

Speaker 3:

We're usually marketing to anywhere around 50,000 firms at any given time through our different channels. Then what I've noticed is I have all these businesses that serve the lawyers as well that are not my competitors. So I started creating shows with them and I want to get maybe 15 shows. So now I'm getting paid to create content for my client base which will endear them to me. So I'm just like building all these shows over here and going to attorneys and saying, hey, look at all this stuff on the podcast network that helps you.

Speaker 3:

And now so they're plugging in and saying, oh, wow, this is good for me. It's not just trying to sell me, it's helping me. But then they're like wait, I want a podcast. And then it just kind of again, I guess I just have this knack for being able to find these little things that are just like, okay, let's plug them in. And even those people, like we do a daily email to our client not our client base, but to our marketing base, that is, you know, to help them. And now one newsletter each week is just covering and the more we grow maybe it'll cover two or three, but it's just covering one of our, one of our what we call vendor shows, and so it just enables them to be able to be go to our cause. I think we have about 40,000 in our opt-in and email database. Okay, well, okay.

Speaker 2:

It certainly sounds. You have the like, you have the base. Now it sounds like with what you offer to attorneys, that'd be definitely advantageous for them to reach out and talk to you. Where would be the best place for them to connect with? Best place for them to connect?

Speaker 3:

with Probably our website, you know, just thelegalpodcastnetworkcom. Pretty simple. Don't forget the although I do own Legal Podcast Network and I should just forward it because I know people forget it, but the kind of like the Ohio State University, right? Yes, the Legal Podcast Network. Maybe I'll start saying it that way.

Speaker 2:

We'll make sure that that's in the show notes. Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly, that's probably the best way. Check out my team, Check out, you know, and then YouTube just just search on YouTube, the Legal Podcast Network, you can come up with our channel. You can check out some of our videos. I'll have people say, oh well, this video has been up for two weeks and so they got 27 views. I don't know if I'm interested and I'm like you're not thinking like how this benefits you. These are 27 people that wanted to view this.

Speaker 4:

Right.

Speaker 3:

You know, like how much would you pay for 27 people to be like sit there and listen to you answer questions about their case type?

Speaker 2:

Exactly. I mean, you got to think of the big picture, and yeah it does work out that way. Well, gosh Dennis, this has been. This has been absolutely interesting and and I really appreciate your time. I know that you're going to be getting people reaching out to you, but I thank you for being here. We'll make sure that your links are in the show notes so that people can reach you quite easily.

Speaker 3:

Thank you very much. I I've enjoyed it. I probably talked a little too much, but I'll get better at that.

Speaker 2:

It's fine. It's fine. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3:

Thanks, marilyn, and thanks everybody for watching or listening.

Speaker 4:

Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.

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Marilyn Jenkins

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