Leadership In Law Podcast

S02E56 Hub and Spoke Marketing Simplified with Nancy Cavey

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 2 • Episode 56

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What if potential clients were already sold on hiring you before they even reached out? That's the reality attorney Nancy Cavey has created through her innovative content marketing approach, and in this episode, she breaks down exactly how she does it.

Nancy reveals how she transformed from practicing in a marketing-averse legal environment to creating a content ecosystem that positions her as the go-to authority in her niche practice areas. Her "hub and spoke" approach starts with educational blog posts that get repurposed across platforms - from YouTube videos to podcasts, newsletters, and social media - all working together to establish her expertise.

Rather than competing with deep-pocketed firms through advertising volume, Nancy focuses on education and empathy. She shares actionable strategies for generating content ideas (like tracking the questions clients ask and should ask), batching creation for efficiency, and using simple tools anyone can afford. Her iPhone, a basic tripod, and occasionally a music stand as a teleprompter are all she needs to produce daily videos that attract nationwide clients.

The most powerful insight? Nancy's content strategy has clients approaching her completely pre-sold, saying "Where do I sign?" because they've already consumed her educational material. She's not just marketing services; she's building relationships through knowledge-sharing that demonstrates her understanding of clients' needs.

For attorneys intimidated by content creation, Nancy offers reassurance that the process becomes more efficient with practice, estimating she spends just four hours biweekly on writing and 2.5 hours on filming. Her most direct advice cuts through excuses: "You're not too busy. You just are procrastinating."

Reach Nancy here:

https://caveylaw.com/
@CaveyLaw on YouTube
@FloridaDisabilityLawyers on Facebook

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.

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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, nancy Cavey, to the show today. In her late teens, nancy's father was diagnosed with leukemia. As someone who witnessed firsthand the devastating emotional and financial impact on both individual and family that being disabled and filing for benefits can have, nancy is not just an attorney but an empathetic presence who understands what claimants are going through. Nancy has spent her career working tirelessly on behalf of Floridians who have not received fair treatment or promised benefits. In August of 2004, her legal peers selected her to serve as the chair of the Workers' Compensation Section of the Florida Bar. She's a member of the National Organization of Social Security Clans Representatives, the American Association for Justice, the Employee Benefits Section of the American Bar Association, the National Employment Lawyers Association and the Florida Bar. I'm excited to have you here, nancy, welcome.

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this discussion.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I love your background and how you work to serve other people in the Florida area. The one thing I wanted to talk about that you do exceptionally well is your marketing of your firm, and I wanted to talk about how you go about doing that, because your marketing has allowed you to get past the Morgan Morgans of the world in your area. You care to elaborate a little bit and what made you get started doing that.

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, quite frankly, the Florida Bar was not particularly supportive of lawyer marketing back in the day, and so I had to find my own way to the world of marketing. I think the initial thing I had to get over was the concept that marketing at that point in time was a quote, unquote, a bad idea. Lawyers who were great lawyers just didn't have to market. Fortunately, that mindset has changed, and over the years I've been fortunate to participate in a number of mastermind groups where I've been exposed to different kinds of marketing, marketing techniques, the sales process and things that we just didn't learn in law school about educating the public. And so I've come at marketing not to yell louder than any other lawyer, but rather to educate my prospective clients, and that education process continues once they become our client, because we do a lot of informational materials at each stage of a case, we do a lot of videos and in our lose letter we've always got links to features about, like the disease of the month or a case that we think is important.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so you grow into your marketing with an educational stand, absolutely, and you do. You call it the hub and spoke approach. As far as creating content, that's one thing that I think. Coming up with social media or online marketing or any of that kind of stuff, some attorneys just can't seem to get their head around what to do and how to get out there. Think is the best way to approach, bring value to the table instead of, like you said, being the loudest. So how did you, what do you start with when you're looking at your hub and spokes approach and how do you make your content work for you?

Speaker 3:

Well, I love to write, and so I seem to always have something to say or thought about something, and if you don't, quite frankly, I think that should be a problem, because I think one great way for lawyers to get started about thinking about this is ask yourself the top 10 questions that you get when you are talking to a new client. Think about the 10 things they don't ask you. Think about what you do in the course of your initial discussion, what you're explaining, and that ought to give you at least 30 topics to talk about In this day and age. I write based on prompts. In other words, I do Google Alerts on different topics, because my practice is medicine-based, so I have Google Alerts on probably 50 different kinds of diseases. So I get that. I read cases. I also have my office staff keep piece of paper by their desk and write down the questions that they get or new issues that they haven't heard of, and so that sort of is the source, if you will, of my ideas. I write 30 blogs a month. I've been doing it so long that I can do one in about 15 minutes, and I use the common voice activated process, if you will. Then that blog becomes, if you will, the spoke of the wheel. Okay, then we have all sorts of different forms of media. So I will take that blog and I will use AI, if you will, and I will say, okay, take this blog, give me a summary, give me the format, if you will, for a LinkedIn piece, give me a format for TikTok, give me a format for this platform, that platform, this platform. And so I am really using AI to help me now, not so much write the content, but reformat the content in a way that will meet whatever the particular audience is that I'm trying to address.

Speaker 3:

And then I use my iPhone. So I carry a tripod around and I have a studio here in my office, as you can see. I have a studio at my home and I carry my tripod around with my phone. And so what I will do is, in addition to a tripod, I have just an old fashioned music stand, okay, okay. So on the music stand, I have my teleprompter with my script. I have, like, this piece of equipment. I have right here there's a toggle to put my phone if I wanted to. But on my tripod, you know, I've got my, you know my phone, and I can format it sideways or horizontal, any the way. I need to match it for the format. And then, literally, marilyn, I have a marketing schedule Okay, all the way out to the end of 2025.

Speaker 3:

And so what I try to do is schedule out in advance what it is I'm going to be talking about, and I will do that, you know, based on this format. So I'm going to to do video, I'm going to do format for LinkedIn, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and it's actually scheduled in on my marketing calendar and blocked on my main calendar. So it's not only just creating the content, it's making the time to, you know, actually film the content, because, as we know, in these days, it's all visual. The other thing that I do is I have, so we post a video a day on YouTube, and that has dramatically increased our presence. I have people from all over the United States who will search by disease or by insurance company. They will find me and say, well, you're the only lawyer who's done a piece on this disease or that. I love that, and so that's one of the ways I've been able to stand out. It's educational content. It's content that is posted daily on YouTube. We're refining our social media and our LinkedIn campaigns in terms of the frequency and the nature of what it is we're posting.

Speaker 3:

But so I start with a blog. Then I have social media of all formats, but then I also have a podcast. It's called Winning Isn't Easy. We've been doing it for four years. We post, I think, 48 weeks out of the year and the basis of that podcast is the blog. So we will format that in three segments.

Speaker 3:

I have commercials breaks that advertise my books and I'm going to digress a second. The book was created based on what it is I wanted to say to my clients. My initial here's the social security, the five-step sequential evaluation. This is the claims process. These are the traps.

Speaker 3:

I have two very two long-term disability books. I do a risk and disability litigation across the United States. I have one for professionals. It's 235 pages long. That took me a year to write. I again that's part of my marketing funnel. So if you come to our website, you can order a copy or download or hard copy of this book.

Speaker 3:

Again, that book was created based on my years of experience dealing with clients, what they want to know and the way I want to explain it and educate them. That the YouTube videos and the books give me an authority. That right that I have, you know I've, I've granted to myself. If you, nobody, nobody appointed me, I self anointed myself, if you will, as an expert. I've heard you of the of my writing. Now we have just launched another podcast two weeks ago, for the social security disability. So, Marilyn, what I have found is that these kinds of marketing efforts have made me the wise woman, if you will, on the social security mountain and on the ERISA long-term disability mountain.

Speaker 3:

People will call me up and I don't have to interview them. They say where do I sign the contract? I want you to represent me, so Pre-sold, yeah. So I know this sounds like a lot and yes it is. It's taken years to do this, but you got to take it in little, daily, I think, daily bite size chunks. If you will organize and take advantage of AI, ai tools, like we use Opus Clips, so I can shoot a blog post which turns out to be three to five minutes and we can say okay, opus Clips, we want you to shorten this to two minutes. We want you to do it in a LinkedIn format. We want you to do it this way, so I don't have to do that if I don't want to. So lots of tools out there that you should be taking advantage of and which will give you a competitive advantage against your competitors.

Speaker 2:

I absolutely agree with everything you said. I think the big thing is the overwhelm when we see what you're doing. Because you've been doing it so long, you've got it on your schedule. People get overwhelmed at the even thought of seeing doing something daily, right, but I like what you're doing is that the Google Alerts is something I haven't thought about. That you know I do a lot for social media, but I love the idea of setting up a Google Alert of something that's important to your practice area and using that as your content idea. I do recommend the FAQs. What are the top 10 questions you get asked? What was it? I really like that you pointed out. What are the 10 things you wish a client would have asked? Right, that is a whole different level of education, so that I love that, okay.

Speaker 3:

So between the, we've just given them 30 things they can do pretty easy. I mean, just pick up the old fashioned dictating machine, if you will, for whatever you want to do, and say, okay, question number one is blah, here's my answer. You want to do and say, okay, question number one is blah, here's my answer. And then have you know transcribed or have it. You know. You know use Fathom if you will, and out spits the, the summary that you can edit. So there are all sorts of tools that that you can use. That will make this very simple. But so you know, for the next 30 days, you answer one of those questions and you've got your start.

Speaker 2:

Right Now, are you doing any batch? And I see you say it's on your calendar every day, but are you batching content as far as like say, ok, good, because that's that's one thing? I find that helps people kind of get over the idea of, oh my God, I've got to do this thing every day.

Speaker 3:

Now you know, I don't do it daily anymore because I batch so much that I don't have to do that, but I think the way to get started is to batch it. The other thing I would say to you, marilyn, is I've been doing video, I think since 2008. I've been doing this a long time and you'll see how I've gotten younger over the years, I know the video has gotten better too, right.

Speaker 3:

But I've gotten better at it. You know, I shot video last Thursday. I went out, saw a setting that I liked, you know, pulled out my equipment and it was at the end of the day and I just started shooting and the first three times I started it was like I of the day and I just started shooting and the first three times I started it was like I hate this. I stopped it and discarded it and started again until I got a rhythm. For those of you who are litigators, you know we know how to talk, if you will. Okay, we know how to organize our thoughts. I I prefer. Sometimes I've used index cards, sometimes I've used a teleprompter, sometimes it's like, okay, I've got a thought about this current event and I'm going to make these three points and off I go I love that.

Speaker 2:

Now, one of the things it gets to be the like a teleprompter. If you're using a teleprompter on your phone, you're still not looking at the camera and I've heard people that really that irks them if they're watching a video and someone's not looking at the camera or they don't like the fact about themselves. And my thought is, if they're looking near the camera and if you put captions over it, they're going to be reading the captions instead of looking at your eyes. I mean you can find something wrong or some reason to procrastinate, I think.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I mean, if that's such an issue, just use that pointed signature sticky thing. You know that you got and I will put it literally right on top of the camera, either on my phone or on my computer, so I know where I'm looking. There's also a device I just saw recently that you can put over your camera area. That will allegedly you can look you know, yes, I've heard of that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, like a clear. Yeah, a friend of mine has like almost a clear tray that's on their computer that they, you know they're looking that direction and it's just they can look at their and read their notes going through. So it's quite interesting different options, but I love how you've made it simple. You've also, you know, worked into a process that works really well for you and you're on LinkedIn. Obviously, youtube is huge and are you putting your video? Are you doing video and audio for your podcast?

Speaker 3:

Yes, and then so we'll take the podcast Podcast is between 25 and 35 minutes. It goes out to our editor I think I pay maybe $25 a pop to get it cleaned up. Then what we'll do is we'll run it through Opus, another program, and say, well, okay, we want you to take this and format, and format, you know, give us, if it's a 30-minute clip, give us, you know, 15, 90-second clips. Give us, you know, 10, two-minute clips so we can, you know, basically decide what it is we're doing and, quite frankly, I never see it after that. All I do is because I love to write. We're doing and, quite frankly, I never see it after that. All I do is because I love to write is I do the writing and I do the filming and then after that I have staff or offshore employees that do it all for me.

Speaker 2:

And Opus is getting much, much better. I know their newest update was really good, but the one thing I like about Opus is they also grade the videos and so in what percentage they believe it or get better viewed. So you can yeah, so you can choose which one you want to do there and okay, very cool. And you find that, using your YouTube channel and your LinkedIn, you're now being seen. People are coming to you pre-sold because you put everything out there and you've got books for both professionals and for consumers, correct.

Speaker 3:

We also do a newsletter every month and the format of the newsletter is really like a client story, a success story. It's talking about a particular disease of the month. We do fun stuff in the office. One of our employees just proposed to his girlfriend, so we did a whole section on that. Christy and I went to PodFest Okay, we're the few lawyers who actually goes to a convention about podcasting because I think that's interesting. So we did some photos about that. We do a recipe. We do you know.

Speaker 3:

We publish the five-star reviews that we get a couple of them. We do shout-outs to people who refer cases to us and you know people will—we used to do it hard copy, we do it now electronically. We have a really good open rate and people will sometimes call us and say you know where is it? And I'll say well, you know I'm not in charge of that, but I know it's good, so so that's part of the hub. You know we start with the blog, then we do a podcast.

Speaker 3:

We do different forms of social media based on the platforms.

Speaker 3:

We use it in our newsletter, I use it in my podcast.

Speaker 3:

So basically, even though it sounds like a lot of work, it's one piece of content that is now used on different platforms and, believe me, it was a much more involved process before we had some of the technology that we had today. So, with all due respect to the audience, you're not too busy to the audience, you're not too busy. You just are procrastinating. And you need to get off the cuff and do it, because most people who hire a lawyer don't want our services. They don't want to need us and they certainly don't want to pay us, and they know that every lawyer went to law school and it doesn't necessarily matter to most people where you went to law school necessarily matter to most people where you went to law school. What matters is that you're empathetic, you are compassionate, you want to educate them, you want to help them make wise decisions, and to me, that really is the way to stand out from all of the competitors that we have those that advertise and even those that don't advertise.

Speaker 2:

I absolutely 100% agree with you, and what I love about your newsletter is you're doing exactly what you know. Those of us in marketing have been trying to get our clients to do this. More is the know, like and trust factor. Yes, yes, you have the authority with your book, with your podcast, with your YouTube, but you're getting your information out as being an authority, but you're also letting people get to know you, your team, your voice, and people do business with people they know, like and trust, so they're coming to you pre-solved.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. Again, people will say you know, I saw your YouTube videos, I saw your podcast. You know I've ordered your book. You know?

Speaker 2:

where do I sign? Nice, that's fantastic. That's great, and you have. You've obviously been extremely successful in what's termed the male-dominated field and you're just consistently getting new calls and new clients from your marketing efforts yes, fantastic. What about how much time so you're getting your Google Alerts?

Speaker 3:

no-transcript.

Speaker 3:

So from the second I hit the seat in the airplane to the second that they tell me I have to put my stuff away, I'm writing, you know, I'm not watching movies, I'm just there, I've got my material and I'm just well okay.

Speaker 3:

So you know, say four hours every two weeks writing right the filming, you know, with stops and starts, I would say to you probably two and a half hours, and it takes a while to set up the equipment and I kind of move locations, I put my buds in and I shoot, and then if I don't like it, I, you know it takes a while to set up the equipment and I kind of move locations and I put my buds in and I shoot and then if I don't like it, I, you know, reshoot it again. So at this point, because I've done it so long, you know I'm very efficient at it People take this approach. They're going to think, oh my God, it's going to take forever. And it might take forever for a little bit bit. But I promise you, the more you do it like like anything, the more you do it, the better you get and the more comfortable you get.

Speaker 2:

So I mean bottom line. You're not saying very much time at all. I mean, okay, so you don't stand at the water cooler and chat for 30 minutes this morning. Get to work, you know, do something. It's, yeah, it's. I love that you take that focused time. Though I do, I get a lot of work done when I'm traveling as well, because you don't need to watch a movie, you don't need to. You know, I can finally finish a book I've been wanting to read or, you know, finish writing a couple of articles that I've been wanting to get to and I haven't been able to get, or work on a you know powerpoint or something.

Speaker 3:

So it's, it's good to use that time, that amount of time yeah, so back at the day, I would just take saturday mornings for about two hours, okay, and I would just, I would actually go outside on my patio and set up and or, you know, we all have things that cancel in our, in our calendar. So, true, if I, you know, I have a client who doesn't show up, or something gets canceled, you know that's 30 minutes. Boop, boop, boop boop, I can knock out Be productive. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I think the other thing that you were very clear about or you talked about is how simple your setup is. You know, I bought a ring light with a tripod that holds my phone in the middle of it, and it cost me $23 on Amazon. Yeah yeah, phone in the middle of it and it cost me $23 on Amazon. Yeah yeah, I mean, this stuff isn't in and you can use.

Speaker 3:

The thing is, you see people using this 35 millimeter digital cameras or whatever, and I'm like you've got a phone in your pocket, right, right, um, I've got you know. At the beginning, of course, I did spend money on things. I mean, back in the day they didn't have a lot of the equipment that we had. I mean, literally we went to home Depot and bought lights and put cans on them, if you will, and hung them on a bracket from the ceiling in our office. So we've, we've done that in community theater. But it was like don't make excuses. I mean you know theater. But it's like, yeah, don't make excuses. I mean you know, use your iphone, use your buds, use your computer, just go get it done. Don't get. You know you don't need the best of everything to get this done, would you have? I mean, are there? Was there's a sign in our marketing office that says GSDF, get shit done fast. I love that, I love that. Okay, yeah, just do it, just get started.

Speaker 3:

So you know, we lawyers tend to be perfectionist and so what I say to my marketing people is look, we're humans, we're going to make mistakes. There are times when you know I make small mistakes, if you will, in the course of shooting the video, and I'm not going to fix it because I want people to see. You know, I'm human too. Sometimes it's a big mistake and we'll reshoot it. But when you're trying to relate to someone, you know I don't always.

Speaker 3:

I prefer to look directly at people. But that's not how we normally talk. I mean, I look, you know I look to the right as if I'm thinking, you know I'll look off to the side and go. So you know I'm engaging in gestures and behavior that I think create trust, because it's a natural conversation. When I'm looking at that camera, I'm thinking as if I'm talking to a prospective client or a loved one. It's not this, you know, ivy League discussion or an intellectual discussion. It's okay, this is how I can help you. This is what you need to know, you know. So here I am If you need me. If not, that's fine.

Speaker 2:

Well, see, and I think that makes a lot of sense, because I believe that most people feel like the attorneys are unapproachable Right, it's like it's a scary thing, and the other thing is is from the attorney's point of view, keeping in mind that marketing is not an opinion piece, it's not something that you're going to be held accountable for, it's it's you're educating. You know, it's not an opinion, a case opinion. So just another thought there. And and to people listening, if the fact that she has clients coming ready to sign pre-sold because of what she's putting out there doesn't tell you to get started, I don't know what that is.

Speaker 3:

You know, if you want to hack your way through the marketing jungle and, you know, compete with people who can spend much more money than I'm willing to spend or even have, that's your deal. But that's not my approach and it's worked well and kept us competitive in some niche markets. But I also think that and I know people in like immigration and personal injury who are this and it's keeping them, you know, in front of prospective clients. I mean, you and I both know we never know when a client really needs us People just aren't watching these kinds of videos because they're thinking that they want to hire a lawyer.

Speaker 3:

It's normally after something has begun to happen or has happened in their lives that they are looking around, and so this is a gentle way, I think, a persuasive way, an educational way, to say to clients you know, you have a problem. Here is what I think the answer is. And if you think I'm the lawyer for you, that's great. If you don't think I'm the lawyer for you, that's even better, because I don't want to represent you. So it's a non-threatening way. It's to educate people, because, you said, people don't necessarily like lawyers or want to hire lawyers or pay lawyers, so it's a way to create an empathetic relationship that results in you being pre-sold to the client who wants you to represent them.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and that's the know, like and trust. They know your voice. This is such great information, nancy, and in case anybody that's listening wants to reach out, have any questions or anything, where's the best place to reach out?

Speaker 3:

for you. You can call my office at 727-894-3188. You can ask for my associate Christy Monaco, and we can set something up.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic. I'll make sure that's in the show notes and we also have your LinkedIn and I'll link to your podcast as well so people can have a listen to what you're talking about. This has been great, nancy. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing with us today my pleasure. Thank you for your show. Thanks with us today, my pleasure. Thank you for your show. Thanks for joining me today for this episode.

Speaker 2:

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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