Latest / Sharp Strategies Sweet Success / #95 – AI, Marketing Strategy, and Scaling Law Firms with Eric Sanchez

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#95 – AI, Marketing Strategy, and Scaling Law Firms with Eric Sanchez · Sharp Strategies Sweet Success

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SPEAKER_00: i cannot tell you how many poorly run law firms out there think that they're
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SPEAKER_00: the greatest business people on the planet high performers don't want
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SPEAKER_00: to be around low performers people who are excellent do not want
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SPEAKER_00: to be around mediocrity and those are kind of the three things
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SPEAKER_00: that really i think were of anything else that's kind of was the secret sauce
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SPEAKER_00: in success you need to be considering 20 to 35 percent of your revenue
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SPEAKER_00: to be spending in marketing if you're not spending that kind of a nut
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SPEAKER_00: in this space you are behind the april already
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SPEAKER_00: you are listening to sharp strategies sweet success hello everyone
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SPEAKER_01: and welcome you're listening
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SPEAKER_01: to sharp strategies sweet success i am your host tiffany swedensky and today i have
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SPEAKER_01: with me eric sanchez eric sanchez is the founder and ceo
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SPEAKER_01: of maestro strategic partners and i kind of love my pronunciation of that also
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SPEAKER_01: the founder of evolve law do i have that right on here
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SPEAKER_00: it's maestro strategic partners evolve law is the url oh is the url okay okay and
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SPEAKER_01: so happy to have him here with me today and to talk with him
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SPEAKER_01: so i'll let him finish out his introduction yeah well thanks
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SPEAKER_00: for having me i always enjoy talking shop yeah i started maestro about three
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SPEAKER_00: sgo for that was a operator,
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SPEAKER_00: a large firm in North Carolina for just about 25 years,
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SPEAKER_00: operator and consultant to them.
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SPEAKER_00: Founded and exited from an intake and case management software company,
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SPEAKER_00: handled a large class action.
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SPEAKER_00: It always has kind of done it all in a context
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SPEAKER_00: of an operator role and a legal technologist in a lot of respects.
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SPEAKER_00: And so I decided kind of what I wanted to do in the back half of my career
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SPEAKER_00: that was working with law firms.
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SPEAKER_00: And so that's where Maestro Strategic Partners was founded.
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SPEAKER_00: My partner,
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SPEAKER_00: Stacey and I,
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SPEAKER_00: along with our chief operating officer, Tara Williams worked together for 20 years.
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SPEAKER_00: And so between the three of us from intake to exit, we work with firms.
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SPEAKER_01: This feels like something I should know already.
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SPEAKER_01: So I hope nobody's gonna make fun of me for asking,
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SPEAKER_01: but when you say you were an operator of a law firm, what is that exactly?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the operator is kind of the backbone of the law firm.
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SPEAKER_00: So my first week at the law firm, I started March 20th, 2000.
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SPEAKER_00: I came out of pocket $20 for a client postage to get the letters out.
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SPEAKER_00: I've done everything from been an intake person
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SPEAKER_00: been kind of the intake sales person developed all the way up kind of
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SPEAKER_00: the food chain from office manager to chief operating officer.
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SPEAKER_00: Ultimately finished my career there as a vice president of strategy where you
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SPEAKER_00: were kind of like looking at different verticals and how things should go.
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SPEAKER_00: So it's really from start...
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SPEAKER_00: to finish of the process
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SPEAKER_00: so really you know my role is really developing systems kind of the architect
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SPEAKER_00: of systems that allowed this firm to grow in a pretty meaningful way from zero
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SPEAKER_00: to becoming the largest plaintiff's firm in North Carolina
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SPEAKER_01: and delivering legal services at scale that's really awesome oh exactly did you get
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SPEAKER_01: into the legal marketing space like what was your first start
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SPEAKER_00: yeah so it's not really just legal marketing it's kind of soup to nuts
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SPEAKER_00: in it i actually it's a funny story i started out my career i enlisted in
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SPEAKER_00: the marine corps right out of high school got off of active duty went
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SPEAKER_00: to college i was a criminal justice major and everybody i went to school with became
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SPEAKER_00: a cop or a lawyer
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SPEAKER_00: I went into the ministry actually and so I worked as a youth pastor went
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SPEAKER_00: to seminary relocated from California the San Francisco Bay Area to North Carolina
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SPEAKER_00: and really didn't kind of got burned out the ministry wanted to start something had
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SPEAKER_00: a five year old
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SPEAKER_00: who's now 30 and decided that i really didn't want to be a cop because i had
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SPEAKER_00: the young child and i didn't couldn't go to law school because i had
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SPEAKER_00: to you know put food on the table that kind of thing applied for this job called
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SPEAKER_00: a case manager didn't know what the heck that was
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SPEAKER_00: and funny story first interview didn't go so well second interview i got hired as
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SPEAKER_00: the office manager and the rest was kind of history
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SPEAKER_01: I guess in growing that that first firm you're working with to the level it got
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SPEAKER_01: to what do you think were like let's just put a limit
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SPEAKER_01: on it what do you think were like the three instrumental strategies in achieving
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SPEAKER_00: that growth sure the first thing
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SPEAKER_00: is we were setting kind of the proverbial big hairy audacious goals before that was
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SPEAKER_00: a vogue term and
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SPEAKER_00: there were books written about it so essentially in our ethos that you know
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SPEAKER_00: the principal is very
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SPEAKER_00: competitive to his credit you know he's always just never satisfied and it reminds me
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SPEAKER_00: of the old story of the potato chip how the potato chip was founded was
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SPEAKER_00: a disgruntled consumer that kept sending back fried potatoes
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SPEAKER_00: and he wanted them crispier and saltier crispier and saltier and finally
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SPEAKER_00: the chef gets pissed off and kind of creates what is now known as
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SPEAKER_00: the potato chip right this ultra thin super salty thing
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SPEAKER_00: because it just wasn't satisfied kept sending it back until it was just perfect
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SPEAKER_00: and that's really how that principle was so you know i do give him a lot of credit
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SPEAKER_00: in really kind of leaning forward on that
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SPEAKER_00: the other thing i'd say is you many times i see in the space people say oh i want
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SPEAKER_00: to be like morgan and morgan or i want to be like sweet james or i want
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SPEAKER_00: to be like well whoever the big firm is and we never did
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SPEAKER_00: that we were always competing against ourselves so every time we reached
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SPEAKER_00: milestone we wanted to get better without consequence to what competitors were doing
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SPEAKER_00: and i'd say the third thing is really focusing on people very early
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SPEAKER_00: on we just wanted superstars nick saban has a great kind of gives
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SPEAKER_00: a great speech just a number of reels out there and he essentially posits the idea
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SPEAKER_00: that high performers don't want to be around low performers you know people
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SPEAKER_00: who are excellent do not want to be around mediocrity and those are kind of
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SPEAKER_00: the three things that really of anything else that's kind of was the secret sauce
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SPEAKER_00: in success
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SPEAKER_01: what's it like i don't know how to word this question exactly
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SPEAKER_01: but what's it like going from a law firm where you're working with a principal
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SPEAKER_01: who wants to grow and is willing to do it to essentially having something like
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SPEAKER_01: an agency
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SPEAKER_01: where you're trying to help a bunch
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SPEAKER_01: of different personalities law firm owner personalities grow i mean i can speak
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SPEAKER_01: from personal experience it was kind of jarring realizing
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SPEAKER_01: that not all attorneys were as willing to do what it took i guess as the ones
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SPEAKER_01: that i had become used to so i guess what was
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SPEAKER_00: that like it's actually my favorite thing about what it is that we do so we work
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SPEAKER_00: from
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SPEAKER_00: prolific ambulance chasing firms that never met
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SPEAKER_00: a marketing channel they didn't love tv linear tv ott ctv billboards you name it
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SPEAKER_00: like they want to be on it if they could put their face on a mcdonald's
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SPEAKER_00: a big mac container they would do it and we also work with other firms
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SPEAKER_00: that would rather gouge out their eyes and advertise
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SPEAKER_00: at all boutique litigation firms that get most of their business through referral
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SPEAKER_00: and just really almost think that it's candidly a little bit beneath them
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SPEAKER_00: and so i actually enjoy finding common principles in those respective firms because
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SPEAKER_00: for the boutique firm that really can't get comfortable with classic advertising
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SPEAKER_00: but they might have a website it's a funny thing because they don't see the website
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SPEAKER_00: as a billboard and i see the website as the greatest billboard but i have to learn
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SPEAKER_00: to change my tact with them
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SPEAKER_00: because if you equate it to a billboard,
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SPEAKER_00: they kind of recoil at things like pay-per-click or LSAs or doing things
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SPEAKER_00: to position themselves in a digital space with strength.
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SPEAKER_00: Whereas that's not the problem with the big ambulance chasing firms
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SPEAKER_00: because they want to figure out how can I get more juice out of the spend?
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SPEAKER_00: How can I lower my cost per case?
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SPEAKER_00: And it's a totally different conversation.
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SPEAKER_00: And so I actually...
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SPEAKER_00: don't get frustrated between the paradox there
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SPEAKER_00: because i understand it i do understand that it is an honorable thing to want
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SPEAKER_00: to be judged on your legal work but it's also an honorable thing to want
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SPEAKER_00: to grow your business and be as successful as possible so i see positives in both
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SPEAKER_00: and don't judge them just we just try to meet the firms where they're at and
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SPEAKER_00: so it's kind of energizing because what i have found is i have never been in
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SPEAKER_00: a law firm where they're identical i will tell firms it's like
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SPEAKER_00: a family you might have a nuclear family where you have a mom a dad
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SPEAKER_00: and you have two kids and a dog but if i go to the house next door to you
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SPEAKER_00: and they have the exact same structure it's
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SPEAKER_00: a very different dynamic nonetheless how they're doing dinner how they're doing
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SPEAKER_00: chores or whatever we've certainly found that to be true in law firms
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SPEAKER_01: oh yeah i handle obviously the marketing side and then more specifically a lot
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SPEAKER_01: of times like the digital tools and pieces like that and it's amazing
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SPEAKER_01: to me absolutely amazing how you can have many different law firms some
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SPEAKER_01: of them using the exact same tools and sometimes just like
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SPEAKER_01: how different the marketing data looks and not just the difference
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SPEAKER_01: in this person does more referrals and this person does more organic SEO,
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SPEAKER_01: but also just literally how that information is structured and you can't really look
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SPEAKER_01: at the numbers the same way for one firm.
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SPEAKER_01: as you do another firm it's honestly kind of fascinating how similar
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SPEAKER_01: and how different each of these practices are and the question i sometimes struggle
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SPEAKER_01: to answer is well what do the other firms do and it's like well kind of
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SPEAKER_01: the exact same things
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SPEAKER_01: but sometimes they're operated different i mean can you explain that a little bit
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SPEAKER_01: to me what's the difference between the firms using the exact same tools
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SPEAKER_01: and the one that gets results and grows and the one that doesn't.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, for my two cents, fundamentally, you have to acknowledge the truth about our space.
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SPEAKER_00: And specifically, I'm talking about the plane of space, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Personal injury firms, right?
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SPEAKER_00: The margins are so high that it suffers a lot of inefficiency.
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SPEAKER_00: so you can have a firm that's signing 25 cases a month and totally inefficient
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SPEAKER_00: in their media spend and they're they have really crappy conversion all that sort
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SPEAKER_00: of thing but they eat pretty well on 25 cases a month they've got to be child
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SPEAKER_00: They've got the nice car they come and go as they please so it's like really what's
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SPEAKER_00: the problem here
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SPEAKER_00: How can I possibly be wrong?
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SPEAKER_00: i cannot tell you how many poorly run law firms out there think that they're
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SPEAKER_00: the greatest business people on
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SPEAKER_00: The planet because it's,
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SPEAKER_00: like i've got this successful business my revenue is higher than my expenses
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SPEAKER_00: Well we have the benefit of seeing margins in some
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SPEAKER_00: s&p 500
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SPEAKER_00: without that i don't actually know how well i'm doing and so one of the challenges
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SPEAKER_00: for these firms is they operate in kind of isolation
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SPEAKER_00: which is why we advise our firms if you're not in a mastermind group you need to get
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SPEAKER_00: in one we facilitate the mastermind groups and one of the things that i love
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SPEAKER_00: about those groups is they are remarkably gracious in how they share their failings
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SPEAKER_00: and their successes
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SPEAKER_00: and you have a complete safe space to be open because there are not any competitors
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SPEAKER_00: in there and so you're open with your metrics you're open
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SPEAKER_00: with what's working what's not working so you don't have some vendor doing some kind
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SPEAKER_00: of a cram down or trying to upsell you on a website or seo package or anything like
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SPEAKER_00: that you're talking with these peer groups and
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SPEAKER_00: so i cannot dors master my groups more strongly
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SPEAKER_01: oh absolutely and i mean i'm to the point where i'm considering as a part
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SPEAKER_01: of like what i do as a fractional is making sure my clients are set up in
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SPEAKER_01: a mastermind group because the ones who aren't lack that very important context
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SPEAKER_01: and sometimes i'll be
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SPEAKER_01: talking with them trying to explain something that because I've been
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SPEAKER_01: in attorney masterminds for a long time at this point,
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SPEAKER_01: things that you and I have probably intuited.
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SPEAKER_01: Trying to explain to them why it's so important that we do this
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SPEAKER_01: and just really struggling
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SPEAKER_01: trying to get that message across so well and i gotta think of how to word this
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SPEAKER_01: so you mentioned that with the bigger practices they're looking
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SPEAKER_01: to get more juice out of the squeeze you're looking for efficiency well i have
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SPEAKER_01: a few law firms that i've spoken to before and their main interest is is also
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SPEAKER_01: that efficiency with their marketing spend
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SPEAKER_01: but the issue is that their marketing spend is very low
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SPEAKER_01: and it doesn't matter how many sample
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SPEAKER_01: or example budgets i show them they just can't fathom the idea
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SPEAKER_01: of increasing their budget they think they can get more
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SPEAKER_01: for the same amount that they're spending.
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SPEAKER_01: And this is me trying to get advice.
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SPEAKER_01: But like,
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SPEAKER_01: how do I start other than maybe putting them in a mastermind group,
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SPEAKER_01: which might be the real answer?
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SPEAKER_01: But how do you start to explain to attorneys in a way that they'll hear
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SPEAKER_01: that they do need to increase their marketing budget?
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SPEAKER_00: so the first thing is i lead with what i said earlier is recognizing that you're in
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SPEAKER_00: a high margin business and for a firm
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SPEAKER_00: that good enough is good enough they will never be great they'll be good enough
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SPEAKER_00: if they can't change that mindset as a fractional you pushing a boulder up up
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SPEAKER_00: the hill because
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SPEAKER_00: because they're going to always think, well, maybe you're trying to sell them on something.
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SPEAKER_00: I'd have a kind of a candid conversation, like what's my role here?
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SPEAKER_00: What is it you want from me?
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SPEAKER_00: If we're just keeping the plate spinning, okay, well, that's good.
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SPEAKER_00: That makes it easy for me because then I won't suggest innovative or new ways to deal with it.
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SPEAKER_00: may be operating from a position of ignorance for example our recommendation to our clients is
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SPEAKER_00: pretty universally you need to be considering 20 to 35 percent of your revenue to be spending
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SPEAKER_00: in marketing if you're not spending that kind of nut in this space
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SPEAKER_00: you are behind the eight ball already
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SPEAKER_00: and i don't care how efficacious your marketing strategy is you might have
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SPEAKER_00: the most efficacious marketing strategy on the planet but
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SPEAKER_00: if you're still only spending 10
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SPEAKER_00: of your revenue you are getting outspent john morgan is not going into new markets
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SPEAKER_00: spending five percent i mean it's just not he's coming in
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SPEAKER_00: and i mean maybe five percent of that market's revenue but he's coming
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SPEAKER_00: and killing it and crushing it and he's doing it because he's prolific
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SPEAKER_00: at brand building and driving up cost per case and so you're if you are ignorant as
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SPEAKER_00: a firm owner if you think you're going to get by on the cheap because you're smarter
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SPEAKER_00: than everybody else maybe you are but probably you're not
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SPEAKER_01: that's the thing that when i was a marketing director working at a law firm
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SPEAKER_01: and this law firm was really well connected we're doing marketing at a bigger scale
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SPEAKER_01: than most other small firms were but even then i had no idea this
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SPEAKER_01: scale of competition there is in personal injury marketing which is most
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SPEAKER_01: of what i do and the budgets are so much bigger than you think and for marketers
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SPEAKER_01: who are coming into legal for the first time
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SPEAKER_01: and we start talking numbers like they're
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SPEAKER_01: s go wide. And I'm just like, yeah, man, that's what it costs.
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SPEAKER_01: And it's just something that you really have to appreciate and going back to what
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SPEAKER_01: you said earlier, the mastermind groups will kind of broaden your horizons
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SPEAKER_01: and open your eyes to just exactly what some of these other firms are doing in terms
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SPEAKER_01: terms of effort and spend to get the end result
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SPEAKER_00: The other thing I would say is
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SPEAKER_00: that what also helps firms is they think it's much more of a trust and less of
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SPEAKER_00: a science and more of a guess than it really is.
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SPEAKER_00: If your data is tight and you can measure attribution to the best that you can,
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously we all want 100% attribution.
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SPEAKER_00: That's not actually a thing.
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SPEAKER_00: Sorry to the software companies and the ad agencies that sell that as the thing,
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SPEAKER_00: but it's really very difficult to really have true one-for-one attribution.
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SPEAKER_00: It's so multi-touch in today's day and age.
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SPEAKER_00: was it the billboard I drove by was it the TV commercial I saw was it
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SPEAKER_00: the retargeting ad what drove it to me I'll tell people all the time
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SPEAKER_00: the internet is not just a mode of marketing but it's a mode of communication and
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SPEAKER_00: when you say that to somebody they think
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SPEAKER_00: yes that's right i never really thought about it so if i go on tv
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SPEAKER_00: if i saw your tv commercial and i go to your website and i use your web form
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SPEAKER_00: or i use your chat agent or i call the number that was on your website
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SPEAKER_00: who is getting the credit for that lead you know for my tv
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SPEAKER_00: advertising clients i'll tell them let's look at your media buy
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SPEAKER_00: when are you running your commercials look at the time of your commercials and
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SPEAKER_00: then measure your tracking of your marketing channels
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SPEAKER_00: and i'll bet what you'll find is when your tv commercials are running
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SPEAKER_00: in high rotation your client referrals
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SPEAKER_00: you're web referrals go up everything goes up and if you don't understand
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SPEAKER_00: that synergistic effect
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SPEAKER_00: it's very difficult to get confidence suspended of money that i'm talking about
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SPEAKER_00: so you really do need to make sure that you're dotting your eyes
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SPEAKER_00: you're cut you're crossing the t's
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SPEAKER_00: strong data hygiene
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SPEAKER_00: and you really
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SPEAKER_00: do
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SPEAKER_00: understand
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SPEAKER_00: how to measure
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SPEAKER_00: and monitor
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SPEAKER_00: your marketing spend
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SPEAKER_00: based on the
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SPEAKER_00: not
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SPEAKER_00: not how you feel but based on the data
16:01
SPEAKER_01: let me ask you kind of another selfish question just give this old marketer a tip
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SPEAKER_01: or two but one of the things i struggle
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SPEAKER_01: with i know many other marketers do is we would really like and just speaking
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SPEAKER_01: to what you said earlier about the internet being communication there's so much more
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SPEAKER_01: to the internet than than seo and i'm trying really hard to get attorneys
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SPEAKER_01: and small business owners to see that and so one thing we need for
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SPEAKER_01: that is video short form video and i've done in the past where we send scripts and
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SPEAKER_01: you know hey please record this or can we hire somebody to come in and
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SPEAKER_01: that just never really seems to happen what can marketers do to get more of
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SPEAKER_01: that really rich good video content from our attorneys what are
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SPEAKER_01: what are some practical things we could do well I think you first have
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SPEAKER_00: to attorneys are generally speaking logicians it's got to be logical it's got
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SPEAKER_00: to make sense and so when it comes to SEO it reminds me of that classic book
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SPEAKER_00: who moved my cheese right SEO changed and nobody realized SEO changed
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SPEAKER_00: the days are gone where it's all about the backlinks i have it's all
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SPEAKER_00: about how much fresh content i have it's not what it is anymore
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SPEAKER_00: and i've actually had this debate i think now it's really understood
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SPEAKER_00: that google has changed the rules and now we're looking at we're living in
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SPEAKER_00: a geo world it's not to say seo is dead by no means
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SPEAKER_00: but it certainly has changed you need only go I don't know where you're based out
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SPEAKER_00: of today but if you go and you put in car accident lawyer and you look at
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SPEAKER_00: the SERP return what are you going to find you may find where you're at
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SPEAKER_00: a generative AI response in Charlotte North Carolina you may not in Tampa you might
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SPEAKER_00: in Dallas you might not I've seen it I do this daily I see that
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SPEAKER_00: the SERP returns are different but what isn't different is you're going to see
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SPEAKER_00: the lsa served at the top you may or may not see a pay-per-click ad
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SPEAKER_00: then you're going to see the map pack you may
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SPEAKER_00: or may not see another pay-per-click ad and then what will you see then you'll start
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SPEAKER_00: to see your classic seo returns what does that mean that means seo that used
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SPEAKER_00: to get you to the top of the pack or top of the fold just dropped you to below
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SPEAKER_00: the fold when you show them that
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SPEAKER_00: then you'll understand well i do need some short form videos because i do need
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SPEAKER_00: to break through the noise i do need to start doing some things differently
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SPEAKER_00: because the old way isn't going to work anymore and in the end if
18:14
SPEAKER_00: an attorney doesn't want to commit some kind of time
18:17
SPEAKER_00: to content development they are ultimately going to relegate themselves to
18:21
SPEAKER_00: the bottom of the GEO pack because we know AI content is going to start to get down
18:25
SPEAKER_00: downgraded to the benefit of human content content because the ai is just going
18:30
SPEAKER_00: to otherwise be this cycle of information that's just repeating
18:33
SPEAKER_00: because it's generating information that it's also consuming
18:37
SPEAKER_00: so it needs more human content so for that reason i think if they understand
18:41
SPEAKER_00: the logic of it if i say that like most people be like oh yeah well that yeah
18:44
SPEAKER_00: that makes sense i'll believe my lying eyes because i've noticed
18:47
SPEAKER_00: that my seo returns gone lower and lower down the cert page
18:50
SPEAKER_01: i'm so relieved to hear you say all that honestly i mean so much of that the content
18:54
SPEAKER_01: and backlinks thing because it's so difficult to explain to attorneys
18:58
SPEAKER_01: who are i guess a little bit out of the loop
19:01
SPEAKER_01: the move my cheese thing seo has changed so much and
19:05
SPEAKER_01: some of that change happened way long ago and we're only really clocking in now
19:10
SPEAKER_01: or some businesses are only really clocking in now
19:13
SPEAKER_01: and it's websites tremendously important I always try to underscore
19:17
SPEAKER_01: that I mean it's usually the place that people look
19:20
SPEAKER_01: before they sign a fee agreement i mean generally so it serves this like huge value
19:25
SPEAKER_01: and purpose but content and backlinks oh my gosh please just sit down and record
19:30
SPEAKER_01: a video or don't spend your time using ai to build some age
19:35
SPEAKER_01: that's going to write your content for you just record a video just write something
19:39
SPEAKER_01: because like
19:40
SPEAKER_01: you said that stuff people don't like ai there's public opinion is really hurting
19:44
SPEAKER_01: against ai i gave
19:45
SPEAKER_00: a presentation up year or so ago about that and some firms are very cutting edge bleeding
19:50
SPEAKER_00: edge on ai and i am obviously you know that's kind of
19:53
SPEAKER_00: on my brand i make ai do ai development i mean i absolutely do that but i tend
19:59
SPEAKER_00: to focus my ai development on case generation or operational enhancement those sorts
20:05
SPEAKER_00: of things not necessarily content generation and here's why ask
20:10
SPEAKER_00: the ai yourself don't believe me put it
20:12
SPEAKER_00: in chat gemini clod whatever it is you're using and ask it
20:17
SPEAKER_00: is the future of seo going to lean towards ai generated content
20:21
SPEAKER_00: or human generated content and keep your own counsel on what it responds
20:25
SPEAKER_00: because it's going to tell you human content is going to be superior
20:29
SPEAKER_00: because we know google's moving to a trust environment the eat environment
20:32
SPEAKER_00: where it wants to assess the trustworthiness of a site is predicated on a number
20:38
SPEAKER_00: of factors including how much the firms are producing for the users
20:41
SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately at this point, AI has, well,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: it's an umbrella tool in many ways because it can be used to make content
20:48
SPEAKER_01: or it can be used to automate, which I also use AI to automate quite a bit.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: And mostly for myself and my company,
20:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:57
SPEAKER_01: as a fractional,
20:58
SPEAKER_01: that's automations are kind of a linchpin,
21:00
SPEAKER_01: but they don't always include AI, if you know what I mean.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: but like you know so these things those tools are really cool let me ask you this
21:08
SPEAKER_01: but so like what's like a practical ai infused system that law firms can can start
21:15
SPEAKER_01: to adopt safely and not safe market
21:18
SPEAKER_01: but you know officially i guess well i mean i think there's a couple of things
21:22
SPEAKER_00: that you can do so you can do aib role for example if you're talking about like in
21:26
SPEAKER_00: a marketing context that's the most obvious one for me hey i have to put myself in
21:31
SPEAKER_00: a talking head role but i need people in a conference room i don't want
21:34
SPEAKER_00: to bring my people into a conference room and film that
21:38
SPEAKER_00: so i can just have you know agents generate that
21:41
SPEAKER_00: easy you can have clean video generated and then bring your captions up one
21:45
SPEAKER_00: of my pet peeves is seeing talking head captions where the captions are wrong
21:50
SPEAKER_00: because they're ai generated and i tend to speak quickly and it doesn't always catch
21:55
SPEAKER_00: that i'm blurry
21:59
SPEAKER_00: you know i can't think of a or caught the english language is you have caught caught
22:03
SPEAKER_00: and caught you
22:04
SPEAKER_00: know i slept on her car like i caught the ball i got caught in traffic that kind of thing
22:07
SPEAKER_00: and it doesn't always pick up those nuances so just knowing
22:11
SPEAKER_00: when to leverage ai in that process is a good one 11 labs has
22:15
SPEAKER_00: a great voice you know agent that you can use i've been able
22:18
SPEAKER_00: to replicate my partner stacy's voice almost perfectly using
22:22
SPEAKER_00: that tool i have not been able to do it for myself so i
22:26
SPEAKER_00: have to still record my stuff
22:28
SPEAKER_00: because it's not getting my you can tell said another way if i showed you
22:32
SPEAKER_00: if you went to like our instagram account and you saw a role that a reel that we did
22:37
SPEAKER_00: with for stacy you could see or you might not be able to tell
22:40
SPEAKER_00: but she's it's ai generally speaking if i'm doing it it's not because
22:44
SPEAKER_00: when i've tried to do it you know my kids can pick it out
22:47
SPEAKER_00: like that it's not your voice and so different tools are more efficacious depending
22:53
SPEAKER_00: on the person that you're using with the purpose that you're using with and
22:56
SPEAKER_00: the timing of it you know that's the other thing i would say is that any tool
23:01
SPEAKER_00: that we talk about today could change tomorrow or in a month and certainly
23:04
SPEAKER_00: in six months and so we have been very disciplined in our recommendations to clients
23:10
SPEAKER_00: about the things that we use or that we recommend because these things are changing
23:15
SPEAKER_00: so freaking fast
23:16
SPEAKER_01: i mean they they really absolutely are and you know i generally think
23:21
SPEAKER_01: when it all comes down to it you know we're still producing video which is
23:25
SPEAKER_01: a marketing asset and we're still judging the performance of it and how much
23:30
SPEAKER_01: or how little ai was
23:31
SPEAKER_01: s used in it.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, it doesn't matter because we're tracking the thing's performance.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: And I have seen really good uses of AI in video.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Tim Miley in West Virginia, Miley Law Group, he did like an AI video
23:46
SPEAKER_01: video where he himself wasn't an ai avatar but he was i think he had
23:52
SPEAKER_01: a marketing agency pitching him ai ads in the video and it was really funny
23:56
SPEAKER_01: and he was kind of the drape man in the comedy so to speak in that
23:59
SPEAKER_01: that instance you know the ai video was
24:01
SPEAKER_01: silly where he was really practical and it was great marketing and
24:05
SPEAKER_01: so there are other ways to infuse ai and
24:08
SPEAKER_01: to make things easier captions edits b-roll like all that you said but like
24:15
SPEAKER_01: the written the thought leadership there's still a huge need
24:19
SPEAKER_01: for attorneys to make that if only to distinguish themselves in the marketplace
24:24
SPEAKER_01: because where i get back to where i'm frustrated with seo just as a whole is
24:29
SPEAKER_01: an seo company making a whole bunch of articles that could be copy and paste
24:35
SPEAKER_01: and just had the business name changed that's not going to help you stand out i'm
24:39
SPEAKER_00: so sick of those types of articles it's funny i was just smirking
24:43
SPEAKER_00: so there are people who are on linkedin and facebook this is the new vogue thing
24:47
SPEAKER_00: where they're using an ai or they have a consultant that's drafting posts for them
24:52
SPEAKER_00: and it's got like this one line hook and then there's like a paragraph
24:55
SPEAKER_00: and it becomes like this tone that tells
24:57
SPEAKER_00: details this kind of flowery tale of something and there's truth interwoven in it
25:01
SPEAKER_00: but it was very clearly not drafted by that person because people don't write
25:06
SPEAKER_00: that way don't don't speak that way and to me when i see that it undercuts
25:11
SPEAKER_00: the authenticity
25:12
SPEAKER_00: not just because I recognize it just as kind of almost as a clinician I recognize it
25:17
SPEAKER_00: but I also think gosh you know you missed an opportunity because here I was ready
25:21
SPEAKER_00: to engage in your content and actually looking for some authenticity and by virtue
25:25
SPEAKER_00: of you using an inauthentic mechanism you diminished in my role you know
25:29
SPEAKER_00: in my eyes rather
25:31
SPEAKER_00: and so i think it's like you just have
25:33
SPEAKER_00: to be we're busy we're all professionals we're all busy
25:35
SPEAKER_00: and we all use ai i've used ai in social media
25:38
SPEAKER_00: so i'm not downing it per se i do think that there are some social channels it's
25:43
SPEAKER_00: the other thing i'll tell you there are some social channels
25:46
SPEAKER_00: that x is appropriate and y is appropriate there are things that i can do on tiktok
25:53
SPEAKER_00: that i might not want to do on instagram or i might not do that was probably
25:57
SPEAKER_00: a bad example on linkedin certainly there are some really famous brands out there
26:02
SPEAKER_00: that have done stuff on linkedin that i just cringe i just think not
26:06
SPEAKER_00: the appropriate setting for that shtick
26:08
SPEAKER_01: linkedin is basically the only social media platform i'm any good
26:12
SPEAKER_01: at night i will say though linkedin is a bit like social media on easy mode
26:16
SPEAKER_01: because everyone has an interest to engage in the content and share
26:21
SPEAKER_01: and be supportive i really want to get a
26:23
SPEAKER_01: at one of these other social media platforms and i study it and you're so right there are
26:28
SPEAKER_01: many unspoken almost culture rules in each of these platforms and reddit and part of the fun
26:35
SPEAKER_01: marketing is finding what's predictable about that culture and once you find
26:40
SPEAKER_01: what's predictable reddit being an example
26:43
SPEAKER_01: you can kind of mine it for marketing value building an account with karma
26:48
SPEAKER_01: and all this good stuff ultimately getting mentioned on reddit hopefully as you said
26:52
SPEAKER_00: that that is the that's probably just the fact that you know that sets you apart
26:57
SPEAKER_00: from the vast majority of marketing talking heads that i've spoken
27:01
SPEAKER_00: to i mean reddit is gold i understand google reviews are awesome
27:04
SPEAKER_00: but i would rather all things being equal
27:07
SPEAKER_00: i'd rather have a positive reddit mention than a five-star google review and
27:11
SPEAKER_00: if you don't know ask tiffany or eric why we know google has an arrangement
27:16
SPEAKER_00: and they're pulling all that reddit content right into their ai if you want
27:19
SPEAKER_00: to be served a prospective client get mentioned and write it positively
27:23
SPEAKER_01: i really appreciate that i have all
27:25
SPEAKER_01: of my fractional cmo clients i'm like hey let's do reddit and i'm really excited
27:29
SPEAKER_01: about it and they're like and maybe i need to work on selling these ideas
27:32
SPEAKER_01: a little bit better and their importance
27:34
SPEAKER_01: but yeah i that's one i have trouble getting people enthused about what is
27:38
SPEAKER_01: so important and it's and baffling to me when it gets
27:41
SPEAKER_00: a pass they're not mutually exclusive things i certainly don't want
27:44
SPEAKER_00: to be misunderstood i mean yes google reviews are important you want successful lsas
27:49
SPEAKER_00: you have to have successful google reviews no question about it
27:52
SPEAKER_00: but you fundamentally do not understand where geo is shifting
27:55
SPEAKER_00: if you do not understand the importance of reddit i'm not saying that reddit is
27:59
SPEAKER_00: the same kind of channel as doing a facebook ad or getting
28:02
SPEAKER_00: that direct roi that's not the game that we're playing we're almost using reddit as
28:06
SPEAKER_00: the rudder to turning a boat not necessarily selling tickets to get on
28:10
SPEAKER_00: the boat it's just a different benefit to a larger goal
28:15
SPEAKER_01: that's a really good I'm going to probably steal that analogy from you because
28:18
SPEAKER_01: that is a really good analogy for I'll have to ask you my last two questions
28:23
SPEAKER_01: because we're going long
28:24
SPEAKER_01: but it's not even exclusively Reddit it's any forum based website is really
28:29
SPEAKER_01: where you want to be and where you want
28:31
SPEAKER_01: to be recommended Google reviews I feel like we get like obsessed with them
28:35
SPEAKER_01: the owners do I have like zero Google reviews by the way so I'm an elitist about it
28:40
SPEAKER_00: but like I also not Google review now after this
28:44
SPEAKER_01: do not now that i said that i would be like shoot now i bragged
28:47
SPEAKER_01: about it now i'm gonna get a google review i'm not b to c
28:49
SPEAKER_00: though you know attorneys are b to c yeah yeah yeah right exactly yeah to the guy
28:54
SPEAKER_01: and they're certainly important but what about every other place
28:57
SPEAKER_01: that your brand can be
29:00
SPEAKER_01: i keep telling people just focus on increasing the number
29:03
SPEAKER_01: of times other websites not yours talk about your brand and you'll be fine
29:09
SPEAKER_01: but everyone gets laser focused and on the site it's important
29:12
SPEAKER_01: but google is really ranking what is being said
29:15
SPEAKER_01: about your brand not necessarily your website that's right
29:19
SPEAKER_00: look at glass door look at the better business bureau your firm gets mentioned
29:22
SPEAKER_00: in either one of those places in a negative way man you'll play hell to get rid
29:26
SPEAKER_00: of it and it's like a tattoo and it will show up naturally because google views them
29:31
SPEAKER_00: as high trust environments and you know it's i'm not taking a position on
29:35
SPEAKER_00: whether that's right or wrong but it is nonetheless
29:38
SPEAKER_01: well and i promise i will wrap this up after this it's just a good topic to talk
29:42
SPEAKER_01: about but i think people need to appreciate how much more difficult it's going to be
29:45
SPEAKER_01: to get google reviews in the future because ai has enabled google to mass review so
29:52
SPEAKER_01: to speak the reviews you're getting and flag the fakes you know flag things
29:57
SPEAKER_01: that don't look authentic or violate their guidelines so you know down
30:00
SPEAKER_01: the road i feel like we're heading to a world where getting an actual true
30:05
SPEAKER_01: client review it's going to be a skill it's going to be a skill that a lot
30:09
SPEAKER_01: of businesses if they care about that need to get good at all right eric
30:12
SPEAKER_01: so i apologize for running long we end up getting in some interesting topics
30:17
SPEAKER_01: so last two questions i usually ask people what's something we didn't talk about
30:21
SPEAKER_01: that you wanted to uh get into today
30:23
SPEAKER_00: I think we covered the waterfront on I just think that AI is going
30:27
SPEAKER_00: to change every facet of the practice I don't think it's going
30:30
SPEAKER_00: to be I actually don't think you can be unduly hyperbolic about
30:34
SPEAKER_00: the impact it's going to have on marketing on intake on operations on resolution
30:38
SPEAKER_00: evolution the whole nine just across the board
30:40
SPEAKER_00: and we've really never seen anything like it so it's a very scary and
30:44
SPEAKER_00: a very exciting time to um to really lean into ai because
30:48
SPEAKER_00: if you are not you are going to get crushed it's not a nice tab it's
30:52
SPEAKER_00: a you must understand it and appreciate how it's going to impact your practice
30:56
SPEAKER_01: across the board that's fun it certainly is a fun topic and where do you want people
30:59
SPEAKER_01: to look you up and learn more about you
31:01
SPEAKER_00: yeah absolutely so i am a old school and a prolific emailer so the best way
31:06
SPEAKER_00: to reach out to me is eric at evolvelaw.ai you can go to visit us
31:12
SPEAKER_00: on our website evolvelaw.ai i love talking shop so i will talk to anybody
31:16
SPEAKER_00: buddy they're happy to set an appointment i'll talk to them just about anything one
31:20
SPEAKER_00: of the things our business prides itself
31:21
SPEAKER_00: in is we don't sell we have conversations essentially the way
31:24
SPEAKER_00: that it works is our knowledge and our passion is really the say is the worm on
31:28
SPEAKER_00: the hook if you think that we can help your firm you're gonna hire us
31:31
SPEAKER_00: so we don't need to to sell it and if we need to sell it we're probably not
31:34
SPEAKER_00: the firm you know the company for you so talk to anybody about anything eric
31:38
SPEAKER_00: at evolvelaw.ai
31:39
SPEAKER_01: and i highly encourage it just because he's going to back up a lot of
31:42
SPEAKER_01: the things i've been trying to tell you guys so please reach out and talk with them
31:46
SPEAKER_01: and get a second opinion if you don't quite trust me but thank you guys so much
31:50
SPEAKER_01: for listening we really appreciate it and thank you so much eric for being on
31:54
SPEAKER_01: the show we will talk to everyone very soon