Latest / Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR / Ray DeLorenzi on Behind the GAVL: Why PR Matters More Than Ever for Plaintiff Firms

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Ray DeLorenzi on Behind the GAVL: Why PR Matters More Than Ever for Plaintiff Firms · Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Raising the Bar with Rebuttal PR.
0:02
[SPEAKER_01]: The podcast will be elevate the stories of the plane of spar and dive into the key trends, shaping the civil justice system today.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Ray D. Lorenzi.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And in each episode, we'll bring you insightful interviews with leading attorneys, expert perspectives on current legal events, and in-depth discussions on the issues that matter most.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now let's jump in.
0:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everyone, welcome to Raising the Bar with RebuttlePR.
0:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Ray D. Lorenzi.
0:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Today we have a special episode.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I had the pleasure of being interviewed on a podcast that's done by Gavl, a very popular legal vendor in our space that the website SEO digital advertising.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Gavl is good friend of ours.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They also created RebuttlePR's website.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Did an amazing job with it.
0:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Ryan Rappley with Gavill had me on his podcast.
0:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a really great fun, interesting conversation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And today we present that episode to you unedited.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So please sit back, listen, and enjoy.
0:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to another episode of the Behind the Gable Podcast.
0:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Ryan Rappley, co-founder, CEO of Gable.
1:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Gable is a legal digital marketing agency, we specialize in websites, search engine optimization, paid ads, high-end cinematography, you name it.
1:13
[SPEAKER_00]: We help law lawyers get connected to clients.
1:17
[SPEAKER_00]: and help their their brands.
1:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Today is a very special episode.
1:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I am joined by one of my good friends and actually they're a client, but but good friend, someone who's been in this industry for a long time, Gray, Dale Renzie of Robuddle PR.
1:36
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a strategist who has helped shape the narrative in some of the most high profile mass towards in class actions of the past 15 years.
1:44
[SPEAKER_00]: From the halls of Congress to the courtroom, Ray has led communications campaigns tied to verdicts and settlements totaling tens of billions of dollars.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He's worked alongside disabled former athletes, sexual abuse survivors and individuals harmed by defective products, building media strategies designed to help clients secure justice in the most challenging circumstances.
2:06
[SPEAKER_00]: A five-time law dragon, global 100-liter, illegal strategy and consulting,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ray previously served as communications director for the American Association for justice, and was a partner at a DC-based public affairs firm.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A graduate of the George Washington University Ray now lives in the New York Metro area.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I met Ray several years ago at AAJ conventions have gotten to know him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Better over the years, great client of ours.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We have several clients of ours that work with Ray and his team at Rebuttal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They do phenomenal work and I'm very excited to chat with him and learn more about PR, more about the intersections between PR and generative optimization, large language models and how all these things are coming together.
2:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys know I don't like using the keywords or the buzzwords,
3:01
[SPEAKER_00]: today we're going a little bit.
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It is kind of a thing.
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to embrace it as much as I can.
3:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, let's dive in and talk to Ray.
3:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Ray Deeler and Z.
3:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the show.
3:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the fifth episode of the behind-the-gabble podcast.
3:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Very excited to have you on the show today.
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much Ryan for having me.
3:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel kind of the press for you that you couldn't do better than me, but here I am.
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I am sort of a, I am honored to say it was no easy feat.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I actually had to go through a lot of red tape to get you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There was a lot of emails, a lot of different people.
3:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You got, you have like your own SWAT team over there at RobudlPR.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So, who do us to you?
3:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I appreciate it.
3:43
[SPEAKER_00]: They protect me for my son.
3:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Let it little do they know what you're in store for today.
3:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So for people meeting you for the first time, let's just share a little bit about yourself and why lawyers should care about PR right now.
3:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.
3:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So let me do a little wind up.
4:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I started rebuttal PR end of 2020 added the pandemic, like a lot of folks had a existential crisis of what I wanted to do with my life.
4:10
[SPEAKER_01]: But to really take it back from 2008 to 2012, I was communications director for the American Association for Justice.
4:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how I got to know the plaintiff's bar.
4:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I left AJ to go into do communications consulting,
4:22
[SPEAKER_01]: on the plaintiff's end defense side, and I did that for nine years, and it was great to learn how the defense side works, but also wasn't my passion.
4:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I started Rebuttal PR to focus strictly on the plaintiff's mark, because we were seeing a need over time for plaintiff's lawyers to burnish their reputation in a way that wasn't dependent on advertising, which you don't build a reputation based on advertising.
4:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You build brand recognition, and that's like a paid way to do it, but PR is really how
4:52
[SPEAKER_01]: telling the story of the work you do or we also do work on specific pieces of litigation in which you know telling the story of what the defendant failed to do or how they may have injured someone.
5:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So defense firms and corporations have used PR in a you know pretty sophisticated matter for decades the planus bar has been behind that in some respects but we've been trying to fix that.
5:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think that is just data curiosity?
5:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think the plane of side has been so far behind?
5:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I know even like from the AI side, the defense side has had tools for so long that the plane of side has not had.
5:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But in PR side, why do you think that is?
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't think there's one reason.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think corporations just have sort of this built-in apparatus to have reputational concerns more top of mind.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Connecting on you, that kind of thing.
5:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that.
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, again, you're talking about a company that may be spending like hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in paid advertising, so protecting the reputation from PR.
5:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a hedge, you know, to protect against that.
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: almost insurance.
6:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And on the plaintiff side, there was just historically lawyers for like, you know, just by our way, you know, to get more leads.
6:07
[SPEAKER_01]: As I think the economic still plaintiff as far as changed, and there was more competition, but another's a fear of consolidation, I think.
6:14
[SPEAKER_01]: law firms are asking themselves, hey, how do we set ourselves apart here?
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we can't spend tens of millions of dollars a month on leads or billboards or TV ads.
6:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's do something different and they have found that, especially when people are, we're kind of in an information ecosystem where people don't know what the trust.
6:33
[SPEAKER_01]: and PR is a way to earn that trust that can't be bought through a lot of paid media.
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So you and I both know in the plaintiff side of law, I mean, the marketing spends for some of these firms is the astronomical.
6:49
[SPEAKER_00]: The value of cases is high and everything, but for you guys as PR, I see that being a big part of that for the big guys, but do you have any clients who
6:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't necessarily market or spend and they're just kind of referral base, but still where PR is very important to them.
7:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a good question.
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's most of the most of not all the law firms who work with are not advertisers or big advertisers.
7:14
[SPEAKER_01]: If they were, I think they have different business models in which typically, and I don't want to say across the board, they don't value it PR as much.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, you know, let we're doing billboards and TV ads and radio and, you know, Google ads, you know, social, we'll spend and we're just going to get our leads that way.
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And those are more volume businesses, but we work with firms, it can range from like, you know, we work from sets one
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: one lawyer, two lawyers to 50 lawyers.
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of them do advertising, but they also appreciate that they need different levers to reach clients and sure paid is one of them, but they also know like potential clients are looking them up on Google.
7:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And the website is like super important, but also it doesn't provide third-party validation that being in the news can provide.
8:00
[SPEAKER_01]: sometimes don't work on a case where they know they represent one victim, but they know there's 10 others out there, and then you can help tell that story.
8:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It also sends it sort of a signal to referring lawyers or even judges that, hey, this is like a serious lawyer who knows how to handle these cases, and their reputation in those forums is really important.
8:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So, again, big advertisers, you know, not necessarily the ones that would be interested in us, but we do work with firms that do, I'd say I'm medium of an advertising significant amount to ones that do none and, you know, view PR as a more sustainable and unique way to get the types of cases that they're really interested in when they're not really operating at a volume basis.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that.
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And not only that, but what you guys do also helps the cases, it helps the victims, I mean it helps the kind of the industry as a whole, which I think is good for everybody.
8:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So you guys are kind of behind the scenes, but also making, you know, helping even that playing field and get eyes on certain cases that may not have been on them before.
9:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate that right.
9:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I look like true believers.
9:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the most of our clients are.
9:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, quite honestly, you know, I've had some negative experience with law firms, you know, family experiences.
9:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, before I even started dabble over a decade ago.
9:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I got into this side,
9:27
[SPEAKER_00]: of marketing, you know, I was a little hesitant at first, but then once I got into this group, like the AAJ group, the injury board group, it's like these are the who's who, the attorneys who are in it for the right reason.
9:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're not just blowing smoke up people's ass when we're pushing some of these agendas out there that's like, it's real stuff and it's real valuable stuff and it's real, there's real victims and there's real things on the
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: line that that's just not they're not numbers a lot of these you know we talked about a lot of the big advertising firms where they get a lot of case flow and stuff to a lot of them they are just a number where most of the clients we work with I mean they become family.
10:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was at the, I was at the Jimmy yesterday, which is a small humble rag there, just to see how we're going to, but I'm going to have the gym in years.
10:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but you know, they have all the TVs.
10:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I looked up and there was this TV app for somewhere I never heard of.
10:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know if they're really a lawyer of them, just maybe an advertiser.
10:25
[SPEAKER_01]: and it had the word windfall on the screen.
10:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I nearly lost my mind, like, you know, I don't care about these issues.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I work with lawyers who care about these issues.
10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, if they didn't, I wouldn't work with them.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But who is injured and sees the compensation they get for that injury as a windfall?
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And also like, that's not how the courts work.
10:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, and
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just doing the disservice to the whole plaintiff's bar.
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they call it.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they call it.
10:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: All the variations that are like trying to destroy people's rights left and right.
10:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, they're just like handing it to them.
10:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, hey, use this windfall add to like paint the whole plaintiff's bar with an ugly brush that is representative.
11:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
11:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to drop names.
11:05
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, there's one top attorney out there.
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll call him the top dog attorney, which maybe that's his name.
11:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but he always has like stacks of cash as it's like a phone or saw, I mean, it's disgusting quite honestly.
11:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It may get the phone ringing.
11:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess, but you're going to have, I mean, yeah, it's going to have you're going to have disappointed clients and it hurts the industry.
11:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it hurts and hurt people that need it the most.
11:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's even backtrack just a little bit.
11:32
[SPEAKER_00]: We've kind of been just talking here for a little bit.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: For folks that don't know what is public relations, like what's the elevator pitch of we meet in an elevator and I'm like, hey, what do you do?
11:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, oh, I'm in PR.
11:48
[SPEAKER_00]: What is PR?
11:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We work with law firms to elevate their profiles amongst the audiences that they need to reach.
11:54
[SPEAKER_01]: that's really what it is at its heart.
11:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And now there's not like a one-size-fits-all solution for every law firm, but that's what they're looking to do.
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not, I think some folks may have this preconceived notion.
12:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, oh, I need PR when I'm in trouble.
12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Quite honestly, if you're in trouble and then you call us like if I would have been better to call us before you're in trouble, but again, it depends on what the law firm is and what they're trying to achieve, but for the firms that we typically work with, they are trying to expand their notoriety, either in a specific trip, geographic area or specific practice area.
12:28
[SPEAKER_01]: which may be irrespective of geography.
12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: More can be both.
12:32
[SPEAKER_01]: They are trying to find unique and interesting ways to do that outside of just spending, you know, tons of money on advertising.
12:40
[SPEAKER_01]: When they also know they have competitors in their backyard who's often our real lawyers, they're just like referring lawyers and they're like, how do I break through that by finding ways to inject yourself into sort of the public dialogue and conversation, you know, working with reporters
12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: or the results you're getting or finding ways to comment on news of the day that is specific to your law practice.
13:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Or getting more speaking engagements, again amongst the potential audiences that can bring you cases.
13:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the sorts of things that we work with law firms on.
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, to elevate their profile and bring them more cases and more opportunities to help the people that they know they can serve.
13:24
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so we're, you know, where I start to get as a marketer, you know, I look at things from a different lens sometimes, but now I see PR being more important than ever, and this is why, you know, I will refer folks to you and I will say, hey, look, we do SEO, we do great websites.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this, I won't say a ship, but it's a whole other kind of, uh,
13:46
[SPEAKER_00]: way of thinking now with these large language models, right?
13:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So historically SEO, the big driving factor is earned backlinks.
13:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, and with PR could help do that, which was great, but a lot of times you get mentioned in an article and you don't get a back link because it's a new site, and historically there wasn't much value to that from a pure SEO standpoint, sure brand reputation management, all that stuff great, but now we're seeing where brand mentions are the new fuel for.
14:24
[SPEAKER_00]: being in the consideration for visibility in the large language model results.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So people throw in the word generative engine optimization, GEO, you have an AIO, answer engine optimization, or AEO, you guys now are at a pivotal point to where
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You are now even more valuable more important.
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you guys seeing this like more leads coming into you guys or people are just talking about AI overviews and getting brand mentions or you know what do you guys see out there
14:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's an interesting time.
15:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, I mean, everything you said is correct, where more and more potential clients are using AI to find a law firm.
15:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Just put us at the law firm for a moment.
15:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We've had more people call us interested in working with our team.
15:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I always ask, hey, how'd you learn about us?
15:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And oftentimes, it's through A.J.
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Another lawyer be worked with preferred.
15:20
[SPEAKER_01]: More and more, it's they found us through AI, which is like really fascinating.
15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: more than, you know, but there was a study in a, you know, I content you after this, if you put in, if you have show notes, you can put in there, this company called muckrack, which is for PR professionals, it's like a database that helps you get contact information for reporters.
15:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like one of our tools to the trade.
15:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And they put out a report a couple of months ago that looked at how.
15:48
[SPEAKER_01]: AI was ranking different types of websites, you know, based upon someone's query.
15:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And the amount that AI is using journalistic sources far more than, you know, typically Google but really rely on someone's own website.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: A. I.
16:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Ways that with some value, but they are really looking for third party references to find, you know, who makes the most sense.
16:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're seeing certain news outlets come to the top.
16:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Reuters and Axios were like two of the ones that ranked really highly, but that, you know,
16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think like the Washington Post in New York Times, I, you know, I would say would think would be high, but the models are, you know, pulling in and vacuuming up that data and they are relying on it, you know, much more so than self-created information to decide, you know, how they're going to answer a query.
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a law firm we worked with.
16:42
[SPEAKER_01]: They had a big verdict like two weeks ago.
16:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, within like five, three days of that, if you asked, hey, who's like the best law firm I've been injured
16:51
[SPEAKER_01]: They were number one and the citations were to that verdict that happened seven less than 72 hours prior and then if you're asking me about that specific product They was a product case.
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They did they were coming up to the top again in the earlier days of you know Let's say chat GPT like when the you know the three model came out, which is really the first public model Yeah, it was you would often get results that were like a year or 18 months dated You're not seeing that that is like they're now
17:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just a whole new world of how, again, it's not like your website is an important.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we have, I think a really good one, our developer was pretty good.
17:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
17:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
17:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
17:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm down there website.
17:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They did an incredible job.
17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, it's still important because, you know, I think that's more sophisticated client.
17:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to go and check out our website, make sure, like, hey, are these people legit?
17:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're seeing the models rely on third party stuff tremendously.
17:45
[SPEAKER_01]: The last thing I'll say right before I shut up is, I think there was this idea from, you know, let's say companies that I don't think we're like trying to do some tricks and gimmicks to get like backlinks or references on garbage websites.
18:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd often see it done like on like Forbes or like entrepreneur, like this paid a
18:11
[SPEAKER_01]: They are interested in a lot of the ranking sites, I've seen like super lawyers and things like that.
18:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Those awards, again, not all of them, but some of them we are seeing comes to the top.
18:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, you know, if someone's trying to like buy some like crummy backlinks somewhere on a site, you like would never read in real life.
18:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They are.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to read it either.
18:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, the AI really has no care in the world how many backlinks your website has how many, you know, whatever it is they really care about these brand mentions and that's and also what your brand is mentioned by what are the keywords surrounding your brand brand search.
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Now is in helping drive SEO as well.
18:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's so many different.
18:53
[SPEAKER_00]: things that are kind of at a crossroads not right now and intersecting there's still a lot of firms out there if you just search their their brand name they don't necessarily show up on page one or even in the overviews whatever where PR what that is doing what kind of honestly what we're doing too I mean we're building we build backlinks for our clients but we're also building brand dimensions we're building things where if we can get mentioned on a site not necessarily get a backlink
19:19
[SPEAKER_00]: We're still happy as long as we can get it next to the keywords that make sense.
19:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, we don't want to have XX law firm next to Legos or something like that.
19:29
[SPEAKER_00]: We're Elevents still matters where I think in the SEO side relevance matters, but still, I'll take a back link on Lego.com and I'll drive a shitload of value to the website.
19:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We're seeing this, too.
19:41
[SPEAKER_00]: If you Google search something and the AI overview pops up,
19:47
[SPEAKER_00]: they are showing and this has been for forever now, they'll show or you never know if the brand or the firm name is going to be a hyperlink to the website, you don't know if it's just going to be text, you don't know if it's just going to be a hyperlink to a Google search for that brand name.
20:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's kind of crazy.
20:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, now I think we're starting to see a little more where they're hyperlinking to it, but still brand is the most important thing right now.
20:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, I mean, brands always been very important, but from a straight digital PR brand is so important.
20:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you saw firms, I think, for a while that just had this idea, hey, we can just spend our way, you know, and get leads that way and brand is not important.
20:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think you're seeing the the tide is turned and look, this is a case study of one.
20:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, take a bit of grain of salt, but, you know, for my firm.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't do any paper click anything like that.
20:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not a law firm.
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a very defined audience of a plane of spar that we are trying to reach and we have a great looking website.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We support various organizations in the civil justice community because because it's the right thing to do.
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea if they give us a link or not, oftentimes I'll see, you know, we, of course, like we sponsor AJ for example.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to work there, it's home for us for supporters of public justice and other great organization.
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I suspect they have our logo on their website, I don't know and I don't check.
21:10
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you go on, you know, Claude or chatGBT and ask, like, what's the best PR firm for like a plaintiff's law firm?
21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It answers us.
21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not really there.
21:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I,
21:21
[SPEAKER_01]: it's the brand dimensions.
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not because there's all these like backlinks about us.
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's to, you know, it's not something new.
21:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you do that in a Google search, I'm curious what will come up.
21:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't done it recently.
21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, it's not how we, we are trying to necessarily reach people, but it underscores again, a case study of one or mileage may vary, but it's certainly interesting, you know, how the landscape is evolving.
21:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, it's wild.
21:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if anyone's listening to this, who is not doing PR now, I mean, I literally get emails every week from people asking, hey, how do we rank better in the large language models?
21:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, well, you need to get brand mentions.
21:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to be, you know, you need to get out there.
21:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, actually, it's kind of crazy.
21:59
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing that we're going to start offering here as a service is podcast management and basically white glove service for podcast
22:11
[SPEAKER_00]: how everyone else is doing.
22:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone else is creating all these other law firms are creating podcasts to talk about the law.
22:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We are going to be creating podcasts to talk about your local community, bring in your local business leaders, your local entrepreneurs.
22:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't even talk about your
22:30
[SPEAKER_00]: distribute it through your law from but don't talk about it because then you get brand mentions hyperlocal on social media on their websites and you're not selling your service because that's not the whole point.
22:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to uplift your community but you're also going to get rewarded by all these brand mentions.
22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean it's also reciprocative.
22:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I made up that word, but reciprocative.
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess everyone, I forgot to mention like you know we have a podcast, you know
22:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
23:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That probably had a good deal to do with our LLM ranking and appearance.
23:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure and have sort of been dismissed or had been mentioned earlier.
23:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know for sure.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But in our podcast is, you know, it's not talking about the work we do.
23:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We bring in really amazing trial lawyers to talk about their practice and how they became lawyers.
23:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do it because it's interesting and people really enjoy it.
23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's one, you know, one, there's one trial I won't mention who they are, but they are an incredible trial or like everyone knows who this individual is and if you search as persons name and Google are hotcast comes up first not even their own website, which is like wild again, I don't even need some SEO help so many people let me tell you they're not struggling they are in demand and
23:53
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, they do amazing work.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's, you know, great.
23:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys are doing that rhyme because I, especially if you, and I think the approach is right, let's say you are trying to do more in Shabwayton, you know, Shabwayton is always my like town USA.
24:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Shabwayton, hold on, what's the answer?
24:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe it's in Wisconsin.
24:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's mentioned in home alone when they rent the U-Haul to like, oh, yes.
24:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a very important framework of Shabwayton.
24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, let's say you really want to like,
24:20
[SPEAKER_01]: be the go to law firm in Shiboygan, doing a podcast where you bring in leaders from the Shiboygan community.
24:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're not talking about your law firm.
24:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just talking like that is a way to become part of the community in a way that I think is unique and valuable.
24:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You're giving before you're getting, you know, I'm actually setting it up right now.
24:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be starting mine as proof of concept.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So right behind me, I got four podcasts, Mike set up.
24:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I got,
24:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Neon over here.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I got this is going to be set up to where I'm going to have an awesome local, because I live in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no local podcast here.
24:58
[SPEAKER_00]: No one and we have so many great stories and there's this rich history.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope tad and Mike are listening to this because they're going to laugh because I like to talk about Williamsport so much.
25:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And they've been here both a couple of times.
25:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And that said, I don't know if they walked away is is.
25:15
[SPEAKER_00]: just delighted as I told the most going to be, but it's got to be close, right?
25:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to do this as a proof of concept and I already have buzz around the community people are like, hey, when are you going to get that going?
25:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be a guest.
25:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like,
25:27
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can provide value before you get, it's going to be huge.
25:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the best thing, like we used to see this in the SEO world where we would try to get creative on how do we get the local auto repair guy to give us a back link, right?
25:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we were just always be thinking about these things.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in this age where it's like, and if you just shift your thought process and how you
25:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the one, you know, we hear from clients like, oh, I want to do a podcast and I think this isn't anything you do where it's podcast, you're doing SEO, you're doing PR work, you have to be consistent and if you are and you have to have an intent behind it, like that's the thing, you're like, everyone, everyone's like, I just want to do a podcast, everyone's doing a podcast, all right, so what's your what's your, what's your intent, what do you why do you want to do like you can't just
26:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to have a reason behind our podcast we came I came up with the idea There's just like one of those random things that I screamed out and people like huh It took us a year from the time we thought of it to airing the first one and it's not like we were dragging our feet It was like what do we want to talk about what are the design elements around it and also?
26:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, yes, so it's like I want to do a podcast like okay, how often you gonna do it?
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll like do it once a week and I'm like are you gonna carve out?
26:47
[SPEAKER_01]: that amount of time, because, you know, it's not a reality.
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, and consistency, the podcast doesn't need to be a plus plus.
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It should be very good.
26:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you are looking like being very good but consistent is a lot better than being a plus plus and not being consistent.
27:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like if you're going to commit to it, you need to see it through otherwise, you know, it's not worth the trouble.
27:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm only on my fifth episode for this behind-the-gabble podcast, and I've already learned a lot in just five episodes, you know, and the more you stay consistent, the more you're going to get better, the more you're going to feel more relaxed, and it's just like it's it's so rewarding too, because it gives you a reason to get into your community, talk to these people.
27:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Next thing, you know, no one necessarily knows you when you go down to the pub, but now you're going to go down and somebody's going to come up, hey.
27:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for talking about my friend, you know, Mary Jo, who's the local pasta maker or something like that.
27:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's just it's a small world stuff and most of our clients are living in communities where not everyone's in Chicago in the big cities.
27:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's keep moving because I have a couple more questions for you.
28:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Far away.
28:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So, doesn't matter and we just kind of talked about this, doesn't matter whether
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Who are you trying to reach, you know?
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, I mean, it definitely matters, but one is not worse than the other.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we've worked on cases that, let me try to give an example, oftentimes, and I mentioned this before, there's like a, there's a victim that a lot for resureposing, but they are 10 more, or 20 more in that community.
28:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's say it was,
28:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you often see some fortunate abuse cases, or you could have, you know, a doctor who's like committing like, you know, widespread med mal on the patient population.
28:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes national news because it's such like a horrific set of circumstances.
28:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the national news is it can be important for that lawyer and that law firm.
28:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But in terms of reaching potential plaintiffs and other people who in people have been injured, the local news often drives that more.
29:01
[SPEAKER_01]: The interesting thing about life in the media environment, I think there is this notion which is totally incorrect.
29:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I like, oh, the media is dying, blah, blah, blah.
29:08
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of news outlets have huge business problems, like don't get me wrong.
29:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But there are more ways than ever for people to get information.
29:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is not shrinking.
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It is only growing and growing and growing.
29:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very much, you know, choose your own adventure in terms of how you want to get your news.
29:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You go to, you know, you know, a local news outlet, you know, like local TV still gets huge numbers.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I think people are dismissive of like people can go read a sub stack.
29:33
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a ton of ways for people to get information.
29:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, sometimes, you know, we work on something and
29:39
[SPEAKER_01]: There may be an audience of like five people like it could just be like the defendant in their general counsel or something a message to that's my long-winded way of answering it matters, but Yeah, yep.
29:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's a question for you actually that just came to mind because we're talking about LLMs and stuff, but If you get a client say on local news, do they get
30:04
[SPEAKER_00]: rights to reuse that content like that footage like whatever was aired or no.
30:11
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's owned by the news outlet.
30:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say an exception to that is like if you're on something that is in part of like I'll call it the quote unquote corporate media, which is such a loaded term and I don't meet it mean it in that way.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're like on someone's podcast, you could usually like ask permission to
30:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're on like the local NBC or ABC or CBS affiliate in your community, like it's not going to happen, but they're never going to let you do that.
30:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the reason I ask is because, you know, the number two cited source in these large language models is YouTube.
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you could get that video and then re change the title, change the description, change things about it where all of a sudden that becomes an influence in the large, you know, somebody's query in an LLM, you'll be, you know, it's just, it's just one extra thing you could do with that.
31:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
31:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen and look, I am not a go consult a media lawyer on this, but if you are doing commentary over that news article like that video, let's say it does a sort of like a fair use you're turning it using turning it in a creative kind of work.
31:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe YouTube may still take it down.
31:29
[SPEAKER_01]: They may get a copyright notice to take it down.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: TikTok doesn't take it down because I know there's this one lawyer who's got like million plus followers and that's what this guy does.
31:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's ingenious.
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that would be the avenue to do it.
31:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, as in like a TikTok style where, you know, you have your, you know, face talking around your article.
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So that'd be a way to do it, but also I'm not, I'm never seeing TikTok come up in the models.
31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So and it seems like they have no care for copyright.
31:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what's for dinner tonight sushi my older kid wanted sushi tonight, and he's been asking for a couple days.
32:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And what motivates you more competition or curiosity Competition it really should be curiosity, but yeah, I'm also curious person, but at the end of the day motivates me.
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I love winning
32:19
[SPEAKER_00]: same, you know, also I am very curious though.
32:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I, yeah, I, you know, I'm down so many rabbit holes.
32:25
[SPEAKER_00]: My team laughs at me, the amount of rabbit holes I go down.
32:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'll be working on one thing next time.
32:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I said something like, I thought you were working on something else.
32:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I am at the same time, but I also have 10,000 tabs open and, you know, I'm vibe coding stuff.
32:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm, you know, doing all kinds of crazy stuff.
32:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I've got an older, it has definitely swung in the way of curiosity.
32:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the last book you actually finished?
32:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, no time being a man by Scott Galloway.
32:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that could help me?
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Um,
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It could.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you're a great gentleman.
33:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And Oscar, being Catholic in the life and the mask is off right now.
33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
33:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So Scott Galloway for, he has a, he's like a business guy.
33:09
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a podcast with Kara Swisher.
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: That's very popular.
33:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not the biggest fan of his.
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: He, and he would admit it.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like a huge ego maniac.
33:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But he writes about, and the book, I think is with some controversy.
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,
33:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I take someone with a grain of salt, but it talks about, especially if you're raising boys, like how you can help make them productive members of society.
33:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a really good and interesting route.
33:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
33:40
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's check it out.
33:41
[SPEAKER_00]: What's something you're looking forward to this year, business or personal?
33:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, in April, a lot of pipe two things.
33:48
[SPEAKER_01]: One is I coach both kids, their baseball teams that starts next month.
33:52
[SPEAKER_01]: We know.
33:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it takes a ton of time, but I also love it.
33:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but based upon the snow situation, we now may not play to like August, like I don't know how that feels like I'm ready.
34:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, uh, and then we're going to we're going to
34:09
[SPEAKER_00]: bring them here to Williamsport and we'll take them to the Little League World Series.
34:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I am, my older kid, he is on a travel team and we're already exploring, you know, sort of a weekend, like whether it's Cooper's Town or Williamsport or Ripkin has a facility in Maryland.
34:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we have a lot of work here in Williamsport.
34:28
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a brand new facility that opens this year.
34:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called the Williamsport Lumberyard 7 Field Complex and tournaments are already
34:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I could tell, are you like on the Chamber of Commerce for Williamsport?
34:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I am on the Board of Directors for the Chamber of Commerce.
34:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you talk or read?
34:45
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not.
34:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It should be.
34:47
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't pay me anything.
34:48
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I don't even have any local clients.
34:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So what am I doing?
34:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, but it's not my lesson.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I look about there.
34:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You should.
34:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's awesome because we got, you know, as a great museum, and then three hours away, you could scoot up to Cooperstown.
35:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's, it's lovely.
35:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You've sold.
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being on the show.
35:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a pleasure.
35:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned a lot.
35:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the people listening learned a lot.
35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't sleep on what is happening right now.
35:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The world and AI and PR and media.
35:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is changing so fast.
35:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And so rapidly, I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't reach out to a Rebuttal, talk to Ray, talk to his team, talk to us, talk to somebody.
35:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you have to make sure you are aligned and talking to someone who's staying ahead of the curve and staying ahead of the stuff.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's changing all the time.
35:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and you got to get creative people that are doing the stuff for you because
35:42
[SPEAKER_00]: everyone's trying to do the same thing.
35:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to have an edge in a way to do something that not everyone else is doing.
35:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, you guys are doing something good because you guys have grown pretty rapidly.
35:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Great job, right?
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for your team, too.
35:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You can invoice me for that.
35:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That was fantastic.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate it.
36:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mentioned before, Gavletar website, do a great work.
36:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Rinse them in.
36:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so a huge fancier.
36:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
36:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't give.
36:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to give the credit to my, my how guy.
36:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So head of websites, Luke.
36:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So he, uh, who's good people.
36:13
[SPEAKER_00]: He being just head on a lot of walls for that site.
36:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So look at it now.
36:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
36:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to know.
36:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
36:20
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
36:20
[SPEAKER_00]: See you man, appreciate you.
36:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Be well.
36:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I thank you so much.
36:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I was great to do this.
36:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome, Ray.
36:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care.
36:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a phenomenal chat that I had with Ray.
36:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned a lot about PR.
36:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned about a lot about where we're going with the industry.
36:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I could just talk to Ray for hours and hours.
36:40
[SPEAKER_00]: He is so knowledgeable in this industry.
36:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And his team is bar none the best in the industry.
36:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I would recommend everybody listening as I already said during the show to reach out to Ray.
36:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And even if you don't think you're in a position to need a PR firm right now, I think it's definitely worth the conversation and putting it into your business plan where you want to be, you know, as Ray said before, some folks have tried, you know, tried to hire him when things have already happened at the wrong time.
37:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So being ahead of it.
37:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You can never be too early.
37:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that the future is going to be very volatile and having folks like them in your corner is only going to help you out.
37:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I also thought it was very interesting that such a curious minded person loves competition so much, but
37:36
[SPEAKER_00]: as a business owner, as a lot of you listening are.
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it makes a lot of sense now that now that we're talking about it, because competition, I think drives curiosity, because we all want to win.
37:48
[SPEAKER_00]: We all want to be the best we can.
37:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I know I wake up every day, get out of bed, knowing I want to do the best for my clients.
37:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to do the best for the industry.
37:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be the best in the industry.
37:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, you know, we have
38:01
[SPEAKER_00]: some great competitors out there, but that is what fuels us.
38:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what's the fun of being the only fish in the sea?
38:10
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's good to have competition.
38:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So with that, I appreciate you sticking around this long, and it was another great podcast, and I look forward to the next one.
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So until next time.