Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / 183: Kim Garmon Hummel and Shawn Karol Sandy | The Secret Sauce for Attracting New Leads
Transcript
- InterviewSauceAgencyAud === Davina: [00:00:00] You guys ready? Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Dina Frederick, and today I am here with an old friend and a new friend. Uh, for those of you who have been followers, the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcasts, you probably have. Heard the name Sean Carroll Sandy, because she has been a guest on my podcast before and also a contributor, uh, to my program, wealthy Woman Lawyer League. Davina: And so I'm super happy to have her back today. And she's here with a brand new business venture and partner, Tim Garman Hummel, who I'm excited to get to know and to meet. They, they have recently come together with. Sean's years of sales experience and Kim's years of marketing experience and they've started an agency called Sauce Agency. Davina: And, uh, I'm super happy to get to know them, uh, in this new light and ask them some questions today that I know are gonna help you guys. So, welcome ladies. I'm so glad you're here. Sandy: Oh, thanks Davina. Thank you for having us. Davina: Good. [00:01:00] So why don't you think our first official Sandy: partnership podcast? Oh, sorry. I was gonna say, this is our first official. Sandy: Partnership podcast I think. Right? Shawn: Yeah. We've made some videos together that are, have some great outtakes. We'll try not to have many outtakes. Davina: The outtakes are fun. Yeah. My social media manager's always wanting to do like a compilation of my outtakes 'cause she gets to see them, but nobody else does. Um, so tell me, why don't you tell me, just, I want like for each of you to just kind of introduce yourself so we get a sense of your background and what led you here. Davina: And then we'll talk about why you decided to form this agency at this time. Sandy: Oh, does that mean I go first or not? It, she's first. Davina: You guys can flip for it. Sandy: Yeah, exactly. Well, a little over 10 years ago, I, you know, after having been in sales for decades, uh, I had this thought that, you know. My go-to-market strategy was really unique in that I helped customers get customers no matter what I sold and just even didn't matter what I was [00:02:00] selling. Sandy: It was also giving them sales advice and helping them sell. So just a different, um, mindset, give different go-to market strategy. So I decided I wanted to build some sort of a consulting agency, but. Though sometimes I think like a marketer, I didn't wanna build a marketing agency. I wanted to build a selling agency. Sandy: And so that's, yes the name. So I worked with businesses, small mid-size businesses, up to, you know, almost even a half a billion dollars in revenue, which isn't so small anymore. Um, to help them really understand how to build a go to market strategy that can, you know, advance. Every successful salesperson, um, and then train the salespeople, give them the right skills to be able to execute the go-to-market strategy, and then do individual skills gap coaching. Sandy: That also led to, um, doing sales team assessments, hiring, helping clients stand up the sales program, things that are really hard to do when you're down in, you know, the minutia and you have this [00:03:00] myopic view of your business. It's hard to. Get out that and build a strategy and then, you know, build a sales plan. Sandy: Yeah. So that's, that's what I've been doing for the past 10 years until, and rewind about the same times. Oh, sorry. Davina: No, that's good. I was gonna say, I, so I, for, I'm gonna refresh people's memory. One of the things that was huge that came out of my conversation with Sean and our first podcast episode, it's been a couple years now. Davina: Turning everyone into your organization, into a selling member of your organization. And I think for law firm owners, that can be a difficult concept to, uh, embrace and understand. And so I know that was a huge part of what you were doing. You were helping to train within the organization, everyone from that right, first person greeting them all the way up to the top dog on how to sell. Davina: And for law firms, I think that is a particular challenge because the lawyers think. The, they're the, they're the ones. They don't, they're not salespeople, of course. Mm-hmm. [00:04:00] And so if nobody's selling, and I've always said, if nobody's selling in your business, then you don't have a business. It's not happening. Davina: So, but the consultation is the sales and they're, and, and every one of your organization, organization needs to be trained in that. Now I want to get him a little bit more. And then we'll go a little deeper into this. Shawn: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. So I just have to add onto the end there. Selling is service, and service is selling. Shawn: There's a very hokey video on YouTube if you go Google that, that you'll wish you hadn't watched and won't ever be able to forget. But you'll remember that selling is service and service. It's selling. So. So if we rewind back to about a year after Sean started the selling agency, um, I was gifted with the opportunity to branch out from a day job and do something that I love. Shawn: Um, I and my options were singer songwriter or, um, photography, videography, website building. And then my husband said, accept. [00:05:00] Maybe not music because you're not gonna make any money, so, so my options were photography, videography, and website building. So, um, you know, I just started helping small businesses and I could see these small businesses piecemealing their strategy and suffering for it. Shawn: And they weren't coming to me for strategy. They weren't, they weren't even pursuing a holistic strategy at all. They were truly piecemealing everything. I have an idea. They pursue the idea. There's no connectivity between it, there's no, you know, synergy between, there's no goals, there's no, there's no plan. Shawn: And it just seemed like there had to be a better way. So, um. Through a lot of trial and error and effort and learning. Um, I just kept pursuing, what is that better way? What is that better way? In 2017, um, my team and I became, um, HubSpot partners. So we were accepted into the HubSpot partner program and that really gave us an opportunity to start [00:06:00] learning a lot about how to be strategic. Shawn: About business growth. And so we dug in and learned everything we could and we went from an agency that focused on, you know, graphic design. People wanted a one sheet, they came to us for headshot, things like that, to, um. Those are things that you're gonna need along the way, but first and foremost, you need a holistic strategy that focuses on your company goals and then set sales and marketing up to achieve those goals together and individually as well as your, any other departments that are contributing to, to revenue. Shawn: And Davina: um, Shawn: so you Davina: tell people who don't, for people who don't know, tell 'em what HubSpot is. A lot of people know, but a lot of people don't. It's you're kind of either Shawn: Yeah. Davina: In it or you're Shawn: right. Davina: Right. Shawn: Okay. So, well, and the, the funny way to answer that too is a lot of people who think they know know that it's a hubs. Shawn: HubSpot is a marketing automation platform, and that's where it started. [00:07:00] But it's expanded to be a platform that you can damn near run your whole business out of. Yeah. Um, it integrates with QuickBooks and it's got payments built in, it's got quotes built in. Wow. There's a sales hub, there's a marketing hub, there's an operations hub, and there's a service hub. Shawn: And between all of them, you can co-create this single source of truth in the data that is being gathered from your doing your jobs every day, so that when decision makers need to make decisions, they're making data-driven decisions based on. Reality and their actual users instead of what their gut's telling 'em to do that day. Davina: You know, business owners, we don't like to think about reality. We like to go with our gut and how we feel about it. That's how we set our prices. That's how we start our, do our marketing strategy. That's how we create a reel for Instagram, is how we feel. Right? Yeah. Shawn: And it'll take you so far, but it won't take you the rest of the way. Davina: No, no, definitely not. I am always, uh, talking with my clients about the [00:08:00] importance of data and really asking questions when I'm asking them questions. I'm saying. You know what, how much you know, I'll ask him a revenue question, how much revenue did you make last year? Well, I think I made this. And your homework is to go find out the exact number. Davina: Mm-hmm. Because what we think is often does not match the actual data and facts. So very important, and that's something I know you're really known for, Kim, is that data driven approach where you're really looking at what's, what's truly going on out there. So I wanna talk to you guys today. First of all, tell me how you came together. Davina: And decided that this was something that was needed right now for the two of you to come together and do sauce agency. Sandy: Oh, I, I love that part. I have to say. So like, we've known each other for years and met each other and, and, you know, been in the same circles and had so many great business conversations. Sandy: I've watched Kim and her team build an incredible business and been so proud and impressed by like, the growth and the layers, and I'm like, God, I never wanted to do that. Oh my [00:09:00] God, Shawn: I've been building and being like. When is Sean gonna come here? When is Sean gonna come here? Sandy: So last summer we met for lunch and we were having a conversation and I was sharing, like I did with you, how some of my business was shifting to to do sales training beyond the sales department and which was. Sandy: Funny 'cause it was kind of my original thought when I built a selling agency. It's like, why would you only put, why would you only inflate one tire on a car? Why wouldn't you inflate all the tires and have the whole organization understand how to create a specific customer experience and be able to recognize opportunities? Sandy: So I was doing more with, um, teams beyond the sales. I called it building a selling organization, and Kim said. I think I do the same thing, but we call it rev ops, but it's on the digital side. So we talked about how the, the skills and the training and the digital kind of had this full, um, arc or continuum of possibility. Sandy: And, and we were really originally talking about doing a podcast together. And then every time we get together. To do the podcast. We started talking about business and [00:10:00] opportunities and I thought, well, maybe we'll just cross sell. And then eventually like, well, shit, let's just do this. And, and so we started last September, October, really hammering out partnership and, um, really working towards starting this year when the partnership really officially launched with sales on the books prospects. Sandy: And, um, you know, a huge goal for this year. Huge goal. Wow. And it's so far so good. It's what, 16, 17 days? Totally on track, Davina: on track. I love the huge goal part. I'm all about big audacious goals, so I love that part of it. And the two of you with your combined experience, I'm sure in marketing and selling, getting clients is probably not gonna be a problem at all. Davina: So I'm glad to hear that. Uh, alright, so let's talk about, I wanna go a little deeper into what Sauce agency. Brings to the clients how you serve your clients in a very specific way, um, so we can get a better understanding of what it [00:11:00] means. 'cause marketing and sales is very broad topic and, and it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Davina: I'm always, I wrote a, uh, one of my books was for attorneys to help them. Figure out what it meant when somebody came to them and said they were in marketing because so many people come to them and say, we do marketing. Yes. And it really may be advertising, it really may be, uh, uh, you know, Google advertising or it may be SEO or it may be, but people label, uh, label it under the term marketing. Davina: And so I, I wrote the book to help them sort of recognize what category somebody falls in when they're coming and saying, I do marketing. So I wanna talk specifically about kind of the services you guys provide through your new agency. Hit it. Shawn: Yeah. One, so, so first off, I would say that the new category, which marries sales and marketing together as one animal and as it should be mm-hmm. Shawn: Is rev ops. And we are a rev ops [00:12:00] optimization agency. So we're gonna help businesses. So explain Rev. What Davina: is Rev Ops? Shawn: Yeah. And that Davina: name means something. Revenue operations. Shawn: Yeah. Yes, revenue operations. If you're doing it, like ev, every business is already doing rev ops If you are in business to make money mm-hmm. Shawn: You're doing rev ops. Yeah. But the likelihood that Rev ops is optimized is pretty low, especially in a holistic way that connects, um, departments and breaks down silos and increases efficiency across the board and also improves. The employee experience and the company culture in ways that help you retain great employees and great customers. Sandy: It's a mental shift. It's a mindset shift. It's actually a market shift for people to stop thinking in silos of sales, marketing, hr. It really and truly is a continuum that goes across your entire business. When you talk about why do people leave companies because they're frustrated, their frustrations, and it's [00:13:00] usually communication or systems processes like this, rev ops actually impacts all of that. Sandy: The employee experience all the way through the customer experience. Shawn: Yeah. So people come to us either to solve problems that they've identified in their marketing department or in their sales department because that's what the, the world is accustomed to. But what we do is take a step back and say, yes. Shawn: Those are valid. We probably do need to address those, but the very first and foremost thing we need to address is getting your teams aligned because alignment eats strategy for breakfast. Mm-hmm. And once we achieve the alignment, it's much easier to get all the tires inflated and everybody with an OA in their hand row in the same direction towards the goal. Shawn: Right. Davina: So what do you mean by alignment? Shawn: Well, um, quite often. Sales points, a finger at marketing and marketing points, the finger at sales as to why we're not reaching our overall business growth goals. Sandy: That's not a good lead. We, we need more leads. Oh my gosh. If I hear that from salespeople once [00:14:00] I hear that we just need more leads. Shawn: Oh, and, and. What happens there is there's a, there's a breakdown, there's no, um, dialogue about it. There's no system typically in place to say, help me understand why that wasn't a good lead. Mm-hmm. And then salesperson says, this is why it wasn't a good lead and. State governance person who sits in the middle rev ops optimization person who sits in the middle is able to say, actually it was a good lead and here's why and here's what you need to do about that. Shawn: Or, you're right. It wasn't, hey marketing, this is not a good lead. Here's why. What can you do with the messaging to fix it? Mm-hmm. Davina: Okay. So that we're would more Shawn: efficient and effective. Davina: What would My law firm owners, my law firm owners don't have sales teams in the traditional business that sells a product or something. Davina: They have lawyers. Who often mm-hmm. Oftentimes have lawyers who function as salespeople and they decide whether or not it's gonna be the owner, or it's gonna be, are we gonna train associates in sales? Or, which [00:15:00] in, in legal terms, is considered a consultation, right? Mm-hmm. And they have, uh, uh, marketing is usually some automated function that is set up to generate leads. Davina: So, for instance, it might be, I've signed up for this. A company that says they're gonna generate leads for me, or I'm doing tiktoks, or I'm doing Instagram mm-hmm. And they're generating leads for me, or I get, oh, this is very common in the legal world, has always been since the legal world began, I get word of mouth referrals. Davina: And that's how they generate leads. So when somebody comes to you with a problem, if a law firm came to you with a problem and they said, I, I'm not sure if I'm generating enough leads, and, and what do you mean? I don't have a sales team. What are you talking about? Mm-hmm. What's response to that? Shawn: Okay. So first thing I'm gonna ask is how do you know it's not enough? Shawn: What is your goal? And then if we can understand [00:16:00] the overall revenue goal for the year, the number of leads that it's gonna take to drive enough closed business sales to. Support that, that goal, then it's about reverse engineering the process to get us from where we are to where we wanna grow. And I'm gonna take the time to listen and understand what they've already done to get to where they are and then figure out how we can fill the gaps. Shawn: And that's a little bit different for each industry and each organization. Um, but I think in general, what you're asking there is. You know, if I were talking to a law firm that was in that situation, what would I tell them to do? And the first thing I would look at is the messaging on their website, because it sounds like it's very common in the law, you know, in the law world for attorneys to invest in things that are gonna drive traffic to their website. Shawn: But if the messaging is not right. You're either not gonna convert that traffic into a known user and eventually a lead and a customer, [00:17:00] or you are gonna convert them into a known user and a lead and they're, they're not the right fit for your practice. And all of that comes down to the messaging, the story that sells being, right. Davina: Yeah. So let's talk about the messaging for a minute. 'cause I know you guys are big proponents of storytelling in the messaging. Um. So there are, uh, what's been quite an interesting trend in, as new law firms are coming up, they're automating and so you're having a lot of automated remote teams and the website, many of them actually will start and grow law firms and never have a website. Davina: They'll use social media platforms as a means of which is, which is really kind of very interesting trend for the future. Mm-hmm. But the majority have websites at this point and the website. Kind of functions as a 24 7 office, whether you have an office or not. It's a place that people can go and see what you're all about and sign up for an appointment and all of those things. Davina: What one of the biggest challenges I think [00:18:00] that a law firms have is understanding the importance and how to differentiate yourself from the, if you're an estate planning lawyer, what's the estate planning lawyer down the street? What differentiates them or on the, that's also showing up in my feed, and there's a lot of repetition of. Davina: Education and content in the feed. Everybody's sort of educating on the same things. And so how do we distinguish, you know, if you're scrolling and looking, how do you distinguish? And that really comes down to messaging. And so talk to me about that. Sandy: Before Kim shares some of her, um, brilliance about this, I'm gonna say we just had this problem when we were looking for someone to help us build our operating agreement for our new partnership. Sandy: I mean, we researched, you know, we were on a historic, you know, we main street in Memphis, Tennessee. We thought, oh, let's find someone close by and like, and it was. A hot mess, quite honestly, to try to find a firm that did small [00:19:00] business formation to understand, you know, they have 17 other things they do, does, do they actually handle that in that firm? Sandy: Do they just say it? Most of 'em have some really atrocious websites out there and not great communication. Um, their website says one thing, their Google listing says the other. So if you're listening, this is an issue we're by very simply being. You can earn business. It's, I mean, we just have this exact problem. Shawn: Yeah. Sandy: Well, and so what's so interesting, lemme Davina: ask you what kind of things you were seeing, what, what kind of things were you seeing? Because I am one of the things that is my pet peeve that I can't stand if it's all about the firm. Here's our partners, here's where we went to school, here's where we, and it means nothing to the client. Davina: I mean, I think we've changed to the point with permission marketing. Where you really, if you don't make it about the client and their problem, right, and, and let them know, Hey, we solve this kind of problem. So I can't stand the old fashioned [00:20:00] law firm websites that a lot of big law have, where it's like, our partners, these are our partners, and here's all their credentials and all this kind of stuff. Davina: Where you, where you running? What, what else were you running into that was kind of like, eh. Sandy: I mean, lack of inform. There were some that had some good information, but it was so central to the law firm. And then there were some that just didn't, just had like, I mean, it was maybe the original 1996 website. Sandy: I'm not kidding. Logo looks like Shawn: clip art and Sandy: Oh, that was, yeah, Shawn: it was, the logo was atrocious, but the, the firm we actually ended up going with, Sean found, and I hadn't looked at their website at all. Until the day we were headed to their office to sign the sign, the closing papers on the merger. And when I pulled it up on my phone, I was confused because the first thing it said was estate planning firm. Shawn: And I was like, do they do the what? Um, is this the right one? Am I going to like, [00:21:00] I was trying to go there, like I needed to hit directions, please to Google. And I clicked through to their homepage and it was clear that. They had just put it, it was like an SEO guy got given a bunch of keywords mm-hmm. And services. Shawn: And he forgot that a human needed to understand what was on the page and just Yeah. Overloaded it with what was gonna help them get found. But getting found is only half of, of the trick there. And I think. If I was gonna give your audience one piece of advice, it would be go read Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller. Shawn: We're a StoryBrand certified agency as well. And the idea there is the way you differentiate yourself is before you start putting out educational content Yeah, you gotta do all that. You gotta play the algorithms on search. Mm-hmm. You've gotta answer people's questions, answer the public, but you have to develop an empathetic understanding of your target audience. Shawn: In order for you to do that, you have to decide who you're for and who you're not for, and then stick to [00:22:00] that and make sure that all your messaging speaks back to that controlling idea of the empathetic understanding of that person, that human that is on the other end, trying to seek out a solution to a problem that you solve. Davina: My question is, did you tell when you got there, did you tell the law, did you convert the law firm into a client? Because you probably should have at that point by share, by share your experience. Shawn: It's on the list. It's on the list. We mentioned it to her. Yeah. And she said, well, I'm, I'm not the partner that makes decisions about that, but I'll mention it to him. Shawn: But I thought it was also interesting that we, you know, and this might be TMI for a podcast, but in our operating agreement, it says that our wills will dictate. You know the outcome of if something happens to one of us. So I was like, do you have a will? And she was like, Nope. And I was like, me neither. Shawn: And then we looked at the attorney and said, we probably need to add a will to our tab. And she never circled back around on it. And clearly they do that because that's what Google was really asking. Well, because Davina: that's the first thing that came up. Estate plannings. So, yeah. Yeah. That goes [00:23:00] back to your whole thing, Sean, of the whole experience, the service and sales. Davina: Right. It's service. It's one thing that gets. People are so busy chasing new clients, they never stop to think if I just serve the ones I have really, really well, that's also going to help grow my business. Right. That service. Yeah. That service aspect. And I, I always shudder to think at the missed opportunities that people let go by 'cause they just don't provide that high level of service Right. Davina: To begin with. Sandy: Yeah. That screams at me. It's the importance of everyone in your organization understanding. Um. What does, what are, what are the things we listen for? What are key words for us? What are key questions to ask? How can we help? There was a junior associate in that room and she could have handed that off to him. Sandy: I mean, you know, it's probably a template sign here, whatever, you know, a couple thousand between whatever that is. But, um. If you, so when you were asking earlier about, okay, we have a law firm, we get inquiries if, from the person who answers the phone to the [00:24:00] person who responds to the inquiry, to the person that sends the invoices, to the follow up, to the scheduling paralegal. Sandy: If everyone doesn't understand. That empathetic understanding of the problems we solve, uh, problems our our clients have and that we solve for them, and they don't understand how to probe for solutions or how to ask more questions or even just how to be more of service. If selling is not really anything but serving people, then you are missing opportunities and your cost. Sandy: Acquire a new customer is way more than just asking a follow up question in the conference room with existing clients who've already paid you, right? Some thousands of dollars to do something and Davina: that that attorney has obviously not been trained on how to say, oh, wait a minute. Let me stop and listen for a minute and stop what I'm doing, being in the doing and, and sit in the listening and in the moment with these two women who are here, who have all sorts of needs at this point, starting a business. Davina: There are many, many things. I can think that I would have [00:25:00] a conversation with you about a checklist. In fact, of that, I would go down and say, have you got this? Have you done that? Have you got this? There'd be all kinds of things. So there's a great opportunity for that attorney sitting there, and I think a, a lot of people don't, don't know how to go about doing that. Davina: They're so focused on, I gotta create this new content out there to attract new people. Function in a narrow window. Once they get 'em in front of them, we're gonna do this thing. And it becomes very transactional versus relationship oriented. Shawn: Yeah. Yeah. To be fair, she was having a struggle bus day because two of their six paralegals, yeah. Shawn: I think is what she said. Or assistance some, some form of that. Um, were out of the office either on a planned vacation or. Sick. 'cause a little bout of COVID went through Memphis around Christmas time and then the two that were there, one was just, it was like her last couple days before she retires. So she was [00:26:00] like, Davina: that's very common problem with log jobs right now. Davina: There's whole staffing. There's like less than 1% unemployment in the legal industry right now. It's very difficult to hire on staff. Wow. So it's a huge issue that a lot of people are struggling with. But let's go back to the differentiating yourself. 'cause I, I want to. Help people understand how they can differentiate themselves, because so one thing is obvious, you know, very obvious in terms of like, just do be 1% better than what you see out there and you'll differentiate yourself. Davina: But I find it really interesting too, that you went to Google. I tell people over and over again, people, yeah. Yes. They're gonna be people who search you. So there're be people who ask for referrals and whatnot, who ultimately people are gonna go to Google and they're gonna be. And I would love to say it was Bing or something else, but it's Google. Davina: It is, it just is good. And they're, and they're going to search, even if they've already been referred to you, they're gonna look for, and so that matters and what you, what you're putting out there and what that looks like. But how, what kind of, tell me about you both of you [00:27:00] mentioned earlier, Kim, about um, storytelling. Davina: So how can that help us? How do we go about, like, formulating our story? Because most of us think. Should I do a story about me? Should I do a story about the firm As I grow? Is my story then going to become the firm's story? What is, and what does that even mean a story? How do I tell a story about me? I don't know how to do that. Davina: What do you tell 'em? What do you do? Shawn: Well, you're actually not telling a story about you. You're telling a story about your customer and you are a part of it. And if you can effectively do that, then it won't matter. How your business grows and changes. Yeah, the details will change a little bit, but the problem you solve is the, the controlling idea and the symptoms of the problem that you solve are gonna be the same for the people experiencing the problem, regardless of how your business changes. Davina: So Shawn: gimme an example you may become better at. Can Davina: you gimme an example of that? Shawn: Yeah, for sure. So, um, just looking at Wills, estates and trusts, okay, [00:28:00] so. Um, I lost my mom in 2020. Luckily it was pre COVID and it was just lung cancer from smoking since she was 17. So we dodged that bullet. But, um, you know, I found out that her will wasn't valid. Shawn: All of my parents' knowledge as bankers and you know, like they should know things. They didn't know that they needed a certain number of signatures and or a notary on their will. So we went to to turn it in to open up. You know, whatever we needed to do. I don't know the legal words there. Probate is one of 'em, but that was a thing that ended up having to happen because her will wasn't valid. Shawn: And so when my attorney told me that her will wasn't valid, the first thing I did was go to Google and start searching for does he know what he is talking about? What does this mean? Like what are the implications of this for me? Because as a human, in this day and age. I want to understand. I want to make an informed decision, and [00:29:00] if I had known that prior to already hiring an attorney, then I would've gone to Google to search those symptoms of my problem. Shawn: And if the content that you're creating speaks to the symptoms of the problem, even before the prospect knows exactly what the problem is, then you can catch them earlier in the process. And become a trusted advisor as they take a journey from problem to solution. And so that that content becomes a big part of entering into their story. Shawn: But then the messaging on your site itself and positioning your prospect as the hero and your business as the guide to get them from problem to solution from a high level is just, it is just the key to. Helping people feel understood. And then when you temper that with the authority that you know, as an attorney, you, you have a lot of authority, like that's [00:30:00] probably not, that's probably not an issue on, on in this industry. Shawn: I mean, you, you know what you're doing. You have to know what you're doing and Davina: Oh, I do think it is, it's very, because you're still competing with the guy down the road has got the same law, law, law, law, license that you do. Right? So how are you, how can you say, I'm empathy, am your attorney, I'm the one who understands the. Davina: I call what you're talking about too. We're talking about the problem, the 3:00 AM I did not, uh, make this up myself. I've learned this a long time ago, but the 3:00 AM problem, the one that you wake up at 3:00 AM in the morning and you've got heartburn and you can't go back to sleep because you're worried about it. Davina: So I can imagine when that happened and the story that you were sharing when that happened to you, you were probably. Up at night going, what am I going to do with this mess? I have no idea what to do. I need somebody to help me. Mm-hmm. And that was something that you, when you would wake up at night, for whatever reason, you can't go back to sleep 'cause you're thinking of the thing. Davina: Right. And Yes, uh, it's interesting because I have people, uh, I recently went over something like this and with, well, [00:31:00] my group, group of attorneys and one attorney says, well, my clients don't come to me with. You know, they're not up stressing at night over starting a business or whatever, like they were using an example of, uh, formation, you know, or something like that, that you don't think of as a stressful problem, right? Davina: Because to them it's not because. But was that a stressful problem for you guys? Sandy: Yeah. Yeah, it was. I mean, not stressful, but we wanted to make sure we did it right. We had existing employees to bring together, we had existing assets. And so, yeah, and it, you know, what, what did we search, you know, um, who helps with existing businesses formation. Sandy: So the storytelling is about. I'm looking for, you know, how I would describe my problem? The storytelling is reflecting that we understand these are the, this, we understand your problem. So what would you have Googled in your case? You [00:32:00] know how I have a, a mess of a will. How would you have, you know, how would you have Googled that and what would the story brand, um, line have been there? Sandy: I'm putting her on the spot. Shawn: What does it take to make a will valid in the state of Tennessee is what I would've. Searched and kind of what I was saying before in terms of authority is the law is the law is the law. If you're practicing in the same state, the answer is going to be 99.99% the same. That of a percentage that leaves room for interpretation and loopholes and things like that is probably the difference between a good lawyer and a great lawyer. Shawn: But, um, in terms of what the answer is gonna be. You could probably find five or six blog posts with a quick search of what makes a will valid in the state of Tennessee. But the one that first helps me feel understood and isn't just facts is the one that is gonna resonate with me, [00:33:00] it's gonna stick with me because there's an emotional hook. Davina: They're the ones that understand the implications, the emotion behind Right. The question. And so they're, they're giving you not only the facts, but they're, they're also sharing. Their content, they're sharing in a way that lets you feel understood. Sandy: Mm-hmm. Davina: And heard in the state and space that you are now not an, not an easy thing to do for people who don't do this for a living. Davina: Right, right, right. Which is why it's important to hire. So a lot of people think, I can do my own marketing, for instance, I can do my own social media. I could do what, but what you're, well, a lot of what you were talking about in the beginning was the, the importance of strategy. The strategy evolves a lot of parts, like, where are we now? Davina: So what strategy, what strategy do we need to take? And it always begins with understanding who your client is. Who is my client? What is their 3:00 AM problem? Where do they hang out? How am I going to start? How am I gonna solve that problem for them? What is, what is my plan for solving that [00:34:00] problem? All of those questions that we start with before we go and start just making dance videos or whatever it is. Davina: Right. Really it's a deeper understanding. I don't have anything. Listen, I make Instagram videos. I, I'm not on TikTok. We're, Sandy: your videos are good, Dina. Davina: Thank you. Sandy: I see, I see you jumping up your game. Yeah. Well in all of it is based on, you know, there's so few. There really are so few differences. A lot of what people, you know, businesses can offer these days. Sandy: Technology is kind of a great equalizer and, you know, access to tech and to web and so. It really kind of boils down to how people feel and how you make people feel. Mm-hmm. About how you can solve their problems. So when, you know, so the resource she mentioned StoryBrand, how to Build a StoryBrand is, um, great book. Sandy: It's a formula, it's a system, it's a process. And in the hands of people that. Know it and can extract it versus doing it yourself. Use that as a [00:35:00] foundation to go with you on your, and how your business changes throughout time. At the core of it is an empathetic understanding of how people feel when they get to their, get to your website. Sandy: They feel like, oh, these people understand me and they can be my guide. That's actually a specific term, is you're a guide to your clients. Your clients are the hero in the story, not you, but you are a guide to help them get to the solutions when you give them a plan. Yeah, Davina: I think that's interesting because I think, uh, a lot of business owners, small business owners, well business owners, period, tend to think they're the hero in the story, especially. Davina: Attorneys because it shows we solve the problems. So we're the heroes for solving the problem, but, and that's those websites that you see where it's all about the lawyers, all about the lawyers all over the site because we're the heroes. And the one shift, if you just make this one shift alone, it'll have a huge impact on your business. Davina: Right. And that is. To shift it and say, no, no, my client is the, is [00:36:00] here on the hero's journey. You haven't looked up the hero's journey. Go Google that. The hero's journey on this quest, right. Life. The, the client is on a quest. They're on a quest to solve a problem and it, they have a lot of emotion around that. Davina: And, and you stepping in and being a guide because you know the way mm-hmm. It is a Sherpa situation. You're, you're the one who's going to save them. Um, a lot of. Problems and obstacles that they're gonna overcome. You, you're, you're gonna have the knowledge and so position yourself as someone who is helping them is instead of coming in to be the superhero to solve the problem. Davina: Mm-hmm. Save the day is gonna be much more effective 'cause it's gonna make them feel more important. Right. Tell me how you guys do that for your clients. What is the number one problem you're solving for your clients? Shawn: I feel like that was maybe two different questions. Davina: Question. [00:37:00] I'm gonna answer the one that I, how do you do for your clients? What's the number one's problem you're solving? I always ask compound questions. You don't know this about me, but this is how I am. Shawn: Is that an attorney thing? Davina: No, that's probably just a me thing. Davina: I am always asking compound questions and I have to slow myself down 'cause my brain is going. Shawn: That's funny. I totally understand. So I, I think part of what you're asking is how do we help our clients accomplish positioning their brand as the guide and their prospects as the hero or their customers? Davina: Well before that? Before that though, I think, and so the reason I added on before that, I think the question is, what is the problem? So when your clients are coming to you mm-hmm. What is their 3:00 AM problem for you guys? Shawn: Yeah, they need to make more money. They're guessing about how to do that and stressing about it. Shawn: They're trying different things. It's not working. Flailing. It's not working. Yeah. They're flailing and failing Sandy: money spend, try [00:38:00] all over the place Shawn: and it, it's not working or it's not working as well as they thought it would, or sometimes it something is working. They're not super clear on which thing is working because they don't have a line of sight into the data to support which thing is working. Shawn: So they're too afraid to stop doing anything and they're throwing a lot of money away. Davina: Yes. Shawn: That, Davina: yeah. Shawn: And Davina: so, yeah, gimme a sense of the size. Uh, what is the revenue, the starting revenue of business that would be good clients for you? Gimme a kind of a sense, 'cause I know you work in different verticals, um, but give me a sense of the size business that you prefer to work with. Davina: You do business to business, right? Shawn: We do. We do some B2C as well, depending on the, the business model. Um, primarily our sweet spot is a business that has grown. They're established, and they've grown to the point where the people in the business are trying to wear too many hats. They can't [00:39:00] work on the business and in the business. Shawn: And they want to do both, and they need help getting from where they are to the next tier of, of scalability. Um. On either end of that, we have businesses that come to us that they're just getting started with their digital presence. They've had a brochure website. It is for referrals and word of mouth to go check and validate that they're who they say they are and they want that website to do a better job of storytelling. Shawn: Those people typically come to us 'cause they've heard of StoryBrand and they're looking for a StoryBrand agency to help them. Create the messaging on their website and work and bring them through the StoryBrand process. Um, on the other end of that, we do also work with large organizations that have grown too quickly and they're siloed and segmented. Shawn: Mm-hmm. And they need help streamlining and unifying and, and. [00:40:00] Aligning everything to work better together. A lot of times they've already invested in HubSpot and they're not using it. They know it can do a lot more than it is doing, and there's a learning curve that no one in inside the organization has the time or patience to overcome. Shawn: And Davina: you guys, Shawn: you Davina: guys are also dealing, it's not just strategy, it's implementation as well. So your, your, I mean, 'cause I think that's a huge thing we need to talk about is your. Your implementation It, it's one of the biggest challenges that I think a lot of business owners have is we have great ideas. Davina: We have ideas about those ideas and we have a lot of enthusiasm, but then when it comes to the rubber meets the road, it is time to implement. We often don't have the skill level that it takes to implement, and so we try to teach ourselves. How to develop those skills and then we get deeper and deeper into it and then we realize, okay, I've gotta know all these skills. Davina: But by then it's too late. Years have gone by [00:41:00] and you've wasted all this money and really you probably need to hire somebody just to help you who already has those skills, right? The who, not the how question. Yeah. So you guys do, so websites, storytelling, you know, messaging websites, social media, all of the different ways that you can help clients help. Sandy: It's stories. Yeah, it's stories that sell systems that scale. Brands that beckon websites that work and training that transforms experiences Shawn: that endear, Sandy: yes. Experiences that endear well. And the other piece of that, that's really cool and, and this is probably one of our biggest differentiators and how this works is, um. Sandy: Kim started this and I'm on, I'm on the train because it's brilliant. It's growth driven design, so to speaking to your audience, the lawyers, it's never, your website is, I'm just, just accept this. Your website is never finished. It should never be finished. It's. Get it to, you know, minimum viable [00:42:00] product and then launch and then understand what happens. Sandy: Read the data and then make iterative, iterative improvements. You say it so much better than I do. Iterative improvements. Sandy: Hard to say. Sandy: While you are selling, while you're generating leads and then you keep going. Like, it's never, it's not a one and done. It's not just a, I'm gonna pace up. You shouldn't pay someone just to build a website. Sandy: It should be, okay, where do we go from here? What is the next step? Because that's a constant investment. You constantly need to be, um, learning and doing and changing, learning, doing, changing. So that that's growth driven design. Shawn: The loss that happens there is two twofold. One, your business isn't going to be the same in a year as it is now. Shawn: It shouldn't be. It's going to evolve. And with it your. Website and your messaging and how you're going to market needs to evolve. But the traditional model is to rebuild your website every three to five years. So there's a whole lot of growth that isn't represented on [00:43:00] your website that is leading to attracting the wrong prospects, for example. Shawn: And so keeping that up to date is really important. Sandy: Mm-hmm. Shawn: The other side of that is sometimes the best way to know whether you've hit the nail on the head with your website. Is to ask the people who your website is for. So putting your website out there as a minimum viable product and accepting that a designer and a strategist and a whole team of people who aren't the person that you're trying to get to take action on choosing you to solve their problem. Shawn: Can't know. They can guess, they can make an educated guess. They can form a hypothesis and they can create a minimum viable product and launch it. But then you have to test it. You have to, uh, you have to put the tools in place to make your one-way mirror of a website, which I a brochure website is what that's called, into a two-way mirror so that you can see the digital body language of your users and infer meaning from it, and draw [00:44:00] patterns and conclusions, and then improve what you have out there. Sandy: You see why I picture the partner, right? I mean, it's, it's amazing. And when you, when you back that with. Sales. How do you go to market? We actually, so we've just sort of developed an entirely different, um, different, what we thought it was gonna be, I think in the first, or I did go to market strategy and that the clients we're working with, we understand cash flow on top of all those other things. Sandy: And so we need to say, okay, the foundational marketing things, the really good investment, the, the strategy and learning. That's your long game, but what can we do to address sales and closing business and the skills of your team members early? So we're actually together with the Revs. We can do this. Sandy: Two-prong, maybe it's a three-prong approach of the long game while we try to, you know, train and, and address sales and closing business on the short game too. [00:45:00] So it, I think that the overall message is, you know, instead of, it's a, it's a mindset shift. And as opposed to, or how traditionally marketing and even sales training has been in. Sandy: Here's this event. We're gonna plop this information here and let it ride for a, a year, a month, or you know, a couple months for sales, or a year for sales, or three to five per website. It's gotta be constantly evolving because you need to be getting the feedback from your audience, is this working? Why would you pour money into something? Sandy: If it's not working, why don't we, let's pivot. Let's make it so much more flexible. Shawn: Oh, you don't know it's working. How can we fix that? Yeah, Sandy: so Shawn: quick win. Long game. Davina: We need. We need to end. I so appreciate you guys being here today and talking with me. Tell me how people can get in touch with you and learn more about the New Sauce agency. Davina: And I love the name by the way, 'cause you guys are very saucy. Sandy: Well, that's a, that's kinda a funny story too. Kim was sauce marketing and, well, you, you tell that piece of it and then we'll wrap up like how [00:46:00] the name. Shawn: So prior to being Sandy: Sauce Shawn: Marketing, I was in Core Studios because, like I said, photos, videos, multimedia, and as our services grew, the name needed to change. Shawn: And so I, I looked up to Sean quite a bit and I had come up with some different options and I landed on Sauce and I walked up to her after a Nabo meeting in the parking lot and said, sauce. Sauce marketing and she just went, that's it. That's it. So that was like, that's how I knew that was it. Sandy: And, and then seven years later, Shawn: here we are, sauce agency. Shawn: Yes. Davina: Fabulous. I love it. See, that's a lot Sandy: people. Shawn: Yeah. How people could get in touch with us. We do have, um, a free guide, 10 small changes that make a big difference on your homepage that we would love to offer your audience. Davina: Oh, fabulous. Shawn: I love Davina: that. Shawn: And then of course, just go to sauce agency.com and in the top right hand corner there is a button that says, request to call and you can book a risk-free connect call where we can learn about your, [00:47:00] your practice and determine if we're a good fit to help you get from where you are and where you wanna grow. Sandy: Yeah. Or I love it. You know what I would love to is I want feedback and if, if, if your audience is listening and if they. Found something helpful and, um, extremely applicable. Let us know what that is. They can Shawn: reach, reach out Sandy: to Shawn: us there. Or if any, if anyone wants to stop us from using LegalZoom for Wills email. Davina: If you're in Memphis, that's your opportunity. There's two people we really need. Estate planning done, and it's probably not a will, it's probably something else more. Um, so there you go. Ladies, thanks so much for being here and, and talking with me today. I've really enjoyed it. And of course I could probably do a whole nother episode, but this one has been great and I think our, uh, audience is gonna get a lot out of it, so I really appreciate it. Davina: Thank you. Sandy: Thank you. Thank you, Davina. Good to see you.