Latest / Sharp Strategies Sweet Success / Creating High-Impact Marketing Systems for 2026—November 2025 Sharp Marketing Mastermind

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Creating High-Impact Marketing Systems for 2026—November 2025 Sharp Marketing Mastermind · Sharp Strategies Sweet Success

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome everyone who is here currently.
• 0:04
  Thank you so much for joining me today for the Sharp Marketing
• 0:08
  Mastermind for November 2025.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we are going to be talking about 2026 marketing plans.
• 0:23
  And there's been a lot I've been thinking about over the last
• 0:27
  two months when it
• 0:28
  comes to marketing planning and what law firms should focus on
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  in terms of how we
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  SPEAKER_00: should be spending our money,
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  SPEAKER_00: what we should be investing in,
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  SPEAKER_00: what we need,
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  SPEAKER_00: and what can we,
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  SPEAKER_00: the marketers,
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  SPEAKER_00: do to advance the law firm's goals.
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  And I've been thinking a lot about this ping-ponging back and
• 0:49
  forth from different
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  SPEAKER_00: projects,
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  SPEAKER_00: different
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  marketing emergency so to speak and i've had a few revelations
• 0:59
  and i'm not going to
• 1:00
  kind of go into the full story of all of those but i am going
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  to kind of clue you
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  in on how it's guided my thinking in terms of what we should be
• 1:08
  doing in 2026 to
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  advance the marketing for the law firm overall and get more
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  leads more clients more
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  SPEAKER_00: cases
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So some quick housekeeping just to start out with.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So this recap and recording won't be up on Substack until next week.
• 1:28
  Daniela is my video editor and she's out for a short vacation
• 1:32
  and she's very dearly
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  SPEAKER_00: missed,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: trust me.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a bit of a content backlog.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so this is a priority, but it won't be going up until next week.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you're going to see this recording and all the resources and an email,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I believe by next Tuesday.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Itched my nose a little bit.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And after the Zoom meeting, there's no survey for this week.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: You hear the puppy?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was hoping you guys wouldn't.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's all the way in the basement.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my goodness.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the poor thing does not like to be crated, which as is.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I might even got my door closed.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have to be talking over this little guy.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to have some resources to share.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: They'll be up by next Tuesday.
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  SPEAKER_00: No survey after this meeting.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Survey results for last month were posted in Substack.
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  And I'll probably send out a survey as a poll as part of the
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  Substack article,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is something I can do,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: which is really cool.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And let me just make sure chat is open so I can see what's going on.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And have it appropriately sized in.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, guys.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into 2026 marketing plans for law firms.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I started working on this way back in early October.
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  SPEAKER_00: And at the time or throughout October,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's something I just kept coming back to,
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  SPEAKER_00: but struggled to advance.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for me as part of Sharp Cookie and what I do as a fractional CMO,
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  SPEAKER_00: For each of my clients every quarter, we create marketing plans.
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  And these are,
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  the way I describe it to law firms is these are modeled after
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  EOS rocks.
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  SPEAKER_00: Think of them as one-time projects we do each quarter.
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  SPEAKER_00: And our goal is to complete three,
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  SPEAKER_00: which for me is really realistic if you have,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: a team of like more than one person on the marketing,
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  SPEAKER_00: yourself and a vendor,
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  SPEAKER_00: yourself and some freelancers.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: can probably accomplish three marketing plans each quarter.
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  SPEAKER_00: But as I kept coming back to this,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: like creating marketing plans and trying to figure out like,
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: what do the attorneys want?
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, what are they looking for?
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  What will make them happy and feel like this is the marketing
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  plan I was looking for?
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  Because like many of you,
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  I was in house marketer for a law firm for a long time.
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  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of ways still act as one.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I get, you know, asked the question, like, what are the new ideas?
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  SPEAKER_00: Where are the new things that we can do?
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  SPEAKER_00: And so for me,
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  SPEAKER_00: thinking about like marketing plans,
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  SPEAKER_00: like I'm thinking of,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: one,
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  SPEAKER_00: what's going to work,
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  SPEAKER_00: what's going to work to bring in the most cases,
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  but also thinking about how do I package it and present it to
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  the attorneys so the
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  SPEAKER_00: attorneys will appreciate it for what it is.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because in my experience also,
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  a lot of times lawyers have trouble buying into a marketing
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  idea unless there's a
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  SPEAKER_00: direct through line for how it's going to generate cases,
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  SPEAKER_00: right?
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  SPEAKER_00: And so for a lot of attorneys,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: if the marketing plan doesn't give them like a clear through line,
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  SPEAKER_00: that clear outcome of this gets us more cases,
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  SPEAKER_00: they're really hesitant.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I know talking with some of you and just,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: talking with marketers on LinkedIn and elsewhere,
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  SPEAKER_00: this is,
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  SPEAKER_00: this is an issue because you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: there are only so many marketing ideas,
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  SPEAKER_00: right.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are only so many ways to attract clients.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're limited by platform,
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  SPEAKER_00: we're limited by medium,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we're just simply limited by how people find attorneys.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are not infinite paths to generate a leader case for a law firm.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we have to be practical.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I attended a few marketing conferences here in the last few months.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in 2026, one of my goals is to attend many more.
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  And one of the things that I noticed,
• 6:00
  oh shoot,
• 6:00
  let me silence my phone guys.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the things I should do for a meeting and just totally forgot.
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  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
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  SPEAKER_00: So at these conferences,
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  I talked to a lot of marketing vendors and a lot of them are
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  selling marketing
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  SPEAKER_00: programs that in-house team could,
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  SPEAKER_00: could do themselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we, we still outsource because it's convenient, but,
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  SPEAKER_00: As a lot of you who's had law firms who buy into one of these programs,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm being vague because it could be anything.
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  SPEAKER_00: It could be social media related, SEO related, PPC.
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  SPEAKER_00: It could be anything.
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  SPEAKER_00: They just buy into like a marketing program or an idea from a vendor.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: a lot of us,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: know and have the experience of the vendor just kind of falling through.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like the campaign didn't work.
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  SPEAKER_00: We didn't get a whole lot out of it.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't call it anyone specific,
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  SPEAKER_00: but like I still think about the complete,
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  SPEAKER_00: what was it,
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  plague of crisp videos that so many attorneys filmed like in
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  the early or the late
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  SPEAKER_00: 2000s,
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  SPEAKER_00: early 2000s.
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  SPEAKER_00: And,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  every lawyer I've talked to about the crisp videos who were
• 7:13
  really excited about
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  SPEAKER_00: the,
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  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
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  SPEAKER_00: who were really excited about those videos,
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  SPEAKER_00: who loved them.
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  Honestly,
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  they were pretty good videos like they were legitimately well
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  produced videos.
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  But every lawyer I talked to who spent all that money to get
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  one bucked up against
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  SPEAKER_00: the same issue,
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  which is what the heck do we do with it like we have this video
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  is on YouTube it's
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  SPEAKER_00: on our website.
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  We track how many people watch it on the website,
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  quite a few,
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  but not many.
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  SPEAKER_00: Should we get more people to watch it?
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  SPEAKER_00: Does it help us?
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  SPEAKER_00: So many questions about how to use this one asset that
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: let's be honest,
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  SPEAKER_00: like many of us here could have,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  found a vendor and put together a production that would have
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  yielded a crisp type
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  SPEAKER_00: video,
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  SPEAKER_00: right?
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  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't revolutionary.
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  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, but it was a good product, a package.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to knock it too much, but we've all had that.
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  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us have had that experience with those types of videos.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, thinking about these marketing plans, thinking about like,
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  SPEAKER_00: what marketing people sell to lawyers.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  it occurred to me that what we should be doing as in-house
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  marketers isn't just
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  SPEAKER_00: implementing a plan.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like, here's an idea, we'll implement it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's an idea, we'll implement it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because if we do do that,
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  SPEAKER_00: because we can,
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  SPEAKER_00: we kind of exhaust the list of ideas pretty quickly,
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  SPEAKER_00: a list of good ideas,
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  SPEAKER_00: really.
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  And at a certain point,
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  we just hit this roadblock where there's nothing new under the
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  sun.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are only so many ways to generate leads for a law firm.
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  How do we grow it from here without just reaching for that next
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  new idea,
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  so to speak?
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  SPEAKER_00: And so for me,
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  SPEAKER_00: and also keep in mind,
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  a lot of the law firms I work for are more or less starting
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  from ground zero.
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  A lot of my new clients have some marketing that they're
• 9:11
  implementing,
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  but
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: they maybe haven't had an in-house team for a while,
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  SPEAKER_00: or they had somebody who's on their way out of the role.
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  And they just are starting at a level that I feel like a lot of
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  you have probably
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  SPEAKER_00: built up your firms a little bit beyond,
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  SPEAKER_00: right?
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  SPEAKER_00: So keep in mind, like, that's who I'm starting with.
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  SPEAKER_00: A lot of firms who just don't have any systems in place.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so my primary goal is to help them create those systems.
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  And really,
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  when you think about it,
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  it's the systems that are the most important.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was super bad at sports as a kid.
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  SPEAKER_00: Surprise, right?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: The only sport I actually committed to and did was