March 6, 2025 • 51 mins
In today’s episode of the *Wealthy Woman Lawyer®* podcast, I chat with Karin Conroy, Founder and Creative Director of Conroy Creative Counsel, an award-winning recognized leader in law firm marketing and website development. Karin has cracked the code on building smart, sophisticated, and strategic websites for law firms that result in more reach and revenue. Through strategic branding and positioning, her clients enhance their online reputation and create a marketing strategy that works.
Listen in as Karin and I discuss:
- Why a website alone won’t bring in new clients—and what actually works.
- The importance of a holistic marketing strategy for law firms.
- How to avoid common mistakes that waste time and money.
- The role of a fractional CMO in streamlining law firm marketing.
- Why data-driven marketing decisions lead to better client conversions.
Please feel free to go here to listen.
You can go here to watch.
**LINKS TO LOVE:**
To learn more about Karin Conroy and Conroy Creative Counsel, visit conroycreativecounsel.com or connect with Karin on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram.
Want to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts? We’d love it!
Ready to scale your law firm and build a practice that aligns with your values? Check out our new training: "3 Beliefs Preventing You From Attaining Your $1M+ Law Firm and Millionaire Lifestyle" (And How to Turn it All Around in 90 Days and Finally Get What You Want Most).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:01):
Welcome to the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. What if
you could hang out withsuccessful women lawyers? Ask
them about growing their firms,managing resources like time,
team, and systems, masteringmoney issues, and more. Then
take an insight or two to helpyou build a wealth generating
law firm. Each week, your host,Davina Frederick, takes an
(00:22):
in-depth look at how to thinklike a CEO, attract clients who
you love to serve and will payyou on time, and create a
profitable, sustainable firm youlove.
Davina is founder and CEO ofWealthy Woman Lawyer, and her
goal is to give you theinformation you need to scale
your law firm business from 6 to7 figures in gross annual
revenue so you can fully fundand still have time to enjoy the
(00:45):
lifestyle of your dreams. Now,here's Davina.
Davina (00:50):
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the wealthy woman
lawyer podcast. I'm your host,Davina Frederick. And my guest
today is Karen Conroy. Karen isthe founder and creative
director of Conroy CreativeCouncil, an award winning
recognized leader that hascracked the code of smart,
sophisticated, and strategicwebsites for law firms that
results in more reach and morerevenue through strategic
(01:13):
branding and positioning. Herclients are proud of the way
they look online, and their firmreputation is improved because
their online presencebeautifully displays their
experience and expertise.
Karen and her team's goal is toenhance the success of the
client she works with through aproven online marketing process.
She doesn't lead the success ofher projects up to creative
(01:35):
chance, but uses measurablesystems that result in more of
the reach and revenue throughstrategic branding and
positioning. Marketing cocounsel is the agency's
signature flat rate program thatprovides a unified marketing
approach and next level results.Please join me in welcoming
Karen to the Wealthy WomanLawyer podcast. Hi, Karen.
(01:57):
Welcome.
Karin (01:58):
Hi. I see you in a few minutes. Yeah. I always love
chatting with you. It's it'salways good stuff.
Davina (02:03):
I know. We always have so much fun when we talk because
we talk about our favoritesubjects, which are business and
marketing. So
Karin (02:08):
Work nerds.
Davina (02:10):
We're work nerds. Totally. So I have, read a
little intro with you to sortof, talk about it was a great
well written intro, by the way.Thank you. A lots of
alliteration.
So I had to speak carefully tobe able to
Karin (02:26):
A lot of c's.
Davina (02:28):
I mean, I appreciate that, though. Yeah. So you were
on the podcast. What was it backin 2021?
Karin (02:35):
Wow. That's a good question. It's been a couple
years. Yeah.
Davina (02:37):
It's been a minute. Yeah. Yeah. The and, we were
talking then about this as youhad started your podcast. I had
started my podcast.
Yeah. And if anybody's notlistening to your wonderful
podcast, they need to. It'sCouncil of
Karin (02:50):
Cast. Yeah. And Well, I had this amazing guest, you.
That's basically me. And I thinkthat's what's you know, I I I
think you do this too.
You get these experts on andit's, the conversation just ends
up being so full of quality. So,you know, it's not always me.
It's like finding people whoreally have something great to
say about whatever we're talkingabout.
Davina (03:12):
Yeah. Yeah. And and marketing and law firms is a
huge topic that because it'schanged so much over Yes. In ten
years, in a decade with all thethings that are going on. Yeah.
So I wanna talk I wanna delveinto that and talk about that.
Could you just before we gothere, just, explain the
(03:34):
services that your businessprovides and what sort of makes
you different because you havethis little, CMO piece. And I
wonder if will you explain whythat came about how that came
about?
Karin (03:47):
Well, it's true that, I feel like both of us have been
have seen all of it. You know,we've seen the whole history of
how marketing has changed. And Istarted back in the day, I
started at this tiny littleinternet cafe in a beach town
here in California and whereliterally, people would walk in
to check their emails and theywould kind of come off the
(04:09):
streets. And, you know, so wayback in the day when it was like
the beginning of the internet,but I've seen a lot of these
changes and including and thenwe have to roll with
Davina (04:18):
it. Right?
Karin (04:18):
Like we, we continue to offer HTML sites and, you know,
tell the people to be on, youknow, Netscape. Like, these
things don't exist. Yes. So westarted by offering website. And
that you know, I was originallyback in the day when blogs were
a thing.
And there, there was, thiswebsite lawyerist where it was
(04:42):
at the time at the that has alsochanged, really. But at the time
it was kind of a group blogwhere they had a lot of
contributors and I was talkingabout marketing. And, at the
time I was advertising websitesand that was what we sold. And
it was really almost like aproduct, even though, you know,
it's kind of a combination ofproduct service. And it was
(05:05):
price based and, you know,everything that I did then,
which we're talking like 2010.
So, you know, fifteen years ago,everything I did then and the
way I marketed myself and theway I marketed law firms is
different from how we're doingit now. So I was price based. I
was focused on websites and itwas, you know, slap up a website
(05:26):
and, and then cross yourfingers, basically. Like let's
hope that the business justrolls in. And back then Google
was a lot less sophisticated asusers are, were a lot less
sophisticated.
And so it kind of worked, youknow, like people just sort of
put up what they con considereda brochure on, Google and Google
(05:46):
would sort of find them. And,that just doesn't work anymore.
So if you think that you'regonna go out and start a law
firm, and you're gonna startwith a website, and then that
checks the box of your marketingplan, that's gonna be you're
gonna have a sad reality. That'sjust not gonna work. And that's
not, what we have found thatwe're not doing any of one a
(06:09):
service by solely focusing onwebsites anymore.
So that is important. Yourwebsite is critical. This is
your first impression. And so Idon't mean to downplay the
importance of a website. I justmean to make sure that you're
thinking of it in terms of abroader system and and strategy
and plan.
(06:30):
And you will, once you have thatwebsite, then what? So now what
we do that's different is westart with a broader scale
strategy and we plan out and wethink about a marketing plan in
terms of a year at a minimum. Sowe start with thinking about a
year at a minimum and everythingthat's gonna be needed in that
(06:51):
year. And sometimes that's not awebsite. Sometimes we look at
the website and it's fine.
And or maybe it's 90% fine andwe need to make some
adjustments. But it's not likethrow the baby out the bathwater
website. We're gonna make someadjustments and then we're also
gonna do the following 12things. And, you know, so, so
that's why we kind of, havepulled back and taken a broader
(07:15):
scale look at the kinds ofthings we offer now. It's not
just, a tactic.
It's a broader plan and systemand, strategy.
Davina (07:26):
For the long effort. And I I mean, that's great for
that's great to sum that upbecause I remember back when I
started this business, I startedout as as Deep Frederick Media
Marketing is my company name.Everybody knows me as Wealthy
Woman Lawyer now. But Yeah. Istarted out kind of thinking I
was gonna go the agency modelfrom a marketing perspective
(07:47):
because I had done marketing forlaw firms.
And I I remember this businessthat I have evolved out of
people coming to me with, I wantto do this marketing tactic. And
then I would start asking them alot of questions and finding out
they didn't know why they weredoing it. I wanted how it fit
into the larger picture and allof that. And I wound up going
(08:09):
down the coaching branch asopposed to the agency branch.
Yeah.
And you've really developed afull service sort of marketing
agency for that specializes inworking with law firms. Correct?
Karin (08:19):
Correct. That's it. Exactly. And I heard someone
describe it really well recentlywhere it's like, if you went to
the gym and decided to hire atrainer and then just said, I
just wanna show up once. Andlike, how can I, you know, get a
six pack and look like the way Iwanna look?
But I just wanna be here, youknow, really just a day. Like,
(08:44):
no.
Davina (08:45):
It doesn't work that way, Rex.
Karin (08:47):
Yeah. Exactly. And it seems so obvious and we laugh,
but at the same time, by justdoing a website or just coming
to you and asking, hey, how canI, achieve these things? But I
just wanna do it on Instagram.And it's like, no, that's just
not gonna be your plan and yourpath.
And I can take this broad scaleview and make that plan. But if
(09:10):
you haven't even kind of got tothe mental thought that there's
a lot more to it, then we gottatake a step back and and start
there.
Davina (09:18):
Yeah. Yeah. One dangers I think I've always seen even
back before I became a lawyerand and I was working in the
agency world and I was workingin house in marketing is this
this, a lot of lawyers and lawfirms at that time, and this is
back in the nineties, so I'mreally dating myself here, but
really didn't look at marketingprofessionals as a whole
(09:39):
separate profession. They alwaysthought, well, if I just had a
little extra time, I could writea blog. Totally.
Matter that their blogs were,like, you know, legal briefs
that nobody wanna Yes.
Karin (09:51):
Feed. Right.
Davina (09:51):
It just thought, well, I if I just had time, I could do
it all myself. I could learn howto build a website over a
weekend and Yeah. And that. Andwe know when we've seen over the
last couple of decades, theevolution of marketing. And now
there are so many platforms andways that we can market.
There are all the traditionalways we can market. And now
(10:12):
there's this whole online worldYeah. That anywhere from online
speaking and webinars to varioussocial media platforms, each
having their own, personalityand way that you have to create
content doesn't cross over wellto others. Yeah. You know,
because I'm going through thismyself right now.
Yeah. And, it can be veryconfusing
Karin (10:34):
for It's overwhelming. Yes.
Davina (10:36):
They don't realize, like, this is a whole separate
profession. There are people whoactually study marketing, and
then and then there are somepeople who are experts in
Instagram and some who areexperts in something else, and
everybody's calling themselves amarketer. Right. You're you are
really cutting through all ofthat and saying, let's back out
of all of the tactics and say,patiently based on your law
(11:00):
firm, your clients, your goals,where do we need to be, and what
do we need to be doing. Is thataccurate?
Karin (11:08):
I it is. And, you know, I also like to say so before I
started doing this with lawfirms, I worked for Century
twenty one. And, they have thisthey have this whole approach
where, don't do, FSBO, which isa for sale by owner, which is
kind of the DIY version. And,for the same reason that
(11:29):
realtors say, you know, you needmy expertise to sell your house
because you don't know what youdon't know. The same reason
lawyers say you need myexpertise to hire me because you
don't know what you don't know,and it could potentially get you
in a lot of hot water.
It's the same thing withmarketing. You don't know what I
have spent years learning andthe mistakes that I see and the
(11:52):
things that I know that I cancut through and get you to those
answers that I know are working,that are also changing. I mean,
if you're doing anything withGoogle or search or anything,
that stuff changes daily. Notjust the technology of it, but
what your competitors are doing,where you're gonna rank, how
you're gonna address that. And,it, you should not be caught in
(12:17):
the daily function of lookingwhere your search rankings are
in the same way that your stockbroker is gonna say, do not
watch your investments on adaily basis.
That is a path to failurebecause you're gonna get so
caught up in, oh my gosh, I justlost, you know, whatever. And
then it, you know, you have toride the market. So, you know,
(12:40):
we know this from so manydifferent ways of trying to find
success. And it's just the samewith marketing. There is a,
little piece of investment.
There's a piece of strategy.There's a piece of, you know,
finding the right expert forwhat you need, which is gonna be
different than what the law firmdown the street needs. And, you
(13:03):
know, all of these pieces cometogether to make it work.
Davina (13:09):
Let's let's talk about what a fractional CMO's chief
marketing officer does. We'lltalk about a chief marketing
officer does and then talk aboutthe fractional part. Yeah.
Because I think, and because youguys not only do the sort of
vision and the planning and allthat, but you actually help with
the implementation. But thatdoesn't mean you were sitting
there
Karin (13:29):
Right.
Davina (13:29):
Making their Google Ads for them or making their
Facebook Ads for them. So tellme kind of how your business
works in terms of serving yourclients.
Karin (13:38):
Yeah. And this is a very trending topic, you know, and I
can see this based on our searchresults for all the things we
write about this. And it isdifferent. So if this is
something that you're lookinginto, be very careful about what
you need and then finding theright kind of agency for what
that, what that, you know,fulfills your need. Because
(13:59):
there are people who arebasically like, you know, a
lawyer who is on retainer andthey have a set number of hours
and then they just sort of arethere kind of like a part time
marketing person in your firm.
That is not what we do. Thenthere are people who are, you
know, there's a lot of differentways of, of doing this. So to
make it clear, the way that wedo it is we start by planning
(14:23):
out a year. And then we look atit quarterly and set goals. And
part of our job is to make surethat we focus on those goals and
we set aside the distractions.
Because this is thisdistractions are a huge part of
marketing failure. There's somuch waste and this is where a
lot of people come in reallyfrustrated because they've tried
(14:46):
a lot of things and they'rewasting their time and their
money. And they've tried itwithout any plan or strategy. So
it's gonna look different forevery firm we work with. And it
should because every firm isdifferent and that the goals for
every firm is different.
And so one firm for an examplemay be, the two big examples
(15:06):
that we use are an existing firmthat has kind of plateaued and
not, you know, finding the kindof growth they want or people
who are going out and starting anew firm. So in an existing firm
that has plateaued, we're gonnastart in both cases, we're gonna
start with a lot of strategy.Sitting down, talking about
what's working, having a lot ofconversations, feeling like, you
know, we're, just kind of havingvirtual coffee and but with a
(15:30):
plan. And we're asking a lot ofquestions about what they're
doing, what they're not doing,what they see works, what their
clients say, when they decide towork with them. And in looking
at all of the numbers, you know,whatever numbers the firm is
coming in with.
So that would include theirGoogle analytics. If they're
(15:50):
doing social media, we'relooking at all the data. And
then we sit and, you know, makea plan and we say, okay, the
most urgent and we have a wayof, of ranking and rating the
different kinds of tactics thatwe would apply to that strategy.
So we look at the strategy andwe say, okay, the goal here is
(16:13):
x. We're gonna achieve it by byin measurable ways by, you know,
doing the following things.
And let's look at the list ofpossible tactics. It could be
social media. It could beupdating the website. It could
be, a PR campaign. It could bean email campaign to, nurture
our referral resources.
(16:34):
It could be a lot of differentthings. Let's go through each
one of these things, and we aregoing to measurably rank our
potential for outcome on eachone. And then we have a number
and we say, okay, the and wecall this an ICE score, I C E.
And it measures impact andconfidence and how easy ease of
(16:54):
of execution. So then we comeback and we say, okay, the
highest score is this.
How about we try start withthat? So we're not just saying,
I don't know, let's throw somespaghetti at the wall and see
what works. We have a measurablereason for making all of these
decisions. And then we plan outthe year that way. And this
takes a while and it should.
(17:15):
And this is one thing we see alot where people are not
spending enough time and efforton that initial planning and
thought and whatever. And it'slike, let's just throw a bunch
of stuff out and see see whatsticks.
Davina (17:27):
Right. Right. And I I I see this all the time, and I
know from a a marketingstandpoint, there's no
guarantees in marketing. And itRight. Be hard for people to
say, well, I put all this moneyin and it didn't work.
And a lot of times what happensis we get when that happens a
(17:47):
couple of times, we get veryvulnerable. And then somebody
who's a marketer comes along andsays and by marketer, I mean,
they have a specific product orservice that they're selling,
and they come along and theysay, but you haven't done this,
and what you need is to you needto do this. Right. And then you
try that, and then you go, well,that didn't work. And then now
you're more more vulnerable thanever, and then somebody else
comes along and goes, well, youtried that, but the reason why
(18:09):
that didn't work is becausethis, we need to try this.
And so they're really you reallybecome sort of prey to different
types of services. Yeah. Notthat some won't work, but some
are perfectly legitimate goodservices. But what you're
talking about is really that30,000 foot view. Yes.
Tell me some of the things thatyou take into I rattled off a
(18:32):
few, but tell me some of thethings you take into
consideration when you'resitting there with a law firm.
Let's say a midsize law firm ora law firm that's plateaued
Yeah. Or an and then we'll lookat the new law firm. Well, let's
look at that. What are youlooking for in terms of, the
opportunities that come intoplay as to what type of plan you
(18:52):
choose for them?
Karin (18:54):
Okay. So we're gonna first start with talking about
who their ideal client is. Andeverybody talks about this. And
I don't mean to define it in atypical demographic ways. Like a
lot of people will say, well,it's a 30 to 32 year old woman
who has had a DUI.
That's not what I mean. What Imean is, we're gonna probably
(19:18):
add those elements in as sort ofa sub definition, but the main
definition is what is theirproblem? And I don't mean like
what's wrong with them.
Davina (19:27):
Like, what is your problem?
Karin (19:28):
I mean, why are they calling you and why do they hire
you? And if you have been whatdoing what you're doing for
longer than five minutes, youknow, you know, when you get
that call and you're like, thisis a good one. This is ideal.
They're saying all the rightthings. And, this is also
something that you kind of dohave to learn over time because,
(19:53):
you know, we've all made thesemistakes early on in business
where we're desperate to get ourbusiness going.
And we learn all the hardlessons the hard way of what
those might find. You takewhoever
Davina (20:04):
walks through the door and we're happy to get the
check. And I'm like, I wish Ihad taken that check.
Karin (20:09):
Exactly. It's like it does not, it's not worth it.
Like whatever they paid me, it'snot worth it. So, but you, you
know, a lot of times you have tolearn that the hard way, But
some of the things I've learnedover time are, you know, how
does it feel? And I am not a woowoo person, but typically when
I'm on a call with someone whois all red flags, I am trying to
(20:32):
get off.
There's something in my gutthat's saying, oh, no. They're,
when they ask a question, I I'mimmediately, I get kind of
defensive and I'm saying, no,no, no, no, no. That is not how
it's done or whatever. Soinstead, just instead of kind of
having those things play out,you know, while you're talking
to them, I take notes and I makesure, and I start to write down,
(20:55):
this is going to be a no. Youknow?
And so then what I do is Itransition to getting them off
my plate and being a goodresource for them. And a lot of
times they end up coming backsix months or, you know, a year
and saying, you know what? And Itry to tell them very
professionally and in a way, youknow, about the things that I
(21:18):
feel like they're the path thatthey're on, that's not correct.
Usually it's things that arevery money focused and it's,
things like why, why can't Ijust do my own website? And so
usually my response is, do it.
You know, go go ahead and you dothat. Because if you're coming
to me and you don't and you'renot value based and you're not
(21:39):
seeing the value, I'm not gonnatry to convince you because it's
something has fallen apart alongthat path. And I will say the
way I've got my system set up,this doesn't happen that much
anymore. They've already, youknow, usually through my, my
process and my system, theynaturally drop off because
there's some trigger that tellsthem it's not right. And that's
perfect.
That's what you want. So whenI'm sitting with that initial
(22:03):
company, it's what are your redflags? You already know what
these are. And, you know, I gaveyou a few of my examples, but,
are they, are they not valuebased and price based? Are they,
Is there a certain kind of casehere that you're looking to do?
And they're asking about someother thing. Or when you're
talking to them, do you get thefeeling that, you know, you want
(22:25):
to jump in? Like right away, youwant to get going, you're
excited about it. This is, thisis, you know, a thing and you're
going to tell your spouse aboutit at dinner. And you're like,
this is something that you'reexcited about.
Maybe it's something that you'vebeen wanting to do and whatever.
So how do you feel about it? Andthen let's talk about all of
that and who that is. Let's getsome examples. Let's maybe see
(22:46):
if you can get some, referralsand references and reviews and
all of that.
But build around who they are.And then let's talk about where
they show up so that you can bethere. So let's say, so let me
use my ex the example of how Ido it for myself because it's so
different for different lawfirms. But for me, I show up
(23:08):
where lawyers are. So when Ifirst started building my
business, I was on lawyerstalking about marketing.
And the audience is specific tolawyers. So I wasn't just going
out and writing articles aboutmarketing on any old site that I
could find because that's awaste of my time. You want to be
where those people are. So thatkind of goes back to defining
(23:32):
who they are and thinking about,okay, what kind of media are
they listening to? Are theylistening to podcasts?
Are they not doing any of that?And I need to do, ads at a bus
stop. You know, where are theyand what are they consuming
where you can be present? That'swhere we kind of start. And then
you kind of build your your,plan around it.
Davina (23:56):
Right. Right. I always tell people a lot of times when
I'm going through with mycoaching, it's comprehensive. So
it's not around marketing. It'saround, like, kind of your whole
big picture, but we talk aboutwho your ideal client is.
And the way that I what I andthis the way you said it, it was
very similar to the way that Isay it. But I tell them, I said,
we're not talking about yourexisting clients. We're talking
(24:18):
about your ideal client. This isthe client. You've probably got
two or three of them if you'vebeen in a business for a while.
At that point, you hang up thephone, you're doing your happy
dance because Yeah. They've justhired you and agreed to work
with you, and you're so excitedabout it. Right. So ideal client
is different. And we're alsotalking about marketing
messaging, which I think a lotof people don't really
(24:38):
understand too.
They think in terms of, well, ifI target just this specific
client, what if this type ofclient wants to come and hire
me? Yep. And what what am Igonna do? And you could well,
you can take that client too.Like, maybe that's your b
category.
Right. You want somebody of youra category hiring you, and you
might have some b category comealong and they it doesn't mean
(24:59):
you can't take their work, butwe're talking about in terms of
who what who are we creating amessage for Right. Out there. So
let's talk about the differencein messages Yeah. To have some
examples for people to go to.
So think of a client that you'vehad recently, maybe one of your
case studies where you reallycrafted a message for a
(25:20):
particular demographic,psychographic sort of client.
And can you tell us give us tellus that?
Karin (25:27):
Yeah. We've worked with a lot of different clients where,
like, for example, in familylaw, we're gonna talk a lot
about getting to the other sideof this conflict. Potentially,
you know, what is it that theycare most about? Sometimes it's
they care most about not,creating a, a hostile
(25:47):
environment that damages theirkid. So that when you start
working on the feelings aroundthat, what that client is
feeling as they come to youversus what is typically
originally the message, which isI am a X law firm in Y city and
(26:08):
I do Z kind of practice area.
And that doesn't address thatfeeling in any way. And it
doesn't address, whether you canreally fix that problem for
them. So the message needs to beadjusted so that it's focused on
them. It's focused on theirproblem. And then secondly, how
(26:32):
you've done that in the past topresent yourself as an expert in
understanding the problem andshowing solutions for other
people.
But if you lead with that secondpart, which many, many people
do, and you can imagine andvisualize the website that I'm
talking about, where you seethis a lot in personal injury
sites, where it's all about theproblem in a negative way, like
(26:58):
accident pictures, and then alot of dollar signs. And it's so
smarmy coming across as like,all we care about is the money.
And all we care about is gettingyou through, you know, turning
you through our factory law firmin order to get a check. And it
just comes across so negativelythat it works if they really
(27:23):
kind of are looking forreputation building, like if
they wanna have appearances onCNN and things like that. It
sort of works sometimesdepending on, you know, kind of
what they're saying.
But in terms of new clients, Itjust comes across, your
interaction with those clientsis gonna be really different in
terms it's all gonna be moneybased. It's all gonna be, you
(27:45):
know, what are you doing for methis minute? And I own you and I
own your hourly and I'm payingthis hourly rate versus I
understand that you understandme and you understand my problem
and we're kind of moreemotionally connected. So it
feels somewhat subtle, but whenI come across a website or a
(28:06):
marketing campaign that is notdoing it right, it's instant.
And I instantly look at it andthink, okay, I, I can anticipate
what kinds of issues they'rehaving with their traffic.
People are coming, they'reheading this impression, and
then they're probably getting alot of bounces where they're
going off to another site tocompare.
Davina (28:28):
Interesting. Interesting. What do you think
you and I had a conversationrecently on your podcast, and we
were talking about women andwomen in law Yeah. And the
experience of women lawyers.Have you noticed differences in
terms of marketing and and howwomen, tend to want to market
(28:49):
versus how men tend to want tomarket?
Yeah. I know these aregeneralities for for anybody
who's listening going ondifferent. Well, yeah, people
are different. But I'm justwondering if they're in, like,
broad sort of things that you'venoticed, in terms of women law
firm owners versus men law firmowners in the marketing world.
Karin (29:06):
Definitely. I I feel like the legal industry has
historically been this kind ofold old guys' club. You know, a
lot of old Caucasian males. Ikind of picture, the Augusta
Golf Course where it's likeinvite only, you know, all these
guys sitting around and itwasn't just women. It's, you
(29:28):
know, all anybody who wasn't aold white guy, you know?
But my personal experience as awoman is that, you know, I
noticed that more specifically.But there is a different
approach. And what we've beenseeing, and you and I talked
about is that old schoolapproach just is not working
anymore. That's not what asophisticated, potential client
(29:52):
wants to see. And they'reoverwhelmed by that.
And that it's not what they wantto feel when they're coming to
their website. So now we'retalking about all these feelings
and this messaging and thislevel of communication that is
typically a more feminineapproach. And so we're talking
(30:13):
about not leading with your, Iwent to Harvard and, you know, I
just finished a case that, youknow, got my firm $5,000,000
You're not gonna lead with that.Maybe that's super important if
you're really trying to promotea certain kind of case, but
we're still not gonna lead withthat. We're gonna lead with, so
let's let's kinda stick withpersonal injury.
(30:35):
Let's say that you had a certainkind of injury case. We're gonna
lead with, we know you've beeninjured and you're overwhelmed
and you want justice. And, youknow, these are not the actual
words we're gonna use becauseit's kind of cliche. But we're
gonna talk about what they'recoming to you for. And it's the
same case.
Like it, you know, we're talkingabout somewhat subtle
(30:57):
adjustments. And that's gonnapull them in and say, yes, this,
yes, that's it. All we'relooking for is like that. Yes.
Yes, you get me.
Yes. Whatever. And then we'regonna say, and we've done this.
And we understand. And we've gotyour answer.
And we've got your back. Andwe're gonna do this. And then
maybe if it feels reallyimportant to mention that you
(31:19):
went to Harvard, you know, wecan do that, but I'm gonna have
a conversation with you aboutwhy, like, why are we saying
that? Is it, is this somehowrelated to Harvard or is this
your ego? Because if it's yourego, we're gonna set that aside.
And, and that's not gonna be,you know, the, the critical part
of this message where you've gotlike three seconds. So typically
(31:42):
women are that I have workedwith are more open to this cause
they understand it. Theyunderstand it inherently from
their gut. And they, they knowthat they can connect at this
emotional level more easily. Andespecially older males who have,
you know, a lot of times been ina firm for twenty plus years or
(32:03):
whatever.
That's always the hurdle. Sowhen we're starting to work with
a firm and they say we'veplateaued. And then I'll say,
okay, so let's talk about thedecision makers in your firm.
And we need to make sure thatthey're part of these
conversations. Is there, youknow, Larry, who I see is named
(32:24):
on your, you know, on yourwebsite.
He's one of the named partners.He's not here today. And is
there a guy named Larry who'sgonna come in at the last minute
after we've done all thisbeautiful work and spent months
figuring this stuff out? Andhe's gonna think, ew, this is
weird. I don't feel comfortablewith this.
Like, we're not gonna do that.We're not gonna, you know, put
all this effort into it and haveLarry come in and throw a
(32:46):
grenade in it at the end. Solet's bring Larry in and we're
gonna, you know, like slowlywalk him through some, you know,
mindset changes. But it's alwaysthis Larry at the top of the
firm who is this hurdle that weneed to get through. And I can't
think of a time it's ever been awoman.
Davina (33:05):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I can I used to work for that type
of law firm and Yeah? Golf I wasgolfing and the men always went
golfing and they had retreatsaround golfing.
And women were coming up aspartners into it, went along
with the golfing and all that,but they were only white women.
Yeah. And, that was their ideaof diversity. And so, it used to
(33:29):
be very because like I said, forme, I was working for an agency
in the nineties, and we didthose online brochures. And
Yeah.
We're law firms. They were veryformulaic, and it was always we
put each of the lawyer'scredentials. So their bio pages
were these very long, andthey're on the board of this and
the board of that. And Yeah. Andthis is the way it was written.
(33:50):
And it was all and I think theshift is it used to be I've seen
this with my parents'generation. They look at doctors
and doc everything comes out ofa doctor's mouth is correct.
Yeah. Even if their doctorhasn't studied medicine or knows
nothing about nutrition for Insix years. As long as they have.
Right? Yeah. And and people usedto look at lawyers and say,
(34:11):
lawyers were up here and I'mdown here. Right. And and I'm
just gonna follow your goodadvice.
And I think we live in a worldnow where people rely a lot on,
I mean, with, with everything,all the knowledge of the world,
right in your pocket, peopledon't rely on you for all of
the, their legal answers.There's a lot of that. I can
(34:34):
find answers in a lot of places.I have a cousin who's a lawyer.
I research the law.
I'm a highly educated person.You have sophisticated users and
who have a lot of answers attheir fingertips. So we have to
instead of saying I'm thisperson on high who's delivering
this expertise to you and you'regonna pay me a lot of money for
it, we have to start looking atit more as we are working
(34:58):
together to solve this problemfor you. So it becomes two of us
together working. And I thinkwomen are inherently, better at
that.
Again, generally speaking
Karin (35:10):
Right.
Davina (35:10):
Of me working as a team working together to solve the
problem as opposed to me tellingyou what to do. Yeah.
Karin (35:17):
Well, and I I do think that's part of your intake
process to figure out if theperson you're talking to wants
to work together. So when I senda proposal, the terms of our
agreement is called a mutualagreement. And I do that very
intentionally because we have alot of, there's a lot of any
(35:38):
project that requires feedbackand input. I do not know you
know, if we just met fiveminutes ago on the phone, I I do
not know as much about your firmas you do. And so I need you to
tell me what's going on.
There's a good chance we're noteven close to each other
geographically. So I don't evenknow what your office looks
(35:59):
like. Is it is it beautiful?Should we take some photos and
use that as part of one? Do youget exactly.
Are you virtual? Or do you havepiles of cases that are
collecting dust behind you andit's a mess? You know, so, so
you need to be an activeparticipant in this marketing
(36:19):
process, but at the same time,if you are a micromanager or you
feel like that's a necessarypart of this process, it's going
to fail. And so from thebeginning, if you're hiring
someone, if I'm hiring someoneto change the oil in my car, I'm
not gonna get under the hood andask them what kind of
(36:42):
screwdriver they're using. I amgoing to trust them.
Bless you. Like you, I should bebusy enough in my day that I've
got something else to do whilethey're changing the oil in my
car. And so think of it in thatway. You do not need to be
checking the fine details of mywork. And if you feel that way,
(37:03):
if you're getting that gutfeeling, there's a bigger
problem.
And so let's take a step back,and I've been doing this long
enough to know to have theseconversations. Let's get on
Zoom. Let's look at each other'sfaces. Let's talk about what's
going on and what where thatfeeling is coming from. We're
not gonna keep with that feelingbecause there's we're not gonna
keep doing that.
We've got other things to do.I've got other things to do. I
(37:24):
know what I'm talking about. AndI I want you to have confidence
in the work that we're doing.But if you feel that way with
your agency, don't just keepdoing that.
Figure out what's going on. Arethey failing? Because then move
on. Find somebody that you cantrust and you can hand it over
to. And, you know, for example,in my podcast, my producer knows
(37:48):
that, you know, I don't evenknow if I should say this, but
when she puts together socialmedia graphics, I hardly ever
even check them.
She's so good. And I know I haveconfidence in her is what I'm
trying to say. You know? Andit's not that, I'm lazy. It's
that I've been working with herfor years to know that, she's
good.
She knows what she's doing. Sheknows how to find stuff. And
(38:09):
sometimes she'll, you know, findlittle quotes and clips and do a
thing that I wouldn't havethought of. And so I and so I've
handed it over to her with agood degree of confidence. And
it's really critical in whoeveryou're hiring, whatever they're
doing.
Davina (38:23):
Yeah. I think it's I think that's very interesting. I
have a social media. I mean, Ihave multiple people in
different channels because Ifound that not everybody is the
knower of all things. Yeah.
And so I tend to have differentareas of and so I have a someone
who does my Instagram, and it'sshe's always the one, like, oh,
Instagram has this new featureand whatever. And I'm like, I
could care less. My eyes glazeglaze over. I'm glad she tells
(38:46):
me. I'm glad she's on thelookout, and she looks for how
we could leverage it.
Yep. But I'm not the one going,you know, oh, good. Let's do
this this way and that way. Youknow, I've got ideas. If I have
something, I'll throw it out,but she takes and runs with it.
And and that's a And I can tell
Karin (39:01):
you I'm not the
Davina (39:01):
one I don't wanna be doing it.
Karin (39:03):
Exactly. And when we're working with a firm, that we're
excited about, I'm gonna go thatextra mile. When you and and we
don't do this anymore. We don'twork with firms we're not
excited about. We don't, havepeople come in and micromanage.
So this is kind of like more inthe past when we had worked with
and learned these lessons, I amdoing the bare minimum. I am
(39:24):
checking the box and moving on.And this happens in every work
situation. If and, you know,this is why there's so many
books. I'm not a lead in a waythat inspires action and it gets
people to take the initiativeand, and all of that.
But you're stifling thepotential for these people to be
excited and offer more and go,you know, farther than you would
(39:46):
have even potentially consideredby, you know, micromanaging and
getting in there and feelinglike you gotta do it yourself.
So, I mean, even at the veryleast, like when, we're helping
them to arrange a photographerand they'll say, okay, what
shoots do we need? What, youknow, what angles and what,
what, dimension should thephotos be? And I said, okay,
first of all, I've helped youfind this photographer. They
(40:08):
know what they're doing.
Don't worry about the resolutionof these photos. They are gonna
send me what I need and leavespace for them to be creative.
If you are getting going to allthis hassle, putting all this
cost and effort and time intohaving a photo shoot or maybe a
video shoot, leave some spacefor them to show up and look
(40:29):
around and think, oh, you knowwhat'd be cool is blank. And
that's where the gold is, whereyou haven't hyper managed and
controlled the creative process.And you've left them some space
to do something cool that, youknow, you wouldn't have thought
of.
Davina (40:48):
I wanna ask you this question before we end because
we're coming to the end, but Iwanna you're not the you are not
the least expensive. No. Serviceprovider on the market. And, so
I want I want and also, thenyou're saying, in addition to me
doing the strategy, and we'llhave somebody develop your
(41:09):
website, you may need photos. Wemay need to do some, pay per
click campaigns.
We may need to do something onInstagram. We may need to do
whatever. And you're kind ofbringing these resources to your
clients. And so there areadditional things that they're
gonna be investing money in.Right.
Talk to me about how that valuecomes back to them. How do they
(41:31):
see that value come back tothem, and how quickly do they
see that value come back tothem? And I know you have
different clients and differentyou know, some who only need
this and some who need the wholearray of things. So Right. But
give me an idea of, like, howyou, show them that that value
is there.
Karin (41:50):
How much and how fast? Like, that's what the question
of any business is, like,
Davina (41:53):
how much
Karin (41:54):
is it gonna cost and how fast can I get it? But, in, you
know, of course, mostbusinesses, the answer is it
depends. Like, you know, I wanta car. Well, if it's okay, how
much do you wanna fit? But, allof that being said, we don't
look at anything less than ayear.
And that doesn't mean thatthings don't happen within that
(42:14):
year. But, when you're itdepends on your geographic area,
what your practice area is,where you're at now, what your
expectations are. But it it youshould be planning out for six
months to a year for a lot ofSEO campaigns. There are a lot
of things you can do in themeantime that show a much more
immediate, response. We do a lotof local service ads.
(42:37):
That is a real quick way to turnthings around and I won't bother
explaining what that is. But if,if that's something that you
urgently need leads, that's oneof the first things that we turn
to is local service ads. It's adifferent kind of pay per click
ad. And like I said, I won't gointo that. We have whole
episodes on that.
But it's something to, to lookinto if that's where you're at,
(42:59):
if you've got a good budget. Butwhat we, what we need to do is
look at the whole year plan, youknow, how much they're gonna
spend, where their budgets areand, and then work backwards
from there. And what we like todo with this fractional
marketing, service that we offerthat we are we call marketing co
counsel, is we like to have aflat amount monthly so that,
(43:24):
they know what their marketingspend is and they can plan that
out, which is which is in thepast really rare. It would have
been like this much for yourwebsite, you know, tens of
thousands here for the websiteand then, you know, a few
thousand here for this and a fewand it's like so hard to keep
track and plan for any of thatstuff. So by looking at a year,
you can more easily kind of planthat, that budget out and kind
(43:48):
of figure out how much you'regonna spend.
Excellent. Excellent.
Davina (43:52):
And then you guys are really you mentioned earlier,
you're really, very much datafocused in your Yes. Model. One
of the challenges I seesometimes with collecting data
is, is that we can track asmarketers, you can track to a
certain point. And then oncethat call hits the office, we
(44:17):
lose the ability to track unlessthere's they're doing it. So
this really is a partnership interms of you have to have people
within the law firm who arewilling to follow through with
the tracking.
Right. Once that call is comingin or once that email form is
coming in or whatever, and thefollowing up and collecting that
data. Is that something that youkind of Yeah. Teach people how
(44:39):
to do or tell them how you wantthem to do it? Or
Karin (44:41):
Well, and it depends. So to go back to local service ad
thing, Google will actuallyrecord those calls, which has
been fascinating because you cando it, use that data in a few
different ways. Obviously, youcan, track and say, Oh, this
turned into a case that broughtus this much money. So that's a
nice way to fulfill all theblanks that used to be, you
(45:04):
know, there in a typicalmarketing campaign where there's
a, a cutoff where it's like, youknow, they said that they came
from Google. Well, was that thecase or did they see a sign and
then they Googled it?
Or but now with those kinds ofthings, they can track the call
and they can say, okay, this wasMr. Hernandez and his case was
this much. That's number one.And then number two, you can
(45:25):
also do sort of a secret shopperthing, which is not so secret
because your team should knowthat you're listening. But where
you can listen to the calls andsay, what is happening?
You know, are they answering andgrumpy? Are they actually asking
for people's phone number? Are,you know, is there some problem
in the actual, answering ofthese calls? So, the at the end
(45:47):
of the day, and I said this foryears and years, even when SEO
was a completely differentthing, it shouldn't take a
rocket scientist to know if yourif your marketing is working.
You know, in your not even inyour gut, you know, in if your
phone is ringing, you know, ifyou're making more money, you
know, if the numbers are up.
And, that's where to start. Soto know if things are working
(46:09):
and rolling, you it should bevery obvious. You shouldn't
need, you know, some expert totell you that your phone is
ringing and you're getting moreclients. When it comes to where
they're coming from and howthat's working and which blog
posts they're clicking on, yeah,that gets more in the weeds and
everything. But keep it realhigh level in your own mind.
(46:30):
I mean, there's a certain amountof the data that even for
myself, it's like, I don't needto know every click on each blog
post. I just know that there's acertain number of a certain
amount of traffic coming in. AndI know looking at it, oh, all
these posts we're doing on AI,they're going bonkers, you know?
So, okay. Like everybody wantsto know about AI.
(46:50):
So, you know, just know somehigh level things like that. And
that helps you steer the ship sothat as you're planning your
strategy and going, going fromquarter to quarter and knowing
how to, what fine tuningadjustments to make. You say,
oh, okay. I see, you know, weshould be talking more about AI.
And then what's dropping off thebottom?
What what are people not caringabout anymore? And, you know, in
(47:11):
my case, email marketing. I'mgonna get to find out it's a big
deal, but people aren't clickingon that as much. So let's do a
little, you know, how how do webalance it out based on just
what I'm seeing at a high level?
Davina (47:24):
Right. Right. Right. I think dedicated phone numbers
are really good too for trackingyour marketing once you get in
once you get past that linebecause we Yeah. You can track
all the all the website traffic,all the blog clicking, all of
the LSA ads and all of that.
But if you are if there isn'tsomething that's showing this is
(47:44):
where this is coming from Yep.That you you're dropping the
ball. And and so it really is ait really is a partnership with
your agency on looking at allthe things of where because I
think sometimes agencies getblamed for this isn't working or
that isn't working. And reallythe issue, like you said, is the
person answering the phone Yeah.Or the person who's taking the
(48:04):
consultations doesn't have theright formula to close them, or
there's not a tracking where weknow where it's coming from.
So we can say, you know, you'regetting all this traffic, but
then I don't know why you're notgetting clients. Well, it's
because Betty Sue on the phoneis having a bad day.
Karin (48:20):
Exactly. Yeah. Well, and here's the other thing is this,
it's usually not gonna be justone answer anymore. People don't
just Google and then call.They're so when I know it's a
good client, they say thingslike, hey.
I listened to your podcast. Andthen I came and read an article,
and then I saw that you, did x yz and you worked for this firm.
(48:41):
And then I saw that you wereover here on this other podcast
with Divina and whatever. Andthey're seeing me all over the
place. And each of thoseinteractions with my sees keeps
like ticking another littlenotch on the belt.
And they're thinking. And thenwhen it comes to the time where
they're like, okay, today's theday I need to do something about
(49:01):
my marketing. They think, okay,what am I, who am I gonna call?
All of a sudden it's my name andface that pops into their brain
and it's by design. It's notaccidental.
Davina (49:11):
So Yeah.
Karin (49:11):
It should be that that case where you're not putting
all your eggs in one basket andassuming that that is the path
that everyone is gonna take.
Davina (49:18):
Yeah. I think that's a I think that's a great note to end
on and a very powerful statementthat, good takeaway for people
is a marketing strategy involvesa formula of these are the
different these are thedifferent ways we're going to
reach out and be visible. Andfor us, for you and I,
podcasting is a big role inthat. Yeah. For other people
(49:40):
that they may not care a thingabout doing a podcast, and their
audience may not listen topodcast.
And so they may choose somethingelse. But it there's a formula.
There's multiple ways. Like withme, I do a podcast. I run ads.
I have different social mediaplatforms I'm on. And so it's
the multiple touches that peoplesay, well, I've listened to you
for a while. I love yourpodcast. And Yeah. Then I you
(50:02):
know, your face keeps popping upin my ads.
And so I'm going, I really needto call her or whatever. So
everybody's got their little mixof formula that they that they
use that make a lot of sense.Yeah. Courtney, thank you so
much for being here discussingmarketing with us. I think
there's some good takeaways inthis episode for our law firm
owners.
Karin (50:21):
I hope so.
Davina (50:22):
Tell us how we can find out more about you and connect
with you.
Karin (50:26):
Well, I've followed my website, Conroy Creative
Council. And you can eitherGoogle that or it's just
conroycreativecouncil.com. Andthen all the links to all the
social media, the podcast, allof this stuff is is on on there.
So that's the easiest option.
Davina (50:41):
Good. Good. Good. Thank you so much. And we'll have it
in the show notes as well forpeople.
I appreciate you being here. Asalways, it's been fun, and I'll
talk to you soon.
Karin (50:49):
Thank you so much.
Intro (50:51):
If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in
your business and your life,then you'll want to visit us at
wealthywomanlawyer.com to learnmore about how we help our
clients create wealth generatinglaw firms with ease.
Welcome to the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. What if
you could hang out withsuccessful women lawyers? Ask
them about growing their firms,managing resources like time,
team, and systems, masteringmoney issues, and more. Then
take an insight or two to helpyou build a wealth generating
law firm. Each week, your host,Davina Frederick, takes an
(00:22):
in-depth look at how to thinklike a CEO, attract clients who
you love to serve and will payyou on time, and create a
profitable, sustainable firm youlove.
Davina is founder and CEO ofWealthy Woman Lawyer, and her
goal is to give you theinformation you need to scale
your law firm business from 6 to7 figures in gross annual
revenue so you can fully fundand still have time to enjoy the
(00:45):
lifestyle of your dreams. Now,here's Davina.
Davina (00:50):
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the wealthy woman
lawyer podcast. I'm your host,Davina Frederick. And my guest
today is Karen Conroy. Karen isthe founder and creative
director of Conroy CreativeCouncil, an award winning
recognized leader that hascracked the code of smart,
sophisticated, and strategicwebsites for law firms that
results in more reach and morerevenue through strategic
(01:13):
branding and positioning. Herclients are proud of the way
they look online, and their firmreputation is improved because
their online presencebeautifully displays their
experience and expertise.
Karen and her team's goal is toenhance the success of the
client she works with through aproven online marketing process.
She doesn't lead the success ofher projects up to creative
(01:35):
chance, but uses measurablesystems that result in more of
the reach and revenue throughstrategic branding and
positioning. Marketing cocounsel is the agency's
signature flat rate program thatprovides a unified marketing
approach and next level results.Please join me in welcoming
Karen to the Wealthy WomanLawyer podcast. Hi, Karen.
(01:57):
Welcome.
Karin (01:58):
Hi. I see you in a few minutes. Yeah. I always love
chatting with you. It's it'salways good stuff.
Davina (02:03):
I know. We always have so much fun when we talk because
we talk about our favoritesubjects, which are business and
marketing. So
Karin (02:08):
Work nerds.
Davina (02:10):
We're work nerds. Totally. So I have, read a
little intro with you to sortof, talk about it was a great
well written intro, by the way.Thank you. A lots of
alliteration.
So I had to speak carefully tobe able to
Karin (02:26):
A lot of c's.
Davina (02:28):
I mean, I appreciate that, though. Yeah. So you were
on the podcast. What was it backin 2021?
Karin (02:35):
Wow. That's a good question. It's been a couple
years. Yeah.
Davina (02:37):
It's been a minute. Yeah. Yeah. The and, we were
talking then about this as youhad started your podcast. I had
started my podcast.
Yeah. And if anybody's notlistening to your wonderful
podcast, they need to. It'sCouncil of
Karin (02:50):
Cast. Yeah. And Well, I had this amazing guest, you.
That's basically me. And I thinkthat's what's you know, I I I
think you do this too.
You get these experts on andit's, the conversation just ends
up being so full of quality. So,you know, it's not always me.
It's like finding people whoreally have something great to
say about whatever we're talkingabout.
Davina (03:12):
Yeah. Yeah. And and marketing and law firms is a
huge topic that because it'schanged so much over Yes. In ten
years, in a decade with all thethings that are going on. Yeah.
So I wanna talk I wanna delveinto that and talk about that.
Could you just before we gothere, just, explain the
(03:34):
services that your businessprovides and what sort of makes
you different because you havethis little, CMO piece. And I
wonder if will you explain whythat came about how that came
about?
Karin (03:47):
Well, it's true that, I feel like both of us have been
have seen all of it. You know,we've seen the whole history of
how marketing has changed. And Istarted back in the day, I
started at this tiny littleinternet cafe in a beach town
here in California and whereliterally, people would walk in
to check their emails and theywould kind of come off the
(04:09):
streets. And, you know, so wayback in the day when it was like
the beginning of the internet,but I've seen a lot of these
changes and including and thenwe have to roll with
Davina (04:18):
it. Right?
Karin (04:18):
Like we, we continue to offer HTML sites and, you know,
tell the people to be on, youknow, Netscape. Like, these
things don't exist. Yes. So westarted by offering website. And
that you know, I was originallyback in the day when blogs were
a thing.
And there, there was, thiswebsite lawyerist where it was
(04:42):
at the time at the that has alsochanged, really. But at the time
it was kind of a group blogwhere they had a lot of
contributors and I was talkingabout marketing. And, at the
time I was advertising websitesand that was what we sold. And
it was really almost like aproduct, even though, you know,
it's kind of a combination ofproduct service. And it was
(05:05):
price based and, you know,everything that I did then,
which we're talking like 2010.
So, you know, fifteen years ago,everything I did then and the
way I marketed myself and theway I marketed law firms is
different from how we're doingit now. So I was price based. I
was focused on websites and itwas, you know, slap up a website
(05:26):
and, and then cross yourfingers, basically. Like let's
hope that the business justrolls in. And back then Google
was a lot less sophisticated asusers are, were a lot less
sophisticated.
And so it kind of worked, youknow, like people just sort of
put up what they con considereda brochure on, Google and Google
(05:46):
would sort of find them. And,that just doesn't work anymore.
So if you think that you'regonna go out and start a law
firm, and you're gonna startwith a website, and then that
checks the box of your marketingplan, that's gonna be you're
gonna have a sad reality. That'sjust not gonna work. And that's
not, what we have found thatwe're not doing any of one a
(06:09):
service by solely focusing onwebsites anymore.
So that is important. Yourwebsite is critical. This is
your first impression. And so Idon't mean to downplay the
importance of a website. I justmean to make sure that you're
thinking of it in terms of abroader system and and strategy
and plan.
(06:30):
And you will, once you have thatwebsite, then what? So now what
we do that's different is westart with a broader scale
strategy and we plan out and wethink about a marketing plan in
terms of a year at a minimum. Sowe start with thinking about a
year at a minimum and everythingthat's gonna be needed in that
(06:51):
year. And sometimes that's not awebsite. Sometimes we look at
the website and it's fine.
And or maybe it's 90% fine andwe need to make some
adjustments. But it's not likethrow the baby out the bathwater
website. We're gonna make someadjustments and then we're also
gonna do the following 12things. And, you know, so, so
that's why we kind of, havepulled back and taken a broader
(07:15):
scale look at the kinds ofthings we offer now. It's not
just, a tactic.
It's a broader plan and systemand, strategy.
Davina (07:26):
For the long effort. And I I mean, that's great for
that's great to sum that upbecause I remember back when I
started this business, I startedout as as Deep Frederick Media
Marketing is my company name.Everybody knows me as Wealthy
Woman Lawyer now. But Yeah. Istarted out kind of thinking I
was gonna go the agency modelfrom a marketing perspective
(07:47):
because I had done marketing forlaw firms.
And I I remember this businessthat I have evolved out of
people coming to me with, I wantto do this marketing tactic. And
then I would start asking them alot of questions and finding out
they didn't know why they weredoing it. I wanted how it fit
into the larger picture and allof that. And I wound up going
(08:09):
down the coaching branch asopposed to the agency branch.
Yeah.
And you've really developed afull service sort of marketing
agency for that specializes inworking with law firms. Correct?
Karin (08:19):
Correct. That's it. Exactly. And I heard someone
describe it really well recentlywhere it's like, if you went to
the gym and decided to hire atrainer and then just said, I
just wanna show up once. Andlike, how can I, you know, get a
six pack and look like the way Iwanna look?
But I just wanna be here, youknow, really just a day. Like,
(08:44):
no.
Davina (08:45):
It doesn't work that way, Rex.
Karin (08:47):
Yeah. Exactly. And it seems so obvious and we laugh,
but at the same time, by justdoing a website or just coming
to you and asking, hey, how canI, achieve these things? But I
just wanna do it on Instagram.And it's like, no, that's just
not gonna be your plan and yourpath.
And I can take this broad scaleview and make that plan. But if
(09:10):
you haven't even kind of got tothe mental thought that there's
a lot more to it, then we gottatake a step back and and start
there.
Davina (09:18):
Yeah. Yeah. One dangers I think I've always seen even
back before I became a lawyerand and I was working in the
agency world and I was workingin house in marketing is this
this, a lot of lawyers and lawfirms at that time, and this is
back in the nineties, so I'mreally dating myself here, but
really didn't look at marketingprofessionals as a whole
(09:39):
separate profession. They alwaysthought, well, if I just had a
little extra time, I could writea blog. Totally.
Matter that their blogs were,like, you know, legal briefs
that nobody wanna Yes.
Karin (09:51):
Feed. Right.
Davina (09:51):
It just thought, well, I if I just had time, I could do
it all myself. I could learn howto build a website over a
weekend and Yeah. And that. Andwe know when we've seen over the
last couple of decades, theevolution of marketing. And now
there are so many platforms andways that we can market.
There are all the traditionalways we can market. And now
(10:12):
there's this whole online worldYeah. That anywhere from online
speaking and webinars to varioussocial media platforms, each
having their own, personalityand way that you have to create
content doesn't cross over wellto others. Yeah. You know,
because I'm going through thismyself right now.
Yeah. And, it can be veryconfusing
Karin (10:34):
for It's overwhelming. Yes.
Davina (10:36):
They don't realize, like, this is a whole separate
profession. There are people whoactually study marketing, and
then and then there are somepeople who are experts in
Instagram and some who areexperts in something else, and
everybody's calling themselves amarketer. Right. You're you are
really cutting through all ofthat and saying, let's back out
of all of the tactics and say,patiently based on your law
(11:00):
firm, your clients, your goals,where do we need to be, and what
do we need to be doing. Is thataccurate?
Karin (11:08):
I it is. And, you know, I also like to say so before I
started doing this with lawfirms, I worked for Century
twenty one. And, they have thisthey have this whole approach
where, don't do, FSBO, which isa for sale by owner, which is
kind of the DIY version. And,for the same reason that
(11:29):
realtors say, you know, you needmy expertise to sell your house
because you don't know what youdon't know. The same reason
lawyers say you need myexpertise to hire me because you
don't know what you don't know,and it could potentially get you
in a lot of hot water.
It's the same thing withmarketing. You don't know what I
have spent years learning andthe mistakes that I see and the
(11:52):
things that I know that I cancut through and get you to those
answers that I know are working,that are also changing. I mean,
if you're doing anything withGoogle or search or anything,
that stuff changes daily. Notjust the technology of it, but
what your competitors are doing,where you're gonna rank, how
you're gonna address that. And,it, you should not be caught in
(12:17):
the daily function of lookingwhere your search rankings are
in the same way that your stockbroker is gonna say, do not
watch your investments on adaily basis.
That is a path to failurebecause you're gonna get so
caught up in, oh my gosh, I justlost, you know, whatever. And
then it, you know, you have toride the market. So, you know,
(12:40):
we know this from so manydifferent ways of trying to find
success. And it's just the samewith marketing. There is a,
little piece of investment.
There's a piece of strategy.There's a piece of, you know,
finding the right expert forwhat you need, which is gonna be
different than what the law firmdown the street needs. And, you
(13:03):
know, all of these pieces cometogether to make it work.
Davina (13:09):
Let's let's talk about what a fractional CMO's chief
marketing officer does. We'lltalk about a chief marketing
officer does and then talk aboutthe fractional part. Yeah.
Because I think, and because youguys not only do the sort of
vision and the planning and allthat, but you actually help with
the implementation. But thatdoesn't mean you were sitting
there
Karin (13:29):
Right.
Davina (13:29):
Making their Google Ads for them or making their
Facebook Ads for them. So tellme kind of how your business
works in terms of serving yourclients.
Karin (13:38):
Yeah. And this is a very trending topic, you know, and I
can see this based on our searchresults for all the things we
write about this. And it isdifferent. So if this is
something that you're lookinginto, be very careful about what
you need and then finding theright kind of agency for what
that, what that, you know,fulfills your need. Because
(13:59):
there are people who arebasically like, you know, a
lawyer who is on retainer andthey have a set number of hours
and then they just sort of arethere kind of like a part time
marketing person in your firm.
That is not what we do. Thenthere are people who are, you
know, there's a lot of differentways of, of doing this. So to
make it clear, the way that wedo it is we start by planning
(14:23):
out a year. And then we look atit quarterly and set goals. And
part of our job is to make surethat we focus on those goals and
we set aside the distractions.
Because this is thisdistractions are a huge part of
marketing failure. There's somuch waste and this is where a
lot of people come in reallyfrustrated because they've tried
(14:46):
a lot of things and they'rewasting their time and their
money. And they've tried itwithout any plan or strategy. So
it's gonna look different forevery firm we work with. And it
should because every firm isdifferent and that the goals for
every firm is different.
And so one firm for an examplemay be, the two big examples
(15:06):
that we use are an existing firmthat has kind of plateaued and
not, you know, finding the kindof growth they want or people
who are going out and starting anew firm. So in an existing firm
that has plateaued, we're gonnastart in both cases, we're gonna
start with a lot of strategy.Sitting down, talking about
what's working, having a lot ofconversations, feeling like, you
know, we're, just kind of havingvirtual coffee and but with a
(15:30):
plan. And we're asking a lot ofquestions about what they're
doing, what they're not doing,what they see works, what their
clients say, when they decide towork with them. And in looking
at all of the numbers, you know,whatever numbers the firm is
coming in with.
So that would include theirGoogle analytics. If they're
(15:50):
doing social media, we'relooking at all the data. And
then we sit and, you know, makea plan and we say, okay, the
most urgent and we have a wayof, of ranking and rating the
different kinds of tactics thatwe would apply to that strategy.
So we look at the strategy andwe say, okay, the goal here is
(16:13):
x. We're gonna achieve it by byin measurable ways by, you know,
doing the following things.
And let's look at the list ofpossible tactics. It could be
social media. It could beupdating the website. It could
be, a PR campaign. It could bean email campaign to, nurture
our referral resources.
(16:34):
It could be a lot of differentthings. Let's go through each
one of these things, and we aregoing to measurably rank our
potential for outcome on eachone. And then we have a number
and we say, okay, the and wecall this an ICE score, I C E.
And it measures impact andconfidence and how easy ease of
(16:54):
of execution. So then we comeback and we say, okay, the
highest score is this.
How about we try start withthat? So we're not just saying,
I don't know, let's throw somespaghetti at the wall and see
what works. We have a measurablereason for making all of these
decisions. And then we plan outthe year that way. And this
takes a while and it should.
(17:15):
And this is one thing we see alot where people are not
spending enough time and efforton that initial planning and
thought and whatever. And it'slike, let's just throw a bunch
of stuff out and see see whatsticks.
Davina (17:27):
Right. Right. And I I I see this all the time, and I
know from a a marketingstandpoint, there's no
guarantees in marketing. And itRight. Be hard for people to
say, well, I put all this moneyin and it didn't work.
And a lot of times what happensis we get when that happens a
(17:47):
couple of times, we get veryvulnerable. And then somebody
who's a marketer comes along andsays and by marketer, I mean,
they have a specific product orservice that they're selling,
and they come along and theysay, but you haven't done this,
and what you need is to you needto do this. Right. And then you
try that, and then you go, well,that didn't work. And then now
you're more more vulnerable thanever, and then somebody else
comes along and goes, well, youtried that, but the reason why
(18:09):
that didn't work is becausethis, we need to try this.
And so they're really you reallybecome sort of prey to different
types of services. Yeah. Notthat some won't work, but some
are perfectly legitimate goodservices. But what you're
talking about is really that30,000 foot view. Yes.
Tell me some of the things thatyou take into I rattled off a
(18:32):
few, but tell me some of thethings you take into
consideration when you'resitting there with a law firm.
Let's say a midsize law firm ora law firm that's plateaued
Yeah. Or an and then we'll lookat the new law firm. Well, let's
look at that. What are youlooking for in terms of, the
opportunities that come intoplay as to what type of plan you
(18:52):
choose for them?
Karin (18:54):
Okay. So we're gonna first start with talking about
who their ideal client is. Andeverybody talks about this. And
I don't mean to define it in atypical demographic ways. Like a
lot of people will say, well,it's a 30 to 32 year old woman
who has had a DUI.
That's not what I mean. What Imean is, we're gonna probably
(19:18):
add those elements in as sort ofa sub definition, but the main
definition is what is theirproblem? And I don't mean like
what's wrong with them.
Davina (19:27):
Like, what is your problem?
Karin (19:28):
I mean, why are they calling you and why do they hire
you? And if you have been whatdoing what you're doing for
longer than five minutes, youknow, you know, when you get
that call and you're like, thisis a good one. This is ideal.
They're saying all the rightthings. And, this is also
something that you kind of dohave to learn over time because,
(19:53):
you know, we've all made thesemistakes early on in business
where we're desperate to get ourbusiness going.
And we learn all the hardlessons the hard way of what
those might find. You takewhoever
Davina (20:04):
walks through the door and we're happy to get the
check. And I'm like, I wish Ihad taken that check.
Karin (20:09):
Exactly. It's like it does not, it's not worth it.
Like whatever they paid me, it'snot worth it. So, but you, you
know, a lot of times you have tolearn that the hard way, But
some of the things I've learnedover time are, you know, how
does it feel? And I am not a woowoo person, but typically when
I'm on a call with someone whois all red flags, I am trying to
(20:32):
get off.
There's something in my gutthat's saying, oh, no. They're,
when they ask a question, I I'mimmediately, I get kind of
defensive and I'm saying, no,no, no, no, no. That is not how
it's done or whatever. Soinstead, just instead of kind of
having those things play out,you know, while you're talking
to them, I take notes and I makesure, and I start to write down,
(20:55):
this is going to be a no. Youknow?
And so then what I do is Itransition to getting them off
my plate and being a goodresource for them. And a lot of
times they end up coming backsix months or, you know, a year
and saying, you know what? And Itry to tell them very
professionally and in a way, youknow, about the things that I
(21:18):
feel like they're the path thatthey're on, that's not correct.
Usually it's things that arevery money focused and it's,
things like why, why can't Ijust do my own website? And so
usually my response is, do it.
You know, go go ahead and you dothat. Because if you're coming
to me and you don't and you'renot value based and you're not
(21:39):
seeing the value, I'm not gonnatry to convince you because it's
something has fallen apart alongthat path. And I will say the
way I've got my system set up,this doesn't happen that much
anymore. They've already, youknow, usually through my, my
process and my system, theynaturally drop off because
there's some trigger that tellsthem it's not right. And that's
perfect.
That's what you want. So whenI'm sitting with that initial
(22:03):
company, it's what are your redflags? You already know what
these are. And, you know, I gaveyou a few of my examples, but,
are they, are they not valuebased and price based? Are they,
Is there a certain kind of casehere that you're looking to do?
And they're asking about someother thing. Or when you're
talking to them, do you get thefeeling that, you know, you want
(22:25):
to jump in? Like right away, youwant to get going, you're
excited about it. This is, thisis, you know, a thing and you're
going to tell your spouse aboutit at dinner. And you're like,
this is something that you'reexcited about.
Maybe it's something that you'vebeen wanting to do and whatever.
So how do you feel about it? Andthen let's talk about all of
that and who that is. Let's getsome examples. Let's maybe see
(22:46):
if you can get some, referralsand references and reviews and
all of that.
But build around who they are.And then let's talk about where
they show up so that you can bethere. So let's say, so let me
use my ex the example of how Ido it for myself because it's so
different for different lawfirms. But for me, I show up
(23:08):
where lawyers are. So when Ifirst started building my
business, I was on lawyerstalking about marketing.
And the audience is specific tolawyers. So I wasn't just going
out and writing articles aboutmarketing on any old site that I
could find because that's awaste of my time. You want to be
where those people are. So thatkind of goes back to defining
(23:32):
who they are and thinking about,okay, what kind of media are
they listening to? Are theylistening to podcasts?
Are they not doing any of that?And I need to do, ads at a bus
stop. You know, where are theyand what are they consuming
where you can be present? That'swhere we kind of start. And then
you kind of build your your,plan around it.
Davina (23:56):
Right. Right. I always tell people a lot of times when
I'm going through with mycoaching, it's comprehensive. So
it's not around marketing. It'saround, like, kind of your whole
big picture, but we talk aboutwho your ideal client is.
And the way that I what I andthis the way you said it, it was
very similar to the way that Isay it. But I tell them, I said,
we're not talking about yourexisting clients. We're talking
(24:18):
about your ideal client. This isthe client. You've probably got
two or three of them if you'vebeen in a business for a while.
At that point, you hang up thephone, you're doing your happy
dance because Yeah. They've justhired you and agreed to work
with you, and you're so excitedabout it. Right. So ideal client
is different. And we're alsotalking about marketing
messaging, which I think a lotof people don't really
(24:38):
understand too.
They think in terms of, well, ifI target just this specific
client, what if this type ofclient wants to come and hire
me? Yep. And what what am Igonna do? And you could well,
you can take that client too.Like, maybe that's your b
category.
Right. You want somebody of youra category hiring you, and you
might have some b category comealong and they it doesn't mean
(24:59):
you can't take their work, butwe're talking about in terms of
who what who are we creating amessage for Right. Out there. So
let's talk about the differencein messages Yeah. To have some
examples for people to go to.
So think of a client that you'vehad recently, maybe one of your
case studies where you reallycrafted a message for a
(25:20):
particular demographic,psychographic sort of client.
And can you tell us give us tellus that?
Karin (25:27):
Yeah. We've worked with a lot of different clients where,
like, for example, in familylaw, we're gonna talk a lot
about getting to the other sideof this conflict. Potentially,
you know, what is it that theycare most about? Sometimes it's
they care most about not,creating a, a hostile
(25:47):
environment that damages theirkid. So that when you start
working on the feelings aroundthat, what that client is
feeling as they come to youversus what is typically
originally the message, which isI am a X law firm in Y city and
(26:08):
I do Z kind of practice area.
And that doesn't address thatfeeling in any way. And it
doesn't address, whether you canreally fix that problem for
them. So the message needs to beadjusted so that it's focused on
them. It's focused on theirproblem. And then secondly, how
(26:32):
you've done that in the past topresent yourself as an expert in
understanding the problem andshowing solutions for other
people.
But if you lead with that secondpart, which many, many people
do, and you can imagine andvisualize the website that I'm
talking about, where you seethis a lot in personal injury
sites, where it's all about theproblem in a negative way, like
(26:58):
accident pictures, and then alot of dollar signs. And it's so
smarmy coming across as like,all we care about is the money.
And all we care about is gettingyou through, you know, turning
you through our factory law firmin order to get a check. And it
just comes across so negativelythat it works if they really
(27:23):
kind of are looking forreputation building, like if
they wanna have appearances onCNN and things like that. It
sort of works sometimesdepending on, you know, kind of
what they're saying.
But in terms of new clients, Itjust comes across, your
interaction with those clientsis gonna be really different in
terms it's all gonna be moneybased. It's all gonna be, you
(27:45):
know, what are you doing for methis minute? And I own you and I
own your hourly and I'm payingthis hourly rate versus I
understand that you understandme and you understand my problem
and we're kind of moreemotionally connected. So it
feels somewhat subtle, but whenI come across a website or a
(28:06):
marketing campaign that is notdoing it right, it's instant.
And I instantly look at it andthink, okay, I, I can anticipate
what kinds of issues they'rehaving with their traffic.
People are coming, they'reheading this impression, and
then they're probably getting alot of bounces where they're
going off to another site tocompare.
Davina (28:28):
Interesting. Interesting. What do you think
you and I had a conversationrecently on your podcast, and we
were talking about women andwomen in law Yeah. And the
experience of women lawyers.Have you noticed differences in
terms of marketing and and howwomen, tend to want to market
(28:49):
versus how men tend to want tomarket?
Yeah. I know these aregeneralities for for anybody
who's listening going ondifferent. Well, yeah, people
are different. But I'm justwondering if they're in, like,
broad sort of things that you'venoticed, in terms of women law
firm owners versus men law firmowners in the marketing world.
Karin (29:06):
Definitely. I I feel like the legal industry has
historically been this kind ofold old guys' club. You know, a
lot of old Caucasian males. Ikind of picture, the Augusta
Golf Course where it's likeinvite only, you know, all these
guys sitting around and itwasn't just women. It's, you
(29:28):
know, all anybody who wasn't aold white guy, you know?
But my personal experience as awoman is that, you know, I
noticed that more specifically.But there is a different
approach. And what we've beenseeing, and you and I talked
about is that old schoolapproach just is not working
anymore. That's not what asophisticated, potential client
(29:52):
wants to see. And they'reoverwhelmed by that.
And that it's not what they wantto feel when they're coming to
their website. So now we'retalking about all these feelings
and this messaging and thislevel of communication that is
typically a more feminineapproach. And so we're talking
(30:13):
about not leading with your, Iwent to Harvard and, you know, I
just finished a case that, youknow, got my firm $5,000,000
You're not gonna lead with that.Maybe that's super important if
you're really trying to promotea certain kind of case, but
we're still not gonna lead withthat. We're gonna lead with, so
let's let's kinda stick withpersonal injury.
(30:35):
Let's say that you had a certainkind of injury case. We're gonna
lead with, we know you've beeninjured and you're overwhelmed
and you want justice. And, youknow, these are not the actual
words we're gonna use becauseit's kind of cliche. But we're
gonna talk about what they'recoming to you for. And it's the
same case.
Like it, you know, we're talkingabout somewhat subtle
(30:57):
adjustments. And that's gonnapull them in and say, yes, this,
yes, that's it. All we'relooking for is like that. Yes.
Yes, you get me.
Yes. Whatever. And then we'regonna say, and we've done this.
And we understand. And we've gotyour answer.
And we've got your back. Andwe're gonna do this. And then
maybe if it feels reallyimportant to mention that you
(31:19):
went to Harvard, you know, wecan do that, but I'm gonna have
a conversation with you aboutwhy, like, why are we saying
that? Is it, is this somehowrelated to Harvard or is this
your ego? Because if it's yourego, we're gonna set that aside.
And, and that's not gonna be,you know, the, the critical part
of this message where you've gotlike three seconds. So typically
(31:42):
women are that I have workedwith are more open to this cause
they understand it. Theyunderstand it inherently from
their gut. And they, they knowthat they can connect at this
emotional level more easily. Andespecially older males who have,
you know, a lot of times been ina firm for twenty plus years or
(32:03):
whatever.
That's always the hurdle. Sowhen we're starting to work with
a firm and they say we'veplateaued. And then I'll say,
okay, so let's talk about thedecision makers in your firm.
And we need to make sure thatthey're part of these
conversations. Is there, youknow, Larry, who I see is named
(32:24):
on your, you know, on yourwebsite.
He's one of the named partners.He's not here today. And is
there a guy named Larry who'sgonna come in at the last minute
after we've done all thisbeautiful work and spent months
figuring this stuff out? Andhe's gonna think, ew, this is
weird. I don't feel comfortablewith this.
Like, we're not gonna do that.We're not gonna, you know, put
all this effort into it and haveLarry come in and throw a
(32:46):
grenade in it at the end. Solet's bring Larry in and we're
gonna, you know, like slowlywalk him through some, you know,
mindset changes. But it's alwaysthis Larry at the top of the
firm who is this hurdle that weneed to get through. And I can't
think of a time it's ever been awoman.
Davina (33:05):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I can I used to work for that type
of law firm and Yeah? Golf I wasgolfing and the men always went
golfing and they had retreatsaround golfing.
And women were coming up aspartners into it, went along
with the golfing and all that,but they were only white women.
Yeah. And, that was their ideaof diversity. And so, it used to
(33:29):
be very because like I said, forme, I was working for an agency
in the nineties, and we didthose online brochures. And
Yeah.
We're law firms. They were veryformulaic, and it was always we
put each of the lawyer'scredentials. So their bio pages
were these very long, andthey're on the board of this and
the board of that. And Yeah. Andthis is the way it was written.
(33:50):
And it was all and I think theshift is it used to be I've seen
this with my parents'generation. They look at doctors
and doc everything comes out ofa doctor's mouth is correct.
Yeah. Even if their doctorhasn't studied medicine or knows
nothing about nutrition for Insix years. As long as they have.
Right? Yeah. And and people usedto look at lawyers and say,
(34:11):
lawyers were up here and I'mdown here. Right. And and I'm
just gonna follow your goodadvice.
And I think we live in a worldnow where people rely a lot on,
I mean, with, with everything,all the knowledge of the world,
right in your pocket, peopledon't rely on you for all of
the, their legal answers.There's a lot of that. I can
(34:34):
find answers in a lot of places.I have a cousin who's a lawyer.
I research the law.
I'm a highly educated person.You have sophisticated users and
who have a lot of answers attheir fingertips. So we have to
instead of saying I'm thisperson on high who's delivering
this expertise to you and you'regonna pay me a lot of money for
it, we have to start looking atit more as we are working
(34:58):
together to solve this problemfor you. So it becomes two of us
together working. And I thinkwomen are inherently, better at
that.
Again, generally speaking
Karin (35:10):
Right.
Davina (35:10):
Of me working as a team working together to solve the
problem as opposed to me tellingyou what to do. Yeah.
Karin (35:17):
Well, and I I do think that's part of your intake
process to figure out if theperson you're talking to wants
to work together. So when I senda proposal, the terms of our
agreement is called a mutualagreement. And I do that very
intentionally because we have alot of, there's a lot of any
(35:38):
project that requires feedbackand input. I do not know you
know, if we just met fiveminutes ago on the phone, I I do
not know as much about your firmas you do. And so I need you to
tell me what's going on.
There's a good chance we're noteven close to each other
geographically. So I don't evenknow what your office looks
(35:59):
like. Is it is it beautiful?Should we take some photos and
use that as part of one? Do youget exactly.
Are you virtual? Or do you havepiles of cases that are
collecting dust behind you andit's a mess? You know, so, so
you need to be an activeparticipant in this marketing
(36:19):
process, but at the same time,if you are a micromanager or you
feel like that's a necessarypart of this process, it's going
to fail. And so from thebeginning, if you're hiring
someone, if I'm hiring someoneto change the oil in my car, I'm
not gonna get under the hood andask them what kind of
(36:42):
screwdriver they're using. I amgoing to trust them.
Bless you. Like you, I should bebusy enough in my day that I've
got something else to do whilethey're changing the oil in my
car. And so think of it in thatway. You do not need to be
checking the fine details of mywork. And if you feel that way,
(37:03):
if you're getting that gutfeeling, there's a bigger
problem.
And so let's take a step back,and I've been doing this long
enough to know to have theseconversations. Let's get on
Zoom. Let's look at each other'sfaces. Let's talk about what's
going on and what where thatfeeling is coming from. We're
not gonna keep with that feelingbecause there's we're not gonna
keep doing that.
We've got other things to do.I've got other things to do. I
(37:24):
know what I'm talking about. AndI I want you to have confidence
in the work that we're doing.But if you feel that way with
your agency, don't just keepdoing that.
Figure out what's going on. Arethey failing? Because then move
on. Find somebody that you cantrust and you can hand it over
to. And, you know, for example,in my podcast, my producer knows
(37:48):
that, you know, I don't evenknow if I should say this, but
when she puts together socialmedia graphics, I hardly ever
even check them.
She's so good. And I know I haveconfidence in her is what I'm
trying to say. You know? Andit's not that, I'm lazy. It's
that I've been working with herfor years to know that, she's
good.
She knows what she's doing. Sheknows how to find stuff. And
(38:09):
sometimes she'll, you know, findlittle quotes and clips and do a
thing that I wouldn't havethought of. And so I and so I've
handed it over to her with agood degree of confidence. And
it's really critical in whoeveryou're hiring, whatever they're
doing.
Davina (38:23):
Yeah. I think it's I think that's very interesting. I
have a social media. I mean, Ihave multiple people in
different channels because Ifound that not everybody is the
knower of all things. Yeah.
And so I tend to have differentareas of and so I have a someone
who does my Instagram, and it'sshe's always the one, like, oh,
Instagram has this new featureand whatever. And I'm like, I
could care less. My eyes glazeglaze over. I'm glad she tells
(38:46):
me. I'm glad she's on thelookout, and she looks for how
we could leverage it.
Yep. But I'm not the one going,you know, oh, good. Let's do
this this way and that way. Youknow, I've got ideas. If I have
something, I'll throw it out,but she takes and runs with it.
And and that's a And I can tell
Karin (39:01):
you I'm not the
Davina (39:01):
one I don't wanna be doing it.
Karin (39:03):
Exactly. And when we're working with a firm, that we're
excited about, I'm gonna go thatextra mile. When you and and we
don't do this anymore. We don'twork with firms we're not
excited about. We don't, havepeople come in and micromanage.
So this is kind of like more inthe past when we had worked with
and learned these lessons, I amdoing the bare minimum. I am
(39:24):
checking the box and moving on.And this happens in every work
situation. If and, you know,this is why there's so many
books. I'm not a lead in a waythat inspires action and it gets
people to take the initiativeand, and all of that.
But you're stifling thepotential for these people to be
excited and offer more and go,you know, farther than you would
(39:46):
have even potentially consideredby, you know, micromanaging and
getting in there and feelinglike you gotta do it yourself.
So, I mean, even at the veryleast, like when, we're helping
them to arrange a photographerand they'll say, okay, what
shoots do we need? What, youknow, what angles and what,
what, dimension should thephotos be? And I said, okay,
first of all, I've helped youfind this photographer. They
(40:08):
know what they're doing.
Don't worry about the resolutionof these photos. They are gonna
send me what I need and leavespace for them to be creative.
If you are getting going to allthis hassle, putting all this
cost and effort and time intohaving a photo shoot or maybe a
video shoot, leave some spacefor them to show up and look
(40:29):
around and think, oh, you knowwhat'd be cool is blank. And
that's where the gold is, whereyou haven't hyper managed and
controlled the creative process.And you've left them some space
to do something cool that, youknow, you wouldn't have thought
of.
Davina (40:48):
I wanna ask you this question before we end because
we're coming to the end, but Iwanna you're not the you are not
the least expensive. No. Serviceprovider on the market. And, so
I want I want and also, thenyou're saying, in addition to me
doing the strategy, and we'llhave somebody develop your
(41:09):
website, you may need photos. Wemay need to do some, pay per
click campaigns.
We may need to do something onInstagram. We may need to do
whatever. And you're kind ofbringing these resources to your
clients. And so there areadditional things that they're
gonna be investing money in.Right.
Talk to me about how that valuecomes back to them. How do they
(41:31):
see that value come back tothem, and how quickly do they
see that value come back tothem? And I know you have
different clients and differentyou know, some who only need
this and some who need the wholearray of things. So Right. But
give me an idea of, like, howyou, show them that that value
is there.
Karin (41:50):
How much and how fast? Like, that's what the question
of any business is, like,
Davina (41:53):
how much
Karin (41:54):
is it gonna cost and how fast can I get it? But, in, you
know, of course, mostbusinesses, the answer is it
depends. Like, you know, I wanta car. Well, if it's okay, how
much do you wanna fit? But, allof that being said, we don't
look at anything less than ayear.
And that doesn't mean thatthings don't happen within that
(42:14):
year. But, when you're itdepends on your geographic area,
what your practice area is,where you're at now, what your
expectations are. But it it youshould be planning out for six
months to a year for a lot ofSEO campaigns. There are a lot
of things you can do in themeantime that show a much more
immediate, response. We do a lotof local service ads.
(42:37):
That is a real quick way to turnthings around and I won't bother
explaining what that is. But if,if that's something that you
urgently need leads, that's oneof the first things that we turn
to is local service ads. It's adifferent kind of pay per click
ad. And like I said, I won't gointo that. We have whole
episodes on that.
But it's something to, to lookinto if that's where you're at,
(42:59):
if you've got a good budget. Butwhat we, what we need to do is
look at the whole year plan, youknow, how much they're gonna
spend, where their budgets areand, and then work backwards
from there. And what we like todo with this fractional
marketing, service that we offerthat we are we call marketing co
counsel, is we like to have aflat amount monthly so that,
(43:24):
they know what their marketingspend is and they can plan that
out, which is which is in thepast really rare. It would have
been like this much for yourwebsite, you know, tens of
thousands here for the websiteand then, you know, a few
thousand here for this and a fewand it's like so hard to keep
track and plan for any of thatstuff. So by looking at a year,
you can more easily kind of planthat, that budget out and kind
(43:48):
of figure out how much you'regonna spend.
Excellent. Excellent.
Davina (43:52):
And then you guys are really you mentioned earlier,
you're really, very much datafocused in your Yes. Model. One
of the challenges I seesometimes with collecting data
is, is that we can track asmarketers, you can track to a
certain point. And then oncethat call hits the office, we
(44:17):
lose the ability to track unlessthere's they're doing it. So
this really is a partnership interms of you have to have people
within the law firm who arewilling to follow through with
the tracking.
Right. Once that call is comingin or once that email form is
coming in or whatever, and thefollowing up and collecting that
data. Is that something that youkind of Yeah. Teach people how
(44:39):
to do or tell them how you wantthem to do it? Or
Karin (44:41):
Well, and it depends. So to go back to local service ad
thing, Google will actuallyrecord those calls, which has
been fascinating because you cando it, use that data in a few
different ways. Obviously, youcan, track and say, Oh, this
turned into a case that broughtus this much money. So that's a
nice way to fulfill all theblanks that used to be, you
(45:04):
know, there in a typicalmarketing campaign where there's
a, a cutoff where it's like, youknow, they said that they came
from Google. Well, was that thecase or did they see a sign and
then they Googled it?
Or but now with those kinds ofthings, they can track the call
and they can say, okay, this wasMr. Hernandez and his case was
this much. That's number one.And then number two, you can
(45:25):
also do sort of a secret shopperthing, which is not so secret
because your team should knowthat you're listening. But where
you can listen to the calls andsay, what is happening?
You know, are they answering andgrumpy? Are they actually asking
for people's phone number? Are,you know, is there some problem
in the actual, answering ofthese calls? So, the at the end
(45:47):
of the day, and I said this foryears and years, even when SEO
was a completely differentthing, it shouldn't take a
rocket scientist to know if yourif your marketing is working.
You know, in your not even inyour gut, you know, in if your
phone is ringing, you know, ifyou're making more money, you
know, if the numbers are up.
And, that's where to start. Soto know if things are working
(46:09):
and rolling, you it should bevery obvious. You shouldn't
need, you know, some expert totell you that your phone is
ringing and you're getting moreclients. When it comes to where
they're coming from and howthat's working and which blog
posts they're clicking on, yeah,that gets more in the weeds and
everything. But keep it realhigh level in your own mind.
(46:30):
I mean, there's a certain amountof the data that even for
myself, it's like, I don't needto know every click on each blog
post. I just know that there's acertain number of a certain
amount of traffic coming in. AndI know looking at it, oh, all
these posts we're doing on AI,they're going bonkers, you know?
So, okay. Like everybody wantsto know about AI.
(46:50):
So, you know, just know somehigh level things like that. And
that helps you steer the ship sothat as you're planning your
strategy and going, going fromquarter to quarter and knowing
how to, what fine tuningadjustments to make. You say,
oh, okay. I see, you know, weshould be talking more about AI.
And then what's dropping off thebottom?
What what are people not caringabout anymore? And, you know, in
(47:11):
my case, email marketing. I'mgonna get to find out it's a big
deal, but people aren't clickingon that as much. So let's do a
little, you know, how how do webalance it out based on just
what I'm seeing at a high level?
Davina (47:24):
Right. Right. Right. I think dedicated phone numbers
are really good too for trackingyour marketing once you get in
once you get past that linebecause we Yeah. You can track
all the all the website traffic,all the blog clicking, all of
the LSA ads and all of that.
But if you are if there isn'tsomething that's showing this is
(47:44):
where this is coming from Yep.That you you're dropping the
ball. And and so it really is ait really is a partnership with
your agency on looking at allthe things of where because I
think sometimes agencies getblamed for this isn't working or
that isn't working. And reallythe issue, like you said, is the
person answering the phone Yeah.Or the person who's taking the
(48:04):
consultations doesn't have theright formula to close them, or
there's not a tracking where weknow where it's coming from.
So we can say, you know, you'regetting all this traffic, but
then I don't know why you're notgetting clients. Well, it's
because Betty Sue on the phoneis having a bad day.
Karin (48:20):
Exactly. Yeah. Well, and here's the other thing is this,
it's usually not gonna be justone answer anymore. People don't
just Google and then call.They're so when I know it's a
good client, they say thingslike, hey.
I listened to your podcast. Andthen I came and read an article,
and then I saw that you, did x yz and you worked for this firm.
(48:41):
And then I saw that you wereover here on this other podcast
with Divina and whatever. Andthey're seeing me all over the
place. And each of thoseinteractions with my sees keeps
like ticking another littlenotch on the belt.
And they're thinking. And thenwhen it comes to the time where
they're like, okay, today's theday I need to do something about
(49:01):
my marketing. They think, okay,what am I, who am I gonna call?
All of a sudden it's my name andface that pops into their brain
and it's by design. It's notaccidental.
Davina (49:11):
So Yeah.
Karin (49:11):
It should be that that case where you're not putting
all your eggs in one basket andassuming that that is the path
that everyone is gonna take.
Davina (49:18):
Yeah. I think that's a I think that's a great note to end
on and a very powerful statementthat, good takeaway for people
is a marketing strategy involvesa formula of these are the
different these are thedifferent ways we're going to
reach out and be visible. Andfor us, for you and I,
podcasting is a big role inthat. Yeah. For other people
(49:40):
that they may not care a thingabout doing a podcast, and their
audience may not listen topodcast.
And so they may choose somethingelse. But it there's a formula.
There's multiple ways. Like withme, I do a podcast. I run ads.
I have different social mediaplatforms I'm on. And so it's
the multiple touches that peoplesay, well, I've listened to you
for a while. I love yourpodcast. And Yeah. Then I you
(50:02):
know, your face keeps popping upin my ads.
And so I'm going, I really needto call her or whatever. So
everybody's got their little mixof formula that they that they
use that make a lot of sense.Yeah. Courtney, thank you so
much for being here discussingmarketing with us. I think
there's some good takeaways inthis episode for our law firm
owners.
Karin (50:21):
I hope so.
Davina (50:22):
Tell us how we can find out more about you and connect
with you.
Karin (50:26):
Well, I've followed my website, Conroy Creative
Council. And you can eitherGoogle that or it's just
conroycreativecouncil.com. Andthen all the links to all the
social media, the podcast, allof this stuff is is on on there.
So that's the easiest option.
Davina (50:41):
Good. Good. Good. Thank you so much. And we'll have it
in the show notes as well forpeople.
I appreciate you being here. Asalways, it's been fun, and I'll
talk to you soon.
Karin (50:49):
Thank you so much.
Intro (50:51):
If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in
your business and your life,then you'll want to visit us at
wealthywomanlawyer.com to learnmore about how we help our
clients create wealth generatinglaw firms with ease.
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