What does that actually mean?

Well, I think when we feel sold versus we feel like we made the best choice, there is going to be an innate fear of being taken advantage of, being ripped off.

And so any small indication that things aren't the way that you perceive them to be will accelerate the, um, will accelerate the moment of you kind of breaking.

And I've noticed that a lot.

Like, I'll tell our, our, our salespeople, I'm like, "Listen, guys and, and girl, um, you know, you don't w- if at the end you're trying to convince them to do this, you've done something wrong, because they should be making the choice willingly instead of you talking them into it, 'Come on, just give me a chance.'" And it's ...

And I know most attorneys wouldn't, and professionals wouldn't necessarily feel like it's that way, but when people feel boxed in and they're too embarrassed not to hire you, their, their tolerance for humanity coming into play is going to be very low.

Well, I don't wanna talk about, like, I don't wanna talk about your dating life.

[laughs] Yeah.

What do you think?

Yeah, I mean, it...

And, and absolutely.

You want to start at what you're hearing.

And the biggest illustration I can give of this is why I started this whole thing, LPN.

I was doing SEO for attorneys, and we were helping them differentiate through content on their website.

And I kept hearing from attorneys, "Do you guys do anything with podcasting?" For a couple of years.

How much does that matter when, you know, when you want someone to associate you with, "Oh, this guy's all about X, Y, Z"?

Well, you, you dropped a couple terms earlier, and I want to address it specifically in t- you know, uh, in terms of AI, right? People hear things like GEO, answer engine optimization, AI search, right? And suddenly everybody wants to know, "How do I get ChatGPT to recommend me?" Are people getting ahead of themselves with that kind of, like, grabbing the latest buzzword, if you will?

Yeah, I mean, every marketer I talk to that's honest says, "I don't know." Here's...

We know some things.

We know that for the most part that the GEO, which is generative, ChatGPT, Claude, I don't know where Groq fits, I'm pretty sure that's a GEO as well, they tend to look for, like, validation from confirmed sources, almost like Google but m- more consistent, continual, and updating.

So let me give you an example of that.

When we...

I looked and I was like, I was like, "L- w- what, what do they say about my company?" This has been, I think, almost a year ago now.

I'm wondering, DM, what, I mean, based on that, right, just creating sub- substantive, helpful, educational, clear content, um, why is the podcast format so, it seems to me, tailor-made for, for the, for the environment that we're kind of becoming immersed in?

But

that's just not the way that it works.

You have to understand that it takes time.

My favorite show, and I don't know if you're familiar with it, but there's a show called The Office.

And most people are at least a little familiar with it.

But The Office is one of the most watched shows during the pandemic.

It's now probably one of the top five sitcoms of all time, if not top three, or in my opinion, number one.

So now, what does a marketable podcast actually look like from your experience?

I did read that

one article last night about this and I did have that one friend text me about that and, oh, I had that thing where my kid ate ice cream and it was cute.

I could probably turn that into a business story.

Then, yeah, it's going to be hard to post regularly with some sort of value and some sort of story behind it.

What I have found is the more you can incorporate content creation as part of your everyday life, The better, like, for example, like with my team, when I do trainings and when I do team meetings, everything's recorded.

And so my team takes and I have somebody or, you know, I could be doing it as well.

I can look over the transcripts like, oh, that's a good little spot and I can use that.

How often do you think professionals should be posting?

If somebody starts receiving podcast invitations or even starts to seek them out, what are some red flags that they should watch out for?

Oh, boy.

How long do you have? There's a few things I'd really watch out for.

You know, one is what I just said.

Who is the audience? And don't ask the person because they'll tell you who they wish their audience was.

Look at their stuff and see what it says and see how people respond to it.

And, you know, like really look at what they do.

So if somebody listening wants to build authority over the next 12 months, how should they think about borrowed audiences and owned audiences working together?

So why start there? Why not just create short form content directly?

I think there's a couple of reasons.

One is I personally think short form and really most short form is really just a conduit to get people to long form.

Where do all these short forms come from? It came from the rise of podcasting.

It came from, you know, they're not the vast majority, the vast, a very high percentage of shorts and reels that we see are people who are just taking pieces of long form content and chopping it up.

So I think that as far as being a busy professional, The majority of the time that it takes to do, like when I set up, like my studio isn't set up now, but when I set up my studio, it takes me like 20 minutes to set it up, 20 minutes to take it down.

So if I can take that 40 minutes and then let's say an hour, an hour and 40 minutes and turn that into a month's worth instead of making five videos a week where I take it up, take it down, take it up, take it down.

So where do guest appearances fit into this system?

And so he asked me a ton of questions on, on, on, on me as a practice.

Yeah, like here's what I like about podcast guesting is, one, it allows you to take your message outside of your direct sphere of influence.

And so, you know, you go to a different audience.

The other thing it does, though, is it allows you to start learning how to say some of the things that you really hold dear different ways.

Because if you say the same thing every time on every podcast, you get bored listening to yourself.

And, you know, you're just like, here we go.

Let me give you my pitch.

So what

And so for our listeners who may not be as familiar with you or your work, maybe let's start just speaking about your background, how you ended up in the business of podcasting for lawyers.

So I have been in marketing since I was 18 years old.

Actually didn't go to school for marketing.

I was in school for pastoral theology.

And a telemarketing company was paying the most money.

I got there, went to the top on the telemarketing side, and there was guys making more money than me selling ads and magazines.

So that's what I wanted to do.

This is what your potential listeners, potential clients might find interesting and relevant to them.

So Dan, why do you think that lawyers should start considering, you know, becoming storytellers in podcasting and not using it just as a marketing tool, but as a part of a long-term positioning strategy for themselves?

Well, I think you're asking me a question very specific to one aspect of lawyers podcasting, and so I think if, if it's okay, I'd like to step back one step.

And I think the first question that a lawyer needs to ask themself is why would they want a podcast, because there's several reasons to have a podcast.

Where I came in, and just because of my marketing and advertising background, SEO and different things, you know, I came to this saying, "Okay, I know lawyers, and here's what I know about lawyers." They will...

You know, at a certain point in their career, they can just throw money at something for vanity projects, but most solo and small firms, they can't just like, you know, spend X amount of dollars per month for something that's fun.

They need to get a return on their investment.

So the first ty- type of podcasting that we focus on and specialize in, though not, not solely, but it's the main thing that we do, is what we call authority podcasting, and that is a podcast that casts the attorney themselves as the expert.

So what do you think storytelling and intentional storytelling means in the context of legal practice and for lawyers for sake?