There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution for law firms when it comes to marketing. However, we’ve noticed that the one marketing approach that continues to yield benefits is your SEO strategy if done correctly.
This week’s episode features Atty Michael Blom from The Lake Law Firm, who joins us to discuss his experience at the SMB in-person event in mid-February and what he learned from the conference.
The talk discusses the need for excellent disposition and mentality for bringing about the desired change in your legal practice, from there to why SEO continues to be a successful approach for law firms even though there appear to be new and unique local techniques.
Resources mentioned in our episode:
Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com
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Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] As of 2021, organic results account for 53 percent of all website traffic. This figure has gone up from 51 percent that was reported the previous year. Organic search is without a doubt, the main source of traffic. I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media and author of Beyond Se Habla Español How Lawyers with the Hispanic Market and This is in-camera podcast, where we claim SEO is alive and doing better than ever. Welcome, become our podcast premier, legal marketing conversations, Grace, welcome back.
Grace: [00:01:03] How are you, Liel?
Liel: [00:01:04] I’m good Grace. I’m good. It feels like it’s been eternity since the last time we spoke, since last time we met. Like, time sometimes just passes super fast, and sometimes it just passes slow. And now I just feel like it’s been a long time since, you know, the whole conference thing that we had at the beginning of the month came through, right?
Grace: [00:01:25] Yeah, it felt like it was hot and heavy for a while. And then we had a little low in between right now that we have.
Liel: [00:01:31] That’s right. That’s right, Grace. But here’s the thing we have a great conversation lined up for today. We have a special guest, which is always exciting. And so Grace, as always, please do the honors, introduce our guests so we can have him join the conversation.
Grace: [00:01:45] All right, everybody. So we’re super excited to have somebody that is fairly new actually to the Lake law firm. But I feel like I’ve known him forever in the best possible way. And that is Michael J. Bloom. He’s our senior attorney and VP of business development as a senior attorney and VP of business development at the Lake Law Firm. Michael Bloom focuses on personal injury, pharmaceutical drug injury, medical device liability and mass tort litigation. So all those litigations we talk about all the time he’s worked on, including CPAP Paraquat, Baby Formula Elmiron, Zantac Firefighting Foam, amongst many others. He’s also received the national trial lawyers Top 40 under 40 civil plaintiffs recognition for 2018, nineteen twenty and twenty one. He was also selected the Super Lawyers 2020 and 2021 New York Metro Rising Stars list. He has admitted Mr. Bloom has admitted to the New York State Bar Third Department, the U.S. District Court for the southeastern, excuse me, southern and eastern districts of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. He’s also a member of the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association and the New York County Lawyers Association, as well as the American Association for Justice. Michael Welcome.
Michael: [00:03:00] Thank you, Grace and Liel.
Liel: [00:03:02] Michael Wow, with that bio, I feel now that I have to call you Attorney Bloom. Nothing like that. But I also got to know you quite a bit over the past three or four months that we’ve met at several conferences. And so it’s great to finally have you here at in-camera podcast. And funny enough, today we’re going to have a conversation about conferences. But first, Michael, why don’t you share it to our audience? Where is this podcast finding you?
Michael: [00:03:32] Oh, sure. So I’m in Cranford, New Jersey. It’s about 15 or 17 miles outside of New York City.
Liel: [00:03:37] Wonderful. And you’re sitting outdoors. Your your braving the weather. And we are really appreciate you creating the time for having this conversation with us. So, Michael, last week, believe it or not, we actually met. We were at the A.J. conference together, and I remember we wanted to have you join us and give us your takes on the A.J. conference because as Grace mentioned, you are very involved in everything that has to do with mass torts. And obviously there were a lot of updates and you shared there, but then you’ve shared with me that you’re not going to be able to do it right after the conference because you had another conference lined up, right? So which one was that conference and what was that about?
Michael: [00:04:18] Sure. So that was the SMB fire up your firm event that was in Lakeland, Florida, right outside of Tampa, about an hour outside. That was last Thursday and Friday, and it was very busy at the SMB’s, basically a company that deals in coaching of attorneys and law firm owners and also marketing. So they have coaching and marketing packages that they can basically guide firms through with the goal to double or more their revenues in one year.
Liel: [00:04:52] Grace, we’ve we’ve we’ve talked or had anyone from SMB here on the podcast, but we know about them. They actually came a lot to light, particularly on the early days of the pandemic in 2020. They were kind of like amongst the first two to create those big mastermind sessions that got attended by thousands of lawyers for for session. It was quite remarkable and it was very, very well timed. And I think from thereon they’ve just taken on on the part of us. Michael is saying here coaching and offering different type of marketing solutions, and they’ve struck quite a few partnerships with different organizations and marketeers. I know they’ve been working a lot with on this article lately and such. So I, you know, they’re they’re very well known in the industry nowadays. So what was the what was so what was the conference main focus, how it was two days from what I understand here? Was it broken down on a kind of like on a day one was something they too was something else?
Michael: [00:05:53] Sure, it was mostly organized by speakers, so they had several speakers, including, of course, Andy Steckel, in kind of headline, the event with all of his marketing techniques. Bill Hauser, of course, with SMB giving his insights on business related, you know, improvements that you can make to increase your revenues. And then they also had Greg Goldfarb, which spoke about employment related issues at the firm, how you can kind of maximize different areas of the firm by providing incentives and investing into your employees personal lives and also their business lives, kind of just how to make the firm a better place. Mike Morse made an appearance, you know, out of Michigan on organizational structure, the importance of that at the firm, and not to be managing too much, but to have people under you that are reporting to you. And it’s kind of a nice hierarchy of organization that you can have so you can focus on what you need to focus on. And and then they had a couple other speakers as well.
Grace: [00:07:05] It’s interesting that you’re talking about that because I actually have been to the gold Goldfarb masterminds, right? He’s got a couple of those that he used to run. And so when you were talking about the, I guess, the employment part of it and it does seem to be coming up more and more right with with COVID and everything that happened, I think that trying to maximize with what you have seems to be a predominant theme in a lot of these business conferences nowadays. Did you find that when you were there that it seems like they talked a lot about the employment aspect and, you know, structure of the organization? And or was it potentially, you know, heavier on something else, like just marketing?
Michael: [00:07:47] Yeah, it was pretty much half and half. It’s super important for firms right now to have the right structure at the firm so you can have, you know, the kind of the best efficiencies in each department and. The people working for you. It really comes down to your staff, you know that they’re excited and motivated and that you keep them motivated to work and that they have the opportunity to advance within the company and the firm. So it was it was highly important along with the marketing and coaching and business ideas.
Liel: [00:08:19] Yeah, that sounds great. And so it sounds like most of obviously the event was in person who was in attendance. Were all the speakers there at the event? Was it a hybrid of some of the speakers were connecting remotely?
Michael: [00:08:32] That’s right. So Andy and Bill of where, of course, in person. Craig Goldfarb was in person. They had a few speakers come on by Zoom, including Mike Morse. So it was kind of a hybrid. I would say 50 50, and they had a lot of users tune in live from the event, which was really nice. I think the several
Liel: [00:08:53] Hundreds, that’s what I heard as well, that the conference was in person, but there was also the option of attending remotely. And I think that’s one of the things that SMB as a whole has honed down very well is that consistency of of of having continued doing virtual events really almost on a weekly basis, right? I mean, these guys, they have kind of like every week something some sessions, some training. And obviously, you know, I don’t really know much about how their their mastermind membership works or not, but a lot of what they do is open to to lawyers generally, whether they’re members or not. So would you say, you know, because I think, Michael, you were at the KRISP summit also right in of summit last November. And one of the things that was talked about is that a lot a lot of people felt that it was too salesy in the sense that, you know, there was great content, but there was also a lot of pitching for services and products and such. So how did you feel that was handled?
Michael: [00:09:53] Yeah, I can comment on that. I thought it was great. It was very well done. There was actually no sales pitch, to my knowledge. The first day I’d have to give hats off to Andy Steckel just for how much insightful knowledge he provided. Just so many areas of what just marketing kind of, you know, I have three takeaways I’ll go over in minutes as well, which includes some of the stuff that he said. And, you know, stuff that I just don’t know and I already spoke with, you know, at our firm Ed Lake about it, and he thought those were good ideas. So we’re actually implementing some of the things that Andy Andy said and also Bill. And it wasn’t until the second day that they, you know, kind of the sales pitch, you know, that they give you the paper to sign up for the services, which I would also recommend. They have a great program from what I see with the coaching. And then you can also do they have a whole marketing suite that they kind of do everything for you or in collaboration with your team and you can do one or the other or both. They had a lot of bonuses that they were giving away, so I think it was a great package altogether.
Liel: [00:11:05] Ok, so first day, lots of valuable content, second day, a little bit of a sales pitch. That’s right. Yeah, so I don’t know, Grace, are we ready for hearing some of Michael’s takeaways or do you have more questions about the technical execution of the event?
Grace: [00:11:21] I have a little bit of more questions about the event itself because it seems like a lot of these events are becoming what I would call an amalgamation of others, right? More people seem to be partnering up with each other and kind of economies of scale, right? For those of you that do or don’t know what that term means is just when the bigger you are and the more people you have kind of in that company, the easier it is to have a further reach, right? And you actually reduce costs by doing that as well. So when I’m talking about economies of scale with this conference, it does seem like you, said Golden, four of Moore’s Stickle Howser. That’s a lot of big names that came together to do this event. So it does seem like that that seems to be a pattern. And you know, Michael, I know you’ve been we’ve been going to conferences since you started with us. Literally the first day you started, we went to I think it was MTMP or something. It might have been a different one, A.J. I don’t even know at this point, but TLU, TLU that’s right. Trial Lawyers University, we went together. So what do you think? Do you think that seems to be the pattern that’s happening right now, like especially the smaller conferences, you know, like SMB, they seem to be kind of combining their forces
Michael: [00:12:37] For lack of a. I think so, and I think it’s really smart to I mean, the bigger names that you can have, the more interest, of course, you want to attend not only in person but also live. And I mean, they don’t you don’t have to attend in person to sign up for the services, of course, as well. So it’s kind of, you know, they may have to spend money or a lot of the speakers that attend and speak for free, to my knowledge. But just to have those relationships with the bigger name attorneys and business persons, I think, is the new way of kind of captivating the potential audience who will then
Liel: [00:13:16] From the networking standpoint, like the people that attended in person. Did you felt you got any good value? Did you met new people? Did you, I guess, quality quality relationships. Do you see coming out of that?
Michael: [00:13:29] I did. So there was a kind of a two different packages. It was a VIP package and then a regular attendee package. So with the VIP, when I was able to attend a dinner the first night with all of their called the two extras. So the people, the attorneys that basically doubled their revenue under the SMB program the previous year were invited to that and were involved. And I think one attorney, even five her business or his business, which is pretty outstanding. So, you know, just speaking to those people at the dinner and then the following day, getting to see what they were doing at their firm, the practice areas that they’re in, new ideas they have going forward, they’re just as excited in this year to than they were in the year one. They just want to keep growing and growing. So it was great to meet them. I actually met a bunch of people and can hopefully turn that into some business for our firm as well.
Liel: [00:14:28] Was it a personal injury leaning or was there good diversity of practice areas in?
Michael: [00:14:36] Right? Yeah. Personal injury attorneys, primarily motor vehicle accident. I would say I was the only kind of mass tort, you know, attorney that works in that space there, which was kind of good for me. I was singled out, so everyone kind of wanted to see what we do when I am very interested. So.
Liel: [00:14:56] So Grace confirming with you one more time, are we are we ready to hear some of Michael’s takeaways?
Grace: [00:15:03] We are now.
Liel: [00:15:04] All right, Michael, the floor is yours. Okay, great.
Michael: [00:15:09] So number one that I have, you have to be pretty motivated to make big changes at your firm in order for you to be successful in reaching your goals if you’re not motivated. I mean, it seems silly, but if you’re not motivated, you’re not going to make those changes. You’re not going to sign up to be involved in these masterminds. You’re not going to attend, you know, these 90 minute, two hour plus, you know, and kind of intense live sessions with the coaching team and then directly thereafter, implement those ideas with your team week after week, year after year. So it’s really kind of limited to attorneys who are pre motivated or can kind of find the motivation very fast. That would be successful in this type of revenue growth and that you can beat the big guys at their marketing spends. You know, we all know who they are. If you have one, the belief that you can beat them to the anticipation and. Drive to get great results. And three, the step to take those actions. So that’s my first takeaway. The second one that I have from the conference is by making just micro improvements to your firm can have very large effects across all practice areas or just in one, and that’s from advertising intake processes and steps your employees and the structure of the firm. And three, which is a little bit controversial, we were told that SEO is quote unquote dead in terms of making your firm’s phone ring. So it’s not the way to really generate business passively anymore. So Google Maps is the new thing to make your phone ring that everyone’s kind of looking into and that you need to optimize your map ads, update your Google my business profile and you need lots of reviews to get high rankings that will turn into leads. Those are my takeaways.
Liel: [00:17:06] So. Very high level, very good, but very high level, particularly the first two, right, and we’re going to this is what we do here, Michael, we we just get some ideas. Kind of like as a bait and then and then Grace and I are going to potentially start commenting on it now. And we would love to to hear, what are your thoughts as we’re digging deeper into it? But I’d like to start with the last one, as he always dead. That’s crap. That’s not right. Anyone, anyone claiming that SEO is dead and now you need to go and just focus on maps is selling you snake oil. I’m sorry to say, and I have a lot of respect for these guys, but ultimately it’s not a one or the other thing. It’s a combination right for you to determine that right now, users only care about maps is mistaken approach. Now you can certainly think of a segment that is more interested in leaning towards finding your law firms or researching through maps, and you definitely want to consider being visible in there and optimizing for visibility in there. But it’s not an all or nothing thing, and I think that’s one of the biggest mistakes that marketeers in the space of law firms constantly do. They establish new trends and make it look like this is the new thing, right? And I’ve been seeing these Grace, and I think you would agree that it’s being kind of like the over and over story like this is exactly what happened with LSE’s. No, no everything. No, nothing else matters. It’s just about LSE’s. It’s just about LSE’s. You need to get your your local survey sites and that’s what’s going to make you.
Liel: [00:18:43] And it doesn’t work that way, right? It doesn’t work that way. LSE’s is part of your mix. Paper click search network is part of the mix. Local arts or performance. Max campaigns is part of the mix. YouTube. That’s part of the mix. Facebook that’s part of the mix. SEO super important. Why? Because they are users that strategically want to go and research on SEO. So I don’t think there is like the one single method to make the phone ring. There is the one strategy that can get you a kick start, but it’s not going to be a thing of you’d need to do this one thing and do it very well, and that’s going to be your formula to success. And the one reason why I have I have issues with this type of claims. This is the thing this is. The new thing is because it’s going to be the new thing until something else comes up. And what happens is because you’ve been so focused and honed in into trying to do this thing right, you’re not going to have any stability when that thing no longer performs right. Everyone who thought and saw great results from LSE or from the southern two or three months down the road realized, Oh my god, it got super competitive now. Now I’m not getting any more the volume of cases that I got on the first three months that I was present in there. And so what do you do? What do you do? Right? You need to be covered at all ends. Grace, I’m getting too emotional.
Grace: [00:20:07] I know I knew you were going to get upset with that comment, and I was like, Oh, wait, wait, wait till Liel says something about that. So it’s never an all or nothing approach, you know, to to Liel’s point when it comes to marketing. And that’s something that we talk about on here constantly is don’t put all your eggs in one basket. So for a company or anybody to ever say that this is dead or that is dead, it shows me, unfortunately, that they don’t quite understand how it works. Because if you did understand how it works, what Liel is saying and what we’re saying is you can’t put everything in one method of marketing because that’s the same thing when it comes to even just learning or you researching something right when you go research. You don’t just go to Google Search, you may go to a video, you may go look a YouTube, something you may look up on Instagram. You may look here or there or somewhere else. And to say that maps is it, and that maps is the only place that people are going to go. We know that’s not true, right? I mean, just think about your own search journey. I mean, you’ll go on Yelp for a restaurant, you know, potentially you’ll go on here for something else.
Grace: [00:21:18] So why wouldn’t that hold true for just about every industry and every business? It does hold true. So you need to mix whatever you do. It has to be a mix of it. And I would not go with a company that is telling me that something is dead when you have a staff and team and or really everyone else saying, that’s not dead, right? I mean, you know, based on your analytics that that’s not the case. And so if you have a good marketing agency that you’re working with or a good marketing team that understands how this works, they can guide you on a strategy that is not an all or nothing strategy and doesn’t make you beholden to a problem that might come up because that strategy is no longer available because you only used one, and Facebook is probably the best example of that besides. The Google ad, constant changes and quality of the content and the original meta stuff that they used to happen back in the day. Facebook when they went from OK, you could have organic posts and you would get some kind of interaction to only if you pay does anything show up on somebody’s feed that killed a lot of people’s strategy because they had all of it in Facebook, right? Liel remember that, right?
Liel: [00:22:32] Mm hmm.
Grace: [00:22:33] So, yeah, to Liel’s point. And to just finish that, you know, not to bash anybody because that’s the last thing we ever want to do on here. And it was a great comment because it is something that allows us to talk about it, right? You should pay attention to Google reviews. You should be in the three pack if you can. And those are all things that are super important, but only as part of a strategy rather than an all or nothing approach.
Liel: [00:22:58] Michael, how did you how did when you were sitting in the room you were hearing these, how does this landed in you? So obviously you brought it up as a takeaway, but did you got sold into it into this idea? Did it convince you that yes, this makes sense to focus primarily on this? I’m very interested in hearing How did you felt this information or approach to digital strategy for a law firm could turn out right?
Michael: [00:23:24] I mean, I’ll probably always feel that a well-balanced approach is always the best approach, but that there the fact that they’re saying that something is new and firms are looking into it a lot more, and to get into it now just raises my interest level. And you know that I’d probably want to take a more closer look, a more concentrated look into that new area, but not so much as to shift the whole marketing strategy.
Liel: [00:23:49] It’s a provocative approach, right? And I’m pretty certain that when they come and claim, is SEO is dead, they’re probably don’t necessarily mean SEO is dead, but more so kind of like you need to start seeing beyond SEO. And one thing that’s been a little bit hard still in some of the space of legal marketing is to get some of the devotees to SEO understand that there is also a pay to play approach in digital marketing. It cannot just be organic. There is still a lot of people who have been doing organic forever that are not necessarily yet seeing the need to be visible through paid advertising. My point here is that whether you want to get visibility on local, true paid or organic, you still need to remember that it’s all about understanding your user segmentation. Sorry, your potential client segmentation, who is going to be more likely to interact with you or to convey to you through a search at who is going to be more likely to be choosing out clients from the local pack? Who’s going to be more interested in actually going to your website doing so? More thorough research, looking at videos, reviews and that sort of thing, and then potentially converting. And then you will know, really, how do you need to balance and what you need to give priorities to? I just think that I feel from the position that we are as marketers, we’re lawyers come in, ask for our recommendations and guidance in an objective opinion on on what works and what they should do. We have the responsibility of giving good insights and not just trends that may not necessarily live long to be sustainable for a law firm.
Liel: [00:25:37] So I think it’s just the differentiation between one thing or the other, because there is always the hot thing, right? There is always going to be one strategy that is getting a lot of attention now. But the thing is that those strategies don’t hold up for a long, and I do want to give credit to SEO being consistently performing and and mind you that I wrote a book actually advocating for making paid digital your starting line, and I still believe it. But I also encourage law firms that have already established that intro level exploring, enhancing and growing it and then going for this for the organic traffic. And once they also start working on the organic traffic even focused more on the brand building, right? Whether that’s through integrating more campaigns on social, on YouTube and even going offline. Do some billboards, do radio, do TV? That thing still works. So I, you know, I just have a little bit of conflict with bold statements like this is dead. That is dead. This is the new and best thing to do because, you know, we need to be more objective and give more more insights than just talking about the new sexy thing, the new shiny thing that it’s out there. Grace anything to add on that because there is another two takeaways here that Michael shared. They’re actually very good. And. No, I’m good because I think they make a lot of sense.
Grace: [00:27:10] Yes. No, I have nothing further on the SEO. Truthfully, I think that we’ve exhausted that comment, so we could definitely move on to the other two takeaways at this time. So do you want to discuss the first one or the second one?
Liel: [00:27:25] Well, to me, I mean, Michael and I have you correct me here. But to me, they sound about just setting your mind to things, right? Just coming with the right attitude, set yourself goals and and kind of like, Don’t doubt yourself. It’s pretty much a mindset, and I do, and I agree, I mean, it does it also help, it does work. I think it’s super high level. You need to have a good framework, a great support system. There’s a lot more that actually. Is required for you to achieve what you want to, but I definitely think that no matter how many master minds do you sign up for? No matter how many times you write down what you want to do if you actually don’t get up and do it like things are not going to just materialize by themselves, right? You need to have a good balance between will and actually doing things. I don’t know, Michael, is that is that what the message was?
Michael: [00:28:30] That’s right. Yes, I mean, it’s really just having the prime motivation to do big things, to make big changes at your firm and following through with those, you know, strategies and goals that you have to reach them, which a lot of attorneys struggle with because those changes can be, you know, scary. They can be costly. There’s a lot of reasons why you don’t try to expand further than what you’re currently doing.
Grace: [00:29:02] That makes sense to me. I mean, you know, when it comes to to just doing doing it right, I mean, we talk about that all the time, Liel. And on all of our calls, it’s like, take these actions and do something about it, right? And I think that, you know, ever since Michael’s been with the Lake law firm, which again hasn’t been too long, but that’s one of the things that he always does when he’s here, right? It’s just take it and actually act on it and do something about it. You know, with strategy in mind, obviously. But that to me is it is an important takeaway. And I know we talk about it almost every time we have a takeaway where it’s do something about what we’re talking about. And in this case, it’s you know, when when Michael’s saying that go to conferences and act on the things that you learn at the conferences, I can’t agree more. You know, I mean, we do always say that and I think that it’s super important for people to act on the things because if you don’t act and you don’t do anything, it’s just going to go backwards, right or completely go defunct. So, you know, to to Michael’s point, to Liel point to all of our points when we talk about stuff all the time, do something about it. I do it with the strategy and you know, nothing. There’s nothing constant but change, right? And so a seemingly continual improvement process that’s baked in to whatever you do on a day to day basis, whether it’s attending conferences or taking action items from those conferences is the most important thing to remember and to implement in your firm or in your company and whatever you’re doing.
Liel: [00:30:35] You know what, Grace? One thing I really loved that, Michael said, and that apparently was one of the points that were made during the conference, is that you shouldn’t get intimidated by the big gorillas in the market, which happens. And I do agree with that. I do agree with that. You shouldn’t think that everything is lost or there is no point in giving giving it a try because there is these bigger players that who can stand them. There are several cases that have shown that it is possible. I think, you know, one of the speakers at the conference is a great example of that. Michael Moore’s right. Ten years ago, he was just basically getting started and building his brand. He was almost a hundred percent referral attorney. And then nowadays he is the biggest personal injury law firm with one of the most significant brand awareness campaigns ever seen in the space. And so. A lot about our authenticity, and as you have said, goodwill, a good support system, a plan, a strategy. Are the are the factors that made this happen? So I always take inspiration for these kind of stories, and I always think that it’s important for all firms to remind themselves that there is no there’s not such thing as, you know, can’t be done because there’s already someone in the space. And, you know, particularly when it comes down to to doing multicultural marketing like we do. We we we encounter a lot of times law firms just assuming there’s already somebody doing it without actually knowing. In fact, if there is someone doing it right, is there already an established law firm that is attracting the Spanish speaking market in a particular market? Well, we haven’t done it, but we believe there is already another law firm doing it, and there’s no actual law firm doing it. And so, you know, it’s it’s a reminder sometimes we just see smoke mirrors and we think things are much bigger than there really are, and there is actually a lot of opportunity there to grow and to go after things. So I really valued and appreciated that one in particular.
Grace: [00:32:52] Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, you know, we always talk about that as well where it’s, you know, you can make a difference. And if you want to make a difference, you can. And as long as you’re authentic and tell your story, you’re able to do that. So that’s I mean, that’s the clincher on that.
Liel: [00:33:12] Well, Michael, sadly, we’re coming to the end of this conversation, but it’s been great. And hopefully it won’t be the last because there is a lot of things here that we could be talking about with you and that we can be learning from you. But for this time, we need to wrap it up with some good takeaways. And I think Michael’s already given us some very good ones that he brought on for the conference, some that have definitely ignited some conversation and questioning. And that’s that’s that’s what it’s all about. You need to question yourself things as long as you can justify them to yourself in a way that you can make sense out of them. Everything, everything is possible. So Grace, let’s let’s bring it down to two to three takeaways. And Michael, I’m going to start with you. Can you wrap it all up into one single take away from you? We’ll do one one one. How about a piece? Sounds good? Yeah. All right. Let’s do it. So, Michael, you’re our guest, your card.
Michael: [00:34:09] I would say that SEO is not dead. It’s not in the limelight anymore. But, you know, to still evaluate all of the other marketing strategies out there and to take a look into kind of the newer, more concentrated ones that everyone’s looking into. But don’t, you know, don’t shift your strategy, you know, on its head, just, you know, by hearing something some someone says, you know, evaluate it for yourself and take a look good one.
Liel: [00:34:42] And I’m not going to I’m not going to. I’m not going to enter into this one again. But I do want to say something. Sometimes just people make those claims. Why? Because the SEO is not easy, right? And so, you know, if you cannot figure it out and if you cannot solve it, then just say, no, no, it doesn’t work, right? It’s not true. SEO still works, but it’s hard and it’s competitive, and you need to be patient and you need to do it very well, right? Particularly if you’re in a competitive market. So the fact that a SEO is no longer, you know, the newest shiny thing doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, but to to everyone’s point, the conference organizers Michael’s Grace I, we certainly see value in constantly keeping your ear to the ground. New strategies coming up and trying them out, trying them out. Just as simple as that, but trying out something new doesn’t mean that you need to give up on something that you’ve been doing and that it’s been effective, right? It doesn’t matter if it’s having a slow period. If you’re going to some low moment, you know, things pick up, things change their cycles, particularly in digital marketing, both paid and organic. So just keep keep in mind those things, right? So that’s my takeaway. You don’t need to let go of other things in order to try new things. You certainly need to let go of things that are not generating results for you. And you have good data to prove it, but not necessarily make abrupt decisions about this is, you know, this is done. This is this is the yesterday’s thing. Digital marketing is not fashion. It’s beyond that, right?
Grace: [00:36:21] So for me, the second takeaway would be make conference as a part of your strategy, actually. I think that that’s a good idea because you’ll learn things from, you know, big dogs, small dogs, everybody in between, right, like and just like Michael did, where he was able to see that this was something that, you know, not only the big boys can play in this pond, you know, with Michael Morse is a very good example. I agree with him, and I think that this should be definitely part of your strategies to attend conferences, to network, you know, to get to know a big group of and other people that are in your space, you know, on all ends, right? Whether whatever, whether it’s marketing or it’s another law firm or it’s, you know, a specific conference event person. Either way, you can gain knowledge from this, and I think it should be definitely a part of your overall strategy for the year is to attend conferences.
Liel: [00:37:16] Which, by the way, Michael, congratulations, I noticed that recently you’ve been announced as a guest speaker at mass tort made perfect in spring. This year, I saw your name on the list of speakers, I believe, on the business of lighting.
Michael: [00:37:30] Thank you. So for Thelma coming up? Yeah. And I guess May or June.
Liel: [00:37:34] Well, that’s wonderful. And it’s very exciting that Puma will definitely be seeing you, and I’ll make sure I’ll be inside the room and very likely also at Mass torts made perfect. So yeah, those are again to Grace’s point. Two upcoming conferences in the next three to four months. That great approach. Oh my god, it’s mass torts made. It’s going to be like in a month from now April.
Grace: [00:37:55] It’s crazy. I know it’s
Liel: [00:37:56] Crazy. It’s crazy how time is flying. But yeah, these are really good examples of conferences that you know you can attend. And then again, there there is still, you know, because traveling is not always possible, there are still some virtual events happening. And you know, they’re they’re they’re good. Durocher, I don’t know. I could still use a break of virtual conferences for a while. And anyhow, so it’s down to me giving one final take away. You know what I’d like to say? You know, surround yourself from a good support system. Surround yourself with people that actually can be great guides partners through your journey. That’s, I think, super important because doing things and going through things on your own is hard. If you have people that have gone through it and that they can, you know, give you some, some guidance or at least share their experience is going to be great. And here’s the other thing, as you are taking from all others, give back to others who are further back than where you are right and helping them also. It’s not going to make you feel better because there’s, you know, there’s a lot of gratification that you get from being able to share value and help others.
Liel: [00:39:13] But it’s also a great way of creating a community, right? I think that’s one thing when you’re joining masterminds, when you’re joining these types of communities, it’s not just about going there and sitting and learning and taking things on your own, but it’s actually participating and helping others as much as you’re being helped. I think that’s one of the things that I would be looking at whenever I’m joining. Something like this is how much of a of that type of community exists within the members of the Mastermind. Or is it just kind of like a classroom where you go? You take notes, you hear someone the main speaker and then you go and deploy on your own. You know, it’s two very different things. And I think the first one, when there’s a bigger sense of community, it’s it’s just a completely different feel. What do you think, Grace? You know, Michael, I do care about your opinion on this one because you’re both members of these type of things.
Grace: [00:40:04] No, I mean, you absolutely need a sense of community, you know, I mean, it’s funny that you’re speaking about that because even in the law firm with between us, I feel like we we have that right. And that’s one of those things that no doubt that without that support, you can’t do your job. Michael can’t do his job. I can’t do my job. So, yeah, you definitely need a support of, you know, the sense of a support and the community in the conference, in the mastermind, in whatever it is that you are trying to do, because otherwise you’re not going to benefit from it at all and you should always pay it forward. I mean, it’s just the way it works. This is the way the world needs to work. So yes, you should definitely pay it forward as well.
Liel: [00:40:42] Michael, any final thoughts?
Michael: [00:40:44] I would say inspiration, kind of as a as a final takeaway, just, you know, as tend as many things as you can talk to as many attorneys and also non attorneys. I’ve met a lot of great people like you guys, you know, through the course of the year and you can learn a lot from everyone. So and that kind of fosters inspiration to to find the motivation, to get into new areas and do new things.
Liel: [00:41:12] Michael, thank you one more time for joining us for this great conversation. Thank you very much for sharing us your insights and experience that you had at last week’s SMB conference. Grace, it’s always a pleasure talking with you, and we’ll be back next week.
Grace: [00:41:28] Thank you so much, Michael. Thank you, Liel.
Liel: [00:41:30] All right, thank you. And if you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your coworkers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at: ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.
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