S2 E35: You Can Judge a Book by Its Cover

In this conversation, Grace shares her experience participating and exhibiting at the latest edition of Mass Torts Made Perfect Fall 2020. From the logistics to the technical issues, Grace shares her impressions of one of the most sought after events in the legal industry calendar.

We review the insights of one of the businesses of law sessions at the event about intake and revisit the importance of keeping the user in mind when opening a new channel for communicating with your potential clients.

Finally, Grace introduces Persist Publishing, a new arm of Persist, dedicated to helping attorneys publish their own stories and become bestseller authors. We talk about why writing a book can potentially be the most effective way to stand out from your competitors and why it matters to people whether they read it or not.

Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com

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Transcript

Liel: [00:00:00] We are told not to judge a book by its cover, but then again, why do we spend so much time, money, and effort designing book covers? I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media, and this is Incomer, a podcast where we care a lot about covers.

Liel: [00:00:45] Welcome to In Camera Podcast, Private Legal Marketing Conversations. Grace, how are you today?

Grace: [00:00:51] Good, how are you, Liel?

Liel: [00:00:52] I’m doing well, Grace. And you know what? I’m really, really excited to talk to you today, because I know you’ve had a very busy week. You just participated in Mass Torts Made Perfect virtual edition, full 2020.

Liel: [00:01:08] And I think that’s where we’re going to start our conversation, Grace. How  was it? How was the virtual experience of Mass Torts Made Perfect?

Grace: [00:01:17] Well, so you may recall I actually attended the AAJ Virtual Conference.

Liel: [00:01:22] Grace, you’ve been very active in all of these virtual conferences.

Grace: [00:01:26] Well, we’d like to make sure that we continue to support the organizations that we’ve been working with for so long.

Liel: [00:01:31] Absolutely. We had an episode on that. Right. We we’re big advocates. And if you can sustain support and be part of these, whether it’s for marketing or for participation, it’s a great step to take.

Grace: [00:01:45] Yeah, exactly. Exactly like you and I have spoken a few times before. You know, it’s who you are, it’s part of your company culture and this is what you do, then you need to continue to do that, not let covid sort of stop you from being able to continue to move forward with how you behave as a company. So, yeah, no, that’s definitely why we continue to be involved in all of these. So, yeah, it was very interesting. Was a two day conference. Everything was in Eastern Time. So it actually started on Wednesday at 11 a.m. with Mike Papantonio giving an intro and sort of a welcome to MTMP Virtual. And then it kind of went on from there. There were sessions that were all pre-recorded and available throughout the day on different subjects. Mostly, I’d say three subjects, three categories.

Liel: [00:02:36] So everything was pre-recorded, Grace? 

Grace: [00:02:39] Everything that I am aware of was prerecorded in here except for the chat rooms. 

Liel: [00:02:45] OK, right.

Grace: [00:02:47] And the chat rooms that they were only the sponsored chat rooms that I’m talking about, which had this meeting feature that allowed you to sort of go on-screen live. And if anybody came into your chat room, they could chat with you, ask you questions. And so you could kind of do a little presentation for lack of a better word, a live one.

Liel: [00:03:09] So when you say sponsored chat rooms, we’re talking vendors, right? 

Grace: [00:03:12] Correct.

Liel: [00:03:13] Ok, all right. Very cool. 

Liel: [00:03:16] That’s very, very cool. And so you could basically, you did not have to stick to a particular schedule. You can watch different sessions as you please, or there were being broadcasted at a specific time?

Grace: [00:03:28] That’s a great question. Yes, they were actually being broadcast at a specific time so that, you know, just like in person where.

Grace: [00:03:35] Oh, wow.

Liel: [00:03:36] So just like in person you would go from this time to this time. That’s exactly how it worked. It was available from this time to this time.

Liel: [00:03:43] Yeah.

Grace: [00:03:43] And so the speaker, was in there. 

Liel: [00:03:45] So you had to still choose your track and.

Grace: [00:03:48] Yes.

Liel: [00:03:49] Go for it because while you were at the business of law track you were missing out on the litigation’s. 

Grace: [00:03:54] Correct.

Liel: [00:03:55] OK, I got it.

Grace: [00:03:55] And it was because I know some people had two screens open so that they could watch two different sessions at the same time.

Liel: [00:04:01] Oh yeah, that’s hard. I tried that yesterday with the debate. It doesn’t work, too hard. You’re either one place or the other.

Grace: [00:04:07] You got it. I think that’s exactly what I kept hearing, particularly because, I mean, if you go into the litigation track or the business of law or. Yeah, either one. I mean, think about watching Zantac and then learning about the, you know, operations in flux, talking about intake.

Liel: [00:04:22] Talking about the complexity of conversations like, you know, it wasn’t like you’re following a little soap opera and then at the same time watching on your phone, your Instagram feed. Right. You’re actually hearing and talking and being part of a very, very technical and advanced conversation. So, yeah.

Grace: [00:04:41] And so not the during the sessions where they did it was they made it available via chat inside of the session where the speakers could answer questions if anybody had a question. And so I think most of them what they did is the speakers would have either themselves or whoever they had helping them respond to the questions all through chat. Again, that was the interactive component of the session. So it was, I think that worked pretty well. There were only a couple of odd things that happened where the screen would kind of minimize and go below the border, the top half of the screen. But, you know, they tried their best. And they did tell everybody almost immediately via email or through messaging on the site itself that, you know, you use Google Chrome, do this, do that to just kind of make sure everyone’s having the same experience.

Liel: [00:05:37]  Grace, you know what I mean, that just brings up what you’re saying there as to how important and critical for controlling a user experience, it has become the Web browser that users use. Right. I mean, I’m telling you, because every presentation that we do. Sorry, I’m now kind of going to a little different place. But following up on what you’re saying, because every presentation that we do to our existing clients or prospective clients, we use a platform that is called Prezi.

Liel: [00:06:07] And in order to be able to smoothly and provide the best experience of a presentation in Prezi you can to someone who’s remote is by actually getting them to use the Prezi live link. Right. Which actually what it does is instead of screen sharing your presentation, it actually loads up the presentation in front of them. And there are just seeing the transitions as smooth as if they were sitting right next to you. And we love that. But here’s the thing. We understood that if you’re using, for instance, Safari, the loading time of the presentation can be twice or three times slower than if you were using chrome. And so it’s so important that you take those things into consideration ahead of time. Or, for instance, we would have on the very, very early days people who would connect to the conference call, but they will be doing it from their iPad and, you know, on their iPad it wouldn’t preload unless ahead of time downloaded it on an app from Prezi that then will allow them to see the presentation. So if you’re not communicating those things to people ahead of time and then they’re showing up, whether it’s for a conference call or whether it’s for a live virtual event and they’re not prepared for it can have a very, very adverse impact on the user experience.

Liel: [00:07:29] Now, I know you’re talking here about more kind of like technical issues that came up that were unforeseen like it just happened, but it just brought to my mind the importance of actually controlling those. Now that we’re doing so many things remotely, how important is to take into consideration all of those technical aspects about, like what is it that you need to explain and inform the other parties so that the communications can be flawless? Right. And the same thing when you’re buying any kind of hardware or software or anything for your business, you need to make sure that it’s going to be relevant and people who you are going to be trying to use it with are going to be able to efficiently use it as users. So and that goes for anything. Dashboards, call tracking. You name it. 

Grace: [00:08:21] Everything we do. Right.

Liel: [00:08:24] It may be the best software out there, but if it’s complex and not easy for those who are going to be using it because of the technical components that come to it, then it can become really frustrating, right?

Grace: [00:08:38] It is. It is for most people, I’d say ninety-nine point nine percent of people that, you know, are uncomfortable to a degree with some technical things a lot of times.

Liel: [00:08:48] So, yeah, I can only think like for somebody who’s for and for both parties, the attendees and the vendor. Right. You’re trying to deliver a presentation at an event trade show, time’s limited, and everybody is fighting for attention. And then all of a sudden your screen disappears or goes out of frame or whatever. Yeah, it’s a technical issue. You understand it’s not the end of the world, but it’s still a little bit frustrating. And you know what, Grace? I mean, as you’ve said at the beginning of the call, you cannot just stop and not do anything because you’re afraid that something may happen. You just need to go for it. Hope for the best but at the same time, prepare and be as proactive about it.

Grace: [00:09:33]  It’s all about productivity when it comes to technology. You and I both know that the more that you can inform somebody and basically hold their hand as much as you can at the beginning and tell them, OK, this is what you need to do if this happens. And so they did provide a pretty nice user guide as to the layout of the MTMP platform. I think what sort of happens, at least for me, it became a little difficult with all of the different things that you could get into. And just like in person. Right. I mean, we all know that there’s like three sessions sometimes going on at the same time. And you might want to go to all three sessions, but you can’t. And so now you had the element of not physically even being able to do that. You have chat rooms available that were sponsored during certain amount of time, but you also had two or three sessions happening at the same time. So it was a little difficult to go from one to the next. But I feel like the sessions themselves, at least for us and the one we did under the business of law. Regarding intake with Ed, I thought that was well received and I feel like it was. One of those important subjects that people like you and I constantly talk about intake, right?

Liel: [00:10:50] Yes, sure.

Liel: [00:10:52] So let’s talk about that a little bit, Grace. So you said the conversation was about intake. Was it a panel? Was it a…

Grace: [00:11:00] Yes, it was a panel. And it was actually held like you had, as you asked me, virtually from 1:45 to 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time. And the title was With Operations in Flux, How to make sure your intake is working when nothing else is. And well, as we all know, COVID has messed up a lot of operations for a lot of people. But this is so the conversation was a panel led by Seth Price of Price Benowitz. He was the moderator. And then the two speakers beside Seth were Edward Lake, you know, our CEO and founder, and then Tom Ball from Alert Communications as well. And basically, they focused, I’d say, on technology. Obvious reasons. You know, we have the software that automates communication and follow up and all of that. And then, you know, with communication, is there a call center. So they deal with technology all the time as well with their own software. And so dealing with that, like when we were talking about intake and everything, honestly, I think it was important for people to hear that one, mostly because we were talking about chatbots and how to use technology to communicate with people in the most preferred method in the method that they want, as you and I talked about again.

Liel: [00:12:19] Yeah. I don’t know why, but I feel that this probably came up one last conversation, like the chatbot thing. I don’t know. It just. Yeah, it did come up on last week on last week’s conversation. And it keeps coming up, right. Yeah.

Liel: [00:12:33] So what’s the thing with the chatbot. It’s good. Not good. Go for it. Not go for it.

Grace: [00:12:38] So Ed actually ran a research small survey and sent it out to I think it was let’s say 20. Let’s use a sample of 20 just to use an easy number, 16 out of the 20 preferred the chatbot method to filling out the intake. Fill out an intake and most of it went all the way as far as signing the retainer agreement, once they got prequalified through an automated chatbot, the other four requested a call immediately or a live transfer to a call because, you know, I know you’ve heard of live chat and then there’s the automated chats and et cetera, et cetera. The way we look at it is we give them the option. So right there in the chat, if obviously if it’s like, you know, midnight or something like that, generally speaking, would you like a call tomorrow or the next day or something like that? Then they can click on that and they’ll get scheduled to call in, persist. Otherwise, if it’s daytime or, you know, let’s say Monday through Sunday call center hours that you have available, know, 8:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. just as an example. And they click, I want somebody to talk to. It will go right to a call center or somebody that’s on the other side to pick up that call.

Liel: [00:13:51] Yeah. Right. So just to give a little bit of context, the research itself was based on people who initiate the conversation or they convert via chat. So basically, the findings are that most of the people would prefer continuing and staying in the chat, whether it’s the chat board, live chat, but they want to continue there. And you know what Grace that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Like that’s it. Like if it’s not like the telephone number was not there on the landing page visible as an option. And it’s not like the Web forum was not somewhere there again visible on the landing page and they chose the live chat. So, or the bot. So it’s clear, right? It’s very, very clear. And I think that’s what you know, as we said, we’ve been talking and talking and talking round and round and round here is you just need to understand that if you’re going to give someone an option and just try to use that option in the way that it’s convenient just for you, because it may not necessarily align with the expectations of the user, and particularly today. Now, when many other service providers or e-commerce sites give you the option to do everything completely online through chat. Well, you know, that’s where the bar is being set. You’re also going to be expected to be able to do everything that is that you do for chat as well. So I think that’s super interesting.

Liel: [00:15:29] Grace, what else was it shared with regards to? I mean, were best practices talked? Were there any trends or other interesting facts that were discussed during this session?

Grace: [00:15:41] So I think that to me, besides all of the, you know, updates on litigation like Zantac and, you know, even boyscout abuse and some of those types of litigation talks, they also talked about, you know, generating leads, you know, digital marketing and some of the things that you and I talk about constantly. But what I think and found interesting to me was were the chat rooms, obviously, because we sponsored one of the chat rooms. So I would love to talk about that. And that’s what we’re going to talk about. But…

Liel: [00:16:13] Yes, I’m dying to hear about that Grace. So that’s our next topic.

Grace: [00:16:16] So the chat rooms were set up a little kind of interesting because I thought the chat rooms originally meant chat rooms that were inside the sessions, but that was something completely separate. Those were for people to ask questions in the chat during the session, whereas these chat rooms were also during kind of specified times. Hours happened to be on the 14th from five p.m. to 6:00 PM, which happened to fall at the same time as the virtual cocktail reception. So that was a little bit of an unfortunate same timing. But our chat room happened to we discussed about Perseus Publishing, so.

Liel: [00:16:53] Ok, yeah, we’ve heard that come up before very, very vaguely and not without a lot of detail. So we want to hear everything now, Grace.

Grace: [00:17:03] Ok, so the chat room was about writing, publishing, and marketing your own book to establish yourself as an expert. So I know most of us have heard write a book, write a book, write a book, right? Well, yes, you can just write a book. Of course, you can. And there’s a million tools and platforms and all kinds of stuff to help you write books out there. Right. But a book and if you write a book and we have seen this and seen the numbers honestly on this, if you write a book to establish yourself as an expert and do the correct what we would call PR and branding and all of that around it, it will propel you to a whole other level of thought leadership in the market. And it positions you as the expert and thought leader in your market the way you want to be seen. And so when we kind of got involved in business publishing and the publishing game, it is actually just about to complete a book that you’re part of, Liel. As a matter of fact.

Liel: [00:18:06] And what an honor. Thank you so much, Grace.

Grace: [00:18:09] No, of course, thank you. So he’s writing a book, and that’s kind of where this kind of came out of where we’re pulling together all of the experts and people we feel are experts in the mass tort world. And as I said, like yourself, you know, in Spanish, legal, marketing and these areas that people just don’t know about or don’t know who to talk to. Right. And so this is a resource and it builds him not just as the thought leader he is, but also positions him in a way that people will now understand he is the network to go to.

Grace: [00:18:42] Right. He has the network and his network is the group, or are the group, is the group of experts that you need to talk to. Right. So that’s kind of how we translate the Persist Publishing and the way we speak to other people about it. There’s different packages, you know, different costs, depending on what you want to do and how much you want to kind of go all in. Right. You can do YouTube, you can do press releases. You can do a whole ad campaign, PR campaign, et cetera, et cetera. Or you can just write the book and have somebody, you know, have them publish it and take care of that part of it and kind of just go the social media route and maybe not a whole full-blown PR package. And, you know, that stuff costs money. It’s not that it’s extremely expensive if you think about it in terms of the return on investment, but it’s up to you as to how far you want to go. And if you have something already and just an idea. Well, you know, just like anything else, it depends. Right. The cost will depend on what you have available, what you’re doing, how much content you already have at your fingertips, or if you need to be completely held by the hand the whole way.

Liel: [00:19:54] Right.

Grace: [00:19:55] But for me… 

Liel: [00:19:56] And that’s great, actually, that you have and broke it down in so many different options and solutions, because as you very well said, different people have different, they are at different parts of the journey. Some of them have already started. They’ve been entertaining the idea. Who knows, they may even have a draft of their book and they just probably need more help with the editing of it and then publishing some people, maybe at zero, point zero in the whole journey.

Liel: [00:20:23] So that’s great, Grace. And so just so I understand this correctly, so this is aimed at lawyers, right? So you’re actually looking here at lawyers who want to write their book now, Grace, I understand because of the law firm that you guys have and out of the different businesses that tie tied to it, your book can potentially be more kind of like B2B, you know, like or the first book that it is working or it’s aimed more towards to be of a reference to other attorneys.

Grace: [00:20:55] Correct.

Liel: [00:20:55] Now, is it fair to say that all of the exact same impact that you’ve said about becoming a thought leader, becoming an authority, taking you to the next level or such can also be obtained when you’re actually writing a book that is aimed to your specific clients? And have you guys thought like which practice areas are the ones we’re going down the road of publishing a book? It actually makes sense because I’m going to keep, I’m going to let you answer the first part of the question before I throw at you more questions.

Grace: [00:21:29] So, yes, for me, it’s actually and in the publishing world, it’s your story. Right? So it’s not 100 percent about the practice area perse, OK, especially if you’re writing for the consumer. The consumer wants to know who you are and why you are doing what you’re doing, and they will read it if it’s a compelling story. That is true. And so the book and the B2C world for lawyers, I see it more as them writing their story, why they got into it and why they’re helping people. And yes, of course, talk about your expertise and why you went to college to be a lawyer. And if you’re passionate about you know, as I’ll give you an example, Steve Gacovino, Steve Giovino has done a lot of presentations at the school level and government level on Juul because he’s extremely passionate about it. And to him, it needs to stop. Right. Juul and young adults need to, the whole thing needs to be somehow taken care of, fixed. And to him, that’s one of the most important aspects of what he’s dealing with right now. So when I, when they’re doing the book and they’re creating their thought leadership, they’re giving their story and mot necessarily talking about Zantac or, you know, or personal injury or slip and fall, because nobody’s going to read that, right? I mean, I know I wouldn’t you probably wouldn’t either. So but I will read a story about how you got there, why you’re doing it, and maybe your best case ever, because it was something that was important to you.

Liel: [00:23:04] Yeah. And that’s again, the reason why I’ve asked, you know, have you is is there a particular practice area where it makes sense to actually have a book where it’s actually an important way to get in front of potential customers and convince them that you are the law firm? Because all of the examples that you’ve mentioned fall under the personal injury category. Right. And again, I don’t think a lot of people really want to read books about personal injury unless they’re actually being harmed by whatever is that your book is. And what it’s addressed in the book itself has that promise of doing something that’s going to help you out. And that’s why I was going to say, you know, are the books here are going to be around the same profile as, for instance, the mesothelioma books that you call now and you get a free book sent out to you. And is that the kind of book that we’re talking about here or we’re talking.

Grace: [00:24:05] They can be right. Of course they can be. But that’s not the goal, right, of you writing your own book, generally speaking. So that’s part of the plan. And part of the persist publishing plan is to help you decide what is your end goal. And it’s just like when we create our campaigns right for the pay per click and anything we need to know what our goal is and how we’re going to get there. Right. So we help you kind of figure out what is your goal and what it is that you want to be seen as the thought leader in, because this will apply to criminal law too. Right. If you helped somebody get out of a really tough situation and because that’s something that, you know, is down deep in you, that’s something you have to handle. Yeah, by all means. Yeah, I’ll read something like that because. Yeah. You know. 

Liel: [00:24:52] Yeah. So good cases, good examples where we’ve heard that books have been very powerful for the practices are just as you’ve said, criminal law. Right. How to gain back control of your life sort of around that same topic. Yeah.

Grace: [00:25:11] Theme. 

Liel: [00:25:11] Theme, correct. Estate law.

Grace: [00:25:13] And we did not publish this book at all, but we have had him on our podcast before. Michael Morse, Fireproof is a perfect example of a non-legal book, really. It’s about processes and procedures and getting through a fire, you know, so it’s evergreen content. Always relevant. Yeah.

Liel: [00:25:34] Yeah. But as you said, fireproof is a good example of a B2B.

Grace: [00:25:38] Yes.

Liel: [00:25:39] Right. I mean, true that a potential client of Michael Morse law firm can read it and find it compelling enough to think I will hire him as an attorney if I were to ever be involved in an accident.

Liel: [00:25:52] But the main goal, the focus of the book, is not to sell you, Attorney Morse, as an outstanding personal injury lawyer, which he is. It’s about explaining you how did they survive many different threats and challenges to their business, to the point that they no longer experience the same level of impact from those things that they were at in their in a different time. And that’s kind of like a learning lesson. And as you very well, that’s applicable to a lot of different industries. Right. He mentioned it on his podcast, on our podcast here, that some universities are making it part of their curriculum. And the bottom line is that it’s a good business book period. We know some of the books that attorneys write are more about kind of like the business of law, and they’re aimed to be read by other attorneys or businesses in similar positions. But I’m always very curious, as you can see, Grace, about the books that are written by attorneys to the actual client, because that to me is very interesting in the sense that how do you actually get someone to want to buy your book? And I think you’re right about make it super personal, tell a story and make sure that you have a very good and defined message. Right. What you’re going to get out of reading this book? And it obviously hard-selling your practice area may not be the way to go, but something a little bit, maybe more holistic. Write something that may have a more general impact.

Grace: [00:27:31] Exactly. It has to be organic. 

Liel: [00:27:34] The overall lesson, but it has to teach and share. Grace. That’s very, very cool. That’s very powerful. So you guys are already up and running persist publishing.

Grace: [00:27:43] Are we. We’re actually in. A bunch of other industries not legal at this time, primarily, I mean, honestly, it’s all across the board, just like chiropractors and, you know, even let me know, some minor celebrities and things like that that have, you know, that are involved in this and writing books and doing a whole PR and the branding, the whole package thing. So, yeah, it’s kind of it really is exciting. I think anything having to do with creating thought leadership or just using the knowledge that they do have to create them as a thought leader, which they already are, and it’s just positioning them in the market as such. I always like that, you know, it’s marketing. So, you know, I’m an uber-nerd when it comes to marketing and things like that. So seeing this is definitely interesting for us.

Liel: [00:28:30] And how was it received during Mass Torts made perfect? 

Grace: [00:28:33] That was the only like as I mentioned before, slightly unfortunate part is because of the timing. It was at the same time the cocktail reception. So only like two or three people kind of came into the chat room to ask us about. Right.

Liel: [00:28:48] And I’m sure and I’m also sure that many people may have even been a little bit surprised because we are always used to seeing persist communications in the exhibitor halls, as persist communications. And so all of a sudden see persist there, yet, but as publishing, it’s kind of like a new turn in. Very interesting. I’m sure that if this would have been held in person, then people would have actually seen your booth there. But with a slightly different title, you would have had a lot of people come and talk to you and want to learn about these Grace. But for our listeners, if they are interested in they just want to, you know, start a conversation with you or check out more about persist publishing. Do we have a place to go?

Grace: [00:29:31] Not just yet. So the persist publishing website…

Liel: [00:29:33] What? So you’re keeping it very mysterious, Grace.

Grace: [00:29:38] I am, but we are officially launching by the end of next week, at least the landing page. But if you have any questions about it, you know, send it to us at ask at incamera podcast and I’ll definitely.

Liel: [00:29:51] Yeah, absolutely. And I’m sure through the traditional channel of Persist Communications.

Grace: [00:29:56] Go to our persist dot com website, fill out the contact form. It goes directly to me and I will make sure that we can start having a conversation that you want about your book.

Liel: [00:30:08] Well, Grace, thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to experience Mass Torts Made Perfect virtual full session in 2020 through your own experiences for sharing with us. What is it that you saw and heard and enjoyed the most. Right. So I guess that brings us to pretty much the end of our conversation. And since this was such an anecdotal conversation, Grace, do we actually have takeaways or something that you want to share as your main takeaway?

Grace: [00:30:37] Two takeaways, and it has to do with specifically publishing and content and then the other’s intake just at least try to apply one tech into your intake. You know, try to look at your processes and procedures and try to automate something, you know, to help your entire process, your entire operations, whether it’s using a chatbot, you know, system like persist communication software, something, you know, you need to try and include that and automate something to help everybody in your ecosystem of the firm. To me, that’s the first takeaway.

Liel: [00:31:16] OK.

Grace: [00:31:16] And then the second take away. 

Liel: [00:31:19] It’s bold. 

Grace: [00:31:19] Yeah.

Liel: [00:31:20] We backward and forwards here fall in love with automation. And then two episodes later we go full-on criticizing automation and then we fall back in love and automation. And I agree with you, Grace. I just think, you know, going back to a previous conversation, be clever about what is it that you are automating. Don’t take the personal torches out of these. Right. It’s not worth it unless you’re dealing with crazy volume. And I really mean crazy volumes, like we’re talking about hundreds of leads per day. There is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to make one of the first touches with your new leads, a personal one. So I totally agree with Grace. There’s so many things that can be automated to increase efficiency and to actually enable your team your stuff to get in front of other people that can benefit from that personal touch again, rather than having them type up stuff, send up reminders, send up complete forms. So great. I totally agree with you. I just want to make that remark that one doesn’t replace the other. Good stuff. Good takeaway. Now, what’s the next one about publishing?

Grace: [00:32:30] The next one about publishing is think about content and evergreen content and think about your firm as a book. And look at a goal for yourself if you want to position yourself as a thought leader in a particular subject, you know, as I mentioned before, Juul, you know, if that’s something that is a passion you’re passionate about and you want to go after a specific Tort, a specific area of law, whatever it is, tell your story. You know, whether it’s, you know, through blogs, whether it’s through a book, but do it and get it out there, because people have this need for human interaction right now. Always have. But I feel like the more that we know who we’re hiring to take care of us in a time of need. The better off and the more you can connect with your client.

Liel: [00:33:26] And you know what, Grace, I mean, I don’t want to be superficial here and, you know, go against the, you know, wise proverbs that exist out there about not judging a book by its cover. But everybody judges books by covers. Right. And people, they just see that there is a book. And many times that’s the determining point. That’s the selling point. Right. And so, again, as I’ve said, I’m not saying right. Write your own book to have a cover to showcase somewhere, someplace. But that in itself has a lot of value. Right. So let’s, you know, let’s address the elephant in the room that exists that has a lot of impact without being said. Put a lot of, put your whole heart in the content, because honestly, whether you like it or not, it’s going to be your legacy. And so you might as well make something that you would be proud of at any point, any time in your life.

Liel: [00:34:19] So I agree. Now, my last question my last question to you. If you need to see your law firm as a book, what would be the cover? What specific element of what the law firm is, the cover?

Grace: [00:34:34]  The person. It’s their story. So let’s say they’re a partnership. Right. Because there’s not always just one law firm or one lawyer in the law firm. Yes, sometimes there is, which is makes it a little easier on the person, but then co-author with that person. But talk about your story. So that’s how I see it. The law firm is the story of the lawyers that are in it. Yeah, that’s what I mean by look at your law firm as a book because people want to know who you are. And just like you said, you said it perfectly. What if I do a search on Google and I see that this guy has an Amazon bestseller and the other one doesn’t he has no books, no nothing.

Grace: [00:35:09] Who am I going to hire? The guy with the Amazon bestseller. It’s just the way it is. You’re right. First impressions are lasting and all those old cliches are true.

Liel: [00:35:19] Yeah, it does help. It’s a very powerful marketing tool by itself. So I agree, Grace. Yes. I also think you’re right, like you are the cover of the book for the law firm. Absolutely. And everything that represents you, right, your website, your office, your logo and even your telephone number, like all of those things are going to be what collectively make your cover, what’s visible, what people are going to be judging you on, although everybody says not to, but everybody does.

Grace: [00:35:51] That’s right.

Liel: [00:35:54] All right. I guess we also even have a name for the episode. We’re going to call it judge the book by the cover.

Grace: [00:35:59] I like it.

Liel: [00:36:01] All right, Grace. I don’t know. I don’t know about that, but we’ll see. Thank you so much for another great conversation. We’ll be back next week, right?

Grace: [00:36:07] That’s right. Thank you, Liel.

Liel: [00:36:09] All right. Thanks, Grace.

Liel: [00:36:15] If you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.