BluShark Digital 00:01
Welcome to the Conference Connection. Your go to place to get the scoop on what conferences are coming up that you need to know about. Here are your hosts, Paul Faust, President of Ringboost and Seth Price, founder of BluShark Digital and managing partner of Price Benowitz.
Paul Faust 00:18
how you doing guys? Paul Faust, here with ringboost, amongst other things, with my co host is always Seth Price for Price Benowitz and BluShark. And this episode, we have. come on .one of the OGS, one of the originals, one of the guys who got me my start in this business, dear friend of ours, and many of you, most of you know, Ken Hardison. And I’m not going to steal his thunder with announcing what he’s got going on, on on top of everything, you know, with PILMMA conference and the masterminds, Ken’s got something new, and he wants to tell us all about it.
Ken Hardison 00:46
Yeah, I’m excited about this. Thank you, Paul and Seth, yeah, what I. You know, PILMMA, we try to stay on the cutting edge. And, you know, last year we did an extra conference just on hiring, because people were having problems hiring and keeping good people. And this year, I got a good pulse of what’s going on out there, because of the masterminds and PILMMA and most lawyers, like I say all, but most lawyers are having a hard time figuring out AI. You know, how do I use it? Where do I use it? All these vendors out here, do I do it in house? You know? Where do I start? You know, what do I use it for? They don’t know where to begin, and they’re scared they’re going to, you know? They know they kind of need it, but they don’t know where to start. Nobody’s there really. Everybody’s trying to sell them something instead of teach them. You know what I’m saying?
Seth Price 01:38
Couldn’t agree with you more. Ken, that the struggle is real. I face it every day like, Yeah, you don’t want to fall behind. You need to know. You need to be doing it. There’s lots of options out there, more every day. And you try to figure out, how much do you want to build yourself? How much do you want to, like, take a third party and essentially rent, you know, and it gets overwhelming. You try to move your staff along, while at the same time not always getting buy in. So like, probably have a whole conference on trying to motivate your staff to embrace but you know, I’ve always appreciate Ken, you’ve been at the cutting edge early on. You had a modest size, a mini conference on AI, and I sent my IT guys, there was a good kick in the ass that pushed us a long way. It’s time for another kick in the ass with AI for PI. Yeah.
Paul Faust 02:23
Well, look, I’ve been doing this 20 years, 20 plus years, 400 conferences, and I think we’re there’s a reason people are scared and it’s not. First of all, AI has become this catch all term that nobody really know. What the hell does that mean? Is it really so not only are we dealing with this new term, lot of guys on this podcast with gray hair that you know, that used to work in pencil and paper that got shocked and we had to leave our blackberries, and now we’re hearing AI, AI, AI. AI, AI, oh, it’s like a nursery ride. So you got that battle going on. You also have the battle that you have staffs at firms saying, wait a second, if I help Ken and Seth and others implement this, am I implementing my replacement? So you have fear in firms that they’re implementing their own replacement so that that cuts staff by it. You also have fear that, wait, what if I sign up with these guys and change everything? And the next conference I go to there’s a different AI company that’s got better than everybody, because so my only advice, so I’m not a lawyer, I’m not the AI world, I can barely spell AI, is, slow down. You’ll go faster.
Ken Hardison 03:33
Yeah, I agree.
Paul Faust 03:34
Take a pause, because we also have to worry about the these companies that developed AI. Do they understand all my compliance issues, the risk to my bar card. Where’s the data? It’s not just about how cool the thing is and what it could do, but we’re in an industry that that there’s regulations, there’s bar ratifications, there’s sanctions, there’s other things. So slow down. You will go faster. This is tool that everyone’s going to be using, but, you know, don’t chase the shiny object that, because there’s a lot of them.
Ken Hardison 04:05
Yeah, I agree, yeah. And the thing about this is tailored specifically pi first, but not just for working the case. you know, with the everybody thinks about demands and, you know, things like that, and medical chronology. But no, there’s so much more to it. We’re going to have people there talking about how you use it for intake marketing. I mean, marketing is a big deal now. I was talking to Seth earlier today about SEO company just using AI to do SEO. I don’t know that I agree with that. Hey, whatever I mean, whatever
Seth Price 04:46
TV ads, right for never done TV you can have a TV ad with Paul running through a Superman in the middle of your thing, just by describing a prompt and not going to change the ability for production. I think it’s going to allow a lot of smaller firms into an arena.
Ken Hardison 05:04
It’s going to help smaller firms be able to compete against. if you can automate with this AI, and do it in in the right way, and not just waste a lot of money, but do it in a in a focused, intentional way. You can say maybe 1020, 30% on your overhead, your labor. you take that money, go put it on marketing, and be able to compete for these guys. So I think it’s, you know, I think it’s big deal. And we’ve got, and I specifically, we’ve got a few vendors, since I’m gonna be a big vendor, believe it or not, but we went out and I got what I think are some of the best people that are using it practically in marketing. That said y’all gonna talk about how you use it, how you do your SEO to get found in ChatGPT and all these things.
Seth Price 06:05
we’re all seeing, Gemini comes up at the top of search results. So it’s another algorithm you got to worry about.
Ken Hardison 06:10
So there’s so many facets to it, and we’ll kind of go, we’ll cover them all, you know. How do you use it in your market? How do you automate your marketing, you know, to do videos and things that you, you know, all kinds of stuff, how to stay in contact with your clients. you know, I mean, we’re this close to a perfect we’re not quite there, but we’re real close to AI agents doing intake. And then we’ve got people out there that have these things that list of all your intakes with AI and saves you from losing big ass cases. And we’re going to talk about that, and we’re going to talk about, how do you I use it every day in as a thought partner, and how to solve problems in different ways. It is lawyers actually sharing. you know, thought leaders, but then we got lawyers firms that have kind of, you know, the head of the pack that are going to share how they’re using it in their hiring, in their day to day, how they’re using it to to leverage it.
Paul Faust 07:18
Let me ask you my favorite question, yeah, which is who should be going?
Seth Price 07:21
I know I took Paul’s question like.
Paul Faust 07:23
That’s my favorite question. This is not for firm owners. That’s one group it’s for. who should be at this conference?
Ken Hardison 07:32
Yeah, I think your, your firm owner was great, would be great. But the ones that go to actually implement it is going to be your marketing people, your intake people, and your CEO is going to work with your case managers and different things like that. So, and we’re going to do a breakout. So this is kind of think about it this way, we’re going to do a breakout the last day and have workshops for owners and CEOs, you know, the office managers. Then we’re going to have another track just for marketers. Then we’ll have another track just intake managers so they can see how they can use it to manage and train and whatever.
Paul Faust 08:13
So Ken, this is really important.
Seth Price 08:17
I wanna clarify something. Are you gonna have people where firm owners are there primarily first day, or you will, will sort of these marketing and people parachute on the second? Is everybody there for the whole time? What’s your vision?
Ken Hardison 08:28
The vision is, we’re going to mix it up. We’re going to have some, you know, we want them there the whole time. I mean, because we’re going to have different things going on when we’ve got a couple, you know, I talked to a lot of people and interview a lot of people on my podcast. And I’ve got two people coming, Jennifer Case and Derek Weaver and but the most knowledgeable people I know. really, I mean, it’s, and it’s the reason I like them is they actually get into practical this is how you.
Seth Price 08:32
Takeaways. What are the takeaways you can bring back?
Paul Faust 08:43
But Seth, that’s one of the problems that. and you know, if they’re about 400 conferences, you and I’ve said it many times. too many law firm owners are coming themselves and trying to grab takeaways to bring back. You’re at a conference, and you were drinking through a fire hose. You’re getting excited about stuff, and then you have to go back and take three days of knowledge and try and bring takeaways to people and get them as excited as you were at the conference.
Seth Price 09:38
For years, I didn’t bring people to conferences. I now finally, you know will
Paul Faust 09:43
bring, bring your staff, bring your
Seth Price 09:46
It’s not your decision, because you’re changing something we want to change. Change is not easy,
Paul Faust 09:52
Let, let them come and get excited. beyond getting excited, let your coos meet other coos. let your intake people made other intake people. There’s no intake issue you’re facing that other firms aren’t. they’ll network at the breakout, they’ll network at the bar. They’ll say, Oh, I do intake for this firm. I Oh, how do you handle this? Well, we just solved it. I’m telling you, it is, forget mastermind. The single best investment you can make as a law firm owner, is to get your staff out to these events. Let them see the world. Let them get by it. Let them learn. Let them come to you with something that you missed because you went to seven booths and you missed the last three. Bring and divide and conquer. You will see growth much faster. So Ken just so we can put it in a couple spots. Where is it? When is it? Dates, etc, yeah.
Speaker 1 10:42
And before I tell you that too, and I’ve got a discount, like law firm owner goes, then the next they can bring amazing for like, 60, 70% less. You know what I’m saying. So it’s February to I mean, January the 15th through the 17th at the JW Marriott in Orlando, Florida,
Seth Price 11:02
great spot.
Ken Hardison 11:03
It is a great spot.
Seth Price 11:05
The lazy river is something else. Yeah, bring the kids.
Ken Hardison 11:08
Yeah, it is it. Yep. It’s a great way to get away. Bring your family.
Seth Price 11:13
If you’re a snob, you can stay at the Ritz Carlton that’s attached and walk over, yeah,
Ken Hardison 11:17
yeah, we got this Ritz Carl know that attach. So, yeah, if you want to, if you want the high end, you can get it, or you can just stay in the Marriott like I am.
Paul Faust 11:28
Where do you go to register?
Ken Hardison 11:32
I think it’s Aiforpi.com.
Seth Price 11:34
But I assume you have it on the homepage of PILMMA.
Ken Hardison 11:37
Yeah, pilmma.org, and just go to events and it’s there.
Seth Price 11:40
Or find Paul and myself, and we’ll make sure we get you.
Paul Faust 11:44
Are all of the sponsorships sold, or all the booths sold? Is it like, hey, now it’s time to register. Let’s fill this thing up. Are you still looking for a couple more people?
Ken Hardison 11:53
We’ve got, we’ve got all the sponsors we can handle. We’ve got some we got a few booths left, but I’m okay either way. I mean, you know, the big deal is this, you know, this one’s not going to be as big as our other one. I know, but we’re hoping to get 150 you know, maybe 200 I don’t know. You never know what these things. First time you do one, you usually don’t get as many. People want to see if it’s for real, if it’s a real deal. And I understand that. But like everything else, if you come to it the first day you don’t like it, I just, I’ve always done that my whole life.
Seth Price 12:28
I remember from, from 13 years ago, 14 years ago, I got it. How bad can it be I can get my money back.
Ken Hardison 12:35
Yeah, this I’m not really doing. Don’t get me wrong. I like money, but this is the number one reason I’m doing this is, is, I think it’s needed, and I want people to be thought as a thought leader, just to be clear.
Paul Faust 12:50
Look, I think we all know that this is one of the greatest investments in tech, in an industry. It’s coming in the legal space. There’s, you know, we have multiple companies that entered our space. You know, since I turned around yesterday with multi billion dollar valuations. This is a change. This is a sweep coming. This is an event you have to be at. You can you can hide as long as you want. This is happening. AI is coming in. It’s here. It’s going to change. Is your firm going to be on top of it or not? Ken has helped learn this industry and be a leader in the industry. Let’s get there, and let’s see what’s going on, Ken, we’re going to support, you know, it any final messages, Ken or Seth.
Speaker 1 13:13
No, just everybody, have a great Christmas, and I hope to see you. It’s a good way to start off the year. And, you know, and get some clarity on how to attack this, AI. I mean, really. I mean, really, I mean, I think that’s the big deal. I mean, you got to know where to start, how to do it.
Seth Price 13:44
And look at the opportunity to bring your team and have those breakouts to me that should get you sold..
Paul Faust 13:50
Yeah, get out, get out of the cold weather, and bring some people to Disney, and they can go there. But we’re looking forward to seeing you. Seth, and I will be there. Ken, thank you so much. We’ll put some information on the podcast. Please share this. Let’s, let’s go learn about this AI. I think we all are, yeah.
Seth Price 14:07
thanks, Ken,
Ken Hardison 14:08
All right,
Paul Faust 14:09
thanks guys, thank you.
BluShark Digital 14:13
Thank you for tuning into the Conference Connection. Make sure to hit subscribe if you haven’t already, and we will see you for our next episode.
