Jay Ruane  0:00  

Hello, hello, and welcome to this edition of the law firm blueprint. I’m one of your hosts, Jay Ruane and with me, as always is my man, Seth Price down there. Hey, Seth, you know, I’ve been watching a ton, a ton of basketball lately. It’s been a lot of fun. But you know, what I realized in taking a critical eye towards the production that the March Madness tournament has been is that, you know, as somebody who has, obviously, I got a vested interest in the 2026, future national champion, UConn Huskies, three championships in four years. I can, I can say with confidence, but I don’t have his vested interest in many other teams. There are a couple that I liked. I mean, I know you, you know you’re, you’re a Penn fan. You know they didn’t necessarily last very long, but they lasted a game.

 

Seth Price  0:59  

Win the first half.

 

Jay Ruane  1:00  

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But you know, what’s interesting is, as I’m watching it, I’m actually coding an AI tool throughout the entirety of the tournament that I was able to launch, which I think is awesome. It took me about 60 hours, but I think we’ll talk a little bit about that next. But getting back to my original point, a lot of, lot of games, I don’t have any really interesting but they do these, you know, human interest stories about either the coach or a player who transferred in, or a player who’s been there for four years, or something that happened at the school, something, and it resonates with me. And so now I’ve got a little bit more of an interest in that program. And so now you see you’re taking sides, and you want the underdog to win, or you want that player who’s spent four years and didn’t go into the portal to get their championship, or the way to move on. And I’m wondering like, and I know a lot of people in our audience probably have done those Crisp videos, which are great videos, in and of itself, that. You know, the person talking about why I became a lawyer, and that type of thing. But those are good, but they’re not necessarily the human interest that creates the connection of, I have something in common with you. It’s more look at us, and this is what we do and why we do it, type of thing. And I’m wondering if we should be, you know, in a day of digital marketing like you like to talk about, should we be putting more money into ways to connect with people asynchronously, on that one to one level, like a video about who we are? like I’m going to tell you right now, I’ve done that. I put that on my website. If you have any questions, you can go on my website. You can check it out. Like I have a lawyer who’s in the office next to me. You know he was, you know, he calls his video from Baghdad to Bridgeport, right? Like he served overseas. He was in the military. He was a private contractor overseas, working security, came home, and decided to go to law school. Actually, is now in the JAG corps as a preservist. But that video has really resonated with the people who he has as clients, because he talks about his military service and why, you know, he took an oath when he joined the army and he took an oath when he became a lawyer, and he sees the parallels and all those things. And you’d be surprised how many people message our leadership team and the response to a newsletter or something and say, Hey, I’m really glad you gave me Dave. I really connected with him on that level. And I’m wondering if that’s just something that we should be doing, because it’s really not cost prohibitive anymore.

 

Seth Price  3:43  

No, and I put it in two buckets. One bucket is, let’s say, the general branding bucket. And I think the bar of interest changes there. If you’re scrolling, is that story enough to keep you interested, maybe, maybe not. But if you’re on Jay’s site and you’re deciding, is this the right law firm for you, there’s a lower bar or it’s more targeted, and so that’s there. A group that I think is doing a fantastic job with this, the husband and wife, husband and wife law firm out of Phoenix. They have done a really nice job on regular socials. He leads his teams with a rap song to begin. He does sing along. He does all this stuff on Zoom to start every day. And he owns it. He loves it. He loves the songs of the 90s rap. He’s amazing. And then his wife, they happen to be the husband wife philosophy. They have eight kids, and they, yes.

 

Jay Ruane  4:49  

I have four, and that’s a lot.

 

Seth Price  4:51  

They’re Jewish, but non religious. So it’s not like Mormon, not like Orthodox Jews. These people have eight kids and have apparently done a very nice job of raising them, and they have now she on the husband wife law team has done a great job talking about that and putting their now adult. They’re not little kids in there, so it’s easier. Most of them are adult kids into these hats, you can tell based on view count, it is resonating. And this is resonating on not somebody who needs an injury lawyer, but on somebody who feels this content is interesting, as is his daily huddles, where he shows everybody on zoom with him doing some sort of musical montage to start the day off. And again, I think if they’re both genuine and they’re both interesting enough that you stop your scroll. Would you stop your scroll for the first question. And the second, which still is needed, is, do you connect with this lawyer? And look, you got cooked in the NCAA tournament. I mean, that’s been the NBC formula for the Olympics for a long time. Sure you really care about, you know, the badminton tournament, or, you know, the weightlifting and I still remember having gone to the Atlanta Olympics in person 

 

Jay Ruane  6:08  

That was their team. 

 

Seth Price  6:10  

Did not know that. And while we had a couple marquee swim events, you know, with the gold medals, and that was all fun with the women, Click was in the house of his family. But what I remember was going to the tier B weightlifting. So it’s like the booby prize. From 11 to 21. Through 10 are going for gold. 11 through 20 were just there for personal best. No US athletes. And I found that to be fascinating, because each person you’re sort of getting to know in that micro moment, there was no Go USA. It was all, you know, other random countries. And so yes, I get it. I think it is easier said than done, but something to aspire to. But I think the mistake that people made, if I have to look at it, is that if you took the tier B, as I’m calling it, the guy who has a very nice, pleasant video that’s not necessarily interesting to the masses, but when somebody’s focused on that, that trying to take that and make that go as your marketing piece. I think maybe you know it is a long road towards branding.

 

Jay Ruane  7:17  

Oh yeah, I don’t think you necessarily want to take a bio video and make, you know, build a social campaign around it, because I just don’t think it’s remarkable enough. But I think if you can demonstrate who these people are, I think people are going to connect. I love dogs and they, you know, and that’s, 

 

Seth Price  7:38  

That’s what I’ve latched on to, I didn’t want to put my kids throughout all this stuff. But, you know, Scout goes to the office with me every day. It’s genuine. I like it. You know, people like dogs. He engages, and people seem to follow it online. I have not cracked the code, but I certainly know that anything that I do is a lot less interesting. And I look two steps for one step back, I’m starting to see our society even with some of the stuff as you get more sophisticated. But I give you credit, you brought a video guy years ago, full time on, and they made a big difference, because you just experimented. You don’t know what it’s going to be. And I made every mistake you can make. I brought the video guy in who had no social acumen, and that’s, you know, I had content, but it wasn’t compelling content. I think it’s that mixture of somebody who’s around, and Jen Gore has done a great job for her own personal brand and what she has done, and that it’s figuring out and what builds the audience, but then making sure that the audience you build remembers what you do. like, you know, where’s the beef? It’s funny. But did it drive, you know, sales thing, that was a good example where it did, but funny doesn’t always, you know, making sure we’ve had. We went viral with some of the stuff from the Johnny Depp trial. clips with the lawyer speaking at conferences and such. But did it make you any money? It was good. It made you feel good. We had a friend from the show who did that skateboard with the leaf blower and the umbrella. Yes, crazy numbers. I think if we got to him today, did it really move the practice? I’m not so sure it was thought to be galvanizing.  It was there. But do you know what that intersection of substance, and viral is?

 

Jay Ruane  9:22  

part of the problem with viral is you go viral with one thing. It’s the second thing or the 10th thing afterwards. You know, it’s tough to keep, I mean, think about, think about every musician one hit wonders they have one great song, and they’ve got one great song because they’ve been playing that in bars for 15 years, and have worked on making that song really connect with an audience.

 

Seth Price  9:49  

Or they just hit pay dirt once, hitting pay dirt very hard, exactly, playing another one if they had it. I mean, you know it, just it. But like, if we all know the words to it, it’s a big deal. So, you know, I think that it’s a balance of those things. And look, one of the great things is, you get to see you for a second time in person next month, for those of you watching, April 10th, The Mastermind Experience hosted by John Fisher. I’m sorry, yeah, it’s getting there, and it is a special crowd. One of the one of the places got to know you and others in just sort of like, you know, what, lots of different options for coaching and Masterminds, but one of those ones with a special bunch of people, and you sit down, these are some of the things we go back and forth on is, you know, what is that balance and what’s working for somebody else? It’s, you know, a neat process. 

 

Jay Ruane  10:42  

Well, I think part of the thing is, if you are going to do these videos, and I’ll expand the original question from the top, is, if you are going to expand and do some videos, if you are going to, you know, try to put something out on your social I think the viewing public can smell bullshit really quickly. And if it’s not you, if it’s fake, if it’s clearly trying to imitate something or Panda, you’re gonna, you’re you’re not going to get what you want, and you might get more negativity than than anything, right? Because, I think at the end, look, at the end of the day, people connect with people, going back to my analogs thing, and you want the connection to be genuine. And if you’re just faking it, I don’t know

 

Seth Price  11:33  

People going through the motions. It’s like, not everything is interesting. How do you, how do you, you know, how do you not suck? How do you make it quasi interesting, right?

 

Jay Ruane  11:40  

And that’s and that’s what I think you need to do, is maybe look inside. Maybe, if you’re a law firm like maybe if you’re in the PI space, maybe the lawyers aren’t who you want to talk to on video. Maybe it is the paralegals. You may not, they may not want to do it, but they’re having a lot of contact with your clients anyway. And so maybe introduce them.

 

Seth Price  12:03  

Look, I’ve tried everything, meaning unsuccessfully. I’ll give you my mistakes going around, getting random people on camera that have never been there, probably not the answer, and it’s interesting. Well, up to maybe splice some of these in recently. And I can’t tell you, it’s making great money, but I’m finally seeing ways that they are trying to make the actual PI lawyers in the trenches interesting. And it’s starting to work, meaning it, but it takes somebody with a social eye, right, that can take it, because if you just put a camera on somebody and interview them, it just doesn’t work. And the people that are making money generally like the Law by Mics and the top like there’s a production company behind it, and this is our side hustle. So how do you take this and make it and that as you get people that are camera ready, right? Because look, you see all these people doing different, interesting, social, scrollable, short form videos, that as they start to produce it, it starts to have a little bit more of a cadence. If it looks like it should be something you’re watching, rather than just watching something interesting. You know, people following trends, whatever it is, and then all of a sudden, it’s an interview with a lawyer. It’s just nails on the chalkboard, and I’ve been guilty of it as much as anybody.

 

Jay Ruane  13:18  

Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. Your topic, brings back your point, brings back something that I’ve done at parties for years, where, you know, as a conversation starter, and I’ve always thought that it would be a good podcast. And I’ve said, Well, I should get somebody from the music business. I should get a comedian. I should get all these people around a table. We could have some fun with it, but maybe this is a way for me to introduce the lawyers in my office to the general public and put that out there and see if that creates a connection to them.

 

Seth Price  13:55  

Right, but it’s not. I think, look, there are people that are incredibly talented. They used to do it this way. He’s morphed into just the American stereotype. There was, everybody’s got a story feature on CBS Morning. They throw them down. He’s amazing, right? There’s nobody better. He’s, you know, an American treasure, and he does a wonderful job. We’re not all him. He’s, you know, he’s the Michael Jordan of that space.

 

Jay Ruane  14:22  

So, yeah, so I’ve got, I’ve got, I’ve got a local comedy club that’s being run by a kid, a guy, a kid in his almost 50’s. I can’t believe it, because I always remember this little Joey, right? But he’s 50 now, crap, I’m old. anyway, so, and actually, one of the one of the comedians, is actually working as as a paralegal in one of my pods, because he needed, you know, he wants to be a full time comedian, but he needed benefits, and he’s good on the phone because he’s outspoken and he’s gregarious and that type of thing. I mean, he’s open for Shane Gillis and a bunch of other really famous comics, but he needs, you know, a steady gig too. And I was wondering, maybe I should put him into something because

 

Seth Price  15:12  

So the question is, and I think it’s, look when you see the stuff for the NCAA, a producer went ahead, looked at seven different stories, found the one that resonated, storyboarded it. So again, if again, we don’t have so the question is, how do you do it in a meaningful, scalable way? And again, you want one good video for the website? Great. But to do this, and again, very few people have done this well, you know, where you’re trying to get the non-cringe, quasi-engaging piece to matter to somebody, right when you hit it, it’s clear. It’s not by accident. It’s something that sometimes it’s niche. You know, Jersey boy outsourced the whole thing to two guys going to restaurants, you know.

 

Jay Ruane  16:05  

And I gotta tell you, that comes up in my feed and I stop and watch it when it comes up in my feed, right? I mean, I’m a fat guy who likes food, so I always want to know where the best donuts and pizza are in South Jersey. But shit, that’s a good thing that keeps people on brand. I don’t know if I could do something. That’s good, because you never know when you’re gonna get into an accident. I’d be curious, how could I spin that and do something similar in the context of criminal defense? I did do something years ago, and if you’re on the Mr. Speeding ticket Facebook page, you’ll see the videos. I had two interns one summer pre covid, go out and do the Connecticut donut trail. And we did a whole bunch of videos. And they tried all the videos at 15 different shops. And what I didn’t do was have them deliver donuts to cops. That would have been awesome. That would have been shocking. It would have gotten a lot more stuff, but that got a ton of views, you know, over 100,000 views for each one. And then I never followed up with it, you know, because COVID hit and all that stuff. But I mean shit, there are things that you can do. It’s just a matter of, where you are going to put your effort and your resources. I think that goes back to your point. Analog is great, but is that the best ultimate use of your time and attention when you could be doing, you know, multiple streams of digital marketing for the same time, attention, and money? That’s what I’m getting out of our recent conversations. All right, folks, that’s gonna do it for us this week here on the law firm blueprint. Thank you so much for being with us. Of course, you can catch us anywhere you want to go, on the go, by subscribing to the podcast, the law firm blueprint, wherever you get your podcast, and be sure to catch us live, live on LinkedIn, 3 pm EST, 12 pm PST every Thursday, as well as live in our Facebook group, the law firm blueprint, that’s gonna do for me. I’m Jay Ruane. He is Seth Price. Thanks for being with us. Bye for now.