Can Your Law Firm’s Podcast Become a Go-To Legal Resource? With Alex Sanfilippo

Episode Notes

Transcript

Karin Conroy:

This is Counsel Cast part of the Legal Talk Network, and I’m your host, Karin Conroy. When you face a complex case outside your expertise, you bring in a co-counsel for next level results. When you want to engage, expand and elevate your firm, you bring in a marketing co-counsel. In this podcast, I bring in marketing experts who each answer one big question to help your firm achieve more. Here’s today’s guest.

Alex Sanfilippo:

Hey everyone. Alex Sanfilippo here. I am the founder of pod match.com, which is a software that connects podcast host and podcast guest for interviews. It works very similar to a dating app instead of connecting you for dates, Cassie for podcast interviews. In addition to that, I’m the host of the podcast about podcasting called Podcasting Made Simple. As you can tell, I seek to educate in podcasting and serve people in this space, and this is what I do wholeheartedly, and it’s what all my time is spent doing. So I just love and appreciate anything in podcasting.

Karin Conroy:

That was a lot of the word podcast keywords. There is the very many podcaster. We are SEO Dialed in, we’re ready

Alex Sanfilippo:

To go car. Thank

Karin Conroy:

You. Thank you for being here, Alex. These episodes about podcasting do really well. I think it’s just still a little bit of a mystery and people are loving this and it’s such a great marketing avenue, especially for law firms. So the title for today’s show is Can Your Law Firm’s Podcast Become a Go-to legal resource? So the reason I angled the title this way is because we’ve had a few other podcasts about monetizing and the legal ramifications and things like that, which you should definitely go check out, but that’s not what we’re going to talk about today because there are ways for sure to make money and it’s probably not what you’re thinking. It’s definitely not ad revenue, it’s how to pull people into your firm. But today it’s first of all, let’s take a step back and think about how this can be part of your marketing strategy and how your marketing strategy should align with you being a resource and an expert. And as I choke on saying the idea Thought leader, we both talked about how much we love that phrase thought leader. So Alex, let’s first take another step back and let’s talk about podcasting in general. I feel like I saw so many statistics about podcasting during the pandemic and how it just went bonkers. And the stats were everybody and their brother was making a podcast. So is it still a thing and where are the numbers now as compared to where they were during the pandemic?

Alex Sanfilippo:

Yeah, this is a great place to start. I’m super thrilled to be here, by the way, thanks for having a podcasting thought later on. I

Karin Conroy:

Just wanted to use the word going to be a good one if we keep doing that. Let’s just keep dripping it in.

Alex Sanfilippo:

The reality is a thought leader is a real thing. It’s just that some people who shouldn’t use the term thought leader, a great example, law firms, lawyers, those people should be considered a thought leader. My 19-year-old who knows a lot about football is not an NFL thought leader and they use that term or influencer. But I think a great place to start is really diving into these stats. And I do have a page pulled up right now. I want to make sure I get these numbers, but in 2020, people were just trying new things. I don’t know if you remember this, but even old video games, old card playing games, all those things kind came back. People

Karin Conroy:

Were sourdough

Alex Sanfilippo:

That stuck

Karin Conroy:

For some people. Mine was what it was not a success.

Alex Sanfilippo:

I’m sorry to hear that, but you know what, that actually relates very well. The podcasting. I’m going to go ahead and swing that back around here. I love

Karin Conroy:

It. Full circle.

Alex Sanfilippo:

At some point during 2020, I believe it was July, 2020, at one point there were 700,000 active podcasts.

Karin Conroy:

Oh my gosh. And

Alex Sanfilippo:

Since that time, it has dropped back down to 400,000 and that number has stayed about true, give or take, 15,000 either direction for interesting, ever since 2021. And it has not changed because a lot of people say, oh, well, podcasting are starting to be so many podcasts. And the thing is, they’re not all producing episodes. And if there’s one thing we know, there are very few shows that continue to do well after they stop producing. Now, there are of course some of the legacy shows just like the TV shows, the series that people continue to watch for all eternity. I mean, you’ve talked about Seinfeld a number of times on here. The office for me was a show that you’ll go back and watch, but most of them, once it ends, the listenership begins to die off as well or the viewership. And so people always say, well, Alex, there’s over 3 million podcasts now. And that is the reality of it. Yes, we just recently broke 3 million podcasts, but only 400,000 at any given time are active podcasts.

Karin Conroy:

That’s a super important distinction because yeah, I feel like there are so many shows too. TV shows when you go back in time and they don’t stand the test of time, you watch them or even movies and it’s like super dated. We couldn’t say that now. We couldn’t do that. Now it doesn’t apply. The world has changed and podcasts have to be even more So.

Alex Sanfilippo:

Yeah, and that’s the beauty of going on with it. So it

Karin Conroy:

Is still a thing, but it sounds like it’s filtered through and the people who are going to sustain and stick around are the ones who are still here and active.

Alex Sanfilippo:

Correct? Yeah, you have to stay active with it. On top of that, you have to have a niche. Sure, there are 400,000 shows when you compare that to YouTube, I don’t know the exact number. I believe, and please don’t quote me on this, you can probably google this very easily, but I believe there’s about 26 million YouTube channels. Oh my. Compare the difference between those two numbers, right? 400,000 really isn’t that many. And when you think about how the difference between the two things, right? One’s video, one’s audio, I know. But thinking about YouTube is YouTube runs off an algorithm and because it runs off an algorithm, it ranks things that are from years past. Now there’s a little bit of that very little bit in podcasting, but the majority of it is the newer your content, the more favorite it’s going to be. And that’s actually something I really love about podcasting is yes, it’s evergreen, but people are going to find things based off your new content, the kind of key to success in podcasting. We’ll dive into very specific things today, but the key really is staying consistent and having a niche, not just saying, this is a podcast about everything for everyone. It’s about making my law firm grow about being that thought leader in the podcasting space for legal advice.

Karin Conroy:

Well, that is a perfect transition to what my next question was, and it was about how to measure success because earlier I mentioned it’s not ad revenue, and I also had Tracy Hazzard who owns Potties on and she’s amazing. And she specifically talked about, let’s stop looking at your likes and subscribes and your ads because that’s not how you’re going to make money. Those are pennies and that’s not going to be a success. So she talked a lot about how to make it more monetarily successful, but I feel like it’s more complicated than that, especially for law firms that success doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s driving revenue. It could be other things. So can you talk about different measures of success?

Alex Sanfilippo:

Yeah, this is a great question. Measuring success is different for everybody. An example, if you have a Dungeons and Dragons podcast, it’s probably getting a lot of listenership, viewership, helping sell dice to people. If you own a law firm, I don’t think it’s to find a sponsor or to run ads or anything like that to convert people into your firm. I recently had somebody I was coaching a really big podcaster actually, and she’s like, Alex, I want my podcast just to pay for itself. I love it, but I just want to pay for itself, so I think I need four sponsors for this thing. And she was running me through the numbers and stuff like that, and I just asked, how much do you think they’ll give you? And she basically said, Hey, I need $300,000 a year to run this thing. And she’s like, I think I can get that.

I was like, well, how much is one client that you’re converting right now? And she said, anywhere from half a million to 2 million. And I just said, why don’t you just talk about only you and only your stuff and maybe convert one extra client per year using it and you’re going to make up to 10 x what you’re telling me you need? And that for her was a revelational moment. And it sounds kind of basic when I say it, but a lot of us just don’t think that way. This podcasting is a way for you to establish your authority in a space as your top of funnel. This is to me is the very top of the funnel and there’s so many beautiful things that come from podcasting, but my thought is there’s no direct answer on what a metric for success is in podcasting monetization.

And on the flip side, the other thing I’ll mention car, I’ll turn it back over to you, is what metrics to look at. Listen, if you have 10 listeners and five of them convert, would you rather have that or 10,000 listeners with zero converting? Which is better, right? I think the best way to check that is to go into your podcasting data. And I’m not going to share all the ins and out of this. It’s a very simple search or ask AI how to do this. But if you get a lot of listens from Apple or from Spotify specifically, there’s something called completion or consumption rate. This shows you how far into your podcast episode people are listening before they drop off. To me, looking at that number is the most powerful number. If people are making it 5% and then leaving you have a content problem, it’s not interesting. But if people are finishing up to 80, 90% that people are really listening to learn something and at some point or another something is going to convert from having that metric look that good, let’s put it that way,

Karin Conroy:

And these are your people, the people who are actually listening and making it, I’d even say more than 50 or 60%, I feel like there’s so many reasons why people drop off. They just get where they’re driving to or whatever. That has nothing to do with that episode, something else comes up. So if they get past 50, 60%, these are your people, they’re listening and they’ve kind of bought in and they’ve invested some time into it. And so these are the people that you’re trying to target for whatever reason, whether it’s marketing, maybe it’s other lawyers, and you’re trying to pull new team members into your firm. There are so many different kinds of goals for different firms that those metrics of success. The question was almost a little bit of a trick question because it very much depends on every single firm and where your overall goals are for your firm.

And then you need to align that obviously with your marketing strategy, which I say obviously, but it’s not always done. And I wanted to come back to you were talking about measuring success and I lost my train of thought. There was something about establishing authority and being a resource. So what other kinds of things can people do to make sure that the podcast is more of a resource and they’re kind of establishing that authority? And on the flip side, mistakes people make it seem too corny or they’re trying to be somebody else or salesy or just kind of mistakes in general?

Alex Sanfilippo:

Kern, I love this question. I think the most important thing you can do to start off is keep it simple. A lot of people have listened to the really big podcast and for many of us, that’s where we start and we listen to that product value, right? Yes. Example, I had somebody recently they tell me, Alex, I want to produce a podcast just like Masters of Scale. I was like, what’s your budget? They’re like, well, that’s the problem. I need to do it all myself. We looked it up, it costs something like $10,000 per episode and there’s 20 people who work on every episode. I’m like, you’re not going to do them, but why do you feel like you need to? No one’s going to listen unless it’s that I’m not telling you go and just talk into your phone while you’re standing on the side of the road.

Have some pride in the work that you do. But to start a podcast, to have a podcast, you just need a decent microphone. I have a decent microphone. It’s not the best, but it’s great. And it’s all us. B, by the way, everything I have plugged straight into a laptop, I have a webcam. If you’re watching or listening to this, the quality’s good. No one’s going to say, ah, I wish Alex sounded better, right? I’ve done this for just a couple hundred dollars. Aside from that, I get some hosting, I upload it. That is all you have to do to have a podcast. You don’t need a huge production team. You don’t need a crazy intro and all that. And I say all that just to again, reinforce the point that keeping it simple is the best thing you can do. And Karin, I want to share, if we have a minute, I’d like to share a real life story.

When I was looking into doing some SMS marketing, so text message marketing, I was curious about it, had never done it before, but I was like, this seems like it’d be a cool fun thing to do. I want to learn about it. The first place I went was podcasts. I started looking, are there any podcasts about this? Is there anyone who’s being a guest on podcasts talking about it? I ended up finding a podcast about SMS marketing, and at this point, I’d already done my research. I found three companies I was probably going to buy from one of the three of them, but then I wanted to go see if there’s any education, so I don’t just pay for this and then never use it. The thing is, one of those three companies had a podcast and I just went through and consumed it. The thing is it wasn’t super highly produced, but they were giving real actionable advice on how to make it with SMS marketing.

And I believe it was someone in their c-suite, it was probably their chief CMO and just talking through it and stuff like that. I bought their product specifically because I felt that they invested my education. I went back and looked kain and it was the most expensive of the three, but I didn’t care. I knew I made the right decision because hey, they already invested in me. And going back to one of the valuable things that you can do with a podcast, again, don’t overcomplicate it. Just think, how can I add the most value as humanly possible to make this happen? And the last thing I’ll share with that story that this person did really well, and I find that the best podcasters do well, is they remember that podcasting is about establishing like and trust. And to do that, you have to be transparent.

Again, if you come in too professional, especially a law firm, and people feel like I’m just talking to basically a robot who understands legal terms, people are not going to want to work with you if you share, Hey, this weekend me and my kids went here and this topic came up that I want to share with you today. Now they’re like, oh, this person has a family. They’re not just a robot who writes legal jargon that I can’t understand. You’re showing somebody that you are a person. And when you get really good at this combination of things, that right there is how you establish yourself as a thought leader with a podcast. And those are people I see who do absolutely the best in this space.

Karin Conroy:

I could not agree more. And I feel like to go back to this idea that where it seems really obvious, this woman that you were talking to where one client would bring in a half a million dollars and they were going to invest all this money to just make the podcast make 300 grand. It seems like such an obvious thing when you’re telling the story and you’re describing that, but that’s what most people come into podcasting thinking that I have to get a certain amount of traffic, I have to get a certain amount of likes and ad revenue in sponsorship. I feel like there’s such an overemphasis on sponsorship and that can really derail your traffic and your SEO and everything else, especially your loyal listeners. Can you talk a little bit technically from the side of what ads can do to a podcast in terms of turning people off and the numbers and all of a sudden before and after having ads in a podcast?

Alex Sanfilippo:

Yeah, I am not a fan of ads first off, off. And I’m not saying that they’re always wrong. I’ll go back to that Dungeons and Dragons, which by the way, I don’t play that game. I don’t know anything about it, so forgive me for using as an example.

Karin Conroy:

It sounds very specific though. It’s very, very niche.

Alex Sanfilippo:

So the reason I use that as an example is you probably don’t have a service. It’s not like I’m going to teach you to be better at the game. And maybe that is a thing, but most of them, they would do really well actually having an advertiser selling some exclusive dice, Hey, there’s 10 sets this month. We’ve got ’em here. Get 20% off by going here. Yeah, listen, that to me, that is a great ad for a podcast that has no product or service attached to it is super well aligned. What you don’t want to do, when I find most people doing again, we’ll stick with Dungeons and Dragons and they say, Hey, do you need a new mattress? It’s like the only thing I can say is the game’s probably so boring that yes, but that’s a stretch. But the reality is that’s not a good fit.

And if you have your own product or service, it takes it to even a next level. Why would you muddy the waters and say, Hey, get a mattress, get a toothbrush, get a new razor and hire my legal firm. At the end of the day, people that are listening to podcasts are typically working out cooking, cleaning, driving, doing something else, and the best podcasts have a singular call to action. One thing that you want them to do, and you want to repeat that. It might be seven times to 10 times before people actually finally click and say, you know what? I remember this, but if you muddy the water saying, I’ve got all these things for you, someone’s like, I don’t actually know what this person does. And so you have to make sure that you have that singular focus. So again, I don’t really like ads. I say if you’ve got something that you can sell yourself, something you can do to lead with value in your own way, use that because that is going to be the best converting thing that you can do and have the highest return on investment.

Karin Conroy:

A hundred percent. Okay, so let’s talk about calls to action. And I feel like this is done. There’s a lot of mistakes being made here as well. And also just being left on the table. A lot of people feel worried about getting it wrong, so they don’t even do that. And when I first was starting out a million years ago, they were saying it was 12 points of contact in whatever way that was, whether it was social media, an email, some version of you showing up in front of them 12 times before, they’re really going to remember you and keep you top of mind for whenever that need comes up. I feel like it’s much more at this point because we’re so much more bombarded with so many more points that they all get buried by the time that first point of contact. By the time you’ve got to 12, there’s 5 million others in there. So at the very least you need to just be there on a regular basis. So what are some good and solid ways of having a call to action that isn’t smarmy and salesy that kind of aligns with this? We’re just going to keep coming back to this idea of thought leadership, right?

Alex Sanfilippo:

By the

Karin Conroy:

Way, just keep saying it.

Alex Sanfilippo:

You mentioned you’ve been doing this for a million years. You look great for being over a million. I just have to

Karin Conroy:

Say it’s a great skincare. No kidding.

Alex Sanfilippo:

Unreal. So call to actions. I already hinted at it a little bit. Having all call to actions doesn’t work. It does have to be one, because again, think about where people are when they’re listening to podcasts, which by the way, I want to preface it is not a bad thing for me. If I’m working out or I’m cleaning or doing something else with my hands, I actually retain a lot better and I’ll stop and take a quick note, but I do have to be able to remember it. So if you’re like, Hey, here’s my call to action, and this is my first point here is you’ve got to keep it simple once again. But if I say go to podcast.com/karin/episode 2 5 4

Karin Conroy:

Punch,

Alex Sanfilippo:

I’m already like what? I’m driving. So I can’t remember that, right? If you have very simple value adding call to action with a name that someone can remember, that is the way to go. And so mine right now, we’re actually in the middle of working on it as we’re recording this because we want to simplify even more, but ours is pod match.com/free,

Karin Conroy:

Nice pom

Alex Sanfilippo:

Match.com/free, and I’ll just say slash free, right? Pom match.com/free. And the way I can then position it, my singular call to action, that’s where I want people to go, and I’ll probably in every call to action mention that URL three times to make sure it gets understood. But in addition, I also like to share very briefly what’s on that page. And this is where a lot of people get it wrong because again, we are authorities in our own space. We understand our space really well, but other people don’t. So it’s oversharing about what it is. I’ve heard some people’s call to action be two, three minutes long, but now someone who’s listening to this is like a minute and a half in, what are they talking about right now? This isn’t what the episode’s about. No. So for me, it’s pod match.com/free, and on there there’s five quick wins that if you’re a podcast guest or host or aspiring guest or host, you can consume totally for free. I don’t want your email address or anything like that, but if you just wonder how you can level up on either side of the mic, pod match.com/free, get those five quick wins

Karin Conroy:

And check it out. That’s awesome. That is so good because once again, you’re providing value. It’s a super easy URL and it’s not like I don’t even have to write it down. I’m going to remember it. You mentioned it three times. I feel like that is really valuable. And so I feel like, do you have some examples of other things that you’ve heard on podcasts that they’ve either given away or the resources or other kinds of, not the call to action, but sort of their lead magnet in terms of just ideas? Because I feel like that’s a place where a lot of law firms get confused and they feel like, I don’t know, am I sending ’em to my blog? Where am I sending them

Alex Sanfilippo:

Something? I’ve been really enjoying for something that’s a little bit more involved. So I’m not a lawyer, I don’t have a law firm, but I will say this, that’s a complex field. And typically when people are thinking about hiring a firm, working with an attorney lawyer of some sort, it’s a serious matter. It’s not just like, I just want to see what they can do for me. It’s never that, right? It’s like, Hey, someone’s trying to sue me, my neighbor, because I did this on our property, I didn’t know what was on theirs. Or I’m getting a divorce or something like that. Those are big things, and a lot of ’em, because they are kind of intimate, people want it to feel like that they are understood before they progress into that. And I bring that because I’ve been seeing a lot more people try doing this and it’s working very well. They’re developing quizzes.

Karin Conroy:

Oh, I

Alex Sanfilippo:

Love, so a quiz to find out where you’re at. Yes. And I always say, don’t even ask for an email address, just try to get them the quickest result possible. Someone gave me an example a long time ago. It’s like me going to a bar, I’m married, by the way, happily married for 12 years, but it’ll just match me going to a bar. I’m trying to meet a girl and I’m like, Hey, I want to buy you a drink, but first lemme get your phone number.

Karin Conroy:

That doesn’t

Alex Sanfilippo:

Weird. As far as I know, maybe I’m just not dumb enough game, but that has never worked for me, nor have I tried it.

Karin Conroy:

And if it did, that would be weird too. Then you’d be like, that would be very weird. Be like, oh, okay, nevermind. But

Alex Sanfilippo:

We do try that. We say, Hey, go here. Put in your email address and I’ll send you this, but you can do that. But first give something, right? Give something. So if you can start with a quiz that even at the end of it, I have a quiz with my company and we ask for the email at the end if you want a PDF report of it, still free, not charging for anything, but they go through the quiz, they can see their whole result without having to give us anything. And the thing

Karin Conroy:

Is, now the quiz can be, so the quiz is such a genius thing because really what you’re doing is it’s just a questionnaire really. And so when you really step back and think about how you can use a quiz and there’s this psychological attraction to a quiz because of what you were saying earlier in terms of people wanting to feel understood. So think about all those CosmoLex quizzes that we all have done a million times over when we were younger, back when print media was a thing. We used to have magazines. But you want to look at those answers and kind of figure out where you are in the world in the place of whatever this quiz is asking. So for us, I have a quiz, but it’s about establishing where your marketing budget should be. So this is in line with the kind of work that we do, and it’s one of these unknown questions that people come to us and they’re worried about because they don’t understand Marketing can be all over the place.

There’s your neighbor on the street who is spending $120,000 a month on pay-per-click, and then there’s another guy who’s saying Spend 10. So marketing budgets can be so confusing and overwhelming and misunderstood, and so that’s a huge question, and then this kind of gives you a framework for figuring out where you’re going to be. So if you can figure out that question, this is similar to law firms. People are coming into a law firm and they’re so overwhelmed and they have probably one or two big questions, and you can format that in the format of a quiz, and all of a sudden it’s doing exactly what you’re describing. It’s making them feel understood, it’s making it feel more personal. It’s not just filling out a form. This is slightly different, but in a really significant way.

Alex Sanfilippo:

I was just thinking as you’re saying that that’s great reinforcing points and some really good additions even expanding my thinking here. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah, and I’m thinking, let’s imagine I’m a lawyer, right? Let’s just pretend like that and I decide I’m going to have a quiz. What’s the page before you even start the quiz? What is it I’m telling people? And for me, I just went to Google right now and I’m going to type in some questions. I’m not going to do it while we’re here, but I just want to see what are the most typed in questions people have for lawyers before they hire one? And if you can tell someone, Hey, listen, before you work with any lawyer, whether it’s me or not, you need to see how much you’re going to pay before you even figure out if it’s right, what information to disclose upfront, and I have all that for free on this page.

In addition, if you feel like it might be the right time, there’s a quiz on there that you can cover the different things that you think you need help with, and I’ll be able to tell you if we’re a right fit and if you should move forward with that. And if not, maybe where else you should go. If you’re doing all that, and I’m someone listening out who’s like, man, I’m thinking about, I might have an issue where I’m going to get into a legal battle, but I don’t want to pay anyone yet, and how do I even find somebody If you can answer all these questions and then give them a quiz that then funnels them into saying, yeah, this is exactly what it is. We’re primed and ready to work together. You just quantified if you have a potential client there or not and someone that you can actually help.

Karin Conroy:

It’s such a great marketing tool, and I feel like it’s so underused because people don’t, you do have to put some thought into how to set it up and make it work for your firm because it sounds kind of like it’s not related, but it’s so is. It’s such a great way to tie all your content together. Let’s talk about consistency. I really think that for marketing, the two most underrated marketing strategies are patience and consistency. And I know that sounds corny, but without those, forget it, you’re not going to be successful in whatever kind of marketing you’re doing, so let’s forget about patients because you either have it or you don’t for the moment. But consistency when it comes to podcasting, let’s talk about how important and critical it is to remain constant, but also just have a whole plan and calendar and be out there. You mentioned earlier how in 2020 there was all these podcasts, and now they’re still technically there, but they’re not active.

Alex Sanfilippo:

It’s basically the key to all success. I mean, results follow consistency. It’s never the other way around. Everyone. I feel maybe not dogging social media, I’m not trying to be negative about it, but I feel in many ways social media has conditioned us to try to have that home run hit, right? Yes. So we post stuff hoping it’s going to go viral, hoping it’s going to go viral and get it’s 30 seconds of fame. We’re just hoping for it. But the reality is, any great creator, even on social media, on YouTube through podcasting, when you ask them, man, how did you get this to go viral? They said, I did a thousand things before that and I consistently did them with nobody ever seeing it until finally something clicked and worked. And listen, that might be algorithm based, who knows? But the reality is the world has always favored consistency. The people that stay consistent are the ones that win all the time.

Karin Conroy:

Absolutely. I would even argue that for myself and for law firms, going viral is not the goal because what you’re going to do, and this is the same with SEO, so whether it’s your podcast, whatever marketing strategy, your goal is not to cast this massive net to people who are not your potential clients because all that’s going to do is create more unnecessary work. So now you’ve just got imagine a giant phishing net literally, but now you’ve got a whole bunch of pond sludge and your net has picked up grass, and it’s not just fish in there and you only want fish. And so you’ve got to sort through all of that garbage and the stuff that you don’t want, and that’s time and money. So the goal is not viral, and I think a lot of people start that way thinking, okay, how do I get a million hits on this one reel or this one podcast episode or whatever it is, but so twist your thinking on that, not it. It’s how do you get a consistent right audience to listen that are going to potentially be your clients? And that’s probably a pretty small group. And so your numbers are okay if they’re small, if they’re the right numbers.

Alex Sanfilippo:

This takes a level of self-discipline on two levels, if you will. One, actually doing the work consistently, but two, being willing to be self-disciplined enough to fight the vanity metrics that come your way. And there really are a lot of them. The idea of a million people listening to my podcast tomorrow sounds great, but Karin, my podcast is about podcasting. There aren’t a million people podcasting that wouldn’t be bad if that happened for me. And people are like, I wouldn’t be bad. I’m, it would skew all my data and now I don’t really know who I’m serving. Well, because it might say, Alex, you have a million people listening and people only listen to 10% of it. I’m like, well, what percentage are the podcasters finishing? Not everyone else? And a great example of this of I’m not trying to toot my own horn as someone who had self-discipline.

There was a moment where I did, I had a really niche creator on who has a huge cult following millions of people follow him. He’s like, man, I like this interview. I’m going to share it in my whole network. And I asked him why we’re on screen, please don’t. And he’s like, why? You’re the first person to ever ask me not to share it, and I never share it. And he’s like, but I’m offering to you. I’m like, I don’t know who listens to you. I’m like, but they’re not Who needs to be listening to me? Even though it was good content, I’m like, you’re going to skew my data. I’d rather keep it right. He’s a data freak. So now we’re like best friends because he is like, that’s super insightful. That’s

Karin Conroy:

It. That’s amazing.

Alex Sanfilippo:

Anyway, my point in saying that is, again, consistency being key, but I do want to mention something here that’s really important along with consistency. It doesn’t mean setting it and forgetting it and just releasing all the time. Actually, you interviewed on the came was really good on March 12th, 2024, Doug, I dunno how to say his last name, position your law firm for growth, and he talked about what’s important is using the right words. Yes. And for many of us, we just use the wrong words. I find in podcasting it might not be clicking. And here’s the thing, you can be consistent for your entire life, but if your messaging is wrong and you’re not tracking that and looking at it, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to be going at it forever and it’s never going to yield a result. What matters is consistency plus continuous improvement, consistency plus continuous improvement.

You have to look at it and say, okay, what’s going on here? Where can we improve? And the best way to discover that, I’m just going to go ahead and share that here, is talk to your listeners. Find a way to talk to people that have listened to your podcast. If they’re commenting on social media, if they’re emailing in, if they’re liking stuff, if somehow you meet someone that’s listened, just ask ’em what is it that you like about the show? And they might give you an insight that you’re like, oh, wow, that’s really good. The other question I want you to ask is, what can we do better for future listeners? What can we do to make it really good for the people that are going to be listening in the future, position them as being part of the solution with you’re not saying, what do you not like about it? What can we do better for future listeners? You’re going to learn so much from that. My show is what it is today because of that exact feedback, and we do really well as a podcasting about podcasting as good as it can be.

Karin Conroy:

I feel like that is solid marketing advice no matter what your tactic, whether it’s podcasting, SEO, content, whatever your marketing is, yes, it’s consistency. And I did say patients in consistency are number one and two, but the modifier for consistency is exactly what you were describing. You can’t just keep doing the same thing and expect that that’s going to continue to work. If you are not reviewing your numbers and figuring out what’s working and then continuing to fine tune and ream your battleship in the direction that’s working, whatever you’re doing for marketing, then that’s not marketing anymore. That’s just throwing spaghetti at the wall. So I feel like that’s so true with podcasting especially because it does continue to evolve so quickly, so does other marketing tactics, whether you see it as much even in blogging and whatever it is, social media, all of that stuff moves so quickly. So if you’re not paying attention and adjusting as the kind of tide is changing, then you’re for sure not going to see the results that you wish that you were having. So this time for the Thought Leaders library, so let’s go over and talk about the book review that you have and the book that you want to add to the library that you think every lawyer should have on their shelf. What is the one that you’re going to recommend today, Alex?

Alex Sanfilippo:

Yeah, Karin, first off, I love that you have this. This is such a unique thing and sometimes that’s what separates a show. It’s cool. Exactly. It’s really good.

Karin Conroy:

I feel like it also, it’s a nice, since we’re talking about podcasting, and I can get into the kind of nuts and bolts of this, I purposely put it at the end to pull. So for book nerds like me, I read a hundred books a year, and so I am constantly looking for little nuggets and whatever. And so if this was a show I’m listening to, I would wait and I would pull myself through to the end to get to that book review because I want to hear what they have to say for a minute about whatever that other book is and if I should put it on my shelf. So that’s why I do it. It’s strategic.

Alex Sanfilippo:

I at one point read 52 books a year. I’m not doing that cadence anymore, but a hundred, if I ever write a book, Karin, it’s coming straight to your door. You’re going to read it. The book I would suggest is the Practice, it’s the practice shipping Creative Work, and it’s by Seth Godin. And the reason I bring this up is because content creation can be really messy and for lawyers for no offense, but many lawyers kind of have this reputation of being kind of dry and kind of just all by the facts, the data, and that’s your gig and that’s what people want. But at the same time, if you are going to try to create something, if you’re launching a podcast, it’s going to be a little bit messy. And so the practice shipping creative work is all about releasing your creativity into the world and just being willing to do it.

The best example in the book that I just want to share real quick, Karin, that really spoke to me was the example of two lifeguards. So I live near the ocean in Jacksonville, Florida, so for me, it’s always a fun one, and let’s imagine it’s your first day on the job, you know how to swim, you know what to do, you’ve been through all the training, and there’s a really experienced lifeguard with you that says, here’s your station. Stay here. If anyone’s drowning out there in the water, go save them. I’m going to be about a half a mile away from you at the next station. And so that person leaves and then someone steps in the water who can’t swim, and they start drowning. What do you do? Here’s the thing. What we do in content creation is we say, hold on a minute.

Let me go find someone who really knows what they’re doing and they can help you because I’m kind of new at this. If someone’s drowning in the water that has never happened, saying, well, let me go get that really good lifeguard half a mile down, because you’re going to lose that person as messy as it looks. They’re going to go into the water, they’re going to do everything they can. Maybe they’re going to accidentally almost drown themselves, but they’re going to bring that person back to shore. And for many of us, we have be willing to just step into the water with this and start getting the reps. It always starts messy. It’s never beautiful when we get started, but people love hearing the transformation even of somebody who’s really experienced. So I think that’s a great book to add to the library.

Karin Conroy:

I love that. I feel like that is also a great story just for building a business, because you can sit by the sidelines and have these ideas and these theories and this plan, but without actually executing and being comfortable with imperfection, it’s never going to happen. If you are not comfortable with it not being perfect, it will never happen because you have to, the only way to know the kind of feedback that you were talking about earlier, talking to your audience, talking to even your clients, you can’t have that experience until you’ve tried and you’ve worked and you’ve done something. And then you can ask them, Hey, what could we have done better? And this is the same for all businesses across the businesses that I’ve been working with or hotels or wherever that have been around for decades. And they’re still not necessarily always doing everything perfect and you just have to a certain amount of imperfection and an attempt to make things better. So that’s your podcast, your business, your marketing life in general. You just have to get out there with that whole idea of good is better than the perfect, or what does that phrase, the good is better than the great, or there’s some phrase that I’m not, I’m totally butchering right now.

Alex Sanfilippo:

Maybe gun is better than perfect is what I’m thinking. Something along, I dunno.

Karin Conroy:

Yeah, it’s not whatever I’m saying, but you know what I’m saying. It’s definitely not perfect. I don’t have it perfect. Whatever it’s, it’s just say something instead of holding back and hoping for perfection at some future point. That may not ever happen. Seth Godin, pretty much the goat when it comes to marketing, and I’ve read a million of his things, have gone to his events and he’s awesome. For the most part,

Alex Sanfilippo:

We’re all awesome, comma for the most part, right? For the most part. Yeah, exactly. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet him. I did interview him once and he’s expanded my thought process. I don’t know much about him outside of that.

Karin Conroy:

I want to spend one minute, because you mentioned this interview and I wanted to talk, but we kind of run out of time. I wanted to talk about bringing guests onto your show and how to do a good interview, but can you tell me, I know that you’re underselling your Seth Godin interview and it was super successful. Can you give us a few tips about what made that really good and things that you would recommend in terms of if you’re going to do a podcast and bring guests on what to do and what not to do and what in that example went well?

Alex Sanfilippo:

Yeah. So yeah, that was considered one of his best interviews, which I’m thankful for. I’ve heard that from so many people, and this was years ago at this point, and I still continuously, people tell me that, that are like lifelong Seth Godin fans, right? Wow. He tribe, that’s his best, which I’m very thankful for. And I’ll say he was just on that day. So one is making sure you get somebody on when they like to. And a lot of us host, we do want it to be on our schedule, but at the same time, if we can be a little bit flexible, that would be great. I had somebody who wanted me on and they refuse to do it any other time of the 9:00 PM my time. I’m not at my best at 9:00 PM and I can tell you that interview was not my best.

I gave it all I had left, but it wasn’t the best. So the first thing is be willing to be a little bit flexible to be where you can let them shine at their best self. Beyond that, listen to your guests on previous episodes, previous interviews, get an idea of the cadence of their voice. If they talk slow, be willing to talk a little bit slower to kind of be at their pace. Not to completely mirror, but a little bit of that. So I listened to him on a bunch of episodes. I read his book that we were going to talk about. I knew the points I wanted to bring up. I also knew based off past interviews what he was going to want to bring up as well. So I was able to work those things in together. It was just a bunch of being willing to be flexible and not too tied to my questions, but knowing the content well enough that I could riff with him on it. And it made for a really great conversation

Karin Conroy:

That’s so valuable because I know that he can be salty, and I feel like if you hadn’t read the book, that could have gone very south. If you got to a point where you’re asking a question and it came across that you didn’t know or hadn’t read it, that could have been bad as opposed to being informed and having had read that, it probably put you on a much different better path to get a better side of him.

Alex Sanfilippo:

For sure. I’d say so. Yeah.

Karin Conroy:

That’s awesome. Okay. Alright, Alex, what is one thing that that works?

Alex Sanfilippo:

Seeking clarity. Seeking clarity is something I’ve seen that really works well for me. What seeking clarity means is getting a loan with pen and paper, not digitally, just an old fashioned pen, an old fashioned piece of paper going somewhere that inspires me, which happens to be the ocean sitting on the beach. No digital advice and seeking clarity for the direction of my life, my business, my future, and also reflecting and being thankful for where I have come. When you seek this clarity on an ongoing basis, it’s like course correcting. If you’re trying to go to the moon and you don’t ever course correct, you’re never going to be anywhere near it. You’re going to be hundreds if not thousands of miles away if you don’t course correct. So you have to think of that time as returning to your compass and saying, okay, is this where I want to go? Is this where I want my podcasting venture to go? Is this where I want my firm to go and seeking that clarity? I do this every 90 days and I always recommend this to everybody. Get out there and start seeking clarity for yourself.

Karin Conroy:

That’s so good. And it totally ties in with what we were saying a few minutes ago about not just consistency, but checking in to make sure that your consistency is on the right path. Because usually we’re talking about degrees of change and what I keep seeing, I’ve been making websites since almost the beginning of the internet and there’s been so many variations of what a website even is, both technically and visually and all of that. And what I’ve seen over the last, I’d say, five or six years, especially with law firms, is we’re talking about degrees of change now. Now it’s not just like this massive technical change, it’s not a massive content change. These firms are coming to me and we’re doing fine tuning and it’s positioning and messaging and adjusting words and really polishing things. And so when you’re not checking in and you’re not making those changes, you’re just one or two degrees off over a year and then another year and then another year, and all of a sudden you’re pointed in an entirely wrong direction. But it felt very subtle and tiny over the time of that. It’s so important and those changes that you’re looking at when you seek the clarity, it’s not like, okay, I’m going to change my hair to blue today. It’s okay. What’s the few minor little things that I can do today that’ll make a big impact over the next 90 days? I love that. That’s so great. Awesome.

Alex Sanfilippo:

Yeah, it’s good. Good addition to that. Thank you.

Karin Conroy:

Alex Sanfilippo is the founder of Pod Match. Honestly, if you are looking at podcasting, this is the place to start because whether you’re thinking about being a guest or your own podcast, which I started as a guest for a long time before I started my own, because you really get the sense for what I don’t want to do. There was a lot of experience where I was like, no, that part is not for me. And it’s such a great way to find, you see these profiles, you see exactly what their social followers are, where they’re at. You get all the info. And also, I feel like the quality of the matches, people know exactly how to be on a podcast, their quality podcasts. It’s such a great place, and I don’t know whether there’s anything else like that out there, but this is the best. So I highly, highly run pod match. Definitely check it out. It’s a really great kind of dip your toe in the water of podcasting place to start. So thank you so much for being here. This was such an awesome episode.

Alex Sanfilippo:

Yeah, Karin, thank you for the kind words and for having me. This was amazing. Truly enjoyed it. Thank you.

Karin Conroy:

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Counsel Cast podcast. Be sure to visit our website at Counsel Cast dot com for the resources mentioned on the episode and to give us your feedback. If you enjoyed this episode, I would appreciate if you could rate and review the podcast on Apple and subscribe to your favorite podcast platform. See you on the next one.

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