Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: And right now you can ask AI how would you notice me? And the number one thing that AI tells you they want to see, they want to see a third party endorsement. Whether that means it's your article that's now on, you know, Martindale AVO website or something associated with it. But it can't just be you screaming out into the Internet. It's got to be somebody else. Kevin Daisy, who's like this, I'm kind of vouching for this guy. The more that AI sees that, the more renowned you are. It's the new thing. It's just like how backlinks work from the better the backlink from a better site. It all makes sense. Like it's frankly, it's how the rest of the world works.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Most firms survive. The best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners podcast where law firm leaders learn to think bigger. I'm Kevin Daisey. Let's jump in. What's up everyone?
Thanks for tuning in to another episode. I excited to to have you here. Also I'm excited to have a guest, a returning guest, Russell. I think maybe probably three, four years ago, maybe longer, I'm not sure. So excited to have Russell back on the show and share what he's been up to. We've already had a, you know, good little chat again, Russell Knights, based out of Chicago. Welcome back to the show.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. I'm not even sure when it was that I was on here last, but
[00:01:27] Speaker B: might not be your last time.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: We'll see.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: We'll see. So Russell, introduce yourself. Your firm, what you specialize in?
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm a divorce lawyer. I've got a very busy firm in Chicago, Illinois and then I have another firm that's a little tinier in Naples, Florida and we try to focus on those folks that there's hundreds of thousands of them that go back and forth between Florida and Illinois and God forbid if they get divorced, they got to choose between the two jurisdictions and that gives them a lot of opportunities, it gives them a lot of leverage if they can choose where they're going to get divorced because the rules in both states are extremely different.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Very interesting. I like that. What's a website and ways that they can can look you up and find you sites.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: I've got RDK like Russelldale knightlegal.com that's for Illinois and then for Naples it's divorce attorney naples fl.com or people really finding me through socials. Now I'm on every platform at at Divorce Attorney Night. K N I G H T Where I do a lot of content, that's just whatever's happening online, I want to be part of it because that's how to be on the cutting edge of something. That's what people, people who are, are actually looking for lawyers looking for legal information. They, people go online, they don't ask their cousin's brother's accountant anymore.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we were, we were just talking about this a little bit. I've been on SEO forever and ads and, and we still do all that for law firms. But if you don't have a brand, you don't produce content, you don't get in front of a camera, you don't have social, you know, platforms that are active, especially on the divorce side of things. You could get people to your page the first click, but is it going to hit with them? Are they going to want to hire you? Are they going to go and check out everything else about you? So it's reputation trust. You can't ignore those things. And Russell, you said a really cool thing was it's not logos anymore. It's not the firm brand. It's. It's the people. And so you as the leader, if that, if that's the person that needs to do it, then you have to take the initiative and be that brand.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw a, like a webcast with Gary Vaynerchuk's COO who said specifically, there's no more logos. Like, that's irrelevant. All that stuff when we saw his kids, like the tricks doesn't matter. The rabbit matters. That's who we connect, you know, so like that's, we knew, we knew it when we were kids. That's just the reality. But like now we have to be totally non corporate and it's a law firm. There's usually a bunch of lawyers. You can't make money being just one lawyer, but there's gotta be one lawyer who puts themselves out there and is the character that the audience can connect with. And it should be the leader and it should set the tone. And the truth of the matter is the more you're out there, the more people identify with you. And the algorithm's gonna find your people. And the truth of the matter is the people aren't always just the people getting a divorce. They're people who, who work for a divorce firm. And I've found that social media is far more effective as a recruiting tool and a way for people to develop kind of relationship with you. Before and after that lunch you have where you're saying like, well, what are you looking to do out there. Social media is key and you and people can smell the authenticity or the lack thereof in your social. And so it's really important to be your real self. So I do stuff where like, you know, the videos are like maybe one out of four videos will be like slightly silly, like a little like me winking at the camera kind of. Because that's sort of my personality.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: I love that. And I can attest to this, that social has been a great recruiting tool for us because they, you know, get to see what kind of place you are and how you act. And yes, you gotta be authentic. You can't be faking it and scripts and, or doing stuff that's just not your style because it'll, it'll be sniffed out immediately. Yeah, but yeah, great for recruiting. Again, back to the brand, like conversion maybe they're looking at two or three different firms and then they go check out your social, they go see who you are. You might be the only firm that they, they feel that they could make a connection with. And you can't do that just on a bland website that has the SEO like you have to, to put in the energy for this stuff.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: I've had people tell me they thought that seeing my video after what reading my articles was a sign. It's not the sign, it's the algorithm. But I'll take it.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: If you're not doing content and you're not getting mentioned and you're not active, you're invisible because no one knows you, they're not talking about you. If they're not talking about you, you're not going to come up. Plain and simple.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Every time you see there's a model that comes out like chat GPT with 3 and then 3.5. That means the model gets trained on data, which means everything that is on the Internet. So the more that is about you on the Internet, that's connecting you with Russell Knight, divorce lawyer, Chicago, Naples. All those things, you want it to make those connections. So I try to be as online as possible and right now you can ask AI, how would you notice me? And the number one thing that AI tells you they want to see, they want to see a third party endorsement, whether that means it's your article that's now on, you know, Martindale AVO website or something associated with it. But it can't just be you screaming out into the Internet, it's got to be somebody else. Kevin Daisy, who's like this, I'm kind of vouching for this guy. The more that AI sees that the more renowned you are, it's the new thing. It's just like how backlinks work from the better the backlinks from a better site, the better the recommendation or reference from the better, the more recommended person it all makes sense. Like it's frankly, it's how the rest of the world works.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: You know, it really is. It shouldn't be that surprising. I mean, but like this video will be on my website and it'll be on our YouTube and my LinkedIn. The video that we did with him years ago still comes up. That's the little reference point. Right. But this will be a new reference point and a fresh reference point. Reddit gets listed a lot for law firms. Bbb. Like, who even does that anymore? But now it's important. I have a fine law. Fine law is a cuss word in my opinion. But.
But if it helps, you know, and it's something you got to focus on, then put it into your strategy. Most of these platforms can't scan Google Reviews, so you don't see Google referenced in ChatGPT as far as like Google Reviews. And they don't have the API connection. So you can't just focus on Google Reviews anymore. You have to spread that out. But if you're just producing content and people pick that up, then a lot of that work's getting done for you. If you're not doing anything then, and you're just trying to like, you know, do AVOs and stuff, that, that's, that's probably a lot harder. I'd rather, rather just make content and go on podcasts and shows, interviews. Like, that's, that's easy to me.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, if you talk for an hour, I think I did the math on it that it's, it's like 20,000 words or something. Maybe that's. But like try to sit down and write that. That's. You're going to have a hard time.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we produce words of content and every, every month we see like the count, like how many words that we produce. And it's, you know, millions sometimes for all the law firms we work with. But it's just a written word. Like we'd rather have an attorney make a video and sit down in front of a camera any day and use that to produce everything else. Plus we can use that for the PR team and get you in front of other things. Article mentions, interviews, media. You know, there could be a local news station that has once a lawyer to comment on something.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: I just got quoted. And Country Magazine Because I did a video about a they were writing and so the person reached out to me. I'm trying to be as out there as possible and it's, it's kind of a full time job and I don't see my competitors who I'll like and respect. They're doing this too, but they're usually they find a niche and then just work it to death. And I've worked to death the blogs. I've got 800 like high quality review style blogs where I quote the law. Everyone in my business follows it. So that's done. So now I'm trying to do as many videos as possible and then in the future I'm trying to get now I'm writing on third party websites to. Because AI specifically tells told me I want to see a third party. So now I write and submit for whether it's local bar associations or for other websites that are tangentially associated with law. Whatever it can where it associates Russell Knight back. So that AI recommends me.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Yeah, 100% like this is not rocket science. It's just a different type of effort. And if you're not playing the game then you're, you're just not in it. You're. You're not going to be found or recommended. You can actually do this. Go to ChatGPT. I actually made a prompt. If anyone wants this I can send it to them. But I got one that checks your own personal brand and it's brutally honest. Like you can, you can do it and say, hey, be brutally honest. I want you to score me. My name is this, I'm located in this city. This is the kind of my company that I own. Here's what we do. And then you give it a list of sources to check. You know, go check all these areas and then grade me first. Tell me what my personal brand is based on what you find and then give me a serious grade on each thing. And it's pretty crazy. Like, and for me it's like, hey, you've recorded 500 episodes of a podcast, which is majority of what I have out there. But then it is, it's like, but you suck at this. And you know, you got to do better at third party. You have to do better at, you know, being the top authority. Like you're not the top authority in your space. So it's like, okay, here's a lot of the things that I got to work on. And I would put myself in a place of, you know, doing a pretty darn good job and doing tons of this kind of work, it'll check you. We all think we're doing whatever, and we, you know, I have a brand guideline and all this other stuff that we follow. But what does the world tell you? What your brand is, is real. Like, that's. That's what the world thinks. So that is what it is. And so the only way you can change that is to figure out what you need to do about it. I was watching. I did like a. A local talk one time on personal branding. And I was just talking about the fact when I was. I started my website company and I was a web guy, Kevin, the web guys, back in early 2000s. And I was cool with that because I wanted to. Everyone needs a website call, Kevin. Then I was like, wait a minute, I'm hiring employees, and I don't want to be Kevin anymore. Like, I wanted to be a company. So I had this, like, transition to like, well, it's not just Kevin. It's this company. You know, we switched into working for law firms and doing digital marketing. And so I've had the, you know, you change kind of your brand throughout, and it's like, you got to keep tabs on that or the world will continue to think. But what does the Internet really think about who you are and what your brand is? SEO is hard because. Well, I used to do divorced, but now I switched over to criminal defense. Well, that, That's. That's a hard thing to switch overnight. Like, if you have 10 years of stuff that says you're a divorce attorney, and now you're like, well, I'm criminal defense. That's hard thing to do.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's why you got to lock it down and you got to be producing. The consistency is the key to any content. If you make enough of it. I mean, it doesn't have to be good. Look at other people's quality of what
[00:11:09] Speaker B: they're doing to be good.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: And then you just doing something develops like a muscle where you start, it starts to become really good, frankly.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Yeah, you just got to get started. I think that's the hardest thing for anyone listening. No matter what it is as a podcast or YouTube show or just Instagram reels, whatever, they're all gonna suck in the beginning, and you're not gonna like them, and you're gonna think you look stupid or sound weird, whatever. It's gonna happen until you start doing it a lot.
So when we started. When we started this podcast, Russell, before you were on, it wasn't even audio. I mean, videos, audio.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: And me and my business partner started. We would just put the little wired, like, you know, microphone.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: And we would drive to the office and just record audio of us just talking. And then we just throw it out there. And it sounded terrible, but you could hear like the road and like cars going by and stuff. But, but we just had to get. We were like, screw it, we're just gonna. There's a five dollar earbud thing. And it worked to at least get started.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Yeah. You get started then, like, because I'm making videos, I'm gonna show you. Like, look at, like, oh, yeah. Lights.
Like, this is, it's. These investments to make are like so minimal. And it makes it look, I mean, you're looking 1 to 10% better than somebody else on a video. And you feel better. You feel more confident talking directly to these strangers who are. They're definitely evaluating you.
Some people put not so nice comments because they don't like divorce lawyers. That's their prerogative.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Hey, you know Grant Cardone, I followed him for, for a long time. And he's like, you got to have some haters. Once you have haters, it knows you're doing something that's exactly right. It means you're doing enough that you're annoying people because you're successful or you're, you're putting yourself out there. So just brush them off. It's. It's going to happen, but that's a sign that you're doing something right. This mic right here is probably like, I don't know, 700 bucks, 800 bucks. I got a whole setup up here. It's not even on right now because I'm using my earbuds because I had an issue with one of the cables. So it might look like I'm using this awesome mic, but right now I'm not. It doesn't matter. Earbuds, cheap mic, you just get on and do it. Just, just get started. You don't need any fancy equipment. Yeah.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: I would recommend to anybody to just keep doing it. Put stuff out there. Nine percent of people put garbage out there and then give up in three months. And they just say, well, this doesn't work. And then there's 1% of people just consistently do something. My social media person told me, this does not work for a year. You will not get a client for a year. And I did get one within six months, but then I didn't get another one for another six months. And now it's just part of the pattern. When people are reaching out, they want to They've seen you on Google. They've seen you. Because like divorce, not like personal injury where you got to hire somebody that day.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: No, no. It could be a long time.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: You think about it for the better part of two years. And so I just got, if you hear beeps or something, some lady just hired me today and it's the last day she needs to hire somebody. I've talked to her two to three times. Wonderfully nice person, but just aghast. This process is happening. And she's like, okay, I'm finally ready to do it. And so when, if you're in a business where this sale is slow, you have to put yourself out there as much as possible so that they can say like, this is awful. But I'm willing to make decision. One of the best examples I like to think about is like a personal financial advisor. You give this person all this money that you work really hard and you saved it too. And you're like, I gotta trust this person. The fact of the matter is they're all in the same account funds. It doesn't matter. It's like the same ETFs. This person is not going to move out of town because they all have licenses. But you have to just know that, like, that's my guy or gal, like that's my person because I'm giving them everything I worked hard for my entire life. And so you always go with the person who's like your guy, always. Well, those rates are too high because this person does it at 1% and this other person does it at 1.2. I don't care. 0.2% income's worth a hundred million dollars. That's only a couple hundred thousand. I want a person that I trust and like to be holding onto this. And so I think in financial advisors, I like to look at under other industries compared to lawyers to see, like,
[00:14:51] Speaker B: what do they do?
[00:14:51] Speaker A: How do they, like really get to know people? How do they put themselves out there just to the public, let them know that this is the professional that you want to hire. Because, like, doctors don't seem to care because they have this, the whole thing. And if you ever have and then get it, get yourself a private doctor, like a concierge. Oh, man, you're going to have service you've never seen before and it barely costs anything because that doctor wants to pick and choose their patients and just vice versa.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Good recommendation?
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
I think it's really good to find other industries and be like, how are they getting. I actually hired A guy as a sales coach who coaches financial advisors because I think it's kind of a similar thing. And it was very good. He told me to shut up and quit talking about myself and listen to the other person.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah. We've actually started to use Claude and chess D2 because I have a sales team of four right now and degrade their sales call. Sales calls, transcripts, upload, and it automatically spits out, hey, you talked, you know, 75% of the time. You didn't ask for the next meeting. You didn't, you know, whatever. It's. It goes right to everyone to. We can all see. And at first it's kind of like everyone's like, oh, crap. But now it's like, hey, oh yeah, I didn't, I couldn't get this next call set up. Or I couldn't do this right. Oh, I missed that. Let me call them back and see if I can get that done. It's just going to give you a path to follow and give you a grade A score. But no, I love the, the example of Financial Planner because, yeah, that's someone you definitely have to trust. And, you know, they're a little bit more regulated on some of their content, I think on social media, depending on if they work underneath.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: That's why.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, my, my financial, my CPA firm, my tax advisory firm, they put out awesome content. And I, I met them through some, some other groups, but they, they're awesome. Like, if I bring them on to like one of my groups or my mastermind, they sign up clients right on the spot. Like, just because they know what they're talking about and they're, they're good people to put that online. Right. Why, why just have it in a private room? Put that out there. No one has to hire your law firm. And this is even personal injury. Like, just because they have a more urgent situation, they don't have to hire you. They can call the next firm on the list, you know, and the social content or that experience or that video on your webpage could be the difference. It's harder to track, but it could be the difference of them hiring you versus someone else.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: It's something. Doing nothing is not going to get you anywhere. Someone was telling me that, like, they. All they do is network and God bless them, and that's fine. They said that there's a certain segment of the market that just doesn't pay attention to advertising, SEO or anything, and that's fine. And they will always rely on a recommendation for a friend. Well, that's fine. That's good. I mean, but that's scalable. Yeah, it's not scalable. It's a chunk of the market. I don't know how big it is. It's lucrative for high net worth people because that is what they do. But it's, it's not scalable. And it just feels silly to me to say. It's like if I said, well, I refuse to ever have coffee with somebody because my time would be better spent doing a video. Well, if it's my first ten videos. Yeah, maybe if it's my thousand eleventh video. No, like that's. That it's plainly ridiculous on its face.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. No, I think to say no one's influenced by things they see or interact with is probably. It's not real to some degree. Like people are influenced no matter what they, they think or say. It happens to me all the time. I'm like, I don't buy crap. I don't see ads. I don't do that. Yeah, I do. I buy all kinds of stuff. When I see stuff that I'm not interested in, it seems like that's noise. But it's gotten so good now. Like it's, it's stuff I'm actually looking for, stuff I'm interested in. And I get exposed to multiple brands and they're all influencers as people in front of the brands. And I'm looking at gym equipment. Certain brands have had a certain amount of influencers and people that seem trustworthy and that, that people that I know are good in the fitness space, pushing that brand, you know, and it's like, all right, I like this stuff, you know, so it's definitely influenced me 100%. So which way I'm leaning on what I'm going to spend thousands of dollars on now for you specifically, you know, you got the two different locations. How have you split up that is like with the brand? Is it kind of just use the brand no matter what and you kind of hold fast on that and you know either location.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: That's a really good question because like the 90% of my business comes from Chicago and then Naples. Like I lived there for a brief period for like personal reasons. I have a wonderful, wonderful partner down there who does really good work and he really is kind of the brand because we do pay for ABO advertising because he's been consistent requesting reviews and he gets good reviews for a lawyer. And so we lean into him a little more down there. Whereas up In Chicago it's 100 me so it does happen. But like I'm trying to, what I'm really trying to do is I'm trying to target this market of people that have two homes, one in Florida and one in Illinois. I think there's hundreds, there's a hundred thousand of them and they're all relatively high net worth. And the only expansion, the only area where divorce is expanding is in great divorce, people getting married less, having less kids. It's not a booming area like for a market except for this one segment because people are older, they're healthier, they, that means they have more options. And one of those options is divorce. And so I'm trying to position myself to be, hey, the first thing that nobody tells you is that you have an option of what your jurisdiction is going to be. If you're remotely Florida friendly. That means you get a $1200 one bedroom apartment in Cape Coral and just tell your spouse I need space. And in six months you can have an entirely different jurisdiction to file in. And people do that all the time because they call me, I like the niche.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: So that's something. And niching down focusing and finding that market or that area is so important especially for developing content around, you know, connecting with that, those people. That's why you know, content works or ads or whatever. It's when it, it really connects with you and you're like oh crap, that's, that's me. I'm looking for gym equipment right now or hey, I have a house in Florida and I live in Illinois. So yeah, I think that's, that's.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And the algorithms are only going to get better. They're not going to get worse. They're going to be more catered to you. That's just a fact.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: 100 you can advertise. We're actually advertising in chat CPT now. We have some pilot programs going on but you know that's going to be a thing. It's not going to just be hey, who's the best lawyer in Chicago that works with people that also live in Florida?
[00:20:55] Speaker A: You can try Claude code like knows a lot more about you than regular Claude does. So you can, you get really personalized answers. I'll send you something that I've made you do. A second brain. So cool.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Heck yeah. Let's share once we're, we're done recording so. Well, I think everything you're doing is just, is super cool. Anyone listening should be on board with getting in front of a camera, making the content, having the social accounts. Maybe you don't have Every social account on every platform, but pick one or two or three that you just really want to dive into. And LinkedIn. I've had tons of attorneys on the show that don't get any leads from LinkedIn, but they've, they've hired almost all their staff and employees and great recruiting tools. So treat that, you know, differently.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: LinkedIn is incredible. And any attorneys out there that hear me and just want to talk about something, I've had incredible success that I will be honest. I attribute most of it to luck. But I was set. I set myself up for lucky moments of getting unbelievable, incredible a player staff of making sure that these weird online experiments I did actually ended up being like pulling. Pulling a jackpot a thousand times and maybe If I got 100 triple cherries, that's. That's it. You want to talk about it, Just find me, give me a call. I'll tell you what the power of consistency does for both your, your work clients and your family.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: People look at successful people and just think they're lucky, but got the reps. You get lucky a lot more often.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: That's exactly right.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: 100%. But yeah. Anyone out there listening know if you're stuck on what to do content. If you're a new firm, no better time to start than now. So get in front of a camera, just start making crap. You're not going to like it, but time, you need the time game. Six months, a year, and then it's going to seem like just normal. I got to look at my calendar and I got like six, eight podcasts that I. Not just record, but I'm on. Speaking at conferences, whatever opportunities that I can find. But it's just kind of part of my, my normal week now, so it's, it's not that hard to do. Just jump on. What are we talking about? Okay, cool. Done. Yeah, just like the best actors in the world, you know? Here's your script. Okay. Run out there.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Done.
It's easy, right? So it's. It just becomes easier and then you can have fun with it.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: 100%.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Russell, I love what you're doing.
Social. What's the best way to find you again? You.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: I think you mentioned it, but Journey Night on everything. Instagra, TikTok, YouTube. But under LinkedIn, I'm just plain old Russell Knight.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Well, go give him a follow. Look him up. And thanks for tuning in again to another episode. I love this one and I hope you guys got some good value out of it. If you have any questions, reach out to me. Reach out to Russell. Happy to answer any questions you got. Also those, those scripts and things for Chat. If you want any of that from me or Russell, reach out to us as well and we can share those with you. So, Russell, you stay on with me. Everyone else, thanks so much, and we'll see you on the next episode.
