Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is your best almost business development strategy over anything else that's out there. Yes, you can go to conferences, you can fly around the world, you can shake hands, but these digital platforms, these places and spaces where you're holding conversation, there's a real opportunity to, to win business and to stay relevant, be top of mind.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Hey. Hey, what's up everyone?
Welcome to another recording of the podcast today. I have a really cool friend across the water coming from the uk. We got Rob Hannah here today and we're going to be talking about a topic that I talked about, you know, a few times, but we're talking about podcasting, the power of podcasting, community building, brand building. And Rob and I have our own podcast and I want you to be introduced to his podcast. If you don't, if you're not familiar with it and yeah, so we're just going to riff today, talk about some cool stuff and excited to have Rob here on the show.
So Rob, welcome man.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Well, thank you, Kevin, for having me on the show and a big fan of your show and all the work you're doing. And I know we share a lot of friends in the legal world on the LinkedIn lane, shall we say. And that's how we got connected originally. So it's a real pleasure to be here. Just by way of super brief introduction, as you kindly mentioned, I have my own podcast, which is the Legally Speaking podcast and I'm giving you my mic from over the pond to you right now. So yeah, that's a legal show we've been hosting since 2020 19. We sponsored and partnered with Clio, the world's largest legal tech cloud based organization. It's all around legal careers, legal tech and interesting things going on in and around the law. And in addition to that, I am, I own my own legal recruiting business which helps law firms hire and acquire quality legal talent from junior levels up to senior. And I sit on the board of some interesting legal tech and recruitment tech businesses and from time to time get the pleasure to travel around the world with my podcast to host events, do events and fun stuff like, like that. And we've had a whole array of guests come on. Anyone from Carol Baskin from Tiger King, believe it or not, through to incredible legal voices in and around the world of law. So yeah, that's me in a nutshell and I'm just delighted to be here. Talk about all those things you mentioned, which I'm super passionate about, which I think are no longer nice to have fluffy round the edges conversations. This is how you Win business. This is how you really stand out in the world of 2025 that we're in. Where, you know, digital is, is the number one place people are hanging out. And so if you need to have a thought, thought out strategy that's going to really help you stand out from other lawyers, other law firms out there. This is a podcast I think you should listen to very carefully because you can get some great insights and take action from day one.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Well, I really appreciate that. Yeah, we connected on LinkedIn.
So big on LinkedIn. I actually put together a list on LinkedIn recently. It was like top 45 podcasts that law firm owners should listen to. So not necessarily legal if you're not law podcast in the sense of learning the law, but run a law business. And so Roberts is on the list, of course, Rob says, and we connected, I think kind of through that effort there and gladly added his to the list. I've listened to his, it's amazing. So check that out if you haven't.
But yeah, I mean, I think we share the same, you know, views here and lawyers that are listening, running your own firms. You know, me and Rob were talking before we started recording. You know, really the podcast has been such a powerful tool for me and him and a lot of law firms that I know that, that have their own podcast. But there's so many advantages and opportunities that can come from you having your own podcast. If law firm. I don't sell podcast services. Rob doesn't sell podcast services.
But I, I think, you know, we can share a lot today on like what has it done for us? And again, if you're listening, you, you know, have never done a podcast before. It's just so many opportunities and so we can break some of that stuff down today I think and you know, how you can leverage it and, and how it's helped us as non lawyers really get accepted and be welcomed into the community. I know for me it's, it's been, it's been amazing.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: So yeah, absolutely. And, and for me, and look, the reason we're having this conversation is because we are, I think, hosts of our own podcasts. And I think that's the, the point here. It has a long tail. I always describe podcasting as a long tail. So I would personally say if you're very new to podcasting, guest on shows, right? Learn from other hosts, learn from other people, how they go about it and then that's a great way to then hopefully build up confidence to maybe start your own share if you're a Lawyer or a law firm thinking about it. But when I say long tail, just to offer a bit of sort of strategy behind this, you know, Kevin and I are now going to be talking for 20, 30 minutes, whatever it might be. We're going to have recorded content. And as a result of that recorded content, there's so many like AI tools. You could use a thing called Opus clips where you could take this long form piece of content and break that down into maybe 30 to 60 to 100 short form video clips that then could be repurposed onto your law firm pages. Could be your LinkedIn, it could be your Instagram, could be your TikTok. Yes, I said TikTok. You know, these are, these are places where, you know, potential clients, potential employees, potential people that might want to be investing whatever it is, like business people are hanging out. So from that video content you can create a short form and long form video social media strategy. From that piece of content you can then create a series of blogs and articles. You can put things through Otter AI, which is another great, fantastic, fantastic transcription tool where you can then create maybe six months worth of blogs and turn those boring, stale articles that don't have the keywords in, that aren't getting picked up on Google, which aren't necessarily Google Index Linked. And then you can release those blogs and articles in line with themes of the world or things going on in the world where there's going to be hashtags and there's going to be noise and there's going to be attention. Because we're in the attention economy, people have a finite amount of time and I believe to be successful you need to think about how you can acquire that time and you want to acquire that time where there is actually eyeballs, there's interest and there's conversation hacking. So I mean there's just a couple of things immediately that spring to mind that you can do. And I mean from my own personal experience, you know, like you said, it's allowed me to be accepted. I built thought leadership. We're now, you know, we're sponsored by the world's largest cloud based legal technology company, Clio. They raised 900 million last year. Know we're very proud partnering with them and we have the same values. Our tagline is inspiring legal minds transforming legal futures. Their mission is to transform the legal experience for all. So that's a thing when you're thinking about sponsors, if you get to that stage, think about alignment, think about whether it's key, key strategic alignment. And we're all Talking to the, the same audience. But the, the, the, the point with podcasting is it, is. It isn't a nice to have. I think it's a really powerful business tool where you can hold conversation, you can develop these conversations into relationships, deep relationships where referrals so much business and things off the back of that can happen. And it was one of the number one reasons why I also started my show way back when, because I have a legal recruiting business and I needed a vehicle in 2019 to set me out from other competitors and no one was paying attention to this. So I got Blue Ocean Opportunity quite early to jump into this. And as a result of that, I've been able to build on that momentum. Good to great, great book by Jim Collins talks all about momentum, capturing the flywheel. Highly recommend that. And we've been building and building, and now this year I'm off to Dubai with the podcast. We're potentially going to Kuala Lumpur. We're going to Ibiza. We're doing events where we have Shark Tank investors speaking for us. All these amazing things that you never thought were possible. But we just started and we had a bit of a strategy behind it and we've leaned all in.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: No, a hundred. Everything you just said is, is, is on point and amazing. And I think I started around 2019, 2020 for this podcast here and was a nobody, not, not known at all in the legal industry.
And so, I mean, just think, all those efforts you put in, now you're here on my podcast. I mean, imagine that.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it takes, it takes a long time to climb Everest, but when you get there, you know, it's nice, It's a nice view looking down. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Absolutely. But, you know, it's. It's so true, isn't it, that, you know, with, with podcasts, it's a great way to form relationships rather than necessarily cold outreaching. You know, again, imagine you're. Let's give a practical example. You're a corporate lawyer. You start with startups, right? Maybe you do. You don't always have to do a guest. This is a guest show, right? You invite guests on, you talk about, you interview guests, you extract their wisdom. But equally, if you're a law firm and you've got great partners or people with expertise within your firm, you could also bring those voices to your show and you can bring your corporate lawyers and you could talk about, like, the five things startups should be thinking about in terms of starting their business. From an idea phase to protecting, you know, thinking about, raising Money thinking about exiting and share thought leadership and do it in a fun, engaging way. And then through that 10, 15 minute podcast you can then circulate that. You can put it on your newsletters, you can put it out on your social medias, you can repurpose that content time and time again and a great, you'll start creating attention and you can create a website, put this on your firm buyer, your firm page. I always encourage people that come onto our show, put the backlinks for our episode onto their bio, bid on the Legally Speaking podcast because we're getting driven traffic to that audience. It's going to help them get searched, get ranked and get found. So yeah, I just think there's so many things you can be doing quite easily. And even now we're recording on Riverside fm. Go and check it out folks. It's a fairly non expensive platform to use. They even have a free version and they do all the editing for you. I mean it's, it depends how far you want to go. But there's AI tools where you can AI clip it, they can create the video slips for you, they can give you the transcript. So this isn't as much heavy lifting work now in the world of AI that it used to be. The key is just making sure you've got killer content that's relevant to the avatar, the client avatar that you're trying to talk to and you're helping them with either pain relief or some sort of satisfaction. And then you'll start standing out.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Yeah, a hundred percent.
You know, it's, there's other parts to it too, so we can kind of explore here. For one. Yeah, this is not as hard as it looks. It's very easy equipment wise, I mean, very small investment, um, software wise, variance, fall investment.
I actually have a AE and she, she handles production, everything, newsletters, all of it. And AI does a lot of the heavy lifting. So. But I think the other thing too is again, as a law firm, like how can a law firm use a podcast? Honestly, if I think about it, I'd have probably two or three different podcasts, but for different reasons. Like one, you could do content and talk about the law or in your case you thought about like startups, you know, so a startup would be like, you know what, I'm going to tune in and I'm going to learn how to do this and this, this law firm is helping me along the way. That's one way to do it. The other big thing is kind of with, you know, how me and Rob do It is, we're, you know, we potential clients, law firm owners that we have on the show to talk about what they've done to be successful. Gives them a platform and then we build that relationship. The audience is like the icing on the cake and the content, but the relationship that we build with real conversations, like none of this is scripted or like I'm not trying to like sell a law firm something like really true conversations about how law firms operate, struggles. They have success, you know, the success that they've had and telling their story and lawyers tune in to listen to that content. So it's if you're a law firm, I mean referral partnerships with other law firms, not a mission, just you being a thought leader in your space.
But the other thing is a conversion rate optimization. So think about someone drives to your website. A lot of law firms barely have photos of themselves that alone video. But with a podcast you get the video, the audio. They get to see you as a, as you are. Right. And for someone to hire you as a lawyer, they need to feel comfortable and need to have some kind of connection with the law firm that they're going to hire. So it gives you so many opportunities to, to build your brand, to build your, your personal brand as a lawyer and to build that trust with your potential clients. So it's just there's so many things that come out of doing a podcast and if you're not thinking about all those things and you're just doing like one piece of it, you're really missing out on a lot of opportunity.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean I know a, a lady in the, she works for link later as a magic circle sort of, you know, AML equivalent firm in the UAE and she recently started her own podcast, I think it's Lawyer Boss Mum or something. And she just speaks openly from her personal brand. You know, I think she was the first Emirati lawyer to reach partnership in the the uae. She's talked about the struggles of being a parent and balancing that and having three children. I'm still being a high profile lawyer working on big ticket work and you know, talks about variety of topics and I think she's new into the game and she's already got over a million views. I just had a million views. You know, so people are craving authenticity and people are craving stories. Facts tell, stories sell. So if you can get in the habit of storytelling or bringing great guests on that can storytell and take people on a journey journey. And you can evoke emotion if you can show emotion or evoke emotion, you capture your audience and then your audience wants to stay tuned. And I'll trust you if you keep showing up and offering value. So yeah, I mean, the power of podcasting, the power of storytelling, the power of building a personal brand, all of this stuff is real. And I think there's a real business case to justify. This is your best almost business development strategy over anything else that's out there. Yes, you can go to conferences, you can fly around the world, you can shake hands, but these, these digital platforms, these places and spaces where you're holding conversation, there's a real opportunity to, to win business and to stay relevant. Be top of mind. And that's the other thing. This allows you to be top of mind. Like Kevin, you're regularly bringing on guests, you're regularly staying out there. So when people are thinking about your, your, your service, even though you're not selling on your show, you're just offering nothing but value, sharing wisdom so law firm owners understand how they can run their practices. Be more efficient, be smarter, remove the pain points that they may be going through day to day. But you're top of mind when people want your services. Similar for me, I'm top of mind. We're talking about legal careers. You know, we're talking about what in and around within that. When people are thinking of a job, they're thinking of me. And so you know, when, like back to that startup thing, corporate lawyer, if you're just banging out thought leadership and you're banging out super helpful content, plus bringing some storytelling into that, plus bringing a bit of humor and edutainment, all of that stuff, you're going to be top of mind. When someone wants a corporate lawyer and they're going to, going to reach out to you versus someone else who sat there silent or doing very outdated practices.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: 100%. 100%. And the, the one you just talked about too, like, you don't have to do a podcast about personal injury law and what do you do when you get in a car accident? You know, I have a, a guest of mine, friend of mine, she has, that's like the hot mess lawyer. And she talks about being a mom and kids and a wife and oh yeah, she also runs a law firm with her husband. And you know, they talk about that too, but it's like a whole mix of just real life stuff and it's received very, very well. And so you don't have to get on there and talk about, I'm a lawyer with a suit and a tie and talk about that stuff like you can chill, relax. Bob Simon, friend of mine, has the Bourbon of Proof podcast. They sip bourbon in a real studio. Then he has guests on that. They just talk and shoot the shit and drink bourbon and they talk about the law a little bit in there, but they just have fun and as well. And this is 2025.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: This is 2025, right? People are craving that, you know, just, just we're in this H to H, the human to human connected world. And the more that you can connect with people and be authentic and be real. Like the reality is people can look at your profile, they can look at your resume or CV and see that you're a lawyer and you've got some credentials, right? But they don't know who, who you are beyond that. So if you can tell them who you are beyond that, that's where you're going to build that trust. You know, maybe you've got an awesome hobby, you know, maybe you are like the best ice hockey player in, in the world or whatever it is. Or maybe you're super passionate about that, or maybe you collect something, you know, and you want to start a podcast about this gives you an area of interest and intrigue. Because the reality is there's so many corporate lawyers out there. And yes, you may think you're better than somebody else or you're ranking in some recognition, whatever. It might be legal 500 wherever it is, chambers and partners, but these things, these extra things that you're doing, like you gave that great example of that couple there that run their own law firm, homos. I guarantee the amount of eyeballs on them will be 10x what some of the law firms are thinking about in terms of some of their marketing plays or social media plays relevant to sort of size. And that's just, it's low hanging fruit. There's an opportunity there for everyone.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: People work with people and they work with people they like and trust, right? So this is like a shortcut to that. It's a, it's what I would say. It's a shortcut to, to trust and likeability and the people that like you, like you and the people that don't, then, you know, that's it, is what it is.
And another, here's another thing, another tip.
I don't know if you do this Rob, but all the time I'll have clients reach out to me and go, hey, I have, you know, sales problem. Like I'm not closing as many of the leads that I'm getting. Hey, you know what? I have an awesome episode recorded with this gentleman. Crushing it here. He runs a law firm in North Carolina, and he's. He's figured that part out. I'm going to send you the episode clip, and then I'm going to connect you with him and you can have a call with him. I do that all the time, and I can use it for prospects, too. I just did this yesterday.
Guys starting their own firm in PI. They've never done PI before, but they have the money, the funds. They've been very successful in the real estate side. And so he's, like, asking me questions about PI law. Like, I'm a. I'm a marketer, but I know a lot because I've interviewed so many and I see the markets, and so I was like, you know what? I'm going to send you three episodes that would be helpful to him, and different. Different talking points and some of the best lawyers in the country. I'm like, here, here they. Here they are, telling me exactly what you're looking for. And if you want me to connect you with them, I can do that, too. And so it's so invaluable to be able to. To pull, like, hey, you want to learn about podcasting and why you should do it? Check out this. This episode with Rob and me. Like, here's why you should start a podcast.
So it just. When you do that and you're like, dang, this guy knows everybody. They're connected, they understand what's going on, and just. Your value just goes. Goes through the roof as a connector. Right?
[00:19:27] Speaker A: So I couldn't agree. Yeah, and we. We do that, and I use that again as part of people looking for roles. You know, hey, you know, again, we've had law firm partners or people who have made career. We're about the journey, so we use it in so many different ways. But hey, now, with AI and transcripts, it's a simple keyword. Find, question, find. Hey, we know your time poor. Go to minute 15 of this. Listen to minute 15 to 18. Get that bit of nugget straight off the bat. And then you. Like you said, I'm happy to connect you. So there's so many things like that that you can do that just separate you. Right? Because all you're doing is just leading with value and offering a fantastic service and giving people access to things that they're struggling with. You have a content bank. And I always actually advise when we have guests that come on the show, I always say, think about the top three questions you're always asked by Your ideal avatar. What are the top three things you just get fed up being asked all the time. Similar to, you know that, that LinkedIn inbox message. Because when you get that message you can be like, hey, thanks so much for this. I actually featured on these being podcast on this. Rob, here's this bit where I talk to this specifically. If you have any follow up questions or you want to know more, get in touch. You can create a simple template for that, tweak it a little bit, but so no longer are you ignoring those dead dms or not bothering to go back to them because you just don't have time. You've got some content is a one and done that then can be used and be shared out. Maybe you've turned that into an article which again you can share it out or you can signpost them somewhere, maybe get them into your law form newsletter or whatever it is, get them into a funnel. I know people don't like that word. I personally love that word. Because the reality is we want to get people into our, into our ecosystems because news alert folks, just because you're on these free, free platforms like LinkedIn, which we'll talk about is my favorite platform in the world, we don't own that data. So you need to get somewhere where you're housing people and making sure that if LinkedIn goes down, we've had Facebook go down or if things go down or things get bought or things change, that you don't lose access to these amazing people that you've been connecting with. So that's why I'm so big on building a community and getting that data so you don't ever lose it. And that's a great thing about podcasting. You could start a newsletter list, you can start a community forum. We've got a thousand members on a discord community where we engage, share videos, do do round tables, all of these amazing things. So yeah, really, really, really big point that actually.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And then all that can stem from just the podcast, right? So how did all that come about? Why did you build that trust? Why people following you? A lot of it goes back to podcasts for me. And you know, I have a LinkedIn newsletter, it's got 3,000 subscribers on LinkedIn, but then I have 3,000 plus email that we also distribute. Because yeah, LinkedIn could be like, you know what, we don't need newsletters anymore, you know, gone.
So and then another thing, it's something you touched on too, which again for law firms, imagine you get high volume calls, call it in People with questions, they don't have a case yet, whatever. Hey, we had an article that we wrote on that that could have come from the podcast recording or hey, they have these questions. Your intake people up front could be like, hey, I'm going to send you what's your email? You get their information, I'm going to send you.
This will be very helpful. Answer those questions you have and then you're helping them and then maybe they will come back and they have, you know, a case or they can sign up. So in your intake process, again, they getting to hear the lawyer, see the lawyer answered questions that you've already answered that you can all been off of, podcast recordings or whatever. But that's going to set you apart from. They call a law firm and they're just, you know, they don't have the answers or like they just want to try to sign you up or sell you. You have to have some of that content available and be helpful and empathetic. Usually when someone calls a lawyer, it's not a good day for them.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's where I use tech for good. I mean, I did a recent post about this. You know, a number of law firms that are just not picking up the phone to answer. You know, there needs to be a system in place now in 2025 for that. But like you say you can send that article or thought leadership, then you can easily get a very simple platform like score app, whatever it is, and you could do a seesaw, follow up. So you could easily do, you know, put a questionnaire at the end of this. How helpful did you find this on the scale of 1 to 10? You know, do you think you need legal advice off the back of this? Yes or no? I. Do you have any concerns? Yes. You've rated this. We'd recommend you get back in touch. Then you get a rebound prospect getting back in touch with you that's more vetted, more qualified, more motivated to buy your services.
And then you, you know what you're dealing with that data so you're not wasting that much time on an intake call, you know, finding out prospects, getting all the details because they've almost had a bit of a pre vetting through content and then a system and then they're getting back in touch with you. So this, this is powerful stuff.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, you know, again I go back to like, are you a customer? So I drive leads. So if someone comes to your website, right, and they fill out a form or they call or if they don't like you paid to have that person even visit your site and you paid for them to fill out a form, whether it's through ads or SEO or whatever. And it's expensive. Like, what are you doing to connect with them on a personal level, get them to actually take action and then from there, your staff, your employees, your culture, everything, there's a lot more to this is just all thought out. There's great follow up, there's empathy on the phone, there's all these things, right? But imagine being like, hey, I had a question about divorce. Are you getting divorced?
It's just something on my mind. I got questions. You know, people take years to get divorced potentially, right? Imagine me like, hey, subscribe to our podcast, we answer tons of questions on there and then every week they get a new episode, they tune in. Who are they going to go to, right? Who's the expert in their mind to handle that when they do get a divorce? And so again, there's just, there's so many opportunities, you can't even count them all.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: But, and I mean, there's the community element as well. With a podcast, like for now, we allow people to text our show, right? So maybe you are going for a divorce. Why don't you text the show and say, hey, you know, keep it anonymous. But hey, I'm looking for, you know, advice. I know you wouldn't give an advice on a podcast, but you can show the opinion or your thoughts or your suggestive thought to people and that's a great way to drive community. Like, hey, sending you questions to the show. At the end of the show, we'll do a five minute quick wrap up, Q and A or you know, shout out people that leave you a review. Like engagement. I think, you know, there's the difference between building an audience and building a community. Like we're, we're building a community rather than just trying to attract people to us just for the sake of it. So that's the really important point in my view and why we've been able to be successful, why we've kept in six and a half thousand plus cities, 350 episodes, top 1% in the world. All of that great stuff is because we've always put our listener in mind. So now, like if people have questions about their careers, they have worries about legal technology or thoughts about legal technology, talk to us. And we provide a platform where they can do that as well. Offline line away from social medias in our own communities, where we own. I think that's another way you can Build, build community. Like let people get involved.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: 100. 100. Yeah. I'm always like yeah, what questions you have? What guests can I have on? Like, you know what, what things have we not covered that we could, we could do before we on the show? And no, it's, it's got to be about the, the person on the other end. And, and for me it's just been awesome because we get a lot of clients that listen.
So they're listening to these bigger attorneys that have been very successful or you know, experts like yourself and they, they call and going hey, I'm about to start a law firm.
Can you help me? You know, or I have questions and, and sometimes we can't on the small scale, but I love those calls or those interactions where they're about to go off on their own and, and, and start this journey. And that's kind of what the show's all about. So it's, you know, that's pretty rewarding. So yeah, there's just so many, so many advantages. Again, if you're B2B referral partnerships have your referral partners and say if you're a personal injury doctors, chiropractors who refers you business get on the show and talk about those things with them. Build relationships with them through the podcast is a great way. If you're a B2B like a corporate lawyer you could have like if I was a corporate lawyer or, or B2B in my, in my local town like that's my area, just my city. Go have, have a business show, local business show, not a law show and have business owners that you'd like to work with talk about how they serve their business, run their business and become the no the go to guy for anything business in your local area.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: And I have an example of someone who does that sorry is Corey Cutthur. He runs, he's in the US Deal quest and he does it with his own show. Does a real corporate attorney but just invites entrepreneurs business owners on and just does you know, build community. And he gets so much inbound business off the bed.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And so you're not talking about the law, you're not talking about yourself. You let. This is about the guests. And so and then if you're a B to C and you don't want to talk about say personal injury which I would suggest this one here referral partners, one way to do it. But you can be also become your community. Go to just. My podcast is going to be about all the new restaurants in London or Miami and like Just become the go to show that people, you know what, anything you want to know about food in Miami tune into this show. Oh, it's, it just happens to be hosted by, you know, a, you know, whatever law firm or, you know, attorney, so you can kind of get creative with, with things. But the point is you're building a community, you're bringing value and people want to tune in. And so instead of like sponsoring the radio station, just you become your own. Like this is the go to place for this XYZ topic. So there's all kinds of things you can do. If I had more time in a day, I'd probably have a few podcasts meet me too.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: But I think the thing that I always try to get across. I'm hoping your listeners here are feeling uncomfortable, I. E. Because the comfort zone is great, but nothing grows there, right? And so the reality is you need to get out of your comfort zone of doing outdated media, boring adverts, social media stuff that's not working. And understand that podcasting is on a growth trajectory. There's a real thirst for podcasting. And just look at it. There's big money going into it. You look at Spotify for podcasters now they're offering exclusive deals for, you know, niche shows because, you know, there's competition against Apple podcast, Spotify podcast, podcast, like this big business YouTube. So there's, yeah, there's, I. There's real eyeballs paying attention and wanting and craving. You know, we actually look at it. Normal TV is, is going down. You know, even some of the, the big channels and social media handles over here are getting more views than some of our national press. It's pretty crazy. But the main thing, as I say, is there's a real coi okay. And this is what I want to drill into the partners and the lawyers listening to this because they're going to be like, what's the roi? And I say, forget that. If you're looking at from an ROI immediately, you're looking at this from the wrong lens. Of course there needs to be something that comes from it. Return on investment needs to come. But it doesn't come through a cost of inaction, which is a coi. There was a huge cost of inaction for me not starting my podcast. I wouldn't be where I am today. I wouldn't be getting so many inbound leads. I wouldn't be speaking for the lights of Reuters flying around the world, have this amazing sponsor, have all these potential. And by the way, then you get affiliate deals. You can do so many other things you can do. You know, if you are that, if you are that podcast that's doing something that's non related to law, you can then maybe look at affiliate deals to start some of the people that are looking to sell their products or services. Now we have our own merch line, people are buying our merch around the world. It's just crazy. But the main thing is look at it as a cost of inaction. What if we don't start a podcast in 2025 or now? Like what, what could we potentially lose out on? Or actually we've seen they, they're doing it and they're just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and we're just sat here on our hands thinking, what do we need to do? Well, cost of inaction. So be this your call to action, to take action.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Love it, Absolutely love it. Um, and yeah, for me, you know, I've been doing this for quite a while and you know, how do we up the game, right? So like this year we're, we're doing so much more and more content and you know, going to shows and on site recording and just kind of getting creative with it, getting fun with it, trying to have some of the best guests that we can possibly found around the world. And it's really, the sky's the limit at this point. Even when I started the podcast, I would invite someone on and they would just come on. I had no audience, I had no backing, I had no sponsors. No, you probably couldn't even find the podcast anymore because it wasn't even published yet. So. But it's something about it that, you know, don't be scared to invite someone on because they'll stop what they're doing to come on. And some of the most busiest people I know, law firm, law firm owners that will schedule it, they'll make it happen, they'll show up so you don't have to have everything figured out and equipment and a studio.
I've seen a lot of people just do that. Like, yeah, we built all this stuff out and we just never recorded one episode.
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[00:33:56] Speaker A: Done. It's better than perfect. Perfect never gets done. And a strategy we used when we first started the podcast, when no one was listening, it was just me pretty much in a, in a, in one room with a microphone is there is a strategy we use to start the show. So think about in your audience of guests you would like who has distribution. So we invited the presidents of the London Young Lawyers Group as our first guests. And the reason we did that is the great people. Anyway, great story, great. You know, it helps people with legal careers. Bang on our topic of influence. And I can talk about topic of influence, but that's something you, the pain point, you want to be known for your show. So for us it's all about legal careers and legal tech. So that is the pain point we're talking to. So when people put into Google, that's what we want to be known for for our show. So have a topic of influence. What is that pain point you're serving that you're trying to help people with pain relief that are searching for and you to get strategic with your episode title so people can find it? All of that good stuff, that's a whole strategic session itself. But we invited these guys on because they had a newsletter list of 7,000 people. Right. So what are they going to do if you give them a great experience on the show and you build a rapport and you do a good job. Oh, hey, do you guys mind sharing this and putting this in newsletter inclusion? So bang your audience tracking off the back of your first guest. So even if you get half a percent of those 7,000 that actually subscribe or listen to your show, you have a chance to then turn them into fans. And then superfans are being consistent, hitting the nail on the head with good quality content again and again and again. And so yeah, I would always think about it when you're first starting out, like who are people that you know could give you immediate distribution and help you grow and get out there?
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Yeah, good tips, good tips. Sign up for Rob's free training. That's good.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Or they could just listen to this over and over and we can do. You can do another. Another deep dive sometime.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. I mean, so, yeah, I'll, you know, we could just go on and on. So anyone listening, probably hearing us, we can just. You just keep rolling. There's so many ideas and things that come out of it. And here's where we're talking. It's like, oh, I can do this, I can do that.
But questions reach out to me And Rob, like, DMS, if you're looking at this on LinkedIn, I put this on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, email, all the audio platforms, and then we drip it out through reels and shorts and stuff like that. So, but if you have questions, DM me anywhere that you're seeing this. If you have questions about starting your own podcast, I'll send you a list of equipment steps. I've given talks on this before and then Rob obviously knows a lot, probably more than me. So ask us questions, we're happy to answer them. Jump on a call and, you know, just to help you if it's starting a podcast.
So.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: And I think a tip, right, we're like you, we're. We're hugely oversubscribed, which is, you know, obviously from when we first started, no one knew us. No, you know, no one wanted to come on the show. We had to go out there and build. But the main thing is we took action, like I said. But now, obviously we get a high value of volume of people coming and we get brands and people want to kind of get involved. My biggest tip to you is if you want to get on an established show that you know is going to be good for, your personal brand is going to give you, and you need to give something to that audience first. So my biggest tip is rate and review and listen to the episodes. Take a screenshot of that rating review that you've done on Apple podcast, attach it to your email, whatever it is, and like, hey, Rob, I'm a big fan of League speaking podcast. I specifically enjoyed listening to these two people. And these are lessons and learnings I've got. I've just given your show five star rating. Here's attached a screenshot. And these are the reasons I love your show. I noticed from looking at your website, actually, you haven't covered this particular area, but I think it'd be valuable for audience. This is my value add and where I think I'll be useful for your show. And then wiftm. What's in it for me? Oh, and by the way, I'll make sure my law firm shares this. And we've got 4,000 followers on LinkedIn for you. Or we'll make sure that we promote this in our newsletter, which has got over 20,000 subscribers. We've been running that 10 years, so bang. Would that be of interest for you? Let me know. So you've gone in with, researching the show, offering value to the show. You've then told them about your area of expertise that's relevant to their ideal avatar, and then you've given them the what's in it for me to get them to buy, which is distribution. Podcasts are looking to grow. They're looking to get more eyes, ears, people interested in their show so they can grow and get their messages out there, even if it's a no. Now you've made a great first impression. So when a message just like that, even we couldn't get you on. Now, we'd certainly want to keep in touch with you to make something work. So that's just a simple strategy when you're looking at established shows, because established shows will be subscribed. You need to do the work to get on there. It's like imagine you're trying to get a good radio spot, you're trying to get on radio, you're trying to get on tv. You've got to do something to stand out. So that's just something I would, I would say in terms of trying to get into established shows.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: Absolutely. And then, you know, you doing. So if you're hosting your own podcast and you get on these other shows and it just, guess what they're going to mention. Oh, Rob has his own podcast. You should check it out.
And you're, you're getting some of that, some of their viewership go and go check out their podcast and any good host would probably mention, hey, how can we they connect with you, Rob? And check out my podcast. Check me out, you know, link, connect with me on LinkedIn. So you're, you're kind of expanding your, your reach and you'll pick up some of those subscribers if, if you're going on these shows. So, yeah, awesome tip.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: I think, you know, you've talked about it, you have a LinkedIn newsletter. We also have a LinkedIn newsletter. And I think what having a podcast also allows you to do is LinkedIn is my main platform, so I'm lucky enough to be a LinkedIn top voice there. You know, we've built around 40 or 3,000 followers, you know, 17,000 on the newsletter. And we're consistent. But what the podcast allows us to do is to have a strategy. A strategy rather than sort of plucking around thinking about what I can post and this, that and the other. So on the Monday, and. And LinkedIn is pushing video, right? So they're pushing vertical videos, so we record videos, so we can easily make sure that we've got two or three videos, or I can get two or three videos out in a week, then I've got a newsletter again, LinkedIn. At the moment, they're pushing newsletters. Brilliant. So at least I can get some content out because I can repurpose what I've said in my posts into a newsletter. The other thing that we do, which I think is quite different, quite genius, I say myself, is we, we have an alumni shout out. So we have a Tracker for every 350 guests that have come on our show. And if they do a LinkedIn post or they make an announcement about some they'll award they've won, or they're set up a new law firm, or they've had some market recognition or something good or something positive's happened, we give them a shout out in our newsletter and re tag them, then drive that traffic back to that episode, right? So we're boosting the downloads on an existing episode, we're shouting out someone. And by the way, the tip is if you can try and get people that are on a career trajectory where their brand is going to keep going like that, when you repurpose their episode and They've got another 20,000 followers, or they've got another law firm they've just set up, then you're going to get extra bang for your buck. So that recording you did, when they're on the start of their journey, now they're at the top of the journey, you're going to get higher visibility. So always keep an eye on your alumni guests who are making movers and shakers, because it's a great way to shout them out, hijack audience again and get attention. And as I said, we're in the attention economy and everyone's online, so you got to think about how you can stand out.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: Great tip right there. So I've had about 360 guests. I think at this point I've done something similar. So we have a sheet for every podcast guest and every client, made sure that we're following them on all our socials everywhere, and then we're resharing and doing comments on their post. I'VE kind of scaled that, so we're doing it more like that. But, um, and then we have an outreach program, too, for, like, all of our past podcast guests to ask for referrals, ask for guests that they'd like to see on the show, and we reach out to them often through email and things like that.
But yeah, we're tracking every guest and making sure that we're engaging with their content, sharing their content, and then also reaching out to say, hey, who else do you know that would be an awesome guest or maybe do you know, all from that could use marketing. You know, that's what we do, and it's a reminder of what we do. And. But it's a light ask, and it's a great idea.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: You're building community with what you're doing there as well. It's not a transactional exchange. It's not a, you know, one and done. It's like, we want to stay in your world, we care about you. Like, we want to support you, champion you, and, you know, everything you shared. There is the difference between building an audience and building a community. And I think if you've got your community, then the level of engagement, the people that are loyal to you, the quality of the referrals you'll get for your show, the quality, the inbound leads you'll get for your business, all of that good stuff will just 10x. So, yeah, I absolutely agree.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: And then I also, some of my, My, my alumni, I have them on multiple times. Like, there's some folks out there that I can have them on 10 times. Like, they, they're that rockstar. They've done so many good things that one episode is just, you know, not enough. But their audiences are massive as well. And so it's building that relationship and having them on, like, every, you know, six months, like, hey, what's up? You know, we're good friends. And, and they're sharing that out again. Their audiences are growing.
So, yeah, it's.
It's kind of like a, you know, a snowball effect, you know?
[00:43:02] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: I love it. Everyone go start a podcast.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: Yeah, everyone go start a podcast. Tell us about it. I'll support it, champion it. I'll listen to it. I'll. Yeah, and that's the thing. Once you get into a podcast community as well, you'll find a lot of people are actually quite supportive, collaborative, want to help one another. You know, as long as you've got a unique angle and it's interesting content, people will want to help you. So yeah, there is space for you to have a podcast or a podcast show, for sure.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: It's insane. Like, think about, I have the number somewhere. I'm not sure if I'm fresh, but there's like, I forgot how many billions of websites. Right. We build websites for clients. Everyone's got a website. It's like having a business card. Billions of websites. And there was like, you know, maybe 13 million podcasts. If you do the. Really the difference in those numbers, there's so much room and so many room for niche and focus podcast or a community podcast. Kind of like, we talked about this.
There's still a need and podcasts have been around for a long time and it's. It's the hot thing to do, so you better jump on.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I hope we've inspired some people with our chat today to. To do that.
Yeah. I feel like we've then done our job. And remember, the magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. So I think that's really important. You know, if you're avoiding this because it sounds hard, it sounds difficult, there are people there that can help you. But equally, you can just keep it super simple to start with, start small, and just gradually. You know, all the things that, you know, Kevin and I have been doing, you know, we've done over 7, 800 episodes between us. We've been doing this for a long time. Of course it's going to roll off the tongue like it's. It's easy. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but when we both started, I was speaking for myself. When I both started, I didn't do half the stuff I've done now. But once you lean into something, it's like when you, you know, it's a building block, isn't it, of your asset and this is your media asset that you're trying to extract value out from multiple different ways to win. Not only clients, but also people, lawyers who want to come and work for you, suppliers that want to work your firms. Like so many different layers and that long tail of a podcast, that really.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: Matters, man, it's, you know, from, you know, I think we have about 50 employees full time.
When we have someone that shows up for interview and they're like, I've listened to multiple podcast episodes.
They knew our core values because they're proudly shown everywhere. And we work into everything we do, a candidate coming with those, and that happens a lot over someone that's like, doesn't know much about us, wants to know more about the company before they end the interview night and day. Right. So, yeah, for me, and me as a leader and having employees and staff, it's like they get to see me twice a week, talk about running business if they care to tune in. So there's a lot more, again, limitless possibilities here and advantages to doing this.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: I mean, we haven't even talked about what some of my other lawyer friends are doing, like using the Metaverse for virtual experiences, immersive experiences. They have like a hallway where you can go in through your Oculus and, you know, so many things you can do now. You know, we're in it. We're in an advanced tech world. And I think you, you can no longer be a laggard, particularly if you're a modern, modern business and law firm. You. You've got to start thinking about these things. But then we love all this stuff.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: With, you know, AI and everyone's leveraging AI and you know, that's the. It's going to get even crazier. But the end of the day, people still want to talk to people. They're still going to work with people, and that won't be replaced. So, you know, just this gives us all that platform. It gives you the brand, it gives you the credibility, it gives you the thought leadership.
And you'll stand even more again as, as things become more automated, AI, stuff like that. And, you know, you're going to be your face out there. You're going to be the one that's talking about what, you know, your, your background, your experience. So, yeah, can be replaced. So, Rob, I appreciate it, man. Great, great conversation.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Well, thanks for having me. Really enjoyed it. Like, super comfortable and that's good. You know, the, the art of being a great host, which Kevin is, you know, makes you feel, guests feel comfortable, extra lakes value from them, you know, has a good time. Hopefully the audience enjoys the conversation. But yeah, this has been a blast. Like, big fan of the show. Love what you're doing and I hope your listeners, you know, take action on at least one thing, what we've said today.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: I hope so too. They better. I'm gonna, I'm. I know where you are. I'm gonna make sure you are. So, Rob, what's the best way for folks listening my lawyer friends to connect with you outside of tuning to the podcast?
[00:47:42] Speaker A: Yeah, LinkedIn is my favorite home. So it's just Robert Hannah. If you do Robert Hannah, you'll be able to find me on LinkedIn. And then if you want to check out our podcast, it's leaguespean podcast.com you can have some more, more details there. And if you are a lawyer and you're thinking about career moves, then, yeah, check out my company, kcpartners.co.uk Absolutely.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: That's awesome. Check him out. Connect with Rob again. If you want a different connection with him, somehow reach out to me. I'll connect the two of you directly and tune into his podcast. So everyone, thanks for tuning in. Hopefully it was helpful and we'll see you soon, Rob. See you, man.
