Podcasting to Play the Long Game with Danny Ozment

Most small businesses, whether you’re a solo lawyer, own a small firm, or even run a big firm, have to make connections. Building relational capital is vital for getting business through the door, but, like most lawyers, you want to do the things you love and excel at, and not have to spend time on things like social media, a blog, or promoting marketing campaigns.

This is why starting a podcast should be strongly considered as part of your growth plan. And this week, Melissa is speaking to Danny Ozment, the founder of Emerald City Productions: a podcast production and consulting company that helps people use one piece of content to expand their brand.

If you want to know why starting a podcast is smart for you as a law firm owner, tune in. You’ll hear how Danny helps his clients cover all their marketing bases using one piece of content, why starting a podcast isn’t as tough as you might think, and how podcasting is a long-term investment that will amplify the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

If you’re a law firm owner, Mastery Group is the way for you to work with me. This program consists of quarterly strategic planning facilitated with guidance and community every step of the way. Enrollment will be opening soon, so click here to learn more!

What You’ll Discover:

• Danny’s thoughts on why law firm owners should consider building relational capital through a podcast.

• What referral marketing on a grand scale means.

• Why Danny believes podcasts are the best option for any service professional to build trust with potential clients.

• The 3 barriers that hold people back from starting a podcast.

• Why, even though a podcast is a long-term investment, it’s worth sticking with.

• How you can repurpose your podcast ideas for more content marketing opportunities.

Featured on the Show:

• Create space, mindset, and concrete plans for growth. Start here: Velocity Work Monday Map.

• Join Mastery Group

• Danny Ozment Website

• Emerald City Productions

• Edison Research

• Ernie the Attorney

Enjoy the Show?

Leave me a review in Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you listen!

I’m Melissa Shanahan, and this is The Law Firm Owner Podcast, Episode #179.

Welcome to The Law Firm Owner Podcast, powered by Velocity Work. For owners who want to grow a firm that gives them the life they want. Get crystal clear on where you're going, take planning seriously, and honor your plan like a pro. This is the work that creates Velocity.

Melissa Shanahan: Okay, everyone. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode. I am thrilled to be here with Danny Ozment. And, this is long overdue. So, welcome to the show, Danny.

Danny Ozment: Thanks for having me.

Melissa: Oh my gosh, absolutely. I think we both have… I guess I shouldn't speak for you, but what I was gonna say, was a deep love for Ernie Svenson, Ernie the Attorney. I call him my angel. I feel like he's an awesome human, and it's such a privilege to know him. You guys are really close. You've worked closely together for several years now.

Danny: Yeah, he's one of my clients and a friend. He's just, like you said, he's a very generous individual who takes care of his flock, his group, whatever you want to call it. He really looks out for the people that he works with.

Melissa: Well, do you want to maybe just introduce yourself a bit to the audience? What you do?

Danny: Sure. I own a company called Emerald City Productions. I think the official LLC, or the official whatever it is in Florida, because I had to move it, is Emerald City Podcast Production and Consulting, or something like that. EmeraldCityPro.com. So, we help people produce and launch podcasts, manage podcasts, market their podcasts.

I started out as a musician; I always thought that I was going to be a musician. I even got a master's degree in music, and went into the nonprofit arts world for a little while. But some things changed with my family life, and we needed a little bit more flexibility.

So, about 13, 14 years ago, now, I started a recording out of my house, because I knew how to do some recording. Started working and recording some music groups, and bands, and a cappella groups. And during that time, you know, we're 17, 18 years into podcasting at this point, I started listening to podcasts, early on, maybe a decade ago, a little over a decade ago.

They were helping me. They were helping me with my business. They were helping me with my life. I noticed that there were a lot of podcasts that just did not sound good. I was working in the recording industry, and you know, I know how to make people sound good. Like, let me help some of these people out, because this is just ridiculous.

They should be able to do this easily. I do it in my house. I go on the road and travel with gear. It's really easy to do this. I record right to my computer. I can teach people. So, I just reached out to some of the people I was listening to. And they were very, very willing to let me help them. I started doing it for free.

And then eventually, it became part of my business. Now, it has completely supplanted all the music stuff that I used to do. It's maybe been 6 or 7 years now, since I even worked on a music project. Now, I work with a lot of, let's say, service professionals, busy professionals; a lot of lawyers, law firms, accountants. I have therapists, consultants, coaches.

All who either had podcasts and needed help managing them, or wanted to start a podcast because they saw that it might be able to do something to help their business. That's what we love doing. That's pretty much what we do full time, at this point.

Melissa: That’s so great. You're talking about your history as a musician, and for those who can't see him right now, he has a set of drums behind him. And so yeah, do you still play?

Danny: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, I used to live in Nashville. I had a big recording studio in my house; like, a six-figure recording studio with multiple rooms and all this amazing stuff. And the huge window, with the huge mixing console and all that sort of stuff. And now, we've moved to Florida, Orlando, and I have one room in my house. Basically, that's all I need at this point.

Melissa: Well, you and I were going to chat about this idea that law firm owners should consider, when it comes to marketing themselves; yes, for sure. But something you and I were talking about before we started, is just building relational capital with an audience, and with potential clients, and potential referral partners.

I would love to hear what you have to say on that, based on your experience. Because you've worked with a lot of law firm owners. You've helped them lift a podcast off the ground. Why do you think people, law firm owners, should consider it? And I'm also curious, are there certain practice areas that lend itself more to the success of this than others? Or, across the board you could find your way with it?

Danny: Yeah. Well, any service professional, and especially lawyers, do consider it. Because, for the most part, lawyers are very similar; law firms, small law firms, solo lawyers, even bigger law firms, are very similar to even my business; most small businesses. We have to make connections. We have to build relationships to get business. Whether that's referral sources, whether that's people knowing who we are, whether it's trusting us, needing to trust us, before they hire us.

I have an example. We're in Orlando, and we just added solar panels to our house. Which is really great in Florida; it's sunny all year. HOA’s, actually, in Florida aren't allowed to say ‘no’ to solar panels, things like that. So, it's really great.

I did the normal thing, just as many people would do with a lawyer, I went to Google® my business. I searched in my area, who are the solar companies? And of course, there's probably 100 solar companies that install solar panels, in Central Florida. And some of them are national companies and have local, whatever. And just like law firms, there's the Morgan and Morgan's of the world, and there's all this stuff.

I was like; okay, so, who's got the best reviews? Okay, it's these three or four. So, I reached out to those three or four, to set up meetings for them to come and talk to me. And then like, maybe three out of the four, actually set up meetings. I had them. I picked the one that felt best to me. Like, I enjoyed the talk, and trusted the person the most.

When we were sitting in that conversation, I said, “You know, one thing I noticed was that on all of your websites, there was no content marketing,” there was no blogs. Like, there was maybe, a few blog posts explaining some things. But no one had a YouTube® channel, no one had a podcast.

I said, “If you had had a podcast, it would have been a no-brainer for me. Because I would have been able to listen to some episodes, get to know you, as the owner of the company. Learn some stuff that you could have told me. We wouldn't have had to spend as much time in our meetings, here at the house; save time for both of us. I would have ‘liked’ you. I would have, maybe, not even had another call, if I'd had that opportunity.

And so, that's what it is for lawyers. Is that, whether you're talking about your practice area. Whether you're just talking about the area that you live in. Whether you're being like the digital marketing mayor of your town and teaching people about this wonderful place that you live. It's a great opportunity, on a podcast, to spend time with people.

I like to call it “referral marketing on a grand scale”. Because, you know, when we think of referral marketing, yes, it's someone recommending a service to someone else who is a friend of theirs, or who trust them. But the trust is the key, right?

It's not a referral if someone just says, “Oh, yeah, I use this product.” The referral comes when they say, “Oh, yes. You need this thing; you have this problem. I know someone who can help you with that problem, who can solve that problem, and I trust them. They are the best at this. You need to go to them.”

Like, for instance, Ernie is one of my referral sources. I have several clients that have come from Ernie saying, “Hey, you need a podcast. Go talk to this person. This is who I work with. This is who I trust.” And really, with a podcast, when you are the host and you've got people, listeners, who are spending time with you each week; maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes a week; they are getting to know you as a friend. They are trusting you.

When you say, “Oh, you have this problem with this real estate deal,” or this estate planning issue… Like, my daughter has some medical needs, so we have a special needs trust. So, I need to go to a specific lawyer. And I need to know that they have this knowledge. If I can then listen to their podcast, and hear that they care about this. Or, maybe that they have a family member that has medical needs, and that's why they got into this area of law. I'm going to do whatever they say.

If they say, “Come to me for this,” I'm going to that person. That's really why it works. I could throw out, you know, a bunch of other stats. And, maybe we can get more into this, but the way people behave with a podcast, a listener… This is proven stats; we do a yearly study. We, I say we; Edison Research, which is a really recognized research organization.

They do a yearly study of podcasts, that they've done now for over 13 years, if I remember correctly. And, they find that 93% of podcast listeners listen to more than half or all of every episode. I see that play out when I look at our clients’ stats, as well. I mean, their average episode consumption, by listeners, is 75%.

That means, if you do a 20-minute episode, you've got people for 15 minutes. If you do a 30-minute episode, it's even more. Forty, forty-five; that's a lot of time. And when you think about other areas like YouTube. Or, maybe you've got a blog on your site, where people are reading it for five minutes. Or, YouTube, they're watching two minutes of your five-minute video; there's a big difference there. These people are your friends. And that's why, for me, it's the best option, for any service professional, to build trust with potential clients.

Melissa: I mean, everything you're saying, I agree with; I feel like I've lived... This podcast has existed long enough, I've lived to see some of what you're talking about. And, it takes time. That's something you and I were chatting about is, you know, what are barriers for people not starting one?

From my seat, the people I get to work with… Let's just take Mastery Group, for example, that's the group that I run. I am fascinated by all of them. They all have unique spins on what they do, and how they think, and the value that they bring to people. I think there's one person, maybe two, that has a podcast, out of, you know, 50+.

I would love to see them shine with their expertise and connection. Because they care so deeply, but they're kind of behind a wall. And even if you have marketing campaigns in place, and someone helping you with that. Getting to know you, I don't think there's any other way like a podcast to do that. Right?

I know people, like you said, people talk a lot about YouTube. But what's fascinating is, it doesn't surprise me at all, is that people will stay on there for two minutes or three minutes, maybe, max, and then miss the rest of it. Where podcasts, you can have on in the background, and you really do get a sense for someone; that makes a big difference.

I think it would just amplify the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, and of your… Just like you were saying, with the solar panel company. If they would have had a podcast the conversion probably would have happened so much faster. I just really appreciate what you're saying.

Going back to this idea that this is a long game, and you're sharing for the sake of building relationships, and putting stuff out there so that people can get to know you. And I think, sometimes people get deflated when they don't see things happen super-fast, and the phone doesn't start ringing at week four. I'd love to hear you talk about that.

Danny: I mean, to put things a little in perspective. For instance, you know, a lot of people will think about YouTube. And YouTube is a self-contained network, right? YouTube was built, actually five or six years after podcasts started. Because podcasts are very similar to blogs, they use a RSS feed. And so, YouTube, they'll say all the time, you know; oh, this video has 1,000 views, or this video has 10,000 views, or this video has 1,000,000 views.

But they don't understand that a view is not very high quality, at all. A view is, maybe someone spent, like 5% of the time watching the video, they didn't get far through it; it still counts as a view. If they then click ‘play again’, it's a view. Whereas with a podcast, like the average podcast gets about 165 downloads per episode, after about 30 days.

If you have 1,000 downloads per episode, you are in the top 20% of all podcasts. The top 1% get more than 10,000 downloads and episodes. So, the number’s lower, but like we talked about, it's a lot more time; those 165 downloads, they are spending 15, 20, 30 minutes with you. That's a long amount of time.

But people, when they hit that point where they're choosing, like what are we going to do for content marketing, there's a lot of barriers. There's a lot of hurdles of like; oh, this is going to take time. We’ve got to think about this.

If it's video, we've got to have a camera. We've got to get our makeup on. We’ve got to get dressed. We’ve got to plan it out. We’ve got to decide whether, are we going to have edits, are we not? People can see the edits, they'll know I did the, you know, whatever.

And then, with a blog, people might think, “Well, a lawyer. It's very easy to write a blog because they write all the time. But while you write in a certain way as a lawyer, versus marketing content that people can understand, you still have to plan it out.

With a podcast, especially for lawyers, you're used to talking. Most lawyers are used to talking in some way; whether it's in the office, whether they're dictating, whether they are actually trial lawyers, or whatever. They're used to talking to clients, they’re used to explaining things.

It's very similar to, like I mentioned, I've a lot of therapist clients. They're used to talking to people, so it's a very easy thing for them to start a podcast. But with a podcast, it's still hard work. It's; okay, I’ve got to plan out these episodes, I gotta get the equipment. They do need to be edited, but it's easier to edit. So, you won't sound like you're being edited. But then I got to figure out; okay, I got to publish this.

And that's partly what my company is; we help people with all that back-end stuff. But then, the person starting a podcast starts to think about; oh, it's only 165 downloads. So, remember the quality; it’s quality downloads, but it takes a while. And like you were saying, it's a long-term investment.

And so, I spend a lot of my time helping those clients deal with the; okay, yes, it's gonna take a long time. But the quality of the listener is so much higher, and that's why you have to stick with it. It's a long-term marketing investment. But six months in, a year in, a year and a half in, you are building up this core audience of people that trust you like a friend.

And they are becoming, not only people that you are referring to come to you, but they are now referring you to other people. Whether they need a real estate lawyer or not, or a family, you know, family law person. They have listeners who know people who need that. And if someone says, “Oh, yeah, I need help with this…” I’m like, “Oh, I listen to this podcast that this person does, and talks about the city I live in. But they're a family law attorney.”

We had one client, who he is in a very, relatively small town in Louisiana: maybe 10,000 people in the town. And he just did a podcast because he wanted to talk about the town. He wanted people to know more about the town. And oh, yes, you know, it was sponsored by his firm; he's a personal injury attorney. But what started to happen, was not only did he have like 1,000 people join his Facebook® group, and know he's lives in the area, and know he's a personal injury attorney.

But anyone in that area, whenever they needed any type of lawyer, they would go to him. And so, now he's getting referrals that he can send to others. You know, he's getting that that sort of thing, too. So, there's all sorts of ways that this long-term investment can help you out.

I know you wanted to talk a little bit about repurposing, and how doing a podcast can help you with your other marketing. But in terms of the investment, there's all sorts of reasons to stick with it. When you're a lawyer, it's not only the fact that it's easier to talk and hit record, and you're used to doing that. It's also that connection, that quality of the content marketing that you get from the podcast, that is the reason you stick around and keep doing it.

Melissa: You know, as you were talking about, and we talked a little bit before we push record. As you were talking about just, you know, the long game, it makes me think. You know, I lead strategic planning retreats, and there's times where the projects, or Rocks, that they say that they're going to do that quarter, sometimes they are long game kind of things. And sometimes they are short term bumps; it'll just kind of give a bump to revenue or bump to whatever.

As you were talking about this, it almost feels like this mental picture, in my head, of a freight train just getting speed and getting momentum; is how you should think about this. I think having a partner to help, so that you aren’t the only one that's putting the power behind it. Because it is a lot, I think, especially. It's overwhelming if this isn't your world, this isn't your game.

I mean, I was super overwhelmed when I started mine. I didn't start mine with any help. Which, I mean, I was just starting out, it just was that the resources weren't there, yet. And over time, resources got there. I was like, “Wow, it's so much easier when someone else's brain is really driving this train.” I'm hoping that that helps someone.

Because there's times where you'll do something, and it's like a little rocket that's just shooting off really quickly; and it's purposeful, and it's a decision you made. This is not that. This is more of an ‘it's going to take a bit to get some momentum’. But when it does, it is a freight train. At least that's what I've experienced for myself, and I'm sure that your clients have experienced that, too.

Danny: Definitely. It organically grows, and it gets easier and easier. You know, we work a lot with clients, early on, to encourage engagement with their audience. Like, actually getting the audience to talk back, ask questions, answering those questions, getting them involved in some way. It's a fine line, for lawyers, about being able to offer advice and things like that on their podcast, but they can certainly answer questions.

We've had clients bring audience members on and interview them about issues they've had, or bring on former clients and talk about their experiences and what the process was like. But yeah, I mean, that's partly why we do a lot of this. That's why we exist,  Emerald City Productions, being able to support.

Because we know that the small business has to do all types of marketing; they have to do long-term investment marketing, they have to do short-term investment, they need to do medium range. They got to do Facebook ads. They've got to do bus vinyl wraps and things like that, and billboards. They also need to have an email list. They also need to have a blog. They need to do some video. They need to be on TikTok®. They need to have Instagram® reels. They also need to do, maybe, a podcast.

And so, we get into the habit of helping these clients concentrate on one piece of content, that then generates all those other things. I mentioned repurposing, that's literally the services we offer to pretty much all of our service professional clients, lawyers included.

Here's all you have to do. If you're starting a podcast, here are your first five episodes. Here's what I want you to do. And then, after that, you're just going to answer the questions you get all the time, or you're going to talk about things going on, changes.

We have a client who is an immigration lawyer, who has a firm that works with tech startups. So, she's always doing… Every week, there's something new, something has changed. There's this new thing to explain. There's this new way, this new visa, this visa affects this country differently, so there's always something new to make people aware of.

But once you get into that, we only want our clients to have to do that one thing; hey, you're gonna record that 20-minute episode about this J-Visa, or whatever. Then, you're gonna send that to us and you are done. You're done with your work.

My team is going to take that episode… Which we tell our clients, “Hopefully, you streamed it live.” So, you put some video out there in the world, live. You maybe had some people ask questions in the comments, and you could answer those. But now, we've got video and we've got the audio. We can take the audio and we can turn that in your podcast episode, we can edit it down, clean it up, take out all that live mumbo-jumbo that you have in live stream situations. There's your podcast.

We can take the video, and we can clip out some minute long things, and there's your Instagram reels and your TikTok videos and your micro content. Oh, and then we can hand it off to our copywriter, who is going to write the show notes for your podcast episode. And so, you've got that; which is attached to the file, and that goes on your website. We're going to put that on your website for you. We're going to upload the episode.

Maybe, like a lot of lawyers love to put transcripts of their episodes up, as well, for accessibility; we can do that too. And then, we're going to send out an email to your email list each week, to your tag of people that want to hear about the podcast. So, now they get it; it comes to their inbox; they click on a link, and they've got the show notes right there. It takes them right to your page. So, they're on your website listening to your episode. And then, maybe if they have another question, they can go to other parts of your website.

We then also turn the episode information into social media posts. So, we've got that copy. We create graphic templates for all of our podcasts, so that each week we can update the graphic template; post the TikTok, post the LinkedIn® post, the Facebook post; it's all there.

It's visually appealing, and it updates people, and has a link so that they can listen to the episode. I'm trying to think if I forgot anything. So, it's that idea. If you're busy, and you're a lawyer, maybe you're solo, maybe you're a small firm, and you've got a couple paralegals, maybe you've got an assistant that's helping with the office, you don't have time to do the marketing, too.

You're likely already hiring a digital marketing person to help with your website, help with your Google My Business™, help with SEO, all that sort of stuff. We're sort of the same thing, but we're all the other stuff. We aren’t just creating this one piece of content. Oh, I forgot, yeah, I forgot one piece of content, as well.

You just record this thing. And out of that you're gonna have your YouTube channel, you're gonna have a blog post; we actually turn the episode into a blog article, as well. So, you’re gonna have your video audience covered, your blog reader audience covered, your podcast listener audience covered, your social media covered, your email list covered.

We even go further. Like we have all different packages. We have one package where we create a downloadable executive summary of the episode, each week. So, it's not the transcript. It's much more cleaned up, 1,000 words, 1,500 words; here are the big points in this episode.

We set it up as an opt-in. So, each week, each episode, there's an opt-in on your page that if people want to download that PDF, they have to join your email list. And so, each week you're dripping a few more people onto your email list. There's all sorts of ways to use one piece of content and save yourself a lot of time, when you know you have to be doing all this marketing.

Melissa: Right. I think the point you're making, which is so great, is that if you sit down for 30 minutes, 20 minutes, and cover something specific that you want to cover, and then you're able to, if they partner with you, they're able to have all of these assets that can be used within the business.

And so, again, sort of building that freight train; this really strong machine of content that you have, and you help create that. The one thing, in the last few minutes, I would love to cover, is why people don't do it? Like, what gets in their way?

Because I think it boils down to perfectionism.

Danny: That's one of the hurdles we see.

Melissa: Not everybody is a perfectionist, I realize that. But there's usually something in your head that’s keeping you from doing it. Like, if I can't do it full out, if I can't do it perfectly, I'm not going to do it. Well, okay, if you hire a partner, like Emerald City Productions, then that takes care of that. Because they will lead the way. Or, I don't know the perfect equipment to get. So, first of all, sound does matter.

Danny: It's not hard. At this point it’s not hard.

Melissa:  You can do some research.

Danny: I generally see three hurdles, three barriers. Where people are like, “Hey, I love listening to podcasts. It would be so cool to do a podcast, but I don't have time. I'm not really good with tech. Or…

Melissa: Either they’re perfectionists like they…

Danny: Yes, definitely. The perfectionism one, is actually the one I hear the least; it's usually time or equipment. So, the thing with time, for a lawyer, I get it. Especially if you're small firm, or you're solo. That's why, again, we do a lot of the repurposing. But I often work with clients on thinking about; okay, do I have time each week to do this? Okay, if I don't have time each week to do this, the best solution is batching, or batch recording.

And so, we work with clients on; well, do you have two afternoons a month, where you could record three 20-minute solo episodes each way? Where you do 45 minutes of planning, and then three consecutive 20-minute recordings. Within three hours, you've now got three episodes. Then, another afternoon that month, you do the same thing. And now, you've got six episodes.

If you're doing a weekly show, that's now a month and a half of content. Oh, and then another day, a month, a morning, could you schedule two interviews? Like, could you set that one day, where your assistant is maybe talking to other people or other experts, or other people you would like to… Maybe listeners you want to bring on, clients, former clients you want to bring on? So, the time can be worked out. Most lawyers can block their schedule or figure out a way; this is my recording.

Melissa: All lawyers can do that.

Danny: And then, tech. Six years ago, 7 years ago, I would have said, “Okay, yeah, well, you gotta get this. And then, you’ve got to get an audio interface or a mixer, so that you can do this and bring the calls in.” But now, it's as simple as, “Okay, buy this $100 USB microphone, plug it directly into your laptop, or your MacBook™, or whatever. Use Zoom™. You've used Zoom, right? Like, in the last two to three years, you've probably used it a lot.”

So now, it's even easier because it's like, we don't have even have to explain how to use Zoom anymore. We literally can just say, “Okay, go into the settings and check this box, because we need this box checked to get the separate tracks for the people.” So, there's your tech handled, because…

Melissa: Also worth mentioning, that what you just said about the $100 microphone, because a lot of people I work with have this. I have this in me too. I mean, the first microphone I bought was $400. That was stupid.

Danny: Oh, yeah. I have a $400 microphone. I’ve worked with $12,000 microphones.

Melissa: Okay, wow. Well, what I was going to say, is you and I have the same mic, the one that you were just talking about. So, it's not what people think; it's so much easier than what people think.

Danny: We’ve gotten past that. And like, we help people, if you're gonna do interviews, here's a checklist that you send to your guests. And you say; please do this, please have this, please make sure you're at least using your Air Pods™, or something like that; ear buds to record. So, the tech now, is just a really a non-existent issue.

We actually spend more time with new clients thinking about; okay, yeah, you've got this $100 microphone. The reason I picked this one is because, A, most listeners can't hear the difference between this microphone and that $10,000 microphone I used in my recording studio, in Nashville.

So, it sounds good. It sounds good in a lot of rooms. And then, that's where we get into the; okay, to record your podcast, you do need a room to record in. That, most likely, can be your office. But here's what you need to do. If you have wood floors and no carpet, you might want to get an area rug, to knock down some of the reflections off of it, the sound reflections. Do you have bookcases in your room? Good. Like, that's really helpful.

Be within, you know, two to four inches from the microphone, like you and I are. And then, boom most of your problems are covered. So now, let's move on to perfectionism. I love hearing that from you, because I'm also…  I haven't heard that from clients in a while. Because the great thing about the podcast, is that you can talk for 30 minutes, you can talk for 40 minutes; the average podcast length is actually like, 50 minutes long.

My podcast, I've never gone more than 15 minutes in a solo episode, just because I'm not verbose. I just don't talk. I get to the point, I do it, and I'm done. Because, you know, I'm busy, too.

So, lawyers can do that. But you can also do 50 minutes. And in 50 minutes, you have a lot of time to be yourself, right, and not be perfect. And people then trust you more, because they hear that you're an actual human being. We’ve talked about Ernie; Ernie has 260-some episodes of his podcast now. And that gives people a chance, all the lawyers that he works with, that gives them the chance to hear who Ernie is. And be like, “Oh, I like this guy. He's funny. He's a normal dude.”

Ernie’s told me multiple times, that if he had it to do all over again, rather than start his blog in 2004, he would have started a podcast. And, he was early on in blogging. Like, he was figuring out some of the crazy blogging stuff at the same time the podcasters were, you know, attaching wires together and trying to figure out how they could do a radio show on the internet.

It's that element of, you don't have to be perfect. You can riff, you can talk for a little bit, you can rant if you want, you can really share your personality in teaching people something. And that's the beauty of it, because you don't have to be perfect.

Melissa: I hope listeners just take away that this should be considered, strongly considered, as a part of their growth plan. And, it really isn't as tough as what one might think. And, you know, we didn't really talk about consistency, but it comes down to the same barriers that we were just talking about.

Why people aren't consistent? Is they don't schedule the time; they don't take it seriously. You just have to decide this is what you're doing. And batching, like you said before, batching to record multiple episodes, you don't have to do it every single week.

Having a partner, like you guys, to help law firm owners get this together, is invaluable. Because, I don't know how in the hell, I have stuck with a weekly episode for three years. A large part of that without a partner. And, you know, you find that person that can really make the difference for creating ease with this machine that gets to be built. With this freight train that you're getting momentum with.

Danny: I like that analogy.

Melissa: Yeah, it feels true. I'm gonna use that more when I think about my own stuff, like, is this a freight train or is this a rocket? Yeah, so I hope people will reach out to you to learn more, or to hear about the packages that you have. Maybe just kind of get over themselves and have fun with it.

Because it can be a lot of fun. If you can take some of the stuff that isn't your expertise and have somebody else do it. It can be a remarkable journey, that's fruitful. How do people learn more about you? Where should they go?

Danny: The easiest way, is EmeraldCityPro.com I think the lawyers will be impressed because we've done a whole big SEO project on the site. But the site is really great now for getting your questions answered. And also, finding out about how we can help them, what we can do.

Because, like you said, you want to have fun doing this. And if you know that you have to market your business, market your firm, you want to do the thing that you love, and not have to waste the time on all the other things of; okay, I've also got to do social media, now. I've also got to do this. I've also got to write a blog. We've got to do this. We got to start this marketing campaign. We got to…

If you can have a lot of that taken care of by one piece of content, that's a great way to stay consistent, promote in a lot of different ways, and reach a lot of different audiences at the same time.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. So good. Thank you for coming on.

Danny: You're very welcome. I'm glad you had me.

Melissa: Yeah, this has been great. We should have you back, if you're willing.

Danny: Happy to do it. Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah. Just every so often, just to chat through what you're noticing, what you're seeing, results that you're seeing through working with people. Yeah. Well, hey, thank you so much.

And thanks, everybody, for tuning in. Go check out EmeraldCityPro.com Get your questions answered, and figure out how you can work this in to build something really long lasting, playing the long game. But one more thing I found a quote, “Playing the long game means paying a small price today to make tomorrow easier.”

Taking time to record the episode, hiring someone to make this… Like, this is playing the long game, and it makes tomorrow easier. Not tomorrow tomorrow, but future tomorrow. This just feels like a really smart thing for people, for any business owner, but we're talking to law firm owners, to make a part of their plan. Yeah. Thanks.

Danny: Thank you.

Melissa: All right. Have a great day.

Hey, you may not know this, but there's a free guide for a process I teach called, Monday Map/ Friday Wrap. If you go to velocitywork.com it's all yours. It's about how to plan your time and honor your plans. So that, week over week, more work that moves the needle is getting done in less time. Go to velocitywork.com to get your free copy.

Thank you for listening to The Law Firm Owner Podcast. If you're ready to get clearer on your vision, data, and mindset, then head over to velocitywork.com where you can plug in to Quarterly Strategic Planning, with accountability and coaching in between. This is the work that creates Velocity.