In today’s episode we’re sharing a presentation from MacLawCon 2020. Our originally scheduled MaxLawCon 2020 speaker Billie Tarascio presented LIVE to the Maximum Lawyer Guild community and today we share her talk: Bringing Your Marketing to Life.
You can also watch the video here.
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Transcript: “Bringing Your Marketing to Life” with Billie Tarascio
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum liar podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Unknown Speaker
In today’s episode, we’re sharing a presentation from Max law con 2020. That’s right, originally scheduled Max slot con 2020. Speaker Billy Terrell co presented live to the maximum lawyer guild community. And today we share her talk bringing your marketing the life, let’s get to it.
Billie Tarascio
I am a family law attorney in Phoenix, Arizona, and I also help other law firms any law firm issues they have my firm is modern law. And I will talk a little bit about that in this presentation, which is going to be on bringing your marketing to life going beyond 2d marketing to really become characters. So most marketing for lawyers, most bios, most images, most descriptions are absolutely boring. They are very, very focused on a two dimensional image of who you are as a law firm, as a lawyer, and with what you do. So the best characters in life are not two dimensional. They’re three dimensional, they are much more than the guy in the suit, who plays the role as a lawyer, you know about this character, if they’re a great character, you know about their struggles, you know about their home life, you fall in with great characters who have a lot of different things going on with them. And I think you can do that with your law firm. But most law firms are doing a really bad job. So I was making this presentation yesterday, and I Googled, Arizona Attorney near me, I wanted to just pick the first Arizona attorney I could find with a bio. And I went to this website, and I took this first paragraph from their bio. And now I removed the name, but it says a trainee has been recognized and awarded by many independent organizations for his excellence in representing his clients. While nice, far more important to him are the many former clients and their families who reach out to express their appreciation for the positive impact he has had on their lives. Okay, I’m not going to read this to you because you can see it. But if this was in your hometown, or anywhere, like think of all the lawyers that you know, can you identify any particular specific lawyer from this bio? No, there is nothing here that is anything other than something that is just androgynous. Like it could it could apply to any one of us. It’s kind of like when I talked about if you guys have heard my talk about pizza and law firms and values, if your values are innovative, knowledgeable and professional, it doesn’t set you apart. And that’s the same thing. So we want to take that same concept of being able to describe yourself with such particularity that somebody can look at your bio and understand exactly who you are. So what else can you do? Where do you start? Well, why do people hire, the best way to figure out what your clients are looking for, and what they value is to look at their words, look at what they write, go to your reviews on Google on Avo, wherever you can find your reviews, and read what they said I just took one of them yesterday. And so when you look at this review, don’t think about how happy the client is, or the fact that you got a five star review. Look at the words they used to describe what was important to them. So this person is saying that is opposed to cream matter. They Their divorce was final, but they had new demands from their ex. By the end of the first visit. I felt hopeful there’s your first description, hope our job is to deliver hope your words and your ability to call your clients after hours isn’t the same thing as being able to tell the person the potential client in marketing that you can deliver hope next thing he said was reassurance. And the next thing is super important that I had done nothing wrong. The problem was the unreasonable behavior of the ex. Every single one of your clients wants to be validated in the decisions they’ve made. Now, this is something that most attorneys like, who teaches us this, like we don’t, we’re not really thinking about validating people. We’re thinking about analyzing and solving problems, but every single person who’s out there who’s searching for a lawyer or who’s sitting across from you wants to be validated. So your marketing should come up with a way to validate them as much as possible. And then what else did they say wonderful, supportive, encouraging, and above all professional at a fraction of what it would have cost had I gone to my previous glare, that all of that is a little less important and a little less instructive than this stuff up here hopeful reassurance I’ve done nothing wrong. If you look at your reviews, you will get a lot of information that is very useful that you can use. Now I want to tell you a story, you are looking for a persona. So when I say you have to be three dimensional, and you have to be character, it has to be a version of yourself. You don’t have to share information that you’re uncomfortable with or that you really deem private, you have to understand your persona and your alter ego. So on my 30th birthday, I was in Las Vegas with a bunch of my girlfriends. And we decided we were going to come up with alter egos for the weekend, because why not. And my alter ego was not yet Nadia was from Brooklyn. And she was kind of hardcore. And this started at I think the rain tree forest cafe. And at this point, we had all chosen our characters, and they brought the appetizer late. They didn’t bring the entree they brought or they brought the entrees before the appetizer. And when the waitress came over to ask how it was I went into full Nadi abroad Well, honestly, it wasn’t that good. You brought the appetizer late. And we think that we should be getting a free dessert, or whatever. So like, turned on this character. And it was super fun. But later in the night, we’re out on the strip. And these creepy dudes are walking behind my best friend in my office manager, Caitlyn, who some of you might know because she’s been my friend for so long, and they started smelling her hair. And I turned around in full Nadia mode, and like, Bitch to these dudes out was just like, What the fuck do you think you’re doing? And like, completely went off in Nadia, on these dudes. And they were like, Oh, my gosh, we’re so sorry, I ran away. But it was a fun character like to this day, my friends. And I will sometimes bring these characters back. And she was a version of me, not the professional version that went to law school and became a lawyer and as a boss, and as a mom of four, but a different version of me that had taken a completely different path in life and was a badass from Brooklyn. That’s not my reality. But I can channel that and become that. Now when you are choosing your character, you need to pick a version of yourself that your clients want. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to figure out how to combine what your clients want, with some version of what you could have been or the version of what you are when you are in your very best lawyer, you know, outfit. And that’s going to be different for me than it is for you than it is for my other attorneys in my firm. So here is the opening of my bio. When I was 19. My parents went through divorce, hadn’t seen it coming, especially as the drama of the divorce and the resulting custody battle unfolded. My brothers and I were heartbroken. Our worlds were completely rocked. At the time, I was also aware of the role that my parents attorneys played in this life changing transition for all of us. Their divorce changed the course of my life. And that’s when I knew I wanted to be a family law attorney. What we do as family law attorneys affects people’s lives, the lives of their children for decades. And I absolutely love it. So the reason that I wrote this is because it’s true. It’s a version of the truth. Do I get into the sordid details of their marriage? No. Do I share my divorce, which is relatively recent, and I’m not ready to share? No. But if somebody reads this, and they’re thinking, they’re going through a divorce, or they’re thinking about a divorce, they’re like, Oh, she gets it. She gets it, she gets that my world is falling apart. It’s not about the awards I’ve been given, or the school I went to or my level of experience. It’s about understanding the fallout of this transition on kids on humans, and why I do what I do. So this is part after also, another thing that we did to really get these characters of not just me, but my entire team was we got some professional pictures done. We brought in hair and makeup, we went into an old anthropology thing. We got a photographer, we picked some colors and some clothes, and we tried to become a character the essence of our channeling are our most powerful lawyer self. I’m in this leather jacket that like the first time I put it on one of my attorneys was like did that come with a heartedly? Because like, it’s a version of Nadia, like I am a force when people hire me and they want me to be their shield and they want me to be badass and they want me to be the person that will bitch out the people that are smelling your hair. And so what I’m choosing for my outfit for my outfit in my headshots is something that conveys that so huge Use the character and then you figure out how to convey that. And then you bring it to the rest of your team. So this is our group picture that we took last June, when we brought in this, this, this photographer, and hair and the makeup. And we did it all. And there wasn’t a lot of props in this old anthropology building, but one of them was a table, and I’m five, two, so I jumped on the table. And it’s in our conference room. And people’s individual pictures are also in the conference room. Because when I’m doing the consultations, and I’m I’m always handing off because I really don’t keep a lot of cases, I want to be able to point to these other people and come up with who their stories are. So Henry, on the left is an immigrant from Colombia. And he’s not just an immigrant from Colombia, he fled Colombia on foot, and on horseback and joined a circus, and made his way to Canada, and enter the United States through asylum, where he learned no English, he’s a fighter. And he’s got just life experience that he brings to clients. And so for the right clients, you want to bring out those key characteristics of your people, Don, to the right, we call him the godfather, he’s had more than 40 years experience he carries with such authority and such knowledge. And he’s practiced in so many different areas of law. And he can get mediations done because people just look at him and crumble. So this is the type of information that you want to be able to use to describe your people. Here’s a couple more, but I won’t bring you through all of it. Here’s another picture that we took that day, just so that we’ve got a couple of different ones that we can use, we’ll probably do it again. Because I think like we’re in a society right now, we’re in a place right now that is very, very visual. And so you need words, you need visuals, you need movement, you need video, and we’ll get to all of that. But what what can you use this in, you can use this in your social media. So I took the same headshots and use Canva and turn them into different advertisements for each person in my firm. So yeah, this one says after 40 years in practice, yeah, you can call me The Godfather. And he just takes care of everyone. Like he’s just very godfathers. So like, invest in your people enough to learn them and know them. And here’s the opening of his bio. He talks about the day he left Nebraska after he graduated from law school to go to Phoenix to begin practicing law his father filed for for divorce from his mom. And that was his first experience. And, and his dad used somebody that he knew as a lawyer. And then his mother never spoke his father’s name again, like what is he conveying here, he gets it. When we have a consultation with a divorce client, they are bringing to us their entire life, they are sharing their entire life story and they’re so vulnerable. So you need to figure out what you’re comfortable giving them preemptively to be vulnerable as well. This is reciprocity. Don’t expect them to come in and share their their whole story, their finances, open their bank account, talk to you about their sex life, talk to you about their kids, while you sit there stoic, like the attorney. Like because we have a professional relationship. Yes, your relationship has to be professional, but it’s also personal. And so the more you can embrace that at least a version of it, find your Nadia, find a version you’re comfortable sharing. And then the other thing we do is we keep it very real. We don’t keep it just professional. And my law firm, we do yoga, we have an instructor who comes in and and is basically a personal trainer for us twice a week that anybody can use. And we take pictures, we do acro yoga, like so we’ll hold each other up with our legs and like do stuff, because it’s fun. And it lets off steam and it builds our company culture. And it also I also use this not just for attracting the right clients, but also for attracting the right people to our team. So the people who are going to do well at my law firm are going to understand what it’s like to work with my law firm, guess what I require you to be comfortable taking, I’m going to take your picture, I’m going to put you online. So if you’re not down with that, like you don’t my law firm because it’s part of our culture. And we work out together and you know, you’re not required, but it’s strongly encouraged. And sometimes I do require it because it’s good for us. It’s a great team building exercise and I believe in growth and I believe in home health. So if you see these hashtag it’s yoga days, you’ll get work yoga for lawyers, culture matters. Yes, we are hiring. It’s easier for me to recruit because my marketing is not just for the right clients, but it’s also for my future employees. Don’t forget your staff. So Candice is bio This is Candace and she is a paralegal. She is my paralegal. She has been with me for a long, long time. And this bio right here, has attracted clients. She’s not a lawyer. But the bio starts with you know, I was in a long term abusive relationship from the end of high school through my early 20s. What started as young love turned into Fill Out warzone, I was surrounded by verbal, physical and emotional abuse from someone who thought recreational drug use wasn’t an issue. Then she got pregnant. And you know, these bios are raw, they’re real. They’re obviously like, endorsed by each person, I don’t, I usually write them because people have a hard time writing as much drama. And I know kind of the level of drama that I want. But of course, it has to be okayed by them. And it’s a little cathartic as well, like, this proclaims her story, and she owns it. And it’s brought us quite a few clients. And it also empowers her, and it tells other victims of domestic violence. It’s okay, we’re not better than you. So and then this is a post that I’ve used about Canvas, and it says all single mothers have superpowers, Candice has superpowers, her brain and her well, and she’s just an absolute badass. You can also take these photos, and use testimonials to create posts or advertisements to proclaim how amazing you are. So what are we doing here? This is about becoming three dimensional. So we’re using a lot of things. We’re using images that capture who we are, and what we want to be. We’re using words of clients and our testimonials. So this one is a little blurry. So it says Kylie and Amanda were amazing to work with. They helped me get 5050 joint physical custody with my daughter that I wanted. And then here’s another one, you know, Kylie, and everyone was always good about answering my questions. Modern Law always put me at ease with everything. We collect client feedback from every single client at the end of a case, we use that to get reviews online, we also use those words in our advertising. So all of these are part of a combined effort to become three dimensional and who we are. This is a Facebook post. So here’s my picture. Here’s a testimonial from a client. And here is here it was its post on Facebook. So you can do it on Instagram, you can do it on Facebook, you can do it wherever you want to. And then there’s video, don’t neglect or forget video. This is Jen. She is our Certified Legal dock preparer and our paralegal for modern law. And she does a video series here of like 10 short videos about information and what is a certified legal document preparer, what is I do over and we just become more real and more three dimensional when we take it to the next level and add video. This is one of the other shots from our video shoot, as you can see, like my face is completely like the guy, the photographer took some license. And you can see that as well on Amanda’s is pretty it’s pretty photoshopped, but like, it’s fine. We’re work. We’re characters we are, we’re becoming larger than life. We’re embracing a character and acting within it. So that is the end of my presentation. And I would love to answer any questions. Well, Norman
Unknown Speaker
says How did you go through the process of determining who your alter ego is?
Unknown Speaker
So I think if you, you know this, your people know this, your clients know this, like, Why do your clients choose you? It’s not because of your awards. It’s not because of where you went to law school, you have something very specific about you, that you offer your clients. And so it starts with figuring that out. Like, why are people hiring? Why are they choosing you? Is it because you’re nurturing? Are you? What type of a leader are you like, what are you bringing to them? And then think more about that. Okay, you know, are you that grandfather type? Are you like, I can tell you, the six attorneys that I have, we all have different alter egos, and they’re all versions of ourself. So it’s it’s the amped up version of what makes you great. So you have to start with figuring out what makes you great, and what makes you unique. And then how do we Photoshop it and turn you into a superhero character?
Unknown Speaker
Awesome. And he said he followed up with do you have multiple potential alter egos and then choose one? Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker
think that’s a good point. So we all have a lot of different ways that we can embody who we are, but you have a sweet spot. And it can be it can it can use more than one characteristic. So like, I’m going to use an example. If we talk about Henry Henry is the the guy who traveled on foot and on horseback from Colombia where he was escaping violence all the way to Canada. He has a lot of different things about him. He’s, he’s an academic. He’s a writer. He’s a researcher, he leaves no rock unturned. He is. So how do I tie this in? Well, he’s tenacious, he’s brave. He’ll take on cases that other people won’t take on and he will advocate for a client no matter what their position is. So that in Not all lawyers are like that some lawyers have different risk tolerances, and his risk tolerance is pretty high. And his level of commitment is pretty high. So if you have a crazy case, and you want somebody who’s going to be able to take it all the way, like he’s the guy, he’s great in court, he his experience and his language makes it so that people really listen to him because he’s got an accent. And he can present your case in such a colorful way. So I think you can take all of the characteristics and build it into your super your alter ego superpower.
Unknown Speaker
Awesome. If anybody wants to connect with you follow you, where’s the best place to do that at?
Unknown Speaker
You can find me pretty much anywhere. I’m on Facebook, I’m on Twitter, I’m on everything. Instagram, you can email me I’ve got like multiple websites, I’m not hard to get ahold of if you want to email me. It’s Billy at my modern law.com.
Unknown Speaker
All right, and we did have a follow up. So do you try and act like your alter ego when talking to clients? Or is it really more limited to the marketing man? He said, Sorry, he’s just interested in this concept.
Unknown Speaker
You don’t have to say sorry, we were supposed to be here till at one so I mean, the alter ego is real. So I’m not acting. I’m embracing. So there’s a difference between like embracing Nadia, like normally I don’t speak with a Brooklyn accent and one a bitch out these dudes, but But I hate bullies. And I like defending people and I won’t tolerate like, I won’t tolerate someone making somebody else uncomfortable or picking on them. So it was real when I bitched out these guys on the Las Vegas Strip. And I’m real when in consultations, I let people know that, you know, their ex’s behavior isn’t okay, and we won’t tolerate it. So it’s the same thing.
