Most lawyers who start a podcast quit before it ever pays off — because they’re playing the wrong role in their own show. Dennis Meador explains how flipping the host-guest dynamic collapses a three-year payoff into six to eight months, and why one episode should never be just one piece of content.
In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Dennis Meador discuss:
- Pricing without context and the median-low trap
- The “perpetual guest” podcasting model for attorneys
- Who should — and shouldn’t — start a podcast
- One episode into 30 pieces of content
- Cumulative effort, burnout, and the long road
Key Takeaways:
- Quote a price before you understand the need, and you’ve priced yourself at the market’s median low.
- If a prospect won’t let you contextualize your value, that’s information about the prospect, not your pricing.
- Podcasting is the wrong tool for anyone expecting the instant lead flow of paid search — it demands time and a piece of yourself.
- Positioning matters more than production: the person answering the questions is the expert, and the host’s job is to make them look good.
- Bursts of intensity burn out. Consistent, ethical, reviewed-and-improved effort compounds, and compounding can’t be outmatched.
“I’m not worried about them getting 10,000 downloads. I want them to get 25 downloads of people in their market with a very specific problem.” — Dennis Meador
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About Dennis Meador: Dennis Meador is the CEO and Founder of The Legal Podcast Network, providing turnkey podcasting and content solutions for legal professionals across the United States. An entrepreneur since age 14, he brings over 20 years of experience in law firm marketing, having scaled three marketing companies from under $1 million to over $3–5 million in revenue within one to three years each. Combining a background in business, digital marketing, and podcast production, Dennis helps attorneys establish market authority, differentiate their practice, and engage prospective clients through authentic, conversation-driven audio and video content.
Connect with Dennis Meador:
Website: https://www.thelegalpodcastnetwork.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-legal-podcast-network/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: [email protected]
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fretzin [00:01]
Hey everybody! Before we get to the show, just a quick reminder about the Be That Lawyer community. From my podcast to my books, this is clearly the next step for you in your growth and development as a rainmaker. Stop doom scrolling and start micro learning, connecting, and getting fresh ideas from growth-minded lawyers from around the world. Visit bethatlawyer.com/community to sign up today. Build your book, own your future, and be that lawyer.
Narrator [00:33]
You’re listening to Be That Lawyer: Life-Changing Strategies and Resources for Growing a Successful Law Practice. Each episode, your host, author, and lawyer coach Steve Fretzin will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:59]
Hey, everybody! Steve Fretzin here, and welcome to the Be That Lawyer podcast. We’re 640 something episodes and going strong. This has been just the the most fun I have in my day to day, other than helping lawyers to build their books, own their futures, own their futures, and be that rainmaker. I got to say, my Dennis, I got to figure out my tagline, right? If you stay,
Dennis Meador [01:18]
yeah, you stammer
Steve Fretzin [01:19]
on the tagline at all. You just be
Dennis Meador [01:21]
that, and then the other. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [01:23]
I could do some fancy editing like you do, but I’ll tell you, I’m I’m going for the real thing here. If I’m gonna screw up, I’m gonna let everybody know about it. Build your book, own your future, be that lawyer. All right, now you heard it twice, so getting it ingrained in your brain. I’m so happy you’re here, my friend. Like you and I are like two peas in a pod. I think we both totally get marketing and branding, and I’ve got so many questions for you that I’m excited to ask. It’s good to see you, man. What’s what’s new? Everything good?
Dennis Meador [01:49]
You know, baby is due any day now. The 16th is the due date, but at 38 weeks, it can be any day. So, you know, my wife is like, “Oh, my knee hurts. It might be the day. So every day I have a little mini hearty heart attack, and we’re just getting ready for that. Then we’re doing six weeks of paternity leave. So I wanted to make sure to hang out with you before I did that. So thanks. That’s it.
Steve Fretzin [02:11]
Yeah, your timing’s impeccable. Before you’re going to go away for a long time, hang out with me. Do you guys have like a night nurse that’s going to help out at night, or no?
Dennis Meador [02:19]
We do. We have a night nurse at night, a day nurse during the day. You know, so that I can focus more on just being there with my wife and child instead of the frazzled. Like we’re not like holding up and getting frazzled about being parents. It’s more like trying to have an experience of being parents, but have that help to kind of support it as well. So we’re excited about it.
Steve Fretzin [02:40]
So I’ll put this out there for everybody. If if you’re married and you’re having kids and your first kid and you learn nothing else from this show today, zero, you learn nothing. But you took away the fact that two weeks of a night nurse is a good idea. It’ll save you a lot of a lot of agony during the first couple weeks of of of having a new new baby. Then then then there you go. You learn something from being that lawyer today, folks. No, we’re going to do better than that, Dennis. I think we can. Let’s jump in. Let’s do our our quote of the show. Cost without context is commoditization. Is that a Dennis Meador DM original?
Dennis Meador [03:12]
I mean, it’s kind of one of those things in society now. We read so much, we see so much. I’ve said it for years. I don’t know where I got it. I’m not going to claim it as like you know one day like I saw it written in gold letters across the ceiling, but like as far as I know, yes. But if you read it somewhere else from the 1800s, then you know that’s where I got it from. I don’t know.
Steve Fretzin [03:34]
All right, but but tell us about it. Why why do you like that quote?
Dennis Meador [03:38]
Well, I think it applies to a lot of industries, I think talking to lawyers, right? They pick up the phone, and someone says, “I need an estate plan. How much is it? Cost without context.
Speaker 2 [03:50]
Yeah,
Dennis Meador [03:50]
like you know, then all I’m doing is I am presenting what I have as the median low of whatever it is that I do,
Steve Fretzin [04:01]
yeah.
Dennis Meador [04:01]
If I just go, oh, it’s this, without really understanding what they need, what they want, and so like attorneys ask me all the time, well, how much is it? Well, I’m not going to talk to you until enough. And you know, we say, listen, it’s hundreds, not 1000s, to work with us, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 [04:13]
Yeah.
Dennis Meador [04:13]
But on top of that, it’s like, listen, if you don’t understand the context, like if I go, hey, you want to buy this car for 500 bucks, and you’re like, no, and you walk away. And I was like, okay, it was like a two 2026 Bentley, fully loaded, 500 bucks. But you walked away because you had no context.
Steve Fretzin [04:32]
Yeah. So
Dennis Meador [04:32]
that’s why I I found, especially when you work in knowledge industries, if you don’t remind yourself of that, you sink to the median low, and if you don’t remind others of that, they will push you to the median low. So that’s why I like that statement.
Steve Fretzin [04:47]
I’m going to throw in one little little sales non sales free selling tip about people that ask for price too soon and they want to talk about the cost. If some because people want to know like yeah, like you said, like how much is that estate plan, or they want to say Steve. How much it costs to work with you, and I don’t know anything about what they need, what they want. There’s no context, right? So I’ll say, I’ll say that’s a fantastic question. I probably the most popular question I get from lawyers. Unfortunately, it’s like asking me how much does a bag of groceries cost. I don’t know when what’s in the bag, and I don’t know if it’s Cub Foods or Whole Foods. So you know, let’s let’s spend half an hour together. Let’s figure out if there’s a good fit, and if there is, we’ll definitely talk about you know what the investment is at the end of our meeting. Tim, not I have nothing to hide, and that just like takes everything the temperature down
Dennis Meador [05:32]
for the first time in years. I’m telling you this right now, I am stealing that, and my people are going to start using it. I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s you know the local grocery store or Whole Foods. I don’t know if there’s caviar in that bag, right? Yeah. Or dried beans. Right. Love it. That’s great, man. I’ve got
Steve Fretzin [05:47]
lobster and steak in the bag, or I got you know canned beans. Right. Like you don’t know what what we’re even talking about right now. So like you want to get to the end of the story, and I haven’t even read like the forward yet. Come on, man. Let’s let’s get real. By the way, if somebody doesn’t get that and they just no, no, I just want to know what it costs. Know what you’re dealing with. Like, know that this is either a tire kicker or this may be someone that like has no budget. In which case, I might say something like, you know, it seems like you’re really focused on like what things cost you, and I get that. Like, I do that too. All the look at every price in the grocery store. Why is it like at the forefront of your of your brain right now? And the person says, “Well, I just filed bankruptcy, and this happened, and that, and maybe you get to like the truth of understanding why it’s so important to them, and that might be a reason to disqualify. It might be a reason to you know take the meeting in a different direction. So, anyway, if I
Dennis Meador [06:37]
could add one more thing to that, yeah, they don’t find value in what you do,
Steve Fretzin [06:41]
yeah.
Dennis Meador [06:42]
And if they don’t let you contextualize the value of what you bring, then do you really want to work with somebody like that anyway? So yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Steve Fretzin [06:50]
Good stuff. Good stuff. All right, everybody. Well, listen, you were in for an absolute treat today. We’ve got Dennis, the DM man meter here, CEO of Legal Podcast Network, CEO of Authority Podcast Network. You are the podcasting go-to guy. In fact, you you produce my Future Rainmakers podcast. If you guys haven’t learned about that or heard of it, it’s highly produced and really really fun. And I want to thank you, Dennis, for all you do for for the lawyers and the coaches and consultants in the community that look to you as the as there is the goat of podcasting.
Dennis Meador [07:21]
Well, thank you. So deal with that. Yeah, deal with that. How’s your ego? Where do I go from there? You just call me the goat. Like come on. Like, what am I supposed to say to that?
Steve Fretzin [07:30]
How’s that ego feeling, Dennis? Right now, you
Dennis Meador [07:32]
know, end cut. That’s it. Right. Like. Oh wait, wait. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [07:36]
I have a better idea. Let’s take. Let’s take. So, so all right. So we know where you are now. The goat. Right. The goat. All right. But that wasn’t always the case. You have a history, and I’d love for you to share with everybody like how you came to be working with lawyers, getting into podcasting. Like, give us the Reader’s Digest version of that.
Dennis Meador [07:51]
Sure. So let’s just fast forward to my late teens. I start selling advertising, do well with it very quickly, move up in one company, get recruited by another. Now I’m 19 years old, selling to doctors and administrators and things like that. Move on again. A couple years later, now I’m in my early 20s. I start my first advertising company that does well. Split off. Decide I’m going to kind of do my own thing. Go digital. Find attorneys because it’s 2000, mid 2000. mid early 2000s, and you know who was spending money on the internet before there was Facebook and Google and all that stuff. Would that be it? That would be personal injury lawyers. So gonna set you up. Yeah, exactly. So you know, I started working with PI and you know other stuff as well, but I I kind of like PI. They were tend to be more aggressive, you know, not just in marketing but in general, and you could kind of have like logic based conversations. So that began my journey 20 something years ago, where I started working with primarily, not exclusively, but primarily the legal industry. Been an entrepreneur the whole time. Had a couple of other things that I’ve done. Did SEO, social media. You know, I had a text agency for a while. Then 2019, I did my own podcast about Austin, Texas. Just went super high production. It was just a passion project. And as you know, most passion projects should have a three camera setup, 10 person crew with a zero monetization, put out 60 episodes, three months, and spend $150,000. That’s obviously, you know, like that’s that’s what you’re supposed to do when you have a little side passion project. While I was also like scaling and growing an SEO agency for attorneys, so me and my partner were together about five years. Was a five year agreement, and we’re coming to the end of that, and I built up. Now I meet him. He’s doing under a million. Now we’re doing about 5 million. He had 75 customers. Now he’s rounding to about over 400 clients. And he’s like, you know what? He wrote me out of the will. He didn’t like he he did the buyout that I gave him the option for five years ago, which he had every right to do. You know. Like I set it up that way, so I was like, I’m living on an island in Belize, December of 2023. I launched the legal podcast agency, officially launched May 1st of 2024. Now here we are, a little over two and a half years later. We have almost 300 firms or 300 shows in the legal space, or and we we put out 450 episodes a month. Have about 100 people on the team in various capacities.
Steve Fretzin [10:28]
Just crazy, man. Just crazy. Yeah, and you’re trying that three three camera thing today, and it’s my brain is getting getting fried watching you flip between cameras. I think I don’t know that might have to be worked out on a on a on a on a on the back end somewhere, man. Just
Dennis Meador [10:42]
stick with our our. That’s okay. That’s okay. I mean, look, instead of going between cameras, that’s not a problem. But
Steve Fretzin [10:46]
but you know, I thought we would save Dennis’s big mistake for the end of the show. But it sounds like that the first time around on the podcasting $150,000 and and all that stuff might have been might have been at the one of the top of the list. But that’s how you learn, right?
Dennis Meador [10:59]
Yeah, like I didn’t see that as a mistake. It was an expensive lesson.
Steve Fretzin [11:03]
Yes, but
Dennis Meador [11:03]
I don’t think it was a mistake. I have had lifelong friendships and got to be like friends with some really cool people in Austin because the premise of that show was just that Austin is cool, but no one’s really showing how cool Austin is. Like everybody I talked to would be like, “Oh, Austin’s so cool. Austin so cool. So I was like, why don’t I just get a camera crew, run around with, and run around and show people how cool Austin is? Yeah. I had musicians, I had artists, I had entrepreneurs, I had chefs, and I would just sit down and talk about Austin and them and their life. And yeah, definitely, definitely, I would not say it was a mistake at all.
Steve Fretzin [11:38]
Yeah, I love Austin. Although I did, I did get like confronted with with a homeless guy who tried to grab at me. That was kind of awkward on a on a food tour. So it, but I kept my tacos down. So that worked out okay.
Dennis Meador [11:49]
There we go.
Steve Fretzin [11:50]
But love Austin, really really fun. So let me ask you this: There’s a kind of a disconnect between the legal community and lawyers and podcasting. There’s the the few that get it right, and those the ones working with you and others, and then there’s everyone else, and I think they don’t really get why a podcast is is a great marketing, business development, et cetera tool. Let me ask you first of all, like who shouldn’t be podcasting, then I want to get to who should be.
Dennis Meador [12:17]
Who shouldn’t be podcasting? Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [12:19]
I’m going to test you to see if you have the ability to answer that.
Dennis Meador [12:22]
Yeah, give me a second. I would say people that are used to just handing money to Google, seeing a flood of leads come in, converting five to 7% of them, and that is their expectation.
Steve Fretzin [12:34]
Okay.
Dennis Meador [12:35]
People who think marketing is handing money to somebody like me don’t take any of my precious time. I don’t, you know, like in other words, people who don’t give it time and people who don’t give some of themselves to it. If you can’t give either one of those or both of those, you really shouldn’t be podcasting. There you go. So
Steve Fretzin [12:53]
you don’t see value in it. You’re not willing to invest time in it. You don’t see it as a way of getting your brand out or meeting great people or all the things that we’re going to be talking about. It’s not for everybody. Let’s just be clear: either is writing a book, either is being on LinkedIn. I mean, everybody’s got to make a personal decision of what’s right for them. Now, for me, just to throw in my two cents, I’ve written books, I’ve been writing articles, I’ve done the social media, I’ve done everything you can do in marketing, and nothing has been more productive for my brand and for helping more lawyers in building business than podcasting. So, again, you know, it might be people are concerned that it’s such a crowded space, right? And like, there’s reasons why not, but let’s talk about the reasons why too.
Dennis Meador [13:36]
So first, I want to kind of go back to like our philosophy of how we do our podcast, because I hope that you’ve noticed that we kind of do it a little bit differently with us having like we provide hosts, and that goes back to when I came up with doing this. My first question was, why would the the normal attorney that I’ve been selling SEO to and PPC to and whatever other kind of marketing, the last two decades. Why would an attorney do a podcast? Because here’s the reality, and and you could correct me if I’m wrong, Steve, but this is what I’m told. The standard, like I’m a host, I have guests on, and I interview those guests, and I talk about you know they know their stuff, and I want my audience to hear it. The standard return like timetable is about 100 episodes and two to three years before people really see it start to kind of like chug and like do a lot for them. And you’ve done this enough and been around podcasting enough. Yeah, would you say that that sort of rings true. I
Steve Fretzin [14:41]
can’t argue with that. I think it’s the same thing with LinkedIn. People get on there and they don’t realize it takes a year. It sometimes takes a little more than a year of regular, consistent approach. Now, what you didn’t add, but you do, is that you create content. If somebody just does a podcast and it’s got a small audience and they’re not leveraging. It on social. They’re not leveraging it for any other repurposing. It will take longer, right? But if they’re actually producing the video and producing the transcripts into blogcasts or whatever it is that they’re doing, then then I think you’re you’re figuring out that you can escalate it faster than the basics.
Dennis Meador [15:16]
Yeah. So so I approached it like okay. So why would a you know, criminal defense attorney with himself, a you know, a paralegal, an administrator, and maybe like a young associate. Like, why would he want a podcast, and how would this get him clients or her? Like, that was my thought process, and so I was looking at most podcasts, and I was like, like right now, you are positioning me as the expert to your audience, and if you say no, I’m not. You literally just called me the goat. So, like, like I think it’s a fair like say that that’s the dynamic. Typically, when we bring a guest on our show, we present that guest in the best possible light. So, the dynamic is you’re getting the point for introduction, but not for expertise per se. And so what I said was, why don’t I provide hosts, have my attorneys speak to their clients in the podcast? I’m not worried about them getting 10,000 downloads. I want them to get 25 downloads of people in their market with a very specific problem, and so I just kind of like flipped it around, and I said, “I think this is how I need. We need to do podcasting. And everyone was like, “They didn’t understand it at first, but they’re like, okay, like if you say it’ll work, you’ve been around marketing enough, I’ll trust you, and it’s worked. We have dozens and dozens of like now you know law firms and clients who are like, “Hey, this is like getting me specific cases that people are coming in. They know me, so like that’s why we started doing it this way. And so to me now, any consumer facing attorney or niche attorney that can give the time because what we see is the first four months typically, and this is if you’re doing twice a month, which is our most popular cadence. The first four months you’re going to get in, get established, go live. You’re probably going to have like your buddy. Hey, dude, I saw your podcast. I saw your clips and all the other stuff that we do as well with it, but after about six to eight months, the algorithms themselves, both social and the LLMs, will start to show this content, and you’ll start showing up, and people will start finding you. So we took what is typically a two-year, three-year, 100-episode arc and took it down to about a 12-episode arc on average, 12 to 20 episode arc with you know in six to eight months because we’re not giving 5% of the expertise to the attorney as a host. We’re giving 95% of the expertise to the attorney as the perpetual guest. Yeah, answering questions to their potential clients. Well, and it’s it’s one differentiator. It is,
Steve Fretzin [18:03]
and I think it’s important for people to hear that because I think if you feel like you have to be on as the interviewer all the time, and and and and not everyone’s comfortable with that. Number two is you’re right, and if you’re not able to do what I think I’ve become very good at doing, it’s taken me a long time, by the way, to have a conversation with you where I can ask you a question, get your two cents on it, and then insert my own little take on it without making you feel like I’m taking over the show or I’m going off on a rant for too long. And sometimes I do; I can’t help it. But generally speaking, the conversational nature of this show has allowed me to not feel like like I’m not getting my point across or not you know helping people, but future rainmakers the one you produce is mostly me, right? And just recently, and we did one this morning, by the way, we did two episodes this morning where I brought on a Walt Hampton who’s been on this show probably three times, who now we’re being interviewed together, so now he and I can work as a panel, as a team to answer questions, and I think that also feeds into this theory of of having a host that’s really moderating this instead of it having to be me.
Dennis Meador [19:14]
Yeah, and I’ll be honest with you, it’s fortuitous time just in society as a whole because of media, traditional media is fading out. People, so there are a lot of very well trained, capable like interviewers and hosts and people that have been doing this for like decades. That you know, people that are have been on CNN and ESPN and NBC and blah blah blah. That are my hosts. So I’m able to get people in, not just like you know some 22 year old kid that’s like, “Hey, I want a podcast. I’ve got like real camera-trained professionals who know how to make the other person look good.
Steve Fretzin [19:47]
Yeah,
Dennis Meador [19:48]
like because, as you know, that’s a skill in and of itself to uplift other people and empower other people to showcase who they are is a challenge or is a skill.
Steve Fretzin [19:57]
It’s a honed skill, and I don’t know if you. If you go back and listen to this this podcast, be that lawyer 50 through 100, even up to 200. I mean, I interviewed my dad on episode 200, so I go back and listen to it for an occasional good cry because he passed a couple years ago, and I can just tell the interviewing skills I had at 200 are 50% of what they are now, and the just the comfort I have on the camera and talking in the mic and doing this stuff and and just trying to be me, right? But do it in a way where I’m also like getting value for people listening, takeaways and things that are useful to them. So let’s let’s continue on that path. Hey everybody, your next big client might call it 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. The question is, who’s picking up? With Lex Reception, a real person answers every call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so you never miss a lead, no matter when they reach out. No AI agents, no voicemail, just professional, legal literate receptionists representing your firm the right way around the clock. And right now, be that lawyer listeners get 250 off their first month. Visit www.lexreception.com/partners/bethlawyer to claim your offer. That’s www.lexreception.com/partners/bethlawyer. Hey everybody, Steve Fretzin here, and at Lawyer.com, they don’t just market law firms; they help them grow. From connecting millions of consumers to trusted lawyers to smarter intake and industry-leading events, they’re building stronger connections across legal visibility, intake, events, growth. That’s Lawyer.com. Check them out today. With proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm, Rankings.io prides itself on proof, not promises mentality. The best firms hire Rankings.io when they want rankings, traffic, and cases other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver. Get more rankings, get cases, and schedule a free consultation at rankings.io today. So someone says, “You know what? I’m thinking about doing a podcast. I just don’t know what to talk about. I don’t know what makes me special, unique. How do I come up with all of that so that I can take advantage of what what you and I were talking about, which is all this potential marketing, branding, and repurposing content?
Dennis Meador [22:21]
That’s why we have our content department. You know, we’ve got Bella and now Shelby. We just added her. We’ve got Tracy. So these three ladies who do a tremendous job, who have you know certain degrees and certain backgrounds and things like that. And when a client comes on, we’re literally like, “All right, tell us about your client. Tell us about if you had 75, 90% of your cases were X, what would that look like, and what would that person be, and what temperament would they have? And we like dig in to their ICP, you know, ideal client profile. Then we look at their jurisdictional profile, and we’re like, okay, I get it. You want to work with 10 Elon Musks, but you’re in Petoskey, Arkansas, a county with 15,000 people, and the median income is $12,000 a year. It might not be ideal for you to target, you know, that person. So your ideal client has to fit your jurisdictional profile, and then we take and we look at what we call their brand profile, which is really just who that attorney is. Are they stayed? Are they kind of a you know relaxed and joking? Are they more serious and monotone? And that’s why we have like different hosts. Some hosts are very very high energy and they kind of like balance out. And some hosts are a little bit more of like a calming energy and they take people that are high and bring them down. So we take all those things and then we go okay. So you want to target these. This is where you are. Here are the you know next 10 episodes we’re going to do. Here are the questions we’re going to ask, so you can get ready for them. We don’t suggest that you write them out and try to read them off a teleprompter next, you know, or on your phone next to the screen. Just be natural, and that’s the other thing. You know, we try to emulate an across the desk approach, because I can’t tell you the number of times in my career that attorneys have told me I could just get them across from the desk. I’m going to get them 80 of the time on conversion rate. So I thought, okay, so if I can emulate that as close to that as possible, then I can put you in a position to be as comfortable as possible, and now it’s not like I’m with you know light here, light here, light here, light here, camera there, camera there, camera there, with a teleprompter, TV behind me. That’s what my backdrop is, you know, like this big old microphone in front of me, standing up. Like this is a production. Well, I’ve been doing you know, I’ve been public speaking since I was 15 years old. Yeah, but most attorneys, you know, that if they could just sit down and relax and talk, they’re going to be a lot more relatable to their potential client, and that’s what we’re trying to cultivate.
Steve Fretzin [24:52]
Right, and think about like where you’re. Well, there’s two thoughts. Number one is, you know, and this is marketing one on one, but who are your targets? Like. Who like I’m not speaking to every lawyer in the world. I’m speaking to ambitious, motivated, growth-oriented lawyers. Like that’s my audience. People listening right now, they’re they’re patting themselves on the back because they hear me say that because that’s who’s listening. Someone who has no interest in this is not doesn’t care about the show and be that lawyer means nothing. Okay, so I think knowing who your targets are and who you want to reach and who who could refer you or maybe who could use you directly in your services? Those are the targets. How you actually reach them with a theme, a theory, or whatever. It could be direct, like you’re just talking about estate planning and the rules and the regulations. It could be that you have a show about golf, but your part of golf is you know, interviewing lawyers that know about estate planning or whatever it might be, or just lawyers who golf, or might be fishing people that golf, or fishing people. Sorry, fishing lawyers, whatever it might be. And then you’re getting this whole group of people that fish that are lawyers listening, and that’s how you build that out. That’s if that’s the audience you want, right? Anything to add?
Dennis Meador [25:59]
I mean, yeah, I think that the second option that you’re talking about is a longer play, because again, you’re you’re only positioning a very small percentage of your expertise at the forefront.
Steve Fretzin [26:08]
It might be more of a passion play.
Dennis Meador [26:10]
No, it’s more of the two, three year, 100 plus episodes. Like, like you got to understand, like what what path am I taking? Am I taking the interstate path? That’s just I don’t want to get off. I, you know, and it’s people travel different ways. This is what I always tell people. Like, you think about it. Like, my wife, she can get in a car. She drive 14 hours. You know, she’ll stop once, go to the bathroom, let the dog go to the bathroom, gas up the car, and she’ll keep going. Me, I’m a tall guy. Most cars aren’t built for when you’re six foot one and three quarters, dear. Yes, not six foot two. She’s like, you can’t say you’re six two. You should just
Steve Fretzin [26:45]
you should just round down. I’m just telling
Dennis Meador [26:47]
you. Yeah, six foot one. Said the five said the five seven guy. So like, but me six six hours, eight hours in a car. My legs, like I need out. I need. I really want. I need to be done for the night,
Steve Fretzin [27:01]
yeah. So
Dennis Meador [27:01]
we all travel and get to destinations in different ways, and that’s okay. But you need to know the road that you’re on. Like if you think that you’re getting there in 14 hours because it’s a freeway and you’re just going and lollygagging and stopping at the world’s biggest yarn ball, and it takes you two days to get there, you can’t get mad and say, “Well, I didn’t know it was going to take two days. Well, you took the meandering route.
Steve Fretzin [27:25]
Yeah,
Dennis Meador [27:25]
and I back that up to what you’re saying. Yes, talking about fishing lawyers who fish, you can build an affinity and a community, but it’s going to be a longer road for them to say, “I want you to be my marketer.
Steve Fretzin [27:38]
Yeah.
Dennis Meador [27:39]
Whereas when you say, “Hey, let me help you be that lawyer. Let me help you become a rainmaker. When they come talk to you, they come talk to you for that specific reason.
Steve Fretzin [27:48]
Yeah, yeah.
Dennis Meador [27:49]
And so it’s a faster path,
Steve Fretzin [27:51]
unless they have a good fishing story. Then I’m going to hear about it because I do talk about fishing a little bit. All right, we have time for one one more question before our final question. So the other part of it that you know, I wrote this book, “Be That Lawyer, 101 Top Rainmaker Secrets, Growing a Successful Law Practice, and that was from the transcriptions of the podcast. And I’m not saying everybody should write, do a podcast, and write a book. The point of me even sharing that is the ability to repurpose that there are lawyers that aren’t doing well on social; they’re not doing well at building their brand because they don’t have the content. Speak to briefly the content that’s created through a podcast and how that works in a lawyer’s favor.
Dennis Meador [28:28]
Like that’s the whole thing that really changed for us because we started with one episode, three pieces of content. We changed six months later, 30 pieces of content per episode placed on 10 out, 10 or 11 outlets. So it’s a month’s worth of content. So you got your social content. Then you can repurpose the transcript and either build a blog out of it, or you can build a FAQ page out of it, or you can build a recap of the podcast and put it on your website. So now you’ve got you know that. Now for us, what we’re doing, we also do are getting ready to. I’m putting mine out first. I’m about halfway done with it. As my wife says, I can’t say I’m writing a book. I’m authoring a book through my other podcast, Authority Matters, which is my main podcast. Which which I’ll just be be happy to say, like we’ve been on the top 50 for business podcast for like a week now, so we’re pretty excited about that. Like we got shared in a few things, and some people are paying attention, so that’s great. But like, it takes about 15 episodes of like a decent podcast if it’s a congruent subject to create. So we’re looking at adding that to our mix. Plus, we have streaming television networks. Plus, we have you know we have video, we have audio. So what you want to understand is this is what I like to call source code. The podcast becomes your source code. It becomes your short little videos that people love on social media. It becomes you know the quotes become like little placard quotes on social media. It becomes content on your website. It becomes long. Video, it becomes a book like you did. So all of it’s it’s like you can take, and I always like to compare it to chicken. Like you could take and take a piece of chicken, and you could put it in the oven, and you could put it out, and you could say, “All right, everybody, have a piece of chicken. And you’re like, “Oh, that’s maybe throw a little salt and pepper to get it down, right? Or like you can like you know roast it and cook it and with you know thyme and rosemary and garlic over a three day period and it’s just fall apart and delectable and delicious. It’s like the best thing you ever had. At the it was just chicken. It’s what you did with that. It’s the same thing with podcasts. Like you could put a podcast out and just be like, “All right, world, I spoke. Be blessed, or you can understand that you’ve got to take and do something with that, and multiply your efforts. Because again, same thing. Thinking like who I’ve worked with for years. I knew most podcast, most attorneys didn’t want to source guests, write questions, blah blah blah. That’s another reason I flipped the script, so I was just like, “How do I help these people? Because it’s like, and this is what I tell people, and I’ll I’ll stop rambling with this. I was determined to give people what they to sell people what they want, so I could give them what they needed. Because attorneys like, “How do I have a podcast? And I’d show them like, “That’s boring, and I’m like, that’s how you get clients. Now, if you want to do that way, I’m happy to make that other podcast for you because, and I’ll tell you that here’s the arc, here’s how, and they’re like, okay, but I’m selling them what they want, so I can give them what they need. What do they need? They need a good social presence. They need like to be guesting on other shows because the LLMs like recognize me being on your show, the LLM pulls that up when people search me, and when you go on other shows, I’m sure you notice that it has an effect as well. Yeah. So all of these things, like they interconnect, and we take a little bit of time, and we just add the right amount of gradients, and we make it something great.
Steve Fretzin [31:55]
Yeah. Well, and I don’t think some lawyers don’t know what they don’t know, and so like when you can hand them something that says, “Look, we’re gonna we’re gonna host the show. We’re gonna produce the show and edit the show. We’re gonna create the content. We’re gonna post the content. Like, do your job. Like, go bill ours and build business. Let us handle what we do. You don’t have because there are lawyers that try to produce their own shows, and it didn’t work out after three months. No shit, it didn’t work out after three months. You’re billing a ridiculous amount of hours, and you’re going to produce your own show. You know why don’t you become a riverboat captain? I mean, give me a break, right? Like, do what you do. Let the pros do what the pros do. So, all right, we’ll end with that, except for one thing, and that is what’s Dennis’s big mistake or learning moment or whatever you want to call it because you didn’t like mistakes, failing forward, you know
Dennis Meador [32:43]
exactly. I don’t make mistakes. I just learn. Does
Steve Fretzin [32:45]
your wife tell you that?
Dennis Meador [32:47]
No. Actually, she has a soundbite on her phone that says, “I’m sorry, I was wrong. She’ll play it to me every once in a while. “I’m sorry, I was I was wrong. So there’s there’s physical proof I’ve been wrong. Well, I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
Steve Fretzin [33:03]
Ah, no.
Dennis Meador [33:03]
Yeah. So, ha ha ha. Dad joke had to throw it in. You’ll be a new dad soon. All right. So, um, you know, I think there’s a lot of things, but although I think I wrote in your thing about picking partners, I’ve talked about that on other podcasts. Here’s what I want to. Here’s what I want to say I have failed by understanding the impact of cumulative effort. Like I have, you know, I’ve been a hard charger my whole life. Like, you know, 16, I was a youth pastor. 18, I was a pastor, worked full time out of the house. You know, married at 19. Blah blah blah. Like my life, first business at like 22. Like I’ve been a hard charger. I to the point where I ended up with having a nervous breakdown, spending like a year in bed, and it retaught me a lot of things. But understanding that not everything has to be done right now. If I put in the time, I put in the effort. Believe in myself. Believe in what I’m doing. Know I’m doing it right. Doing it ethically. All the ground rule things that I would assume most people would apply. The cumulative effect of continuous effort. It can’t be outmatched.
Steve Fretzin [34:16]
Yeah,
Dennis Meador [34:17]
me too. It’s consistent.
Steve Fretzin [34:18]
Consistent effort. Consistent effort done intelligently and reviewed and analyzed and improved. It’s like it makes you unstoppable. And then business development for lawyers, because I go back to that, is you know it’s not about random acts of marketing. It’s like can you get out five emails a week? Can you put out two, three LinkedIn posts a week? Can you do things on a regular basis? Review what’s going on, make improvements. Most people aren’t doing that, and that’s and that’s you. You don’t have to be a hard charger like Dennis, everybody, to get where you want to go. I mean, you can do 25% or less than what he’s doing, and you’ll still end up in an incredible place. So,
Dennis Meador [34:54]
this is me being relaxed. What do you mean? This
Steve Fretzin [34:56]
is you being chill out. Oh boy. Okay.
Dennis Meador [35:00]
On an island in Belize, I, you know, like I lived in the Caribbean, like I was chilling out, like this is me relaxed.
Steve Fretzin [35:07]
Yeah, right. I like how relaxed we are right now. All right, man. Well, listen, let’s take a moment. Thank our incredible sponsors. Of course, Lex Reception, the place to go for getting those phone calls answered without you being in charge of that. You shouldn’t be. Of course, we got lawyer.com. Incredible Directory, and Pimcon, the amazing Chris Dreyer’s personal injury mastermind coming up in Scottsdale very soon. Sign up right away. And if people want to get in touch with you, Dennis, Legal Podcast Network. What are the digits? How do they get in touch with you to start their own very own podcast.
Dennis Meador [35:42]
So if they’re looking more for like, hey, I want to talk about what what he’s doing, that would be through my team, my website, thelegalpodcastnetwork.com. If you happen to not be a lawyer and you’re another professional, we started the Authority Podcast Network simply because we had like 12 people in our network that had nothing to do with legal, and I was like, “What are these people doing here? And they’re like, “They wanted to join. They didn’t care. It was for lawyers. And I was like, “Okay, let’s just create. I was going to do this down the road anyway. So anyway, the Authority Podcast Network. I’m on LinkedIn, so you can get me there. That’s kind of where it’s kind of my playground. And then I have my own site, DM On Demand Expert, that has my guest spots, my company, my podcast links-it’s just kind of like one central place if you want to know more about Mimi.
Steve Fretzin [36:27]
Yeah, we’ll throw it all in the we’ll throw it all in the show notes as well. And Dennis, thanks, man. I’m so happy to have you have you back on the show and and sharing your wisdom and letting people know. Look, podcasting isn’t for everybody, but for people that are interested in building their brand and growing their practice and and getting getting you know known and remembered, it’s kind of a no brainer. So appreciate you, man.
Dennis Meador [36:49]
Absolutely, thanks for thanks for having me back on, my
Steve Fretzin [36:52]
friend. Yeah, you got it, you got it, Aaron. Thank you everybody for hanging out with Dennis and I for the last 30 and change, helping you to build that law practice, own that future, and be that lawyer. Take care, everybody. Be safe and well. We will talk again very, very soon.
Narrator [37:09]
Thanks for listening to Be That Lawyer: life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, Fretzin.com, for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.