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- [00:00]
A
So what if the real risk for small business owners right now is hiding behind professional polish as a brand while AI research decides which firms it trusts enough to recommend? You know, most small businesses don't have a marketing problem. They have a strategy problem underneath the marketing. I wrote a new workbook called seven Steps to Small Business Marketing Success that walks through exactly how to fix it. From getting clear as a founder all the way to running marketing like an operating system. 20 years of working with small businesses condensed into a framework you can actually use, and right now it's only five bucks. Go grab it at DTM World, slash seven steps. That's DTM World, slash seven steps. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is Jon Jantz, and my guest today is Megan Hargrutter. She is the founder and CEO of Legends Legal Marketing, an agency that works exclusively with solo and small law firms. She started in 2011 in a New Orleans studio apartment with four clients paying $500 a month and niched your way all the way down to lawyers and never looked back again. We're going to talk about her new book, Trust is the Strategy. So, Megan, welcome to the show.
- [01:28]
B
Thank you, John.
- [01:30]
A
So let's start with niching. Niching. Well, maybe we need to start with how you say it, because you hear all kinds. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of pundits out there certainly saying you've got to do it. And then there's others. And I have a view probably slightly towards the other because I've seen a lot of people say, I think law firms would be awesome. I'm going to go to that vertical. And then they work with two law firms and they realize maybe that's not who they want to work with. Just this example, obviously that doesn't apply to you, but then they have to start over again. So. So I'm curious, talk a little bit about the math of niching in your case and like, what made you go that route but then also what changed in your agency?
- [02:16]
B
It truly just really deep diving into the 8020 rule and looking at my clients and being like, where was my least effort for my biggest profit? And then I layered on top of that, where am I feeling the most successful? And for me, that's where my feeling I can be the most successful for my clients. And when I started, no one was doing a good job at law firm marketing. Fine. Law was the only company on the market. And so just doing an okay job meant that you were already ahead of the game. So I liked the Idea of being able to definitively guarantee success, whereas other types of. I think people think it's more fun to work with, like a boutique or a restaurant, you know, or I had a national candy brand at one point. And I guess it's how you define fun. For me, fun is that I'm not working on the weekends or on the evenings, and that I'm not doing an endless display of branding that someone's just unhappy with no matter what. Right. Lawyers are not that picky. They care about one thing and one thing only are clients calling me. And so I once I felt like I cracked the code on that, I just went all in with lawyers and never looked back.
- [03:34]
A
See, and that's the approach. I tell people, too, in a lot of ways, you didn't just go pick a niche. The niche found you. Right, because you had been working in it. You decided, hey, I can get a lot of results for, I can provide a lot of value, is another way of saying that for these folks. And I enjoy doing it. So that, to me, is the proper way to do it. It. I just. I see a lot of people really just kind of go, where's the opportunity? As opposed to what you experience.
- [03:58]
B
Yeah. And I see my clients do that, too, with. When they're choosing their niche for law. They'll be like, where's. I think this is the best opportunity. Then they'll go all in and they'll be like, I actually really hate doing criminal defense, or I really hate, you know, pungements or whatever. The thing is. So it. I do agree with you, it's better to start general and try a whole bunch of things and then just take your path going from there.
- [04:22]
A
Yeah. So I started in the kind of the initial question to open the show, talking about this idea of, you know, polish, you know, being, you know, something. In fact, you actually tell lawyers the riskiest thing they can do right now is to keep playing it safe. And I completely agree with you. You know, the human element is more important than ever. However, I've also worked with a lot of attorneys over the year, and polish is like a big part of their mask. So. So how do you kind of balance that?
- [04:52]
B
Well, you use the right word. Polish is part of the mask that they wear. Right. And it's not just for clients. It's for their peers. Lawyers are very concerned of what their peers think of them. And so what you end up getting is polished and professional, which I'm going to use quotation marks around, because all that actually translates to is generic content. Generic messaging. So. So it's not resonating with anyone. Right. Maybe it's not turning anyone off or offending anyone, but it's also not making anyone love you. And that. That happens a lot on your website homepage. But, like, the big spot that I see it be really problematic for lawyers is their biographies. And so they'll have this really safe, I call it professional obituary. That list their accomplishments, where they went to law school, all the things that people don't actually care about when they hire lawyers.
- [05:46]
A
Yeah, the I. Something I used to do when I first got started trying to make this point regardless of the type of business. So let's say it was a remodeling contractor. I would just go find 10 remodeling contractor websites, copy the first thing that I saw on their website, and then I'd show it to the client, say, first off, do you know who any of these people are? And by the way, you're on here too. Do you know who you are? And it was so easy for them to go, oh, crap, we're all saying the same thing, which is sort of nothing.
- [06:14]
B
And that's the whole thing if you're not saying anything. And so a lot of, like, what I try to push my clients to do is, well, first of all, you want to build authority. They love that. Everyone's on board with building authority. We've got our awards, we've got our badges, we've got our testimonials. Great. We're on board with that. But the next part is that you have to build a component of empathy with these people who don't know you. Right. If you're hiring a lawyer, you have a problem that you need a professional to solve for you. You don't know this person. You don't trust people, don't trust lawyers. Building trust online is like, the hardest thing you can do. So you have to give people something. You have to let them know you understand their problem. And you also have to share something about yourself so that they feel like, oh, this is a human again that I can connect with.
- [07:04]
A
So trust is in. Actually in the title of the book. Do you. I don't think anybody would argue that's an important ingredient. The harder part is define, like, how do you build that? You know, you can't just write trust me, you know, on your website. Right. So how do you get people to start saying, these are the things that build trust?
- [07:24]
B
I think telling a story first and foremost. So using your website to tell someone a story and. And your homepage should actually not be your story, it should be their story. Right. So if I'm facing chapter seven bankruptcy, what am I going through right now? That's the story that the homepage should say and I should be able to see myself in there if I'm a client. And then the biography telling the story of the actual attorney. Why are you doing this? You know, aside from money, what made you pick Chapter 7 bankruptcy as your niche that you want to help people through? How can I trust you to do this? And so there's elements within the story that, where you want to show examples of how you've solved the problem. Before outlining people, you've helped outlining, you know, using a story within story component and then maybe even your own story. So like we have criminal defense lawyers who at one point in their lives had found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Right. And it's really hard to get people to open up about that when they're trying to look super polished and professional. But guess what? Those are the stories that get them clients. And once they actually take the leap of like putting that vulnerability out there, people call and they say, I'm hiring you because you, I don't feel like you're going to judge me because you were in my shoes once before.
- [08:42]
A
Yeah. So I would guess that in some cases you can have quick wins. But you know, the trust game is also a long term game. So how do you get people on board with the, with that who are saying, hey Megan, make the phone ring.
- [08:58]
B
Well, the phone will ring through other methods as well. You've got your search strategy, your paid search strategy, you've got your LLM strategy and then you know, you can do organic and paid search work. Right. So, so that's the component. But the foundation has to be there. Right. The website itself has to build trust or you're paying for traffic to go there and it's not doing anything. And the really the big hurdle for newer businesses is building up those reviews. Because nothing builds trust like reviews. And not just any review, not just a five star review, not just highly recommend, did a great job. Because LLMs are reading reviews, but they're reading them. They're not just quantifying the five stars, they're reading them and they're seeing the keywords used within that. And they're seeing, oh, this is a detailed example of a problem that was solved by this person and that's the same problem this person is talking to me about. So I'm going to match them with that. So the Actual skipping ahead. The actual, like, quality of the Google reviews is the biggest thing that we work with our clients to build up. And it's not easy. Right. Especially in cases with like, criminal defense, where your clients don't want to leave a review about how you helped them get out of their dui. So that's, to me, the hardest part is building substantial reviews. It's doable, but it's difficult. The organic SEO is a waiting game and the paid search is a fast game.
- [10:32]
A
Yeah. You know, probably the first hurdle you experience is a lot of lawyers don't want to ask for reviews. Right. I mean, it's like, no, we did what they paid us for. You know, that should be enough. Right. I mean, so. So that's probably the first hurdle. You know, it's interesting you mentioned that about Google reviews. We have been doing it for years, but AI, let's face it, has made it easier, you know, to take 7, 800 reviews, dump them into a tool to analyze them, and all of a sudden the law, the lawyer is saying, you know, we have X amount of credentials or whatever they say, and the reviews repeatedly say, you know what? They call us back immediately. Right. And that's like the message. And it is amazing that when, as a marketer, when I can show a client that says, this is not me making this up, you know, this is your actual customers talking, you know, it's a much easier sell.
- [11:20]
B
And the LLMs are making that faster. Right. So people aren't having to go through all of those reviews. And some people will still go to the Google reviews and go through all themselves. But that really is one of the biggest definers of trust for any local business. Really is gonna see that as their biggest definition of trust is going to be their actual online reviews. And Google reviews are the most important. I know people leave reviews on Facebook, people still use Yelp, so those things are still factors and get pulled in. I know the Amazon Alexa, for example, is connected. Yelp.
- [11:59]
A
Yeah, Microsoft.
- [12:01]
B
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, so, so those are still really important too. And I feel like Yelp gets overlooked a lot because Google is still going to be your most valuable. So if you can only get one, you get it on Google. But then if you can layer in that second tier where you ask someone, hey, can you please also just copy paste this on the Yelp page? Here's the link, and make it really easy for them to duplicate that in another spot, then you're really winning.
- [12:27]
A
You know, I've spent over 20 years watching good businesses waste money on marketing that doesn't add up. And usually the problem isn't the tactics, it's the missing foundation underneath them all. So I put the whole system in a new workbook called Seven Steps to Small Business Marketing Success. Seven steps. The right order with everything you need to build that actually compounds. You can pick it up right now for five bucks at DTM World. Seven Steps. That's dtm.world7steps. So where we stand today, this will change certainly. But people still have a very, or I think have a higher level trust, whether they should or not, of those three AI recommendations than they do or did of all the ads and everything else that showed up on the homepage. So what are you doing or how are you helping your law firms get recommended directly in that space that is right now at least very highly trusted.
- [13:31]
B
Okay, well, the biggest way that we're doing it is a secret. But I'll tell you some other ways that are not secrets because everyone's trying to crack this code right now. Right? And there's not definitive things. There's not. Eventually there will be a little bit more information like when Google does its algorithm changes and we can do all this, but there's not that transparency yet with LLM. So we're kind of all trying little things to see what works. But I would say for law firms specifically, the more niche your website and your content, the better. Because people are asking specifically. People are not just saying, I need a lawyer. Right.
- [14:11]
A
They're explaining their entire situation. Right, exactly.
- [14:14]
B
Or I need a lawyer who does this. Right. And we're not seeing the same success with for example, the high volume, like personal injury lawyers. Right. Because most solo and small firms have been priced out of that bracket already. And so the authority's been built up. I think we'll start to see a little bit of a shift there away from the larger firms as far as recommendations. But things like divorce, child custody, bankruptcy, you know, expungements, DUIs, those types of things. If you go in really specific and you're hyper targeting and those are the articles you're publishing and then you're also posting the social media content. It's looking at LinkedIn, it's looking at. One tip I would say too, is using videos on LinkedIn. Videos on LinkedIn is playing really nicely into LLM recommendations is one thing that we've noticed. So I would say building as a business, building your authority through LinkedIn is really good. Most people overlook that as a marketing tool because they think of it more like a B2B kind of thing. And a lot of lawyers are targeting people, but the LLMs are paying attention to what you post on LinkedIn.
- [15:34]
A
So you've worked with a lot of firms over 15 years. Some have been very successful. I'm sure some have not, you know, seen the light and growing the way they'd like to. What would you say? What are some of the core differences of those firms that make steady progress versus ones that just kind of either plateau or burn out?
- [15:53]
B
The ones that are the most successful are the ones that stay the course with starting niche and then building the places. We've seen problems happen and where we've seen things tank out is when someone starts in one place and they want to make a strong pivot. So we built up a really successful traffic ticket lawyer, for example, and then he decided, let's add on criminal defense. Okay, that's relevant. We can add that on. And then he decided, let's change the whole website and turn it into personal injury and let's remove all of these practice areas. And I was like, your search will tank, right? You are the go to guy for these things already. You can't play this PI ball game that everyone has already invested so much in right now without paid search just organically. And he's like, I don't care, like, make the switch. It's gonna work out. And then three months later, he's like, why are my numbers down? And I'm like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right now? This is not gonna work out between us. I think we need to break up. So that's kind of the example of just like I always tell people, if you're gonna hire marketers, make sure you hire marketers you trust and then trust them. Right. Because at the end of the day, like, my job is to make your goals a reality and to hit your bottom line. So I'm not steering you in a direction away from making money that's not beneficial towards me. So when you get to a place where you're not trusting your marketing team and you're fighting against them, that's a sign that things are going to probably break down pretty soon.
- [17:31]
A
Yeah. You know, I can't tell you how many business owners that I've worked with over the years that I've had to tell them, you know, the problem's not your marketing issue. And believe it or not, some of them know it and some of them actually appreciate that message. And so they're like, what do we do about that?
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B
Yeah, it's a third party often to hop in there and be like, bro, listen.
- [17:53]
A
Exactly. So if somebody's listening right now, small firm runs a small business, maybe they're not going to write a book this year, but what's a couple things that they could do that you could. You think they could see kind of immediate progress if they did it once a week, you know, twice a week, whatever. What are some activities you've seen that have really compounded?
- [18:16]
B
I would say once a week, go online and claim a profile on some kind of directory. You know, hit the big ones first. Get avo, get your super lawyers, like, all those kinds of things. Better Business Bureau, anywhere online that lists professionals. Make sure you have a profile and fill it out completely. And if you do that once a week, you will see impact from it. That would be like my top.
- [18:41]
A
I'll give you my top. One that I tell a lot of business owners is go out and get on other people's podcasts, quite frankly, because, you know, talk about trust signals and great links and great SEO and great content that you can share and cut up and do things with. I think it's. To me, it's the perfect. It's really the perfect sort of marketing tactic that a lot of people can do pretty easily in a lot of cases.
- [19:03]
B
And it takes pushing, though. Like, I'm doing this right now because my PR person page has set me up on all of these podcasts because she's like, you have to do it. Like, even as a marketer, I'm like, I don't. Do I really? But again, now I'm flooding the Internet when you Google my name. There's all of this content now. So she was right. So I think that's a really good tip, too.
- [19:24]
A
It's. You know, the thing that I tell people all the time is it's an amazing backlink. I mean, I, you know, I have a very high, you know, authority backlink that you're going to get. But also, I'm very incentivized to promote this show. And so that's the other thing. You know, a lot of guest posts and things, they just get buried in things. But, you know, most podcast hosts are promoting their shows, so I. I tell people all the time, just go out and do it. There's so many ways that you can reuse that content, too.
- [19:48]
B
Yep.
- [19:49]
A
All right, so, Megan, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape marketing podcast. Can you give me your best news anchor voice
- [20:01]
B
to close it out to.
- [20:03]
A
To close us out and to tell people where they can find out more about your work and maybe pick up your book.
- [20:08]
B
Okay. Well, reporting live from Duct Tape, Puck asked. This is Megan Hargrerder with Legends Legal Marketing. You can find me@legendslegalmarketing.com you can also shoot me an email at megan legendslegalmarketing.com if you want to chat or if you want a copy of my book, I'll just mail you one. Send me an email.
- [20:28]
A
Awesome. I didn't tell you guys, but as a past career for Megan that I read in her bio, so I had to set her up there. Again, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.
- [20:41]
B
Absolutely. Thank you, John.