Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:52
Super valuable, especially, would you say, for e-commerce brands? I mean, maybe for anyone I guess, but specifically e-commerce.
Philip Hill: 17:59
E-com, this would work for like digital products, like SaaS products and stuff too.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:05
Yeah.
Philip Hill: 18:06
Services probably less so like our services like probably doesn’t work that well for, but for consumer products or like SaaS platforms, anything, there’s a lot of content generated on like review sites. So there’s review sites for all kinds of software and stuff. And then also like physical products of every industry you can think of. So then it finds contact information and we’ve trained it. If you can’t find it in this media database, here’s how you go scour the internet to try to find it and get creative to find it. Pulls that into a into the spreadsheet and then it loads up emails and it writes the emails that are like hyper personalized. Hey, we saw your article best Dog Beds for Large Breeds. Bullet bed specializes in dog beds for large aging and orthopedic, large aging and arthritic dogs and would be the perfect fit for your article.
Blah blah blah blah blah. With the pitch. Have a sequence set up, sends multiple. After that, they’re all show like we have gone to your site. We have found this article. We know this is hyper relevant and this is why it makes sense. And then it pitches them now from there, that one, there’s like stop points along the way that our affiliate managers can manage it. So each of our affiliate managers has access, they have their own login and they have access to their brands within this platform. And then like leadership has access to like department head me, Jess have access to all of it. And, but then from there, like, again, we’re not trying to replace our affiliate managers. We’re just trying to take away all the task oriented work that they do that that can be replaced by the best.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:33
The best, like use of their time is just on conversations with these.
Philip Hill: 19:37
People building relationships.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:39
So they have to scour the internet, they have to create a list. They have to then generate an email. They have to then send the email. They have to then follow up with the email all to get a call and talk about how it would work to get the, you know, that brand in front of more people?
Philip Hill: 19:54
Exactly. So what if they can just spend all their time on the latter part of that, that we’re generating that many more conversations without them having to spend any time doing that, that they can spend all of their time building deeper relationships, negotiating, like all the things that we.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:08
People typically open to that type of thing or, you know, will they take a call, be like, well, I’m doing a future article or are they open to, you know what, maybe I can include them in this and build out this existing one both.
Philip Hill: 20:23
So we, we land both like every month, every week, every very frequently you can can do either one. So the listicles that rank on the first page like it even helps their SEO. They’re constantly updating content. It’s fresh content. You know, it’s so it’s helpful. And these affiliates, like they know what they’re doing there. If they are a sizable site that has a lot of traffic, like they’re just looking.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:48
They can make more money with more products on there.
Philip Hill: 20:52
Exactly. So if it’s something that fits, like they’re not just going to take. Even, even these journalists we have relationships with, like they’re not going. To take stuff just because it’s us. Like they might be more likely to try something out because we have a relationship with them and work with a number of brands with them.
But you still have to like they’re going to, they have their reputation on the line and have to make sure it’s a good fit and all that, that stuff. But if it is, they’ll pick it up and include it in articles. There’s a lot of like pay to play opportunities for a lot of those that already rank and have traffic and stuff, but it’s usually fairly calculated if it’s already getting traffic to it, that that a lot of times those paid placements work out.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 21:28
So they get a yes, this was like, great, let’s do it. What’s usually the next step? Do they have to get on a call? Or is it just all handled via email from there?
Philip Hill: 21:37
Both either really whatever they prefer. Like because a lot of these sites, I mean, it could be like a huge premium dot dash Meredith owned company that like everybody, you know, household name publication down to just a little mom and pop blog that write product reviews. They’re going to have a very different, like the, the owner of that website who you’re dealing with. There’s who’s writing the content. Oftentimes, you know, where you have a huge publication you’re working with. They have tons of journalists.
They work with commerce editors, like they have product review teams that they won’t even write anything on you unless they review the product and actually like it and believe in it. And so it’s just a vast world where and then a lot of the like traditional affiliate platforms, loyalty programs, credit card reward programs, closed user groups, things like that. They don’t want to talk to you like you give them a pitch. If it fits, they’ll put you in their marketplace. And, you know, like you have, you have, we have account managers there. So we just deal with the account managers and then we might have a monthly call that we kind of go through all the opportunities and all the brands and stuff like that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:45
That’s cool. I could see a lot of. Yeah. So if you have a product based company or SaaS company call Philip or there’s like agencies that do specific things for e-commerce companies, they may build websites for e-commerce companies. They may have a lot of, you know, brands that may be interesting to, for you to help to.
Quickly on Perplexity, right? So maybe talk, maybe rapid fire in some use cases, like obviously CFO standpoint, what are some other use cases? You said it’s replacing some of your software. What are you using perplexity computer.
Philip Hill: 23:24
Yeah. So, so what we’ve been using it for so far. Everything like financial reporting. It’s kind of black and white in their invoicing. And our invoicing is not very simple either. It’s not like same recurring costs. There’s a lot of variable costs in there that it’s integrated at the right place to pull in. There are some kinks we’ve had where it’s probably 85% automated. Now. There are a few things that we we’re trying to work through. Like I went to a trade show two weeks ago, I uploaded an exhibitor list, said, fine, here’s like it knows what my ICP is. I said, find me all of the targets that I should hit from this list. There was like 1100 brands there, and it gave me a list of 88 that fit my criteria of who to go after, and I knew it was going to burn a bunch of credits too. So that’s how you had to kind of outsmart it.
So then I work with it like, hey, if you go search, do deep dive on 1100 brands one, it’s going to take forever. Two, you’re going to use all my credits, right? So help me come up with a way that you can do like a scan. And so what we ended up coming to me in perplexity computer end up coming to is, hey, scan the scan the bio. That’s just the overview. And if that fits, put that into a list. And then once you have that list narrowed down, then you can do a deeper dive. So I ended up doing a deeper dive on like a couple hundred rather than 1100. Saved a bunch of credits doing that. And then it gives me like an analysis and it connects to Apollo. So it pulls in contact information. And then we did like set up LinkedIn outreach for the brands that we’re going to be there the week leading up to the show. And then I’ve also had to just create lead lists for me.
And the one thing I’m not super pleased with yet is trying to write like hyper personalized copy for outreach to the brand. And the brands it’s pulled in are great. They’re like right up our alley. For everything that I’ve told it to, to come to, I’ve gave it some back and forth. The first list, it was not exactly what I wanted by the second list. It generated from my feedback. It was really on on track. The copies like like I just hate spam and inbox, you know, and it seems you can tell it’s trying to be personalized, but it’s still not like I wrote it. And I’ve given it a bunch of information. I’ve given it a ton of emails of like outreach that I’ve sent, but you can so you can set it up where it will automatically draft those emails, send them as like connected to gmail, right?
So this isn’t like an instantly cold email play. Like have it go to gmail and draft your emails. You can show up every morning and have 20 emails sitting in your drafts to send to prospects like it’s, I mean, you can do like we’ve done like data analysis. So looking like in affiliates, like uploading, like exporting all the reporting from the dashboards, uploading it in there and just giving us analysis that used to take us hours and hours and hours to do. And now it gives you an overview. Who are the top partners? Why are they generating like you can have a look at anything you want from a data analysis standpoint. Like strategy for SEO websites and things like that. It’s not like replacing SIM. It’s still not as good as like, I would say it’s a useful tool. It’s not replacing like our SEO strategists, but they’re using it.
And it’s really effective. So as long as we know what to tell it to go look for and pull information and all that, like it’s sorting things, it would take us like 20 hours to do for strategy and like audit strategy type things or 20, 25 hours. Now taking still takes maybe 12, ten, but just a lot of things are just completely sped up, but you can integrate it to places. So like you can a lot of the design things. Now you can integrate it to like Canva or PowerPoint or whatever you’re using. So you can like make some instead of having to go back and just prompt it over and over and over, which is what I was initially doing, it is you can now integrate it where it goes into one of those platforms that you can just make a couple changes without having to reprompt it. And but you can do it either way. I mean, truthfully, Jeremy, you can. you can do about anything you want in there.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:31
It’s interesting that I find, you know, there’s a lot of talk around, obviously ChatGPT and OpenAI and, and Claude and I don’t I haven’t heard at least lately as many people talk about Perplexity Computer, I don’t know why.
Philip Hill: 27:47
I don’t hear anybody talk about it. And it blows me away. And I have a cloud account like I use Claude and Claude is amazing and Claude is similar, but I don’t I don’t know of. I can count on one hand how many people I know using Perplexity Computer that I haven’t told to go.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:02
It’s so funny.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:03
Because all the interface. A lot of these interfaces look exactly the same. Like if I go into Perplexity, like in Claude, it’s very similar interfaces.
Philip Hill: 28:14
It is.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:15
I don’t even like. I mean, it’s basically.
Philip Hill: 28:16
It’s similar perplexity computer just uses a lot of it just uses more models. So it uses Claude, but it uses other models that are better for certain things. The outputs are honestly pretty similar. Perplexity computer, I would say is similar to outputs you would get from cloud code, but you don’t need any. So it’s more similar to like a cloud code work because you don’t need much technical know how at all. But I would say the outputs you get are maybe better than that for certain things.
Do you know what open core is? So perplexity computer is like open core that runs on the cloud where where open core runs on your like locally. And so there’s like security issues and you can’t do a lot of other things while you’re working on it, like perplexity computer. I can just go. I mean, you don’t have to have a Mac mini or anything like it’s just in a browser and then I can get it set up. It’ll keep working. I go on with my day. So it’s, it’s basically open cloud, open core in the cloud rather than on your local computer.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:18
So first of all, I could talk to you for hours about this stuff. I really appreciate your time. I want to encourage people to check out Purebred Marketing. purebredmarketing.com to learn more. And if you know a DTC brand SaaS company, reach out to Philip. All right. Thanks, Philip.
Philip Hill: 29:36
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:37
So this is part of my top people top resources. Sherrie’s amazing. I’ve known her for years. Sherry Sokolowski you could check her out slsplanning.com and she’s going to share some of her favorite. She does events all over the country. She’s been doing it for many, many years. So I wanted to hear from her, some of her favorite speakers, some of her favorite authors, and even some of her favorite events that she’s attended. I know it’s hard to pick your favorite child, but just depends on the day. Sherrie. But talk about SLS Planning and what you do first.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 30:13
Well, thanks, Jeremy. Yeah, you and I have known each other probably for almost a couple of decades. I was just speaking with one of my favorite people today where we were talking about. We’ve worked together for a couple of decades. So SLS Event Planning and Consulting is basically a strategic event planning company.
And what that means is I like to help clients create events that tie to their business and their brand so that they can make the event part of the process of growing. So it’s really all about figuring out why do they want to have an event? What do they want that outcome to be? And we work together strategically to get them there through that process. I’ve worked with many clients through the years all around the US.
One that is famously known is Russell Brunson with Funnel Hacking Live. I worked with him for his first five Funnel Hacking Live events. The background where I came from and how I started was Bill Glazer as executive assistant. So I ran all of SLS Event from 2008 until about 2012, when I went out on my own. I helped Deanna with TNC for a few years. So it’s, you know, those are the kind of the big names out there. But I also work many other clients. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 31:34
And I mean, that’s like. I think it was like 7000 people or something, right?
Sherrie Sokolowski: 31:42
Yeah. It was, it was pretty crazy how big they got. But, but yeah, I mean, as you, as you mentioned before, you saw one of the, the speakers that I did an interview with through the years. So yeah, it’s been a lot of fun getting to work with many different clients in, in the, the entrepreneurial world industry that I like to work with.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:02
So maybe, I don’t know if it’s looking at those events like, you know, ClickFunnels attracts great speakers, traffic conversion, great speakers. I see great speakers who are some of the speakers that have stuck out for you. Maybe you don’t even get to watch them because you’re running in the background trying to like do everything. But who sticks out over the years is some good speakers.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 32:26
I would say, if I were to start from the beginning days and I see days. Some of my favorite speakers were were, you know, quite honored. Ironically, some celebrities, one of the ones that I really enjoyed the most, and it was mainly because of the real life. Oh, I didn’t know that you were that. Like, that was, you know, Gene Simmons and how he talked about he did not spoon feed, you know, his kids did not get the silver spoon per se. You know, he made them work hard.
Same thing Ivanka Trump said about her dad. You know, it’s like, you know, they had to work hard to get to be where they are in life because they didn’t want to just hand things to them because they were successful. They want their kids to become successful in their own right. So those were a lot of fun. And then when I worked with Russell, one of my favorite speakers, and I actually got him to do a testimonial for me too, was Marcus Lemonis from The Profit. He was extremely down to earth.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:24
He actually he is very he’s very likable on the show, too. Yeah.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 33:29
Very likable. And he’s that way. Just he’s the kind of like one of the most genuine to celebrities I met because he was that way in person. He didn’t stand up on stage. He actually came down and sat down on the stage and just started talking to the people in the front. But he was a lot of fun. And another, the celebrities, sort of celebrities in their own right that I’ve been working with a lot over the past couple of years is Michael Michalowicz. I just grabbed a testimonial from him the other. Last week, a couple of weeks ago when we did an event together. He’s very, very energetic. He’s spoken for quite a lot of my clients over the years. He has several books. A lot of us we like, you know, I think the prophet or something like that is one of his most profit first.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 34:18
Yeah.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 34:18
Sure. Yeah. Profit First. That’s one of the most sought after books. Actually, one of his newest books I just have here on my desk is The Money Habits. And that’s what he spoke about at the latest event that we worked together on. And it’s really tied to being a leader in how you can help your client, your, your team members, you know, have better money habits as well.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 34:41
So here, I’ve had him on the podcast a couple of times. You see here podcast and profit first fix this next. That was a pumpkin. The Pumpkin Plan, I think it’s called. And yeah, he’s all his books are great. I just like the audio version because The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur clockwork. I just he’s just a funny, upbeat guy. And so I liked listening to the audio version.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 35:05
He’s extremely upbeat. And, and the thing is, is he really knows his stuff. And just like Marcus Lemonis, it’s like he’s so down to earth that he can be so relatable to talk to. You know, I asked him like, hey, can you stick around and do a book signing with everybody? And he’s like, yeah, sure. No, no problem. I my place, not for a couple of hours anyway. And we had our own t shirts and I’m like, hey, you want to go throw this on and, and do that? And yeah, so he went and changed his shirt, you know, so, but just really, really down to earth. Another really good speaker. And he also has a couple of books as Joey Coleman. So if anyone’s ever had an opportunity to, to hear him, Joey Coleman’s really, really good. His books are on both how to keep a client and how to keep your employees. So it’s sort of the same mindset but in different elements.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:00
So he’s a Top Giver Series on the show sharing. He was one of the people I featured because of that. Yeah. So yeah, he his books are fantastic. I love that.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 36:12
Very fantastic. And he’s so personable and, but both of them have sort of the same kind of personalities from stage where they’re very energetic. They throw in a couple of little points to to get people laughing. So, so those I would say probably are my.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:30
Here they are. Never Lose a Customer Again. Never Lose an Employee Again.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 36:33
Exactly. And, and the process that he takes you through with both of these people wouldn’t they couldn’t stop writing. I mean, the amount of notes that business owners take away from both of these presentations that he gives with these books is just stellar. I’d say he’s he’s probably Mike’s got so many books. He can speak on so many different things.
Whereas Joey, these two specific things I think are really, really one of my best, one of my favorites that I like to see. So and, and to go back to what you were saying is, do I get to see, I try to get everything that I could possibly get done so that I’m in the room when these speakers are on stage, because I don’t want to miss that opportunity.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:22
And then I see, I mean, I mean, Dan Kennedy has a slew of books and he’s got some of my favorite like BS. So people check out the No B.S., whatever marketing books that he has out there and Magnetic Marketing. And I think.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:38
I think was, you know, I think Russell Brunson bought that. The marketing brand, I think I’m not sure as of.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 37:48
Now the latest.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:49
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I remember listening to the audio version of Magnetic Marketing a long time ago.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 37:57
And I had to work with Dan again last year. Oh, really? Spoke at events. Yeah, yeah. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since 2012. It’s been a while in person. He’s spoken virtually for some of my clients before, but this is the first time in since 2012 where he’s been at an event that I was running.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 38:17
Yeah. Brian, I don’t know. You probably know Brian Kurtz. I think we were introduced by Dan Kuschell actually, who’s got a couple of great books as well, but Brian Kurtz. Yeah. Has over deliver, you know. Brian, right? Yeah. And Brian had Dan speak and Dan, I mean, not only is he just a genius marketer, copywriter, business person, but he is like, it’s like a comedy show when you listen to him.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 38:45
So I agree, it’s great. You have to hold your breath sometimes. He’s not like he used to be where you’re like, oh my gosh, what’s he going to say? So yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 38:58
Any other books? And like, I just want to, I don’t know. Have you worked with Mike Agugliaro also before?
Sherrie Sokolowski: 39:03
I have, yeah, yeah, he has spoken out. One of my clients, I want to say it wasn’t in 25, but in 24. Very nice man.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 39:14
Really nice.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 39:15
He gives back quite a bit.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 39:17
What strikes me about Mike? Really successful guy. Amazing track writer as entrepreneur. And I think Mike Michalowicz. Actually talks about Mike in his book, Mike Michalowicz in his book, but he’s. Taking copious notes with alongside everyone else like just a. That’s what struck me about Mike is no matter how much how successful he’s been, that’s probably why he just is with everyone else. Just writing everything down and just continuously learning.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 39:51
It’s so true. And that’s the kind of speaker that I like to have at events is those that are in the room and part of the room, and not just ones that are there to just jump on the stage and exit.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 40:06
First of all, Sherry, I want to thank you. Thanks for sure. I always love hearing your experience this firsthand with all the events you’re doing. I don’t know if you want to talk. Maybe quickly, just about some of the events that you’re doing that people could check out. It could be in the law space, it could be in the entrepreneur space. What are some ones that on the horizon that people should maybe, you know, check out?
Sherrie Sokolowski: 40:30
Yeah, sure. Thanks for for that opportunity. And my clients would love for me to, to show a couple plugs. Yeah. One of my one clients I was just talking to you about shortly, he’s come back into live events for the first time since Covid, and he’s pretty excited because he was successfully doing events prior to Covid.
And that’s Credit Repair Expo, and that’s for people who are looking for ways to create an income and create a business. And so he has a credit repair cloud software program that allows people to create a business to help others repair their credit, and that is creditrepairexpo.com.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 41:09
Okay.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 41:10
Yeah, it’s Daniel Rosen. Super amazing energy giving back. He’s actually got a big a big thing with charity at the events next month. So he’s pretty as you can see a huge lineup. I get to work with one of my very favorite emcees, Devon Brown.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 41:29
And so ClickFunnels too, right? As an emcee.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 41:32
Yeah, he did. He did Funnel Hacking Live. Devon is one of the best emcee’s out there. He and I have worked together for decades and have a great relationship. Some of the others that GLM Marketing in October. Great Legal Marketing. That is another ticket selling event. It’s mainly for entrepreneurial attorneys. It’s not a member based event that one is. If you’re an attorney who owns your own law practice and you’re looking for an event that can help you succeed, you know, GLM is good for that. If you are another. If you are an entrepreneurial attorney, but you’re looking for a home that can offer you services and coaching, then your practice mastered. Who does? Partners Club is another.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 42:23
I’ve had Ben Glass on the podcast actually before. So yeah, great episode. People should check it out. I mean, I think he was a soccer referee and we talked about it’s so random that on the podcast.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 42:35
Yeah, he’s, he’s in his, I want to say in his 60s and he is so much more in better shape than anybody I’ve ever met half his age, CrossFit. He does soccer coaching. He still is a lawyer. He practices law still. He coaches other lawyers. And then he’s got his son, Brian, who is also part of the firm. And Brian’s super smart. He also delivers content on stage. So their their events happening in October. I’ve been working with them guys for a few years also. So that that’s actually where Dan spoke last year. He spoke at event last year.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 43:16
I mean, that’s the ticket alone. To see Dan Kennedy speak is worth it wherever he’s speaking.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 43:21
Yeah, yeah. So that’s another like a ticket selling. But the one other one I was mentioning after this was your practice mastered, they host a member event Partners Club, but it’s a great company for entrepreneurial attorneys who are looking for that perfect service that can help them with non sales person. Yep. Richard James and Michael Strauch another father and son run business. Those are the different services that they offer there. And they have quarterly events that are implementation events.
And that’s and they have lots of books, resources and such that you can go on, like you just said, that showed their they’ve got lots of books that you can say, hey, you know, and they, they do many, many different podcasts. So you can request one of their books and be part of their podcast. But they’ve been rich has been part of the Dan Kennedy Bill Glazer industry for decades as well. So, you know, he took what he learned from there and is helping out. So those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head that people might find helpful.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:29
I love it, everyone check out slsplanning.com. Sherrie, it’s always fun. Thanks so much.
Sherrie Sokolowski: 44:37
Thanks, Jeremy. Take care.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:39
This is part of the Top Resources Top People episode. I’m here with Richard Jacobs. You’ll be able to check it out at speakeasymarketinginc.com. Also docket-works.com. And Richard’s going to share some of his favorite tools, apps, software, books, podcasts. He’s a wealth of knowledge. I met him way back at a Brian Kurtz Titans event. Richard, I don’t know if you remember that, but we hit it off and been kept in touch ever since. So Richard, thanks for joining us and just talk about Speakeasy Marketing Inc. and DocketWorks and what you do.
Richard Jacobs: 45:18
Yeah. Before that, I just want to give you credit. You’re the one that that helped inspire me and nudged me to start doing podcasting about eight years ago. And I’ve done over 4000 episodes across various podcasts since. But I remember speaking to you and you were like, you know, I was able to speak to this executive and this person and, you know, I’m always a curious person. I want to ask questions. And I was like, wow, how’d you do that? And you said, oh, I have a podcast and I invite them on. And because of the platform, I can talk to people that never normally would talk to me.
So it inspired me and I just wanted to give you thanks for doing that. And I took it and ran with it. And it’s, I mean, so many things have happened because of the podcast in my life. I put on a Bitcoin conference. I’ve made some great friends in different industries. I’ve learned unbelievable amounts of information. You know, much of it useful. I mean, it’s just it’s changed my life. It was something I went into with no preconceived notions. And it’s just been a wonderful experience. So I want to thank you for nudging me to do that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 46:19
I love it. I mean, you are also the ultimate person doing execution. So just congrats on executing and, you know, doing this right. I’m going to pull up. I’m going to pull up the Speakeasy Marketing Inc. website. I mean, yeah, I mean, you’ve had different conferences in different niches with your podcast too. So it’s pretty incredible what you’ve done.
Richard Jacobs: 46:44
Yeah. No thank you. Yeah. So the main thing I do for 16 years now is we work with small law firms. We help them with their marketing to improve, you know, their business and grow it. And we’ve also added a staffing component that’s called DocketWorks. So you show that when you’re ready that site. But you know, again, the main one is marketing for solos and small firms, you know, up to five attorneys. And last August, we started including staffing paralegals for law firms. And we’ve got a program where we have internationally licensed attorneys do the paralegal work. So you’re getting a really highly trained person that’s a lawyer in their country.
And the lawyers that are overseas, we found that they love to work with American firms. It’s very prestigious. It’s usually a part of that lawyer’s plan to either move to the US to become a lawyer or just move to a higher stature in their own country. So by matching them up with law firms here in the United States, we’re getting great results. I mean, we’re getting a lot of testimonials. People are happy with the work and the staffing component is interesting. It’s something different. It’s another way to help law firms. So those are the two main things that I’ve been doing with the podcast is more of like a side hobby type thing. But you know, that’s what I’ve been up to.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 48:03
I love it, yeah. If you’re if anyone’s watching the video portion, you can see speakeasymarketing.com. You can check it out under the resources. You can check out podcasts too. So some of the episodes, but also DocketWorks.com here. That’s really smart. What gave you the idea for DocketWorks and to, you know, hire these, you know, lawyers in other countries to help.
Richard Jacobs: 48:25
Well, so the road to success, anyone I think would say is a zigzag. So what happens when you’re in a law firm is, you know, at first you want to get more clients and you get busier and busier and busier until it gets to be, you know, miserable. You’re working 60, 70 hours a week, you’re just flooded with work. Now you need to get help and systemization. You need a paralegal. That’s good. You know, to answer the phone to help you, to prepare documents, etc. so you could work on the real high end stuff that that is worth 300 bucks an hour or more. So once you’re good with that, now maybe you want to add more clients and grow further.
And then you need people to handle that. So that’s the zigzag or the upward spiral. You can call it on how to really grow a successful law firm. Some of the firms we worked with have been able to grow to approximately a million a year top line, and with margins for an attorney, for a small firm, that could mean, you know, 4 to 500,000 before taxes take home for the attorney, which is fantastic. A lot of attorneys will make, you know, 150,000 a year, maybe 120, if you’re able to get them up into the two, three, 4 or 500,000 a year. Now, they’ve got a really great lifestyle. So that’s why, like I said, I see the road to success as this zig zag. More clients, more Systemization more clients where systemization back and forth.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 49:48
Richard, I know you’re a perpetual learner. I’d love to hear some of the tools, software, apps that you like to use for your business. It could be personal as well. What are some of your favorites?
Richard Jacobs: 50:01
Well, a lot of the favorites are real manual ones. I’ll give one example for law firms and I’ll give one example for the podcast. So I thought about this one day. It sounds ridiculous and simple, but what if in your firm, you told every new client Friday at 5 p.m., we’re going to update you on your case. Even if nothing is happening, we’re going to let you know so you don’t have to worry. So I have a number of firms that have actually done this, and they say it reduces the inbound calls, sometimes 30% or more. And these are inbound calls from current clients that would normally clutter up your phone and you have to deal with. So if you don’t have that happening, you have more room for potential new clients to call you and take time to service them. So it’s a very big deal. You get less people backseat driving you too, because they get worried. You know, obviously with law, you’re not dealing with frivolous things. It’s a big deal. You know, someone’s getting divorced or someone’s trying to stay out of jail or someone’s, you know, a parent or whatever passed away and there’s an estate.
So people get very, very nervous. And if you get an update every Friday, you can relax. Okay, good. I know what’s going on with my case. And they tend to review a lot more positively. They’re just better behaved clients. They pay more often and all that. The value proposition gets increased dramatically just by doing that. So anyone listening, whatever industry you’re in, as long as you give an update to people and you tell them and you stick by it, it’s not technical. You can use CRM to do it. Whatever reminder, you know, but if you do that, you’ll you’ll experience just a lot more peace in your business and it’ll work a heck of a lot better. So that’s one tip there.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 51:44
I love that. That’s a, like a, basically just a really good process. Any other interesting, powerful processes that you recommend?
Richard Jacobs: 51:54
Yeah. For the podcast and I’ve done a whole bunch myself. The worst thing, the most disheartening thing is let’s say you have a great interaction. Great podcast, right? You’re very happy. You’re you’re buzzing. And then they’re like, oh, we have a lot of podcasts ahead of you. So we’ll, this will probably go live 6 to 8 months from now. And you’re like, are you serious? So I promised everyone on my podcast and I’ve stuck, stuck to it two weeks or less. You will be live and we’re going to send you an email with links on everywhere it’s gone and all the other stuff, and people really like that. And it’s not that hard to stick to it. And that’s just a great relief for people because, you know, they may have a book that’s launching.
So I’ll say to them, oh, your book’s launching, you know, March 6th. Do you want us to come out with yours on March 5th? Yeah, that would be great. Why not? Let’s help you promote. Let’s do it at a good time, you know, or I have this thing coming up. I need you to post it at this time, okay? No problem. You know, if you if you post one a week, there’s nothing wrong with posting two in a given week. It’s not going to kill you, you know. So if you’re going to accommodate people and just let them know that the conversation was valued and you’re going to get it up there soon while the high is still there, that’s a huge selling point. So I think every podcaster should do that and commit to it.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 53:12
Love it. You mentioned CRM. You know, obviously doing some of these pieces like updating people. I’m curious, what are some of the tools you use? What’s your tech stack look like as a company?
Richard Jacobs: 53:26
Well, I mean, we use Zoho for our CRM, so you can do automatic updates through there. There are some people that you know, it’s a phone call once a month, at least for the customer service to go over their account. Make sure that everything’s happening and what’s good, what’s bad, what do we need to work on? But so the CRM will do the automatic updating, usually through email or text. If the person prefers that. And then phone and Zoom is how we do the big updates for people. It’s just important if you know, if you know somebody and you’ve never met them. You could still have a good relationship. But if you’ve seen them even just once in person, it just elevates the relationship. It’s a lot better.
And the more a person hears from you to a point and you’re not annoying them, but again, the more they consistently hear from you, they know that you’re doing work for them. You know how many people have a vendor that they’re like, what do they do again? You know, you get the bill. You see the bill monthly, which could be an annoying reminder. And you may think like, what? What do they do? You don’t even remember what they do for you. And sometimes you’ll cancel them because you won’t remember or you won’t appreciate them. So communication is just it’s incredibly important. However you do it, it doesn’t matter. It can be totally automated, not automated, whatever, but just do it and be consistent.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 54:42
And what about on the on the law firm side? I know there’s different tools you have listed on your site. Obviously you internally use Zoho, but I know you have different tools listed like Clio and other things. What do you recommend as far as a law firm’s tech stack?
Richard Jacobs: 54:58
Yeah, well, they definitely need a CRM and you want one that’s really well supported. There’s going to be trade offs on all of them. There is training for all of them. And I recommend that, you know, the attorneys get it. We have our paralegals trained on the software that a law firm would use. So they’re ready to go. But yeah, you want your people trained on how to use it and not to just be fumbling around with it and say, oh, it’s too much of a pain. I don’t want to deal with it. But again, CRM is very important for communication. Billing. You don’t want to let your receivables sit there. And a lot of people are afraid to call and ask for their money. You have to do it because otherwise they could easily add up to thousands, sometimes tens of thousands that you’ve done work for that you’re not collecting on.
And that creates bad blood anyway. You know, like if you meet somebody and you, you’re supposed to call them after two days and you forget now it’s four days and you feel embarrassed. But what happens if you let that feeling keep going? Now it’s five days. Now it’s two weeks. Now it’s a month now. You really look stupid. So you just gotta bite the bullet. And if you make a mistake. I’m sorry. You know, please don’t shoot me. And just move on from there. So communication again is just a critically important. Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, some people will be unforgiving, but not a lot of them will allow them. Surprisingly, will will say, it’s okay.
It’s okay. You know, as long as it’s not a perpetual thing, but just very, very important. So software that helps you to do that. Great. So again, billing software reminders for attorneys, e-filing so they don’t have to run down to the courthouse with papers. That’s very important. Legal research. There are tools to do that like Westlaw, LexisNexis. That’s very helpful. You know, so you look up past cases and all that. So for them, they don’t have a huge tech stack, actually? Which is nice, but they need some of the basics and they need to really use them.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 56:57
What about Rich? I know as far as resources go, some of your favorite books or podcasts. It could be business related. I know that you’re heavy into the sales, marketing business. What are some of your favorite books, podcasts out there?
Richard Jacobs: 57:15
Definitely. One of my favorite is 80/20 by Richard Koch. Koch. And then Perry Marshall did a great version of this too, 80/20 Sales and Marketing. So I mean, if you use that filter over everything you do, it tells you that the results you’re going to get are going to be very skewed. Some things you do barely give you any result, and a few things that you do give you most of the result. So if you always know there’s going to be an 80/20 in there, a skew, and you look for it, you almost always find it and it’s a shortcut. You get things done much, much faster, much easier. Less effort. I’ll give you an example. So when we first did the Finding Genius Podcast, I put it on every channel you could.
We found 64 different channels to put it on. But then when I got reports over on the listeners and all that, there was only five channels that represented like 97% of the listenership. So I chopped the other channels and just did the five. I didn’t do one, but I did five, and that’s how we got most of our exposure. It was a website, YouTube, iTunes, and I forget what else, but that’s a very quick, you know, 80/20 type of thing. Let’s say you do a podcast and you only want to put it on SoundCloud for some reason, you know, many of your listeners may not go there, they may not use it. So if you do what I did, you put it on a whole bunch and see which ones have traction. You know, focus on those and you’ll do far better.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 58:44
Yeah, totally. Perry Marshall’s book 80/20 Sales and Marketing is one of my favorites. also. Any other favorites? Throughout the years I’m going to pull up two. I think we could find findinggeniuspodcast.com right where all the podcasts are as well. So I’m going to pull that up as you’re you’re talking. So any, any other books or podcasts that are some of your favorites?
Richard Jacobs: 59:06
Yeah, there’s Work the System by Sam Carpenter and there’s The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. So again, you think that’s boring. I don’t want to systematize or have SOPs for this and that, and I don’t want to, you know, it just saves you unbelievable amounts of time. And if you have people working for you, you give them the SOPs, you give them the systems and they can do it in a structured way. And a lot of stuff gets done that would be missed or messed up or so like, for instance, when we put up a new website for an attorney over the years, you know, this would go wrong. Okay, add it to the checklist.
Oh, we forgot about this. Okay. Add it to the checklist. So I’ve been using this checklist I’ve been revising for probably about yeah, for like 15 years. It’s got 70 some odd elements on it, but it’s so powerful that we can put up a new attorneys website in like a week with pretty much zero errors because it’s been through the ringer for 15 years. So it’s not just creating a checklist or a procedure, but revising it every six months and just making it better and better and better, and it becomes a really powerful thing. If I have a person in the office that does a certain task and they’ve done it a hundred times, now I want to go to them and say, you’ve done this a hundred times. Are there any steps in here that are unnecessary, or should they be in a different order, or is there anything we left out?
And they’ll tell you, you know, you know, you don’t need to do this step. Forget it. Fine. Or you should add this in like 30% of the time. I have to add this in. Okay, fine. And you revise it with that person’s input. They feel valued and in control of what they’re doing, and it allows them to do a much better job, so systematizing the heck out of your business just gives you a lot of freedom. We don’t have to just constantly worry about things blowing up or malfunctioning because stuff gets smooth. We used to have problems sometimes every day, you know, with speakeasy back in the day, and then it slowed down to once a week, then once a month, then once a quarter, then once every six months. And for a while, it was just, it was just fantastic. You know, the economy’s changed. That’s a whole nother story. But the business got so systematized. I only had to spend about 4 or 5 hours a week running it, and it was rare that we had big problems. Things just ran smoothly.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:01:27
You know, I love how you mentioned the checklist, you know, Manifesto and you said, yeah, maybe it doesn’t. It’s not the sexiest. But I think in the book they talk is a great book, by the way, great recommendation in the book, they talk about hospitals using it. Right. And so if you if I’m a patient in hospital, I want them going through the checklist so I don’t get a worse infection. Right? So if if I’m on the other side of things, I want someone using this. And this is the most essential thing as a customer patient or whatever it is, you know what I mean?
Richard Jacobs: 1:02:01
Yeah. You know, if you’re going to fly on an airline and the pilot just couldn’t sleep well last night for some reason, maybe the hotel was terrible and he’s really tired and he’s got a checklist for landing, take off all this other stuff, and he misses stuff and he’s able to fly the plane without the checklist. You could run into a lot of trouble. I mean, it’s very automated, but still. Or a surgeon.
I’ll give you a crazy example. So like 26 years ago, I tore my knee skiing my ACL. And, you know, I went to the hospital eventually to have the surgery. And right before I went under, I looked down and on my left leg, they wrote, yes, in marker, you know, with a circle over my knee and on the right leg, they wrote, no. I said, why did you guys do that? They go, We don’t want to operate on the wrong leg. I said, oh, that’s good.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:02:47
I’m sure it’s happened, right?
Richard Jacobs: 1:02:49
Yeah. I said, that’s a good idea. Passed out. The next thing I knew was waking up.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:02:55
Yeah, it everything gets processed, gets put in place because it happened. You know what I mean? At some point, someone went in and operated on the wrong knee. Right. So they had to put that in place.
Richard Jacobs: 1:03:08
Yeah. It’s not just the joke. It’s the real thing that happens. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:03:11
Totally. But, Richard, I just want to thank you. Thanks for sharing some of your resources, tools, tips. You know, you have a lot of knowledge through not only the books, your experience in business, but also all the podcast episodes. So I do want to encourage people. You can see on the screen here, you can check out speakeasymarketinginc.com, especially if you’re a lawyer. Same thing what we talked about with docket-works.com. If you’re in need of staffing and also check out findinggeniuspodcast.com. There’s so many different types of episodes, from stem cells to cancer to microbiome to AI and medicine, I don’t know. Rich, before we wrap up, if there’s any interesting AI tools that you are using or hearing people using as well right now.
Richard Jacobs: 1:03:58
With AI, it’s funny, it’s like, it’s like 3D printing, you know? Oh, you’ll just be able to 3D print a house and no 3D. You could do the walls, but who’s going to do the windows, the paint, the electricity, the plumbing, the roof, the. So it is a great productivity tool. Same thing with AI, but it’s not like, oh, I just built an AI agent and now it runs my whole business. We’re using it, we’re building it, but it requires a lot of finishing and integration to work. And if it malfunctions, it can really cause a problem. But you know. So definitely look for it in your business.
Look for it as an adjunct to someone’s job, not to replace them. It can make them a lot more productive. And maybe if you have two people that do a job? Yes, at some point it could become one with the help of an AI. But use it. But just just remember, there still is a lot of hype around it, and it’s not nearly as cracked up as as people say it is. It will be, you know, it’ll get better and better over the next few years for sure. So I’m not saying don’t use it at all, but just don’t expect it to radically change everything. And you sit there and just sleep and make money.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:05:07
Exactly. Well, Rich, thank you so much. Everyone. Check out findinggeniuspodcast.com. Check out the speakeasymarketinginc.com and also docket-works.com. We’ll see everyone next time. Richard, thanks so much.
Richard Jacobs: 1:05:21
Thanks, Jeremy.
