Welcome to the Marketing in the Wild podcast. I’m Julia from Stratos Creative Marketing, where we are obsessed with finding real-life examples of the good, the bad, and sometimes wild, in marketing.
Julia: Hey friends, I have another special episode for you today. I’m not actually in it. I’m handing the mic over to Ryann, our senior content coordinator. You have met her here before in our “Getting Weird on Social Media” episode. It was a few episodes ago, probably a lot of episodes ago, actually. And you’re also gonna hear from Sami Hall. She’s a Stratos friend, lawyer, and she came to our workshop back in January.
And I am really, really excited to turn the mic over. What they’re actually going to be doing is a brainstorming session. And the reason that I asked them to do this is because one, as you’ll hear Ryann is a master at brainstorming. Ryann has been with me for the past three of the four years that we have been working on Stratos.
She was here back when it was Julia Block, LLC. And I am so grateful to her. But she is an idea generator. We’ve always joked if we could get paid to brainstorm, we would be very rich and wouldn’t have to do a lot of work. But here, this is what happened at our content repurposing workshop back in January, we purposely inserted a part of it to be brainstorming.
And that was everybody’s favorite part. I’m not even going to lie to you. All of our testimonials came back saying that they love the brainstorming, that it was so useful. And so we thought it would be fun for you to listen in on a brainstorming session that Ryann is conducting with Sami. So for the record, this is not their first brainstorming session.
So they will talk about ideas that they are going to generate here. But they’re also going to talk about ideas that were generated at their last brainstorming session. And also for the record, Sami’s a lawyer. And I realized that the people listening to this podcast might not be lawyers. So while you might say, ‘yeah, nothing of this, like really pertains to me, like I’m just going to tune this out, skip to next week’, I would encourage you to stick around because I think that as you hear the creativity come alive in the next 20 minutes you are going to come up with some of your own creative ideas. I’m absolutely confident.
That was one of the coolest things about our brainstorming sessions during the workshop is that we’ve put groups of four to five people together and they were actually able to give each other feedback and each other ideas.
So for example, one person worked in heavy machinery and another person worked at a non-profit. And the heavy machinery guy said, I have no idea what to write about. And the non-profit guy was like, ‘well, I have all of these questions, what if you created content around that?’ And so even as you listen to this podcast, even though it is about Sami’s business, Fleur de Law, I would encourage you to stick around because I think it’ll spark some ideas of your own.
So without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to Ryann and to Sami. They’ll introduce themselves and then kind of, you could just get to be like a fly on the wall during their brainstorming session. I’ll meet you back here at the end of the episode. Otherwise enjoy.
Ryann: All right. So Sami, thank you so much for joining me for this brainstorming session.
Sami: Thanks for having me.
Ryann: I’m going to reintroduce myself for the podcast listeners. My name is Ryann and I am a senior content coordinator here at Stratos. So I work with our clients to make sure that they have content that helps them make their business seen and heard by the people who they want to work with. But I always say if I could have a full-time job brainstorming, I would do it! So I’m so excited for this! So I want to take a moment for our guest to introduce themselves. So I know Sami, but you don’t know her. Tell us who you are.
Sami: Hi. So my name is Sami Hall. I am an attorney in Louisville, Kentucky. I primarily practice family law with a special focus in domestic violence. I’m hoping to get into some immigration practice soon because that’s something that’s very, very important to me. But I’m a solo practitioner, which means that my business is just me. And I started it last year.
It’s called Fleur de Law, the symbol for Louisville, Kentucky is a fleur-de -lis. And Louisville has always been really important to me so I wanted to incorporate that into my business. Yeah, I don’t know how to do marketing. The way that I’ve been doing it so far is pretty haphazard, but, I was lucky enough to get connected with Stratos and even luckier to be able to do this brainstorming session because I’m good at being a lawyer. I’m not so good at being a marketer.
Ryann: That’s all right. When you work with us, you don’t have to be both, right? That’s why we’re here for you. So tell me a little bit more about why creating content feels complicated, right? Why is it difficult?
Sami: So I think part of it is because this is more of a schooling thing. When you go to law school, there’s a lot of focus on how to work at a big firm. How to bill your hours, how to do legal research. And those are all really, really important, but that’s not what I wanted to do. And that’s not where I ended up. There’s not a lot of info on how to start a small business, how to manage a small business.
And even if you know how to do all the tax side of things, how do you get people in the door? So there’s definitely just a feeling of loss in general. But then also, you can go on Pinterest or whatever and say like, ‘how do I market?’ And you’ll find all of these things is about like, oh, let’s send out a newsletter. And here’s how you can send like weekly emails. And here’s how you can write a blog. And I’ve never heard of a lawyer’s office sending out emails. So, I don’t know that that’s even a possibility.
Ryann: You can do it! I have faith in you. I believe in you. We’re here for it. I also love email marketing. So that time I was like, anyone could do an email newsletter and I’ll show you, I’ll show you how we’ll talk about it. So I’ll make sure to put a pin in that.
Sami: Oh, that is so good to know. It just feels a little foreign. And so that’s part of the challenge. And then also with it just being me I feel like it would take a lot of time to devote, sending out a weekly email or making one blog post a week or having social media posts. I feel like it would consume so much of my time that I wouldn’t be able to do legal work, just constantly having to come up with new content.
Ryann: You have to be in your business and run your business. And you sometimes can’t work on the marketing. And also on that front, your subject matter and the type of law you do is really heavy. So I would understand how it be hard to balance.
Sami: Like how do I put emojis in my social media posts? I’m talking about like signs of abusive relationships, you know?
Ryann: Yes. There’s only so many times you can use the like scales, the law scales.
Sami: A little gavel is all that I could think of.
Ryann: You know, just like a need for more like red head, emojis, ginger emojis, which I feel they really need more like law centric emojis. Yeah. Like how can you use the dance one? That’s my favorite.
Sami: I know. Right? Even if you’re in divorce court. That’s insensitive.
Ryann: We are writing that down. Something I think, and we talked a little bit and full disclosure to everyone listening, Sami has been working with us for a little bit and she just came to our content repurposing workshop. So we have done a little bit of the lifting and that, and something we talked about was, how can you be a guide?
How can you provide advice because you can’t give legal advice, right? That’s a big one.
Sami: Right, that’s a big one. That is not allowed. I cannot give you legal advice unless I’m your attorney.
Ryann: Right. And you know what they need. Yeah. They need to hire you and you have to get the people there, you know, like that funnel doesn’t really work that way.
So, what if, and we talked about this a little bit before, but how can you be an advisor to someone like a trusted advisor? How can you guide potential clients, again without legal advice? Is there non-legal legal advice you can give?
Sami: I think life advice is probably a good way to categorize it because I can just give general tips. Like if you have like a, I don’t know, a friend who’s a plumber they could be like, ‘Hey, I don’t flush paper plates down the toilet’, even though they’re not your plumber and a slightly more glamorous than that can be, only slightly, slightly more glamorous than that could be me.
So just, there are general things that they’re not legal advice, but they would just make retaining a lawyer so much easier for both parties and like so much cheaper for both parties. Right?Because if you just bring in, and I’ve had this happen, truly just binders full of every piece of paper you think might be important I have to spend time sifting through that.
Right? And that costs you money. Those are billable hours. I got to value my time, so it involves charging money. But if I could just let people know, like, Hey, if you are looking to like adopt your foster kid, um, I don’t need your tax return from 1994, but I do need your marriage license.
And things like that. So I think something like that, like how to prepare to meet with a lawyer or like, ‘Hey, if you’re in a messy divorce, please write down everything. Don’t verbally agree to exchange the kids on Tuesday at IHOP’. Like write that down. That’s just good advice.
Ryann: So I think that’s great. We want to position you as, yeah, you can’t give legal advice, but you can give life advice. Right? And things that’ll help you in life and when they hire you or someone else to be their counsel? Something we think about in, so that’s the life advice versus legal advice could be somewhat of like a content pillar or content bucket for your social media bucket.
Sami: Bucket sounds familiar.
Ryann: Yeah. Yeah. So let’s take a moment to kind of brainstorm, like whether it’s social media, whether it’s email, whether it’s blog posts, what are the types of things you can talk about? You know, one of those examples is services. So you do like multiple different types of laws. So those are things that you can kind of pull out, like what other topics or services do you do that we can kind of pull the thread on a little bit?
Sami: Yeah. So family law is a pretty big bucket. There’s a lot of things that go into family law. So there’s you’re starting at the beginning of a relationship, there might be a prenup. So I write prenuptial agreements. And, it’s always good to explain to people that getting a prenup doesn’t mean you’re planning to get a divorce. It’s just being prepared. It doesn’t mean you don’t trust your spouse.
Then if things do go South, I will get you divorced. So I do divorces. Within divorces a lot of times there are things like child support and custody. And there’s a big difference between custody and parenting time that is sometimes difficult for people to grasp because we kind of use the words interchangeably.
And so I I’m doing it right now. I’m giving not legal advice, but just explaining the laws to people about child support. Adoption, that’s always really happy. I do some estate planning things, so I can write simple wills if you need to prepare for when you’re gone. You need to maybe help an elderly relative I can do powers of attorney. And then the big one is that I represent survivors of domestic violence in civil, so not criminal, civil protective order protection order hearings against their abusers. And so I helped get them what we commonly hear them called restraining orders, but in Kentucky, which is where I’m located, they’re referred to as domestic violence orders.
And so that’s something that I’m really passionate about and that I do a lot of. So those are my services right now in the future that might expand. But that’s where I am right now.
Well, and there’s, I think with the heavy parts of your services, you can’t maybe get into like the nitty-gritty detail there’s attorney-client privilege or things like that, but you can spell things out.
You can do like five things that you need to prepare for your initial consult or something.
Yeah. Things like that. I feel like that would be really awesome. Also something you deal with domestic abuse survivors, also adoptees, local services. I feel like highlighting local services.
You know, if someone needs an accountant, if someone needs, a nonprofit, similar to, I know like Dress to Success is one, or like helping people connecting, you can be not only an advisor, but also a connector to those other businesses. Right? And share those and how they’re kind of connected to your people because you want to not only guide, it circles back to the like, not just legal, but life advice and like helping, preparing people to be successful in that setting.
And then also out that doesn’t mean you’re like a life coach. It’s just like you’re giving because that’s not where we are. This is not like, that’s not the point, but it’s just like giving them that extra boost. You’re showing your authority and also your empathy, because you understand that these things are tough. So you want to do what you can to help them. Well, people like to share sometimes behind the scenes and again, legal, it’s hard. It’s not like you’re going to be like, and here’s this brief I did. A rejected brief.
Sami: That is something I see a lot where people are like, so you just like go to court. No, no, no. There are so many things I do. A lot of them, I know they might seem boring from the outside, but I think they’re really cool. Like learning how, this is going to sound very silly, learning how to do legal research, like the right way. And being able to find that one piece of law, that one case that like really helps you out. And then there’s before I go into a hearing, I draft hearing prep. So I prepare the questions I’m going to ask my witnesses. I prepare the arguments I’m going to make to the judge. I read up on evidence laws.
You know, there’s a lot of, everybody knows the word, hearsay, a lot of stuff about hearsay. And I got to make sure that I’m on the up and up about it.
Ryann: Well could you share, like that would be kind of a fun thing to do, like legal terms. Like this is what hearsay is.
Sami: Yeah, like legalese.
Ryann: Cause legalese is, people don’t know everything or last time we talked about like pro se, like who here, raise your hand if you know it pro se means. Like you do, I kind of do, because we talked about it spoiler.
Sami: That’s a really big one. And I think that could be something that would be good as like a social media post or maybe even. Like a series. For the record, pro se means if you are representing yourself in court or if you’re appearing in court and you don’t have an attorney, it is said that you are appearing pro se as opposed to being represented.
And I’ve got a bunch of just Latin rattling around in my brain, all the legalese.
Ryann: Well, and that was when, if you’re thinking about your content calendar, right, and you’re like really trying to like drop down, you could do one legalese quote a week or one every two weeks. And you know what? If you want to bulk produce that you make a blog with every single one you want to share, or like the top five legalese terms to share, and then you repurpose them, repurpose my favorite, into like five different social media posts. Right? So then that’s how you kind of build out, taking one idea, brainstorming it, and then how you can kind of pull the thread and make it into more information. I love that.
Sami: I don’t think that’s a special, so especially doing the solo practice, you know, it’s not like I’m working at a government job where it’s like nine to five, start this case here ended at the end of the day, my work kind of ebbs and flows depending on the season. Even the time of month, like people get paid, bills are due at the beginning of the month so people can’t really afford lawyers. So it would be so helpful during those leaner times if I can just come up with bulk, things like that and then have a schedule for putting it out, like, oh my gosh, I already wrote this whole blog post or the series and now, repurposing. I can just turn it into like five different social media posts so that when I have those really, really busy times, I’m not constantly thinking like, oh God, have I put out a post this week, have I created a post this week? I don’t have to create it.
Ryann: Yeah, it’s already ready and doing some like graphic templates and things like that so also not just to make it easier, but then it keeps your brand consistent. Yeah, everyone knows what to look for and they kind of know what to expect. I want to think about some more topics, something I thought of kind of what the legalese is, there’s a lot of court stuff going on in our political system.
This is not a political podcast! Not going there, but like a lot of that, like the legalese, but also understanding like case law.
Sami: What’s a case? You know, people hear that all the time, I did when I started law school, I thought I would just be reading laws. Um, that is not what you do. You read case opinions, what is a case opinion? What does that mean? And now that I can look at that I feel like I’m better equipped to like decipher the news, and sort of be like a filter. You know, I can see like a really inflammatory headline, whatever it may be. Like ‘Supreme court hates people!’
This isn’t a political podcast, so I can just read through it and I can say like, oh, well if it’s actually based on this legal principles, something, I don’t know, res judicata, like that’s a phrase people don’t know what that means. So, yeah, maybe something like deciphering the news.
Ryann: Or just deciphering like legal and we already said lead with a bunch of legal concepts. Cause I feel like not only then are you going to be as someone who is knowledgeable to perhaps clients where they’re helping, but like to the people at large, and then that audience will be like, you know,
Sami: Then I’m on their mind,
Ryann: And you’re on Instagram and I understand this more. And my friend Debbie needs a lawyer.
Sami: Yeah, that would be phenomenal because I also, and kind of spinning off, I hear a lot of people say like, well, my case is really simple, so do I really need a lawyer? Like lawyers cost a lot of money. Do I really need a lawyer?
Ryann: Yes! Do you really need a lawyer? That is such a good one.
Sami: You really do. You do need a lawyer and that is not so I can line my pockets. Trust me, they are the same target jeans as yours are. It’s just for better or for worse our system is really complicated. And it’s not designed in a way that makes it easy to understand to somebody who isn’t a lawyer.
Does that mean you’re not smart? No. I can’t go be an astrophysicist. That doesn’t mean I’m not a good lawyer. You know, you might be a phenomenal teacher, but you don’t know how to get divorced. There are so many reasons you need a lawyer. And I feel like that could be that could maybe also be like a series, you know, do I need a lawyer? Or here’s this week’s reason why you need a lawyer.
Ryann: And that’s a block series two, which, um, when we talked about a little bit like a blocking could become an email pockets or pieces of that can become social media posts. And we’re, running low on time so I want to do a quick little review and then see if anything like else like kind of pops up in our heads.
So we were thinking like some of the ideas we have for content brainstorming is: Not legal advice, life advice. So things that you, pointers, tips, things you can do to prepare your clients for success, right? And life, not just legally. Right? And then legalese. What types of terms are thrown out to people who are needing a lawyer or in the general public and like how you can make them a little bit more easier to digest. And then that’s the same thing with not just the legal terms, but you know, like what is a case? Things like that happening in the world. What’s happening in the world. And then also, do I need a lawyer? The answer is generally going to be yes, because, that’s the thing, Sami, you’re never going to say no. You’re always going to say yes and explain why. Right?
Sami: Yeah. And that’s, I mean, it’s truly, the reasons are numerous say the least. So it feels like it’s a good thread to pull from. I still don’t know how to translate this out to like email marketing. So I don’t know if we can, we’ve got a little bit of time left if we can just maybe graze email marketing.
Ryann: Well, what I would say is, I have like a little note about like, these can be lead generators too, which I know we want to talk about. So I don’t want to skip or hop around too much, but what I would say is, emails, it’d be like you would have like a week, the weekly tips, right?
A weekly, why you need a lawyer for emails, you can do. For you, you may not need a weekly lawyer tip. Maybe you’re sending out a monthly email. Right. And that’s something that we can talk about. We aren’t do this podcast, but I think talking about you can, some of these subjects that you can do, like say you’re going to do a bi-weekly newsletter, right?
Biweekly, so two times a month, you’ll share some life advice, right? Give some life advice and you can have certain sections of the newsletter, maybe explaining some legalese. And then maybe sharing a community resource, like here’s an accountant that I love. Something like that.
So that could be, yeah. Be absurd. Yeah. Cause you want to, um, guide, you want to empathize and also be, have knowledge and, you know, give resources and give value to your audience. And then maybe the next week you switch it up and then maybe you. Or the bi-weekly maybe we’ll do like, do you need a lawyer? And it can be just an email list of like, these are reasons you may need a lawyer.
Right. So there’s lots of different ways from these subjects that we thought of how you can kind of puzzle piece or Tetris piece as the eighties and nineties kid, I am them into, um, different emails and then lead generators. I just wanted to touch on, because I know we talked really, really slowly or not slowly and really, really short about them.
And it’s how do you get people into your business? How do they become clients? And I think something like the top five things you need to prepare for when meeting a lawyer. Someone who’s looking for a lawyer, they may come to our website or see your Facebook ad and you’ll give them those five tips like a downloadable, a free downloadable tip. They’ll give you their email in order to get that, right? They’ll get those tips, they’ll feel smart, they feel they’re prepared, they’ll feel good. Right? And then their email so then when you’re doing your email marketing, you’re going to continue to give them more tips, things like that.
Fun life advice, maybe pictures of your cat. Like when you’re not alone. Here’s my cute cat.
Sami: Oh, yeah, I’ve got a picture drawn on this little, I’ve got a paper over here on the corner that I’m taking notes on. I’ve got an email template and then at the bottom there’s a corner that has a paw print in it because I’ve got four pets. So that’s two months’ worth of sharing
Ryann: I mean, one is a paralegal. One is a law assistant. I mean, a paw assistant, a pawsisstant. You know, I love a pun, I know not everyone loves them, but yeah. Give me a pun. I love that.
Sami: Absolutely.But yeah, I think that’s really good. Cause again, some of this does feel really foreign to me with it being so heavy. So it feels good to be able to throw something light in there without making light of the kind of work that I do.
Ryann: Right. Like you’re not making like divorces hilarious, cause it’s not.
Sami: Yeah, it’s not.
Ryann: But you’re bringing levity, bringing a little bit of entertainment because also when someone is going through a hard time, they may need something that’s going to lift them up a little bit.
Sami: Yeah, absolutely.
Ryann: Some law. Oh, wait, law levity. Is there a way, something like law levity, like something, oh, like there’s something there. Like the judge, like the lawyer in the zoom video and who was like, I’m not, I promise I’m not a cat. I am not a cat. Like you, that’s something where it’s like, don’t use zoom filters. Right. Because you’ll be like this guy, but no, like really that’s advice.
Sami: Yeah, that’s really true. Please check your name. Don’t make your name something weird because the judge is going to notice.
Levity and law. That is something I will be thinking about for a while.
Ryann: Or, I mean if there’s other like strange, strange cases that aren’t ones that you are in.
Sami: Yeah. Or like weird old cases. I think the first ever case, if somebody’s getting a speeding ticket, they were going eight miles an hour, something like that, just like a weird old, ah, this is so cool. Just like, oh hey, here’s your weekly like 1740s case. That’s not about anything sad.
Ryann: Oh, weird story that we don’t super have time for it, but I have to say, so my husband did go to law school, University of Wisconsin, go Badgers. And the house we moved into in Madison, he literally read about in one of his books.
Like the address, he’s reading it and he’s like. Oh my God. He’s like such and such our house because there was case law with their renovations that weren’t done correctly or something like that. And it was contracts in the house we were moving in. It was a really old, like 1800s house.
But the kids from the seventies, it was very spooky. It was probably haunted. Again, this is also not like a true kind of haunted house podcast. Right. But was the wildest thing, because yeah, you read about where it’s stuff like that, and then you end up living there. Anyways. We’ll have to talk about that more online or offline.
I just been here and I know we have just a moment. Sami, thank you for joining us. Thanks for being part of marketing in the wild.
Julia: Wow, guys, I hope you enjoy that as much as I did. And as much as Ryan and Sami enjoyed making it. I feel like Sami has walked away with tons of ideas. And I learned that, yes, we’re not a true crime podcast, but I’m like, how could we do a marketing in the wild episode about true crime podcasts?
If anybody has any ideas hit me up, I would love to hear about them. If you are interested in learning more about Sami, Samantha Hall and her practice, Fleur de Law, her website is fleurdelaw.com. And you can find her on Instagram and Facebook. On Facebook she is Fleur de Law.
And then on Instagram, @fleurdede_law. So go find her, give her some love. We’re so thankful for her. And in the meantime, I did want to invite you guys to our next content re-purposing workshop. If you are listening to this live on the day that it came out, you still have time to register.
It is going to be on March 3rd, 2022. So if you are listening to this a year from now, I am so sorry, but check out our workshops page we might be hosting another one. But if you go to stratoscreativemarketing.com/workshops, or check out our Instagram, Stratos Creative, you will find the content repurposing workshop.
It is on March 3rd, from 10 to 12 CT. Just like Sami came and she enjoyed it you will also enjoy it. We are going to spend time talking about how to repurpose content and how that means that you could have a quarter’s worth of content done in a lot less time and a lot less stress and how you can take one piece of content and make 20 things out of it.
It is one of our favorite things to teach the people who came last time loved it. And I’m sure that people who will be joining us on March 3rd, we’ll also equally enjoy it and find that it’s useful. And so we are always here in your corner. If you have any marketing stuff that you want help on and you want to brainstorm on, let us know, because we obviously love brainstorming and generating ideas.
So I’ll be back next week with our new guest. It is going to be a great episode in the meantime, keep noticing your marketing, keep noticing other people’s marketing. And trying to figure out what’s working, what’s not working. We’re all in this together. Talk to you next week.
Friends, thanks for tuning into this week’s podcast episode. I’m so glad that you have. If you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have, I just ask you to subscribe so you know each time we have a new episode coming out. If you loved our podcast and want to give us a rating or a review I promise we will read each and every one of them. A special shout out to our friend, Carson Childers, who is producing our podcast.
We really appreciate him and all the hard work that he’s done for us.
Also, thanks to the Stratos team. They have been behind the scenes doing all of the graphic design, brainstorming, et cetera, et cetera. Really, this wouldn’t be possible without them. I’m thankful for each and every one of you. Lastly listener we’ll be back next week and I hope you will be too.
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