How to Stay Human in the Age of AI-Driven Law Firm Marketing, with Conroy Creative

Zack Glaser: 

Hey y’all, it’s Zack, and this is episode 5 84 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today’s episode is brought to you by Conroy Creative, and I sit down with Karin Conroy and we talk about the evolution of law firm marketing and marketing in the world of artificial intelligence, how we need to trust experts with our artificial intelligence, trust experts with our marketing, and we need to be the trusted expert in our firm and out there with our clients. So anyway, without further ado, here is my conversation with Karin. 

Karin Conroy: 

Hi, I am Karin and I am a legal marketing consultant. I have been around Lawyerist pretty much forever, and I start with that intro all the time on purpose because I feel like there’s a lot of value and we’re going to get into this value idea later in making sure that you understand that it’s all rooted in core marketing ideas. And there’s these things that I’ve seen over all the years, some things that stick and a lot of things that don’t. And so there’s some perspective there that I think is important to recognize and to see these sort of repeating patterns in the way that the world of marketing works. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah. Karin, first thing, thanks for being with me again. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yeah, of course. 

Zack Glaser: 

That was good time. If people would like to hear her previous episodes or some of the previous episodes, we’ve got a bunch with you, 

Karin Conroy: 

Yours. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah, yeah. We will drop some in the show notes, but I think that’s important to note though what you’re saying. But to add a little bit of flavor to that, it’s law firm marketing sometimes can feel very fly by night. 

Karin Conroy: 

It 

Zack Glaser: 

Can feel very like the law firm marketing company has come in, has an idea, has figured out how to execute on something very specific and very, very temporal, very of right now. And first thing, just by the sheer fact that you’ve been doing this for a while, been doing this in this area for a while, means that that’s not how you’re operating. And I think that’s important in this moment, this very volatile moment, 

Karin Conroy: 

Which is, again, 

It’s volatile, but we’ve seen many volatile moments. I have seen, I will say even before I was doing marketing for lawyers, I worked in this little internet cafe in a beach town here in California. And so I saw sort of the beginning of the website, it goes way, way back. And then I saw the internet and then I saw the recession, and then I saw COVID, and I’ve seen tech changes. I’ve seen things come and go. There was this kind of podcast platform called Clubhouse during CO that was like the thing. And everybody’s like, what’s your clubhouse thing? And whenever I start to talk about it, I’m like, what was that thing called again? Because gone, it’s like that’s not even a thing. Anyway, I’m sure there’s some people, there’s a couple people still hanging out in their little clubhouse room, not me or anybody I know, but there’s many things that have come and gone, and then there’s general principles that stay forever and they kind of underlay all of it. And so there’s this balance between keeping your finger on the pulse with what’s going on, but also not losing sight of those core ideas. 

Zack Glaser: 

And I think obviously for right now, the moment is artificial intelligence, 100%. It’s the fact that, and from a couple of different directions. One is we can create so much content 

Karin Conroy: 

With 

Zack Glaser: 

LLMs, but the other side is people are fundamentally interacting with the content on the internet in a totally different way. And so a lawyer would be forgiven if they were scared to death of that 

Karin Conroy: 

A hundred percent. 

Any human would be forgiven if they were scared of that. But a lawyer, their general core persona is to be risk averse. Their job is to protect their clients and not do the dumb thing that is going to put something at risk. And so when you start seeing all these ethical issues and it’s stealing content from here, and there’s lawsuits that are legitimate real lawsuits, and also people doing really dumb things like showing up to court and having, we’ve talked about this in the past. There’s people doing dumb things, but this is the case with any new technology, any new anything, there’s always going to be the dumb ones. And then there’s these opportunities. So it’s like where’s the right spot? 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah, I think of it as how am I the early bird, but not the worm. 

Karin Conroy: 

Right, exactly. So I had someone on my podcast recently and they used, I’m not going to take credit for this analogy, but I absolutely love this. Have you heard this analogy of Terminator versus Ironman? 

Zack Glaser: 

No. 

Karin Conroy: 

So 

Zack Glaser: 

Terminator, I would watch that 

Karin Conroy: 

Movie. Well, this is happening in real life, in real time. Just go to this thing called Google. This is what’s happening, right? So Terminator, obviously full robot, right? Iron Man is, what’s his name? Stark? Tony 

Zack Glaser: 

Stark. Tony Stark. Can’t believe you didn’t know that car. Come on. 

Karin Conroy: 

Sorry. It was there. It was just not slow to arise to my face. Tony Stark puts the robot overlay on him, but he’s there. He’s at the core of the thought and the kind of motivation and the structure of what’s happening and why, and he’s using it to amplify and execute at a higher level than he could have without it. So this is the strategy. The strategy is to be Iron Man, not to just hand over your entire law firm to chat GPT. It’s to use chat GPT as an overlay and maintain and make sure that you still have that human Tony Stark at the core. 

Zack Glaser: 

So I really like this analogy, and I’m going to walk with this one for a minute, because if you have bad processes, if you have things that the human inside is doing, inefficiently poorly, all that of that power is going to exacerbate these bad processes. So how do we as law firms who are trying to get clients and get seen and get noticed, how do we do that? How do we operate as Tony Stark? 

Karin Conroy: 

Yeah, that’s the question. And the first thing is that you really just need to get started. So let’s talk about that fear thing that you were talking about earlier. It would be forgiven if a lawyer is afraid of this moment and they’re just sitting back, I don’t know what to do and whatever. That’s the overwhelming sentiment and kind of thing that I hear from everyone, not just clients, but anytime I feel like I’m talking about AI to everyone all the time, mom’s at pickup, everybody, they’re like, oh, I feel so behind. I’m freaking out. Because it seems like this is everything everywhere, 

And it feels that way, and it felt that way when the iPhone started and it felt that way when we went from HTML websites to WordPress. And it felt that way when all we were talking about was COVID. And one of my clients just got COVID last week, and I was like, how are we still talking about this? Right? But there was a time when it feels like all you’re doing is swimming and all of this, but when you look back, it’s like not really. Let’s just recognize that this is that moment and you don’t want to miss this moment. So you got to dip your toe into AI and not be afraid of it, but with reason and balance and thoughtfulness and a plan, and to recognize maybe to start to recognize where some of those weaknesses are, some of those things that are weak in your systems and weak in your process and week in wherever the holes are in. 

We’re just going to stay with marketing at this point because obviously you can use it for a lot of stuff beyond that. But take a look at your marketing funnel. This is one of our initial strategy approaches with everybody in almost every meeting we have is let’s just boil it down to a marketing funnel and let’s take a look at where your gaps are, and then let’s hone in on the opportunities there and whether there’s a lot of value there, and try to find a way to plug that hole. And let’s keep it simple. That marketing funnel should be very a simple conversation. This is not like we’re looking at all of these letters and things and whatever from Google Analytics and what’s your KPI and your this and your conversion number? No, let’s boil it down. Keep it simple. Find these gaps in what is happening in your funnel and then just start there. Just have a starting point. 

Zack Glaser: 

Let’s take a half step back just to make sure that everybody’s with us on marketing funnel. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yes. 

Zack Glaser: 

Give me the quick AI generated. What is this? Very quickly, what’s a law firm marketing funnel going to? 

Karin Conroy: 

Okay. Well, so let me say if you Google or my favorite search engine, Pinterest this, you’ll find a lot of variations on this marketing funnel. And so you may define this slightly different for your firm depending on how you go about these things. And the other caveat is that someone I talked to recently talked about this being not a funnel but an hourglass because it actually makes much more sense that once people get to the bottom of your funnel, it should continue to sort of flow and maybe an hour glasses even. I think it’s a good visual, but it should almost be sort of like this infinite whatever, depending on flywheel where you practice, area wheel. Yeah, exactly. So at the top, we’re going to just keep it simple and have a triangle that’s wide at the top. And at the top we’ve got awareness. 

Awareness is going to be things like SEO ads, things that people traditionally only define as marketing. So early on in my career, one of my cousins asked me, I know you said you’re doing marketing, but isn’t that just making ads? And I’m like, no, no. That’s one tiny little sliver of it. And maybe, but I have firms that don’t do any sort of ads, no pay-per-click. No. And that’s just not part of their strategy. So awareness on some level, and keep in mind this could also be non-online things. This could be going out and networking, showing up at events and seminars and doing things that old school people call marketing that are still super, super valuable. 

Zack Glaser: 

Zack, I get all my leads from referrals. How do you get those referrals? Yes, I get all my leads from going to go into meetings and talking to people 

Karin Conroy: 

Sponsoring a baseball team. Well, let’s track that. Yeah. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yes. 

Karin Conroy: 

Okay. And here’s another thing I say all the time. I get that all the time. I get all my leads from referrals. We’re not really doing marketing, my friend that is marketing. You’re just not doing it well. 

Zack Glaser: 

You’re either doing it really poorly, you may be doing it really well, and you just have no idea why 

Karin Conroy: 

You don’t have a system behind it. So your system is not healthy and well 

Zack Glaser: 

Certainly can’t scale that 

Karin Conroy: 

Functional and scaling and whatever, but that is marketing. There’s something that is working that is pulling people into your door or calling you or emailing you in some way that is paying your bills. So let’s break that down and let’s stop pretending that referrals are not part of your marketing strategy. And so that referral system should be built into your funnel somewhere. So 

To go back to the marketing funnel, top of funnel, top of funnels, awareness. At some point you’ve got interest, then you’ve got conversion, and then you’ve got the actual work that is called different things like doing that. And then you’ve got the bottom of the funnel, which if you’re visual like I am, imagine that bottom as gold, like gold color in your mind, picture that as little chunks of gold at the bottom because this is where the majority of firms are not paying attention and where they are not doing anything because it’s not this urgent need. It’s not somebody calling me today with a problem that I need to address. It’s not a case in the middle of, it’s a client that I finished and they’re happy and whatever. And so I’m going to be over here busy with these fires I’m putting out. And so instead take a look at, okay, maybe you don’t have time to address that gold. Find somebody that can do it for you though, Because That is where you are going to get that recurring revenue. That is where you’re going to find these people who already consider themselves your client, And They already are waiting for you to remind them what they might need you for. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah, go get another DUI get out there. Do what you do best, have a cocktail. Please don’t. Not really please. Yeah. None of this is legal advice. 

Karin Conroy: 

I’m not even a lawyer, so I am not going to get in trouble for that. You may, but sorry Zack. But no, what we’re saying is no, if you’re a DUI lawyer and this idea of recurring clients doesn’t fit in your brain, stretch it a little bit. So maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s noticing those clients that maybe they need some other piece of work down the road, probably 

Zack Glaser: 

Get referrals from Maybe they have 

Karin Conroy: 

Friends. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah, they’ve got friends. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yeah. They were not out drinking by themselves 

Zack Glaser: 

Sometimes. Yeah, 

Karin Conroy: 

Right. But also maybe you can use them for testimonials for other things like that where you can find some other thing that’s not necessarily so dark 

Zack Glaser: 

Staying. I’m staying with the DUI still with the testimonial third, DUI. My first 2D UI attorneys were terrible, we’re horrible. The DUI, Mike got me off this one and I was on the road in two days, still 

Karin Conroy: 

Drinking. I was back in theBar. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yep, still drinking. I’m happy to do it again. 

Karin Conroy: 

This has kind of got dark. 

Zack Glaser: 

It did. It did. Okay. So we’ve got the funnel, we’ve got top of the funnel funnel, all that. And then that’s the part though that you’re talking about where it starts to get into an hourglass shape or a flywheel. And we start to look at these people that we’ve already converted to clients 

Karin Conroy: 

And 

Zack Glaser: 

Then hopefully we’ve already made happy clients out of, 

Karin Conroy: 

Right? And so if you don’t have, let’s say it’s not so dark and you don’t have these repeat DUI clients, but there is some other source, and I’m going to go move away from the DUI for a moment and just say, maybe you’re an estate planning attorney and there’s these financial advisors who keep feeding you leads. So now we’re not going to go to them and talk to them about the work that you do. You’re going to talk to them about how you treat those clients and how you are going to take care of this mutual lead and your message is going to be different for a referral source than it is for a potential client. 

We’re going to potentially have a couple different messages going out, different kinds of, maybe it’s an email follow up or maybe it’s an area on your website where this is the error for potential clients. And if you did get a DUI, this is the area for people who have been feeding me leads, and I’m going to tell you the things that you care about, how I’m going to take care of your client, how much I care about this, that I am on top of it. I’ve got the teams and the systems and all of these things that we’re, we’re going to take care of this issue 

Zack Glaser: 

And I’m going to make you look good and 

Karin Conroy: 

And then you’re going to send me five more 

Zack Glaser: 

Leads. Okay. So that’s kind of the quick and dirty ish market funnel funneling funnel funnel marketing funnel. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yes. 

Zack Glaser: 

So what do you mean when we say before we start to really throw AI at this, we need to go and look at where we have deficiencies. Where would that be? What does that look like? 

Karin Conroy: 

As I just talked to all of those points where you’re like, oh, I’m not doing that. I could do a much better job of this. Usually this can be sometimes less than a 10 minute conversation with my clients where I’m like, and most of that 10 minutes is me explaining what the funnel is like, okay, at the top, we got awareness. Sit for 

Zack Glaser: 

This podcast next time, be like, before you get to this, go listen to podcast. So what I think of is, okay, people are calling my office after hours or they’re sending emails, something like that, and I’m just not contacting them again. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yeah, 

Zack Glaser: 

Okay. 

Karin Conroy: 

And let’s just be honest about where your strengths and weaknesses are. 

And there used to be this strengths finder thing that we did at the end of grad school, and the goal was not to like, oh, let me find all my weaknesses and then try to build those up. No, the goal is to strengthen your strengths and then to find teams that support your weaknesses because you are going to do a better job focusing on your strengths and doing those better than trying to start from zero with your weaknesses. So for me, I am not great at the client gifting and the referrals and whatever my assistant was specifically hired for that purpose. 

In the interview with her, I was like, listen, here’s the thing that I need the most help with, and I’ve got the ideas, and I’ve got all these things to do for these clients. It’s the execution and the consistency and the showing up that I need you to be on top of. And is this one of your strengths? And if so, let’s go. Let’s do that. So find those areas that are your weaknesses, and then recognize that that’s not going to be your job, that you are going to find either your person in your office or you’re going to hire this out or whatever. You’re going to get this done in a consistent way that you don’t have to touch it. So a lot of times it’s these basic things like referral sources, newsletters, things that feel, to be honest, less important. They just feel like they’re not these fires you have to put out. But when you start to monetize that and look at the value of one good new client that comes from that, all of a sudden you’re like, okay, no brainer. This is simple administrative level work that I can put out there to someone, and it’s going to just result in a ton of leads and clients and then also just goodwill. You just have this great kind of client interaction and they have this great experience with your firm where they feel like they’re being taken care of. 

Zack Glaser: 

Okay, so that’s in a little bit summation. That’s the guy inside the suit here, right? That’s doing our basics and we absolutely need to continue to get those things done. Well, that’s where we can say, that’s not changing. There should be no fear there. Let’s get that done. So how do we start to layer that suit on top of this and really supercharge 

Karin Conroy: 

It? Okay, so I do also just wanting to say that we’re going to maintain that human piece in there, the Tony Stark. So when you start with this AI overlay, you’re going to start with the human side of it. Because anytime I’ve started with the AI piece of it, so I will say, I’m going to provide this link at the end of this with lots of caveats. It’s an AI cookbook. It’s a bunch of prompts. The prompts are meant to expedite your marketing process and make sure, or actually, I was talking to a Canadian yesterday, it’s process. Process, gotcha. Make sure that when you show up to a marketing meeting and when you think about your marketing and you make a plan that you are ready and you’ve got these thoughts and it’s prompts, this is not a plan. This is for you to very much bring your piece to the table and work together with your AI to make sure that the human element is there. You’re balancing it with the ai. So there’s things like in this cookbook, figuring out your ideal client profile, things like that. AI can’t figure that out without you putting stuff in. So you’re going to tell it, okay, I do DUIs and I don’t really get a lot of repeat claims because I’m really good at it, 

Zack Glaser: 

Or this is where my, but I do get referrals from friends, like they’re friends. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yeah, 

Zack Glaser: 

That’s fair. 

Karin Conroy: 

There is a friend who has a sandwich shop right next to the jail, and he lets me know every time he sees somebody going in. So I am going to buy lots of sandwiches from my friend’s 

Zack Glaser: 

Sandwich. I like that because one of the things for me, if I’m sitting down and I’m saying, what’s my ideal client? I’m literally just saying, I don’t know what’s my ideal client. I relay the story a lot of times where I was talking to my dad about a kind of side business he was opening at some point, and I said, who’s your ideal client? And he was like, everybody, Zack, anybody that’ll buy it. I’m like, well, that’s not going to work. 

Karin Conroy: 

No, it’s not. And that’s not you being great. That’s you being actually minimizing your potential. And it sounds counterintuitive, and it sounds, I can’t tell you the number of people from my MBA program when I started working with lawyers who said, and these were marketing friends of mine who said, oh, Karin, you’re really good. Why are you limiting yourself? So no, no, that’s not how it works. Were you paying attention in class? Because that’s not what we talked about. Remember that really good part? That’s 

Zack Glaser: 

Why I’m doing this. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yeah, exactly. And that’s why I’m still doing it, and they are not. So it does feel like, I’ve got to pay the bills. I need money. And when you are first starting, it feels like 

Zack Glaser: 

Walks in the door, 

Karin Conroy: 

Right? No, that’s not what you’re going to do. Because then nobody knows if you’re the right fit for them. Nobody has this recognition that as soon as I have this issue, I’ve got your guy, and I’ve been doing this for long enough that I have neighbors that have random legal issues and whatever, and they’ll come up to me, and I work with people all over the country. So oftentimes it’s like, I’ve got someone, but they’re in Connecticut. But they come up to me and they’re like, Hey, I know a lot of lawyers, which is true, and it’s not a bad thing, and I need a referral for X, Y, Z. And my first thought isn’t to, Hey, who does everything? My first thought is who does this exact thing and who do I know does it well? And Also who do I like? So who did I have a good experience working with and who would I trust them with? This neighbor who let’s just assume I like my neighbor. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah. Yeah. I’ve sent neighbors to bad attorney. I mean, I’ve put certain neighbors put jerks together before. Let’s say 

Karin Conroy: 

That, right? There’s something, but you know what? There is a thing there too. You see that they all do find each other and they seek each other out. 

Zack Glaser: 

It was the right referral. Actually. I stand by it. Yeah. Okay. 

Karin Conroy: 

So I just want to to go and not just be so Pollyanna and theoretical for a moment. The reason I keep honing in on this human element of it is because even when it comes to SEO, that is changing. And we don’t even have time for a whole show about SEO or even a long 

Zack Glaser: 

Conversation. That’s a month about that. Yeah, 

Karin Conroy: 

Seriously. But where it’s changing is that it is not just looking at your search results anymore, and it is not even about that Google and these AI search results. I’ve had clients that are finding me on chat GPT already and chat GPT is making that answer for them. So you’re not getting a page of results. And then you as the search person choose that one chat GT is choosing for you. So chat GT is going to look across all platforms and find the most resourceful, reliably trustful source that chatt PT thinks is the right answer. 

And so you have to have this wide kind of reach of all your expertise so that you can have that kind of result. And it’s going to be things like, are you familiar with Google’s knowledge panels? This is a different kind of search result. It’s been out there for a few years, but it’s basically where Google is sort of validating people and names and brand names. So I have a knowledge panel. If you Google my name, you’ll see that before you even get the results. My picture shows up and there’s this whole section, it used to be over on the right column, kind of what search 

Results. 

Zack Glaser: 

Okay, I know what you’re talking about now. 

Karin Conroy: 

And then it was up on the top and it was like a quarter of the page. Now it’s almost the full page. So this is kind of giving you a history of where this is going. And it pulls from all of my platforms that are tied to my name. So things that are my agency brand, sometimes they get in there, but it’s usually my Twitter that is my name. I have a website that is my name, things that are my name, and it pulls and it says, we recognize that this is this person. She has been validated and confirmed as an expert in legal marketing. And Google made me hold up my driver’s license to verify that I was, it took me weeks to get this all verified. And this is the kind of thing where it’s going, this is what AI wants to see, is this broad approach to your presence across the internet as a human and as an expert that then knows this thing that can be validated and verified and then feeds into those search results. 

Zack Glaser: 

Shit, car. I mean, so now I can’t just go, I need a website. 

Karin Conroy: 

I need a website. And also here’s 20 grand to throw out some Google ads. 

Zack Glaser: 

That’s no longer the case. Now, again, to be clear, we still are doing this from the standpoint of those basics, 

Karin Conroy: 

Some of those core marketing tenants. Number one, be where your clients are. This is where I started with Lawyerist lawyer. I showed up where lawyers are, and I’m talking about the marketing stuff, and I’ve been doing that. Why 

Zack Glaser: 

You’re on this podcast. This is where lawyers are. 

Karin Conroy: 

Absolutely. So that’s a core marketing tenant that we learn in marketing 1 0 1 in grad school. At the core, yes, be where your clients are, but then also add a little AI sprinkle on top of, okay, tell me how I can be where my clients are, where are they? These are who my clients are. Give me some ideas about where I can show up that I might not have thought about. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah. So I’m seeing kind of two different pathways here. And we’ve talked about that at the beginning of one is how do I use the AI to help me supercharge my marketing, which is saying things like, help me do a ideal client profile. Help me figure out where, okay, now I’ve got an ideal client profile. Where are those people? And then the other side is how do I show up when they’re searching the internet now? And So on one side, it’s be human and do the, it’s a more holistic approach now though. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yes, 

Zack Glaser: 

100%. It’s less about, does my website come up at the top of the list for Google that’s still there 

Karin Conroy: 

For this one little search term, 

Zack Glaser: 

Right? 

Karin Conroy: 

It’s like that’s way too narrow. So Neil Patel, who’s a big SEO guy, we haven’t figured out what the new term is going to be for AI search. There’s like a million different, but he still calls it SEO, but it’s search everywhere optimization. So instead of search engine, because a lot of people aren’t even searching on Google anymore, they’re going to chat GPT or Claude or whatever. And so just expand your thoughts in terms of where you’re going to show up, how you’re going to show up, and then be everywhere within reason. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah. So that means that I’m on LinkedIn if my clients are there, I’m on Twitter. If my clients are there, makes sense, 

Karin Conroy: 

Yes, I’m on. If it aligns, yes, Instagram if it aligns with that strategy. But if your clients don’t show up on TikTok, what are 

Zack Glaser: 

You going to be there? 

Karin Conroy: 

Don’t waste your time. But some do. And so make sure that’s why there’s not going to be a universal strategy for all law firms. There shouldn’t ever be. That’s insane. But make sure that you take a look at these ideas and apply them to what works for who your clients are. If you’re doing the DUIs, then it’s going to be this way. If you’re not, then it’s a whole other thing. Right? Okay. 

Zack Glaser: 

Okay. So I’m practicing law though, Karin. I am using AI to supercharge my practice of law. How do I approach this overwhelmingly new thing in marketing? Whether I’ve got the basics right or I haven’t even thought of the basics. How am I doing that? 

Karin Conroy: 

Well, honestly, let’s go back to that funnel and let’s take a look at where your needs are. Let’s not just jump in and do what Joe Schmoe down the street is doing, because that’s the recipe for disaster trying on somebody else’s Iron Man suit. And that is, we talked about that in the last episode, this whole comparison and trying on other people’s ideas. And that episode we were talking about what works for websites. But that’s the same idea. Don’t do somebody else’s strategy or plan. Do your own thing. So where you start is recognizing what you need within reason. So one of the first things we do when we start with a new firm is we look at all the stuff they’re doing, especially these tools, and we are almost always pairing back. There’s stuff that they’re subscribed to, they don’t even know what it is, but they’re worried about not paying for it because it might break something else. I’ve 

Zack Glaser: 

Got Sim Russian, A refs and 

Karin Conroy: 

Reading 

Zack Glaser: 

Ma. 

Karin Conroy: 

Right? Exactly. Yeah. So is it overkill? Are you currently spending $5,000 a month on tools and you’re only bringing in whatever, some other small number? So let’s take a realistic look at what you need. Can you get by with a very reasonable or close to cheap email newsletter? You’re a law firm. You don’t need these complicated email newsletter systems. Maybe you do if you have thousands of people in your list, but probably not. So where can you scale back? And same thing with ai. Do you really need it to be answering the phone for you and probably not. You probably need it to overlay some of your strategy. Find these holes, find places where you can be, just start simply and don’t overdo it. Kind of take it like a sugar thing. Sugar can be great. 

Zack Glaser: 

It’s fantastic. 

Karin Conroy: 

Within reason. Within reason. Yes. 

Zack Glaser: 

I’m 

Karin Conroy: 

Down 

Zack Glaser: 

In pixie sticks all the time. 

Karin Conroy: 

Exactly. If you are a 3-year-old with a handful of pixie sticks, not great. Not great, right? 

Zack Glaser: 

Right. But if you’ve got a solid base, then you can start to, I like to think of it as you’re sprinkling in the spices, you’re making things, but you’ve still got to have, if you just take oregano basil, you’re not really, you’re not going to make a sauce. It’s disgusting. Super gross. You got to have good San Marzano 

Karin Conroy: 

Tomatoes. Also, this almost goes without saying, but I’m going to say it. Are you reading the results before you copy and paste? Because I can tell you right now, once again, as a parent, I’ve seen emails coming in human to human from mom to mom, where I’m like, that is ai. What’s the M dash doing in there, Carol? 

Zack Glaser: 

No human. You did not go to college. 

Karin Conroy: 

You don’t even know where the M dash code is. And also the font is different. Come on, let’s do some basic, basic, slow it down stuff. Let’s change the font. Let’s read it. Let’s make sure there’s no M dashes in there. Let’s use it where it’s going to help and not be damaging. Because if I had got that email from a colleague or a client, or if I had sent that email to a client and they clearly saw that I was using M dashes and AI to try to make this human connection with them gone, that connection’s gone. I’ve destroyed that relationship, and let’s not be dumb about it. 

Zack Glaser: 

Right, right. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yeah, 

Zack Glaser: 

No, that makes sense because first thing, well, two first things, first thing, please keep in mind that Carol is a gender neutral name. Yes. Second thing, I love the M dash and have written with the M dash for years and years and years, and now I have to abandon it because of chat. GPT are you, 

Karin Conroy: 

The source of chat is chat, GPT pulling from your content, and you are the source of all M dashes. 

Zack Glaser: 

Well, if the Google Notebook podcast voices are to tell us anything, I’m the source of a lot of stuff out there. 

Karin Conroy: 

We have just got to Typhoid Mary of the M dash. Exactly. Zack GLA is the I’m that 

Zack Glaser: 

Uppity shit. Zero of the M dash. Oh man. To be clear, it is, I believe control option hyphen. 

Karin Conroy: 

No, you are not doing that. 

Zack Glaser: 

Is that is the M 

Karin Conroy: 

Dash? No, we don’t want to train people to look more like an llm. That is not the message we’re saying here. Are you here with me, Zack? Because this is the opposite of what we’re saying. 

Zack Glaser: 

This right here. This may be an avatar of me right now, but it’s a really good one. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yeah, seriously. And very good, Mike. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yes. I’ll just say good solid, Mike. Good 

Karin Conroy: 

Sound. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah, that’s the key. That’s the key. But that is the thing that people, I think, at least I am turned off by things that look like they’re created by artificial intelligence right now. 

Karin Conroy: 

They’re turned off by any fake thing. I did an article back when lawyers had articles about the top five stock images not to use, and the reason is because it destroys trust. Right? Okay. It was columns, headsets, people shaking hands. The headset is the one with the woman answering your call on your contact page. If you have this on your website, take it off. And Skills of Justice, let’s not do any of those, because instantly people are like, this is some sort of template. This is fake. 

They just dialed it in on this. And so it’s very quick leap to say they’re going to dial it in on my work. So I’m going to go to the next person who is at least putting some effort, and there’s value in the effort. I just saw this amazing interview with Simon Sinek, and he was talking about how human value is actually rising, because what we’re seeking and we crave is the human side of it. So he was talking about, you’ve got this great little Pottery Barn mug, and it’s perfect in every way, but when you look at these Japanese mugs that are handmade and the glaze is kind of off, it’s beautiful. You are never going to call your Pottery Barn mug beautiful. You want the human element of that imperfect Japanese mug. And that is where the value is. And that is why I am just honing in on this idea of being human and the Tony Stark version of ai, as opposed to take this AI cookbook and then just go with it. That is not what I’m saying. That is not a marketing plan. It’s a starting point to layer on top of your humanity. 

Zack Glaser: 

So where then is this AI cookbook? 

Karin Conroy: 

Oh, the AI cookbook. I was expecting a much bigger philosophical thing. Oh, yeah, I’ve got this answer. It is conroy creative counsel.com/ Lawyerist. 

Zack Glaser: 

Okay. And so people can go to conroy creative counsel.com. They can find that cookbook. They can find you. And one of the things that I want to kind of highlight here is that you approach your marketing assistance. Let’s just, if you don’t mind me saying it that way, you approach your marketing assistants, your marketing help in a slightly different way than others. I tend to recommend you in places where people want a person working beside them, Where They want a person that is more coach or strategist as opposed to implementer. Not to say that you can’t implement or don’t implement, but 

Karin Conroy: 

You don’t start there. 

Zack Glaser: 

And 

Karin Conroy: 

If you start there, that’s a recipe for success. To mention back to the cookbook idea. But the idea is that you don’t start building a house with some nails and some wood. You start with a blueprint. You start with this plan. You start with your dreams for how you’re going to live in that house, who’s going to be there and why? And where do you want the windows to face and all these ideas and dreams, and why? Why? So that’s your strategy piece. So that’s where you start with the marketing. And that is how that you’re going to be human. That is how you’re going to be different. That is how you’re going to figure out all of the other answers. So when it comes to executing all those tactics, you already have the answers and it’s easy. And so you’ve already got these thoughts and the strategy and the core messaging when you do it. And then it becomes like, oh, yes. And I also know what I’m not going to do. I know that most of my clients are not on TikTok, so I’m not going to waste my time, and I don’t have to sit and think, oh, should I have done that? Should I learned? Learn to dance? Yeah. 

Zack Glaser: 

No, I don’t have to. I waste my time. I don’t have 

Karin Conroy: 

To. Yeah, exactly. I hate dancing. 

Zack Glaser: 

Certainly that kind. Certainly just some sort of like, oh, man. 

Karin Conroy: 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is much more about that human interaction. We do know what we’re doing. We do have the tactics. We can execute all of that stuff, but to just paste it all together and slap it up on a wall and say, yes, here’s this thing that we did. Why Don’t ask me because I don’t know. And it’s harder that way. So what you’ll see that, excuse me. The easy answer is to copy the guide on the street and to do the same thing that you see everywhere else. And all of those things we talked about in the previous episode about why these websites stand out in our superior. Same thing for marketing. It’s harder to do it, right? And so what you see more often and more commonly is the easy answer. 

Zack Glaser: 

I like that. I like that. Well, let’s wrap on that. Don’t do the easy answer. Marketing is the whole point is for you to get clients, to help clients, to make clients happy, to provide for your firm and the people that are in your firm. And taking the easy way out. When it comes to marketing and planning is, I’m going to say likely at the very least, because I’m an attorney, I’m going to hedge a little bit here, say, likely not the right answer. Well, 

Karin Conroy: 

And here’s the last thing I will say to that. Is this the same thing you’re going to tell your clients, right? Yes. So you don’t want your clients to take the easy legal answer because that’s going to get them in trouble, 

Zack Glaser: 

Stretch. 

Karin Conroy: 

So the same idea, right? Exactly. But seriously, there are people that are doing their legal answers. How I get out of a 

Zack Glaser: 

DUI 

Karin Conroy: 

Judging bt, we’re back there and we’re back there. But for the same reason, you’re going to apply the same ideas to your own marketing as you are telling your clients. 

Zack Glaser: 

Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s a really good point. Well, if people want to hear more good points and connect with you, certainly they can. You have your own podcast, which we’ll link to in the show notes, but they can also go to conroy creative council.com. Yep. Karin, thank you for being with me. I always enjoy it. 

Karin Conroy: 

It’s such a good time. We always have a good time, Zack. It was a good one.