Life Beyond the Briefs
At Life Beyond the Briefs we help lawyers like you become less busy, make more money, and spend more time doing what they want instead of what they have to. Brian brings you guests from all walks of life are living a life of their own design and are ready to share actionable tips for how you can begin to live your own dream life.
Life Beyond the Briefs
Are Books Dead? Building Credibility the Old School Way | Michael DeLon
Ready to turn the page on stale legal marketing? Join us in this episode of Life Beyond the Briefs as we chat with Michael DeLon, the Paperback Expert who’s here to show you how to use books as your ultimate marketing tool.
Michael reveals why books are still a powerhouse for lawyers seeking to build authority and connect with clients. He'll share three game-changing strategies for using books: establishing your expertise, educating potential clients, and filtering out those who aren't the right fit. Imagine having a tool that not only attracts clients but also enhances your referral network!
Curious about publishing without writing a word? Michael's innovative "speak-to-write" process is your ticket! In less than 24 hours of your time, you can turn your knowledge into a compelling book by simply chatting with an interviewer and letting professionals handle the rest. We'll also dive into the success story behind the "Renegade Lawyer Marketing" book and discuss why shorter lead magnets could be your perfect starting point if you're not quite ready for a full book.
But that's not all! We'll explore how to create effective lead magnets that build trust and authenticity. Learn what high-value content looks like, how to analyze your competition, and why maintaining a consistent presence is crucial for nurturing long-term relationships with clients.
Want to reach out to Michael?
You can find him at paperbackexpert.com, where you'll discover free training resources, schedule appointments, and explore all things related to leveraging books in your practice. Plus, check out his podcast, Experts Speak, for more insights on becoming a thought leader in your field.
And if you’re looking to catch Michael live, he’ll be speaking at the Summit 2024 in Phoenix, AZ, from October 3-5, hosted by The Great Legal Marketing. Don’t miss this chance to see him in action!
Ready to break free from the status quo and supercharge your marketing strategy? Grab your pen—it's time to write your own success story with Michael DeLon as your guide!
Bonus: Don’t miss out on exclusive insights that could change the way you market your practice forever. Grab your headphones and let’s get started!
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Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.
Want to connect with Brian?
Follow Brian on Instagram: @thebrianglass
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Books dead? No, just like God's not dead, brother. Yeah, no, Books have been around since, well, the beginning of time. And they're going to be around for a long, long time. And people tell me all the time well, Michael, nobody reads my book. Well, I actually disagree. If you're going to Brian, if you're going to take your wife out, and if you're going to buy her a new car, you're going to do a lot of research for that new car, right, and you're going to dive in because it's of interest to you. And the same thing with books. If you're a medical malpractice attorney, yeah, a lot of people aren't going to write your book. But, dude, I'm telling you, if I have a medical issue and I need an attorney, I am reading every single word and so it's no. Books are not dead by any stretch of the imagination, both electronic and print.
Speaker 2:What's up, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Life Beyond the Briefs, the podcast that dares you to break free from the grind of billable hours and embrace a life of your own design.
Speaker 2:And today I am thrilled to talk with my friend, michael DeLong, the paper bank expert himself. Michael and I are diving deep into the world of books and how they can help transform your law practice. Just a reminder books are not dead and nobody ever throws them away, so they make the perfect authority building tool. Michael shares three game changing ways to use them to build authority, educate potential clients and even disqualify people who are not the right fit for you. By using books as lead magnets, you not only attract clients, but also build trust and credibility before they even walk through the door, and isn't that something that all lawyers need? So loosen up, buckle up and let's dive into the world of with Michael DeLon. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today's guest is my friend, michael DeLon, the paperback expert, michael and his son, caleb help entrepreneurs write books and become authority leaders in their industry. Michael, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks, Brian. Appreciate you having me. It's going to be a fun conversation.
Speaker 2:So you were wrapping up one project for us. Ben and I are putting out now Renegade Lawyer Marketing, the revised and updated edition for 2024. And then you're going to be coming and speaking at our Great Lumen Marketing Summit, and I just told you before we got on, caleb is launching a new lead gen offer and I said I'll take at least two of those. And so you know, the first question that comes to mind that I want to ask you is are books?
Speaker 1:dead? No, just like God's not dead, brother. Yeah, no, books have been around since, well, the beginning of time. And they're going to be around for a long, long time. And people tell me all the time well, michael, nobody reads my book. Well, I actually disagree. If you're going to Brian, if you're going to take your wife out and if you're going to buy her a new car, you're going to do a lot of research for that new car, right, and you're going to dive in because it's of interest to you. And the same thing with books. If you're a medical malpractice attorney, yeah, a lot of people aren't going to write your book. But, dude, I'm telling you, if I have a medical issue and I need an attorney, I am reading every single word and so it's no. Books are not dead by any stretch of the imagination, both electronic and print. And we're finding research more and more that not only older generations love print, newer generations love print as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean and listen. There's now a number of different medium through which you can get your message out right. There's podcasts, there's YouTube videos. Of course, there's books, there's blogs.
Speaker 2:The book, you know, historically has been the oldest and the best way to hold up the thing and say listen, I'm the guy that wrote the book on the issue and you know whether, who led this charge years and years ago with the five deadly sins that wreck your auto accident.
Speaker 2:It now seems to me that very many lawyers have a book that's similar to that and I've always thought I'd love to get your feedback on this that there's really like three use cases for the book as a lawyer. Number one it's the authority building. Right, it's nobody's ever going to read my book, but I've written one and the client could say he's written a book. Number two for clients whose cases I don't want to handle, I can give them the book and say here's how you do it. And then, number three for clients whose cases I do want to handle it, you can give them the book and say this is really hard. I describe all the steps in my book and you can go and do this on your own, but you'd probably be better off hiring me. I'm curious whether you would agree with those three. Or maybe you have some additional, or maybe you think there's like one of those is not a good reason to be writing a book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love all three of those, right. And I guess the fourth one is to disqualify people, right, because you might find some people who are coming to you that they're not a good fit for you. They read your book and they go oh yeah, you don't do brain injury. Oh, I didn't know that. Because the public is so inundated, right, they really don't know, they're just looking for an attorney. The other reason, the fifth reason I put in there is referrals, and I know you guys are massive with building a referral network. Well, what better way than to have that referral partner have copies of your book on hand to say, hey, you know what you need, an appointment with Brian, here's the book you wrote. And for happy clients too. So all of those reasons are great reasons.
Speaker 2:That's right. That fifth reason is a really sticky reason If you're going and you're getting referrals from other sources in the community maybe who aren't lawyers, right? So, you read the book, you leave it in a doctor's office, right? People just don't tend to throw out books, so I'd forgotten that a little bit. More sticky reason to have written a book At the Paperback Expert are most of your clientele maybe not lawyers, but people who are in the professional services industry that are using the books to market towards clients 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've worked with attorneys, for I've been in business since 2013. We've been working with attorneys since 2014. My other vertical is financial advisors, but we do a lot of professional services, getting into more technology and leadership, vision, casting around AI and things of that nature. But a lot of it is, you know, small business owners, small law firms, right, who are fighting against the Goliaths that are out there. How do you compete against the guy who's spending $200,000 a month?
Speaker 1:in your market on advertising, well, you better have a good story, but when you put a book in somebody's hand, it changes the game. Because here's the deal, brian, you preach this as much as I do. It's about the relationship that you can develop with somebody and that's why you know I feel like I know you, brian, because I get your print newsletter every month and that's so valuable. But you show up routinely over and over, and when you hand somebody a copy of your book now, it goes on their bookshelf. Yeah, you're right, they don't throw it away. So it's that matter of understanding. We're here to cultivate relationships and win people's hearts before they ever need you.
Speaker 2:So here's what I would say about that last piece is you know, at least the personal injury vertical has gone to this really quick decision-making process. So pre-COVID, michael, I used to think if somebody isn't going to take the time and come in and sit down with me face-to-face in my office, I don't want them as a client because they're not going to listen to me at the end of the case. That has proven to be wrong and I can sell somebody on a consult. Number one I can, my team will sign up people without me ever talking to them. Number two if it's somebody who insists, no, I have to talk to a lawyer. I've got it down to about 12 minutes. I can get you to make a decision in 12 minutes.
Speaker 2:And so in the early, um, the early uses of the book was as a lead magnet you would contact us about I'm looking for somebody for my auto accident case. We would send the lead magnet. They would like actually read the whole book and then they'd come back and make a decision. And those tended to be our highest value clients, because they're the people who have done all the research to your point. They've listened to you, they've decided that you're the expert and now they're going to listen to you right at the end of the case. But in this much faster buying cycle, it just seems to me that the other use case for the book is after that sale is made, to reinforce. This is what happens during the process. This is how you be a good client. This is how we communicate with each other effectively, because you're going to forget most of what we talked about in that 12 minute cycle. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because you're going to forget most of what we talked about in that 12-minute cycle?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Because you're dumping on me like a water hose, right, and I'm in a state of trauma and disbelief and I don't know what's going on. I just need somebody to help me, and you're right, putting that book in their hands, and then you and your staff can how about, not only put your book in their hands, Brian, but have an automated email sequence that would come out to your clients to go hey, in chapter three, we talk about the court process or the discovery process. Make sure you read that, because it's going to answer a lot of the questions that a lot of clients don't even ask, but it's going to bring a lot of peace and comfort to you, right? Five days later, hey, in chapter seven of my book, we talk about mitigation or whatever it is you know, and you just walk them through your book gently through emails maybe some video assisted emails. Hey, I did a podcast on this where I took a deep dive around the importance of testimonies or whatever. It is right.
Speaker 2:You do the video assisted stuff exceptionally well, Because almost every email that I get from you is accompanied by a privately shot video for me explaining what's in the email or explaining what's in the attached PDF, and you do that exceptionally well. And so it just seems to me that that touchpoint which helps facilitate the client journey, right.
Speaker 2:It's just in an age where everything can be automated, putting in that additional personalized touch point to your clients saying, hey, look at chapter three, because we talk about exactly this at the time when you know they're going to need it. It's just another way to separate yourself from the 800 pound gorilla who's spelling spending $20,000 a month on paid advertising.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, and everybody knows the 20,000 pound gorilla. You're a number, that's how they make so much money, right? You're just a number, you don't really matter.
Speaker 1:And when you can personalize and I do a lot of video and we integrate video in not only personal emails that I do, but automated emails that we have in our funnels and in text messages that go out to my prospects and clients are video based. And why is that? Because I'm a book guy. Why do I do so much video? Because I know the importance of showing up and connecting with people.
Speaker 1:And when you get this, you know through video, through emails and things, you start to either like me or hate me and if you hate me, go away. But most people like me and they love my energy and they're like okay, I like this guy. I'm building trust and credibility through all of my communication so that when they show up, it's not a matter of do I like you or not. They might have a couple of questions, but in 12 minutes we can take that next journey and then follow up with that email. Because I've had people, brian, say man, I watched your video. In fact, I watched it three or four times because they're not going to catch it, and especially when it comes to law. So yeah, I'm a big proponent of using video to take, to extract the content from your book and use it in a multiplicity of ways.
Speaker 2:What is your origin story? How did you make yourself into this industry?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I escaped from prison back in 2013. So now it wasn't a literal prison, it was an emotional prison, because I was so. I had a long, long journey. I was in Christian radio for nine and a half years and then my wife and I got called into family ministry to build godly marriages, and so we joined a ministry called Family Life, a part of Campus Crusade that was down in Little Rock, arkansas. So I was with them for about nine years nine or 10 years and I climbed the corporate ladder. I was on the leadership team and then they started going through corporate reorganizations and after the third reorganizational chart was revealed, my name was no longer on the leadership team.
Speaker 1:So they started shuffling me around the ministry and that was my two-year prison term, as I call it. And after two years I talked to my wife and God and I said I got to get out of this place. It's killing me. And God said what do you want to do? I said I want to go help business owners with marketing, because they hate it, they struggle with it and I love it. I've got a background in Christian radio and that's where I learned to do marketing.
Speaker 1:So I escaped from prison on January 1st of 2013, started a marketing consulting firm in Little Rock, which is where I was living, and I'd come to you, brian, and say I can help you grow your business. We'd have a great conversation and you'd say, michael, this sounds good, tell me, who else have you helped? What have you been doing for the last year? And I say, well, I've been helping build marriages and families at Family Life. And you say, michael, that's honorable Way to go. Look at the time I've got another meeting coming in, michael, the conversation going, and you'd usher me out the door and I wasn't getting any clients because you saw me as a mystery guy, not a marketing guy. So I went to my church one day, second floor, pacing the hallways crying out to God, saying, lord, how do I help Brian? And he gave me the idea to take all of my marketing ideas and strategies and put them in a book.
Speaker 1:So, back in 2013, I wrote my first book on marketing, went through the whole pain of writing it, publishing it, doing everything, and then, when it was out, I would call you, set an appointment. I would mail a copy of my book to you. A week later I'd walk into your office for our meeting and there it was, my book was on your desk, dog-eared, highlighted, underlined. You'd read my book and in that meeting, brian, you'd say now, michael, in your book, you said, how do you help me do that? And you'd hire me and I started gaining clients and I went why don't business owners do this? And so that was the seed that got planted. And so I went and created a whole process where we help you create a book without writing a word. And then, because of my marketing background, I've developed marketing systems and strategies to teach you how to use the book to actually gain clients. And so that was back in 2013, and that's what we do today.
Speaker 2:So let's talk process, because you've taken the book writing process, which can be long and arduous, and years ago I downloaded Scrivener and tried to write my own book. And Scrivener gives you. It's great, it's a 30-day free trial and know, use the days that you actually use it Right. I think I'm still two and a half years later on my 30 day free trial, because it's one of these things where you you log in and you write four or five pages and you feel pretty good about yourself and you put it away and then and then work gets in the way, right. Work and family and all the all the stuff that pays the bills gets in the way of you writing your 100 to 150 to 200-page book. That's going to then help you acquire all those clients. And you've developed a method to take the pain and take the time off of the entrepreneur and create the book by an interview process. So why don't you talk about that a little?
Speaker 1:bit, yeah. So we created we call it, a speak-to-write process, and the theory behind it is you're an expert at what you do. You're a communicator, brian. You can talk about your business all day long. So what we do is we help craft the title and theme of your book. That's the first thing we always do, because I know how important that message is to separate you from everybody else.
Speaker 1:Once we have your clear title and theme, then I bring one of my writers to the table. I have about 12 professional writers and through Zoom calls, they ask you questions to extract the genius that's between your ears and we build the outline for your book chapter by chapter bullet points, stories you want to tell. And then, once your outline is created, they guide you through our Speak to Write process, asking you questions about every chapter, and you just show up and talk. So there's no writing, there's no research, there's really no thinking on your part, because our writers do all of that. We get all of your content, we transcribe it and we use your words, brian, as the foundation from which we massage your words into the manuscript. You then review the manuscript chapter by chapter. You send us back changes, we make the changes. You're happy, we send it to editing proofreading design, cover design, all of that we publish it. It takes less than 24 clock hours of your time to go from I'm ready to have a book to I'm an Amazon bestselling author.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're somebody who's been putting out content somewhere already on podcasts or on blogs it's easy enough to offload a lot of that content and even shorten that 24 hours. So we're kind of at the end of the cycle with Renegade Lawyer Marketing. I think. I just saw an email with the final manuscript has now been sent back to us for approval. I just had a call on Monday or Tuesday with your cover design editor who showed me a bunch of samples. So we are getting this thing cranked out and hopefully it's going to be out and in print and in time for the summit in October.
Speaker 2:And you're going to be speaking on one of our breakout stages in October and you'll be there available as a resource for any lawyers who are thinking, maybe this is the year that I want to put out my own book.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and we'll be there talking about books. You mentioned earlier the lead magnets we're doing done for you lead magnets as well, because not everybody's ready to do a full book yet or they have multiple practice areas, and a great lead magnet that looks like a book is 20, 26 pages. We can do that as well. Completely done for you. We'll be talking about that at the summit also. But we're super excited, obviously, to relaunch Renegade Lawyer Marketing and make you I think we're going to do this at the summit too is do some really cool things to push that book to Amazon bestselling status and really give the attendees there some special items that aren't available to everybody else. So I hope you're going to join us at the summer. It's going to be great, Cool man.
Speaker 2:So let's back up just a second and do like 101, because you used the term lead magnet and probably most of the audience understands what that means. How do you define it? And then, what's kind of the minimum viable infrastructure that you think a business needs to have behind that lead magnet in order to make it an effective marketing piece?
Speaker 1:Yeah, great question. So a lead magnet is a piece of content okay, let's think PDF book right now. It could be video, it could be all kinds of things but it really needs to address a specific problem that your audience is dealing with, and it should solve a very specific problem. It's not going to solve all of their problem, but it's going to solve one thing so that when they get it, they're going to read it and they go, oh well, that solved that one. Oh, by the way, it just opened up three more, right, and that's the purpose of a high value lead magnet. Now, we've heard lead magnets for years, right, and most of them are two to five page PDFs that are sales letters.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, Crappy, you know.
Speaker 1:12 bullet points, and in order form Exactly, and when somebody gets that, they go. That's not what I was looking for. It doesn't connect with the high value that you bring to the table, nor does it connect with the high value client you really want, and that's why our lead magnets are 20 to 25 pages, so it's a full. I mean it's a mini book at one level, but it solves one problem that your audience has. What happens when you solve that problem? It builds trust, it builds credibility and it puts you in that top ladder to go.
Speaker 1:Okay, if I have other problems, which I should have now, who should I go to? Well, I should come back to you, because you probably can help me solve those other problems too, and that's what a lead magnet should do. And again, it could be a video series, it could be all kinds of things. We've just found that downloading a great book. Then it has links back to your website or podcasts or more information. Right, it engages your audience. And here's one of the big deals, brian. I'm just going to throw it out there because I'm going to step on toes. Most attorney websites, most business owner websites that I go to, they have one big call to action and, smack dab in the center of the screen. Call me.
Speaker 2:Call me, I'll take it from you.
Speaker 1:You know and I'm like no, now it needs to be there somewhere, but I'm researching you in most cases and I'm not ready to schedule a call. A lead magnet allows me to take one step in your direction and I'm willing to give you my email for it. Yeah, oh, now I'm on your list and now we can do all kinds of fun marketing. But you have to think about the journey and people aren't ready to talk to you yet. You guys are intimidating. Let's use a process to lower that intimidation, reduce some anxiety and increase some anticipation to wow, maybe I found somebody who I actually like and who actually can help me solve this problem. That's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know there should be some, some tied-in automation and a follow-up sequence. And if you have no idea what any of that should look like, you know the easy thing to do is to google four or five law firms similar to you in different cities and download theirs and then just make notes on what was good and what was bad on the back end. And if you've got this set up and running for a while, it's good to go back every once in a while and make sure that everything you think is happening is actually happening in your law firm or in your professional services company, because the pipes sometimes get disconnected.
Speaker 1:They do. They do you get those four or four page errors or something, or things change and the beautiful thing about a great lead magnet is it can change over time, and you guys have a great one at Great Legal Marketing. I downloaded yours the other day just to find out what your funnel was like.
Speaker 2:Just to see which one did you download.
Speaker 1:Oh, I knew you were going to ask me that I'd have to go ask and figure out. It's the primary one that has the pop up on the Great Legal Market on the front page.
Speaker 2:You've got a pop-up in there.
Speaker 1:I don't know what that is right now. Well, I don't know either, but you and your dad both are writing emails and talking about the journey and who we are and everything. And then the very last one. I thought it was great, like okay, the journey is done.
Speaker 2:Yeah we can write into those emails. So our funnel builder wrote those emails. I love it. And and then we ripped that off from um, from russell brunson. He calls it the um, let's see. Uh, he calls the, the follow-up emails, the seinfeld. Maybe it's serious emails and seinfeld emails, right, I love. So the first 10 are always the same and they're. They build on each other and they talk about yesterday's email and they talk about what's coming in tomorrow, and then, you're right, there's an end. And then you get into the ones that are not in sequence, right, yes, now you're just on the regular Friday email list. So, yeah, if you're out there and you're listening and you're not on our list, go to GreatLeagueMarketingcom. You can sign up for our email list.
Speaker 2:Download whatever the heck the current lead gen offer is, because that rotates and there's a bunch of different windows to get through. One of the ones that we ran last year is we had Tim Castleman make notes from all of the speakers at the summit, so we had, like, I think it's like 180 page PDF download. That's been a really high value one for us. But you know, giving away something, typically for free, and we can talk about that, whether the lead bank should be free, and we can talk about that, whether the lead bank should be free. But giving away something of value for free in exchange for an email address and sometimes a text message, a phone number that you can continue to market to in the future is a wonderful way especially if you already have something of value somewhere in your warehouse and of course we do To just get people who are not quite ready to pick up their phone for a consultation or admit that they need a lawyer or whatever like to, to come in and talk to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, getting people building your list, your database. I tell people that's that is your number one asset in your business is your database, because less than 3% of the people are in the market today for what you do. Okay, 67% of the people are going to be in the market in the next month to three months to three years. Depends on what you do, right, how are you going to stay in front of them? Well, when they're on your list, you own that. Now you can invite them to other things or send them emails once a week, and there's so many things you can do.
Speaker 1:But if you're not capturing them when they hit your website, they're bouncing and the odds are they're not going to find you again, unless they see one of your social media posts or something. Why not give them an easy? Next step and that's how we always look about marketing is we're trying to build a relationship of trust, and by doing it this way, I'm not running after your business. I'm here, I'm the expert, I wrote the book on it and when you're ready, I want to be the first one you think of and the one you feel the best about when you're ready to make a decision to hire an attorney.
Speaker 2:So what do you think at the end of a good lead magnet, let's say, for an auto accident lawyer, is the call to action. Okay, now call me. What is the next step that I want you to take at the end of reading my thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there should be a call to action to go. If you have more specific questions about your unique situation, why don't you schedule a call with one of our accident attorneys or accident experts?
Speaker 2:Specialists, or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1:In 15 minutes we'll be able to walk you through the process to understand where you are and if we are in a position to help you or connect you with an attorney. We believe can. That would be a really good call to action. Then, below that, you might say and if you're not ready yet, why don't you check out this page on our website that has more information, resources, articles that will help you understand the journey you are embarking on? I think those two calls to action would do massive things for you because you're building trust. Some are going to be ready to call, some aren't, but I want to point them back to you and then different resources that you offer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. This is probably the sixth or seventh time you said the word trust during this podcast. Right, Because that's all. And lawyers are like the most distrusted professionals in the whole Lawyers and CPAs.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And accountants. Nobody trusts us, but they're reaching out to you because they have a problem, and so the more that you can present yourself as a reliable source, friendly source, the better. You have something to say on that.
Speaker 1:I do because around the trust and the friendly aspect is I tell attorneys all the time be real, be yourself. You're married, you have children. Let's talk about that. Weave that into your emails, your marketing, your videos and things, because people bond with that. Ok, if I meet you at a birthday party or at a park sometime at a church event, that's what I want to find out is who are you? Do you play soccer? Do you play? I know you play soccer. He's a referee or something like that and he has used that in his marketing for years.
Speaker 2:Brilliant.
Speaker 1:We all have stuff that is personal in nature, but so many times we hide behind. That's not professional. That's exactly what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:Well, or we hide behind and might turn somebody off, right, and they might not like the Christianity aspect, right, but that's fine. But if you go back and you think about it, the client who doesn't like that probably is not ultimately a good client for you, because that's authentically who you are 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:And Dan Kennedy taught me years and years ago right Marketing is to attract and repel my ideal client. Yeah, yeah, and that's why, on video, I didn't do video for a long time, brian, because I didn't, I thought I had to look a certain way and have a fancy studio. And all this you do now, I do now.
Speaker 2:You always have a nice backdrop.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it's real too. I don't disappear, Look at that. But I finally got over it a few years ago and said you know what? I'm just going to show up as Michael and, yeah, people who are in my world, my orbit, they just, they love my energy, my passion, my and they hang around. And eventually I got a client last week, Brian. He first came to me a year and a half ago from a conference. He's been on my email list. He's been to five of my online events. We've talked twice in the past. He wasn't ready, he had to do some things and he's finally ready and we had a conversation last week. He's like, okay, I'm ready. I'm like, okay, great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the long tail version of, and he's probably going to be one of your best clients, because the people that kick your tires and have been around for a very long time, they're ready to listen to you when they tell you they're ready to hire you.
Speaker 1:Oh, when they tell you they're ready to hire you. Oh, 100%, he's going to do exactly what I tell him to do and he's going to be wildly successful. But it's just, I had to show up over and over and over with you know, I write a near daily email, I have a podcast. I do online events. He's been to. That's what we do in marketing because I'm building the relationship of trust. And when he's ready, I assure you he, and when he's ready, I assure you he didn't look for any other book publishers. Isn't that a good place to be? Yeah, are you willing in your business to invest time up front? I would much rather. I mean, we don't do Google ads right, because I want people to Google paperback expert or Michael Delon. I don't want them Googling book publisher for attorneys. I don't want that.
Speaker 2:How do I find the cheapest book publisher?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want you. How do I find the cheapest book publisher? Yeah, I don't want that. I want you to know my name and come to me and say I like you. I've been following you, I love your videos. Let's talk, great. Let's have a conversation.
Speaker 2:How do you think about free lead gen magnet versus paid?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a big proponent of free, honestly, and here's why I would rather get you on my list and then disqualify you later, okay? So here's how I do. A lot of our lead gen magnets is in our book. When we offer books is give it to me for free. And then the thank you page comes up and I say, hey, brian, thanks for or it's a generic one, right? Hey, thanks for downloading our book. It'll be in your inbox in a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1:If you'd like, I'll mail you a free copy, because there's so much valuable information in it you might want to highlight it or, dog ear, keep it as a resource. I'd be happy to mail it. It doesn't cost you a penny. Just tell me where to mail it, why, right? And then comes the email sequence and through that, what's going to happen is people who really aren't interested. They're going to bail. But the people who the back end that he has in the upsells and the downsells, and the sales team and the masterminds and all of that that he has in place that helps him monetize that free plus shipping thing, right?
Speaker 1:Most small attorneys don't have that. What I'm telling you to do is build trust. How do you build trust. I give you something. It's that reciprocity, right. And then, through the process of the emails and the videos and all that, they're going to self-select out. It's okay. So I'm a big proponent of free. We tell our clients give your book away to every breathing soul in your community. You want to be known as the attorney that anybody can come to and you will route them to the right place. If you can't help them, you've got somebody who can. If you can help them, they're in the right place.
Speaker 2:All right, amazing. So you're going to be out at the summit in Phoenix on October 3rd to the 5th. I got to keep reminding myself of the dates out there. As we record this, it is less than 30 days away. How else can people find you, michael?
Speaker 1:Paperbackexpertcom. That's our website. That's the hub of all things, Michael. You'll find free trainings, everything that we do, scheduled appointment. Whatever you need is at paperbackexpertcom.
Speaker 2:You also mentioned a podcast. What's the name of the podcast?
Speaker 1:My podcast is Experts Speak, experts Speak.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll link to all of that in the show description. If you are in the market, if you want to become an author in late 2024, early 2025, make sure that you get in touch with Michael. Or, better yet, come and see us at the summit, check him out in person and come to his breakout session. All right, guys. Thank you for listening and we'll catch you next week.
