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The Law Firm Marketing Minute
How Santa Claus Could Be Killing Your Law Firm
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🎅 Procrastination might be the gift that keeps on taking. In this festive yet hard-hitting episode, Smike, John, and Sofia uncover how holiday mindset traps like "after the holidays" can quietly undermine your law firm's success. From reactive marketing mistakes to actionable tips for crushing procrastination, this episode is your wake-up call to stay ahead of the game.
📌 What You Will Learn:
- Why Delayed Marketing Is Risky: The dangers of waiting until January to ramp up your outreach.
- Actionable Productivity Hacks: Practical steps like time-blocking and prioritization to stay proactive year-round.
- Reframing Procrastination: How to redefine control and care for your future self while driving firm growth.
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I've seen so many of our clients and other lawyers kind of treat marketing as a reactive thing rather than a proactive or an ongoing thing. Right, like so many lawyers will get really busy because maybe their marketing worked. But then they'll get overwhelmed, like I have so much more work than I can handle. And then when that caseload dries up then they start panicking. I don't have any work coming in, my firm's going to close its doors.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that we had Seth Rogen on the podcast. Yeah, apparently. Welcome to the Law Firm Marketing Minute, the go-to podcast for solo and small law firms who want to level up. I'm your host, Spike, and I'm excited for you to join me this episode. All right, without further ado, let's dive in. Hello everyone, Welcome back to the Lofton Marketing Minute. As always, I'm your host, Spike. Today I have two other faces with me. One should be pretty familiar, John. I know that you've seen and you've heard him in the show way before. I was even around here. And then you got Sophia, who is the office queen. These two make up the admin team here at Spotlight Branding. Sophia, if you just want to kind of introduce yourself, because I think this is your first time on the podcast. So, if you just want to introduce yourself, what motivates you to be the person that you are?
Speaker 2:That's a deep question. Well, hello, thanks for having me, smike. Yes, I am office queen here at Spotlight Branding. I was an accountant manager for over three years, so I've been with the team for a while and now I'm working in the admin sparkle kingdom with King John. Basically, we sparkify all of the things as spotlight branding making sure our team members are taken care of, making sure things are running smoothly behind the scenes, and featuring on amazing shows like this every once in a while. Um, but, yes, as far as what makes me what I am, sparkles, that is it. That is all I have to say.
Speaker 3:So, obviously, the reason why I brought you two on this show is I mean, first of all, you guys reason why I brought you two on this show is I mean, first of all, you guys make a terrific pair to have on the show as guests. Um, you know, for those who need a little bit of context, you probably already got from sophia. She's a very bubbly person, john. You know he can't. He has his moments where he's bubbly. Um, I think that sophia is rubbing off on him a little bit. Nope, but you know, you know he's more laid back and so you know there's like a yin-yang kind of thing going on.
Speaker 3:So we're going to talk about procrastination, because I am somebody who procrastinates a lot. A lot of lawyers, especially around the holiday time, will say, oh, I'm not going to start this new project, I'm not going to do anything, I'm not going to change anything until after the holidays. That term, that phrase, after the holidays, I feel like it's such a simple phrase but also, at the same time, it's so detrimental to your mindset, because it's like, oh, I can just say after the holidays and you know, bada, bing, bada, boom, I ain't got to worry about it. So, john, john, can you speak to that that simple phrase and what it does to your mindset. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:I mean to your point it's, it's that whole procrastination mindset. But you know, if you kind of step back and look at it practically, uh, you're really putting yourself and your firm way, way behind. Because like, yes, you know, I hear, you know Q1's super busy time for law firms, right, pretty dead around Thanksgiving through December, right, because, like, no one's getting divorced during Christmas, no one's trying to file for bankruptcy during Christmas, like they'll do that after, when they realize they spent too much on Christmas presents, all that. But you know January is when they get that stuff going right. But you know January is when they get that stuff going Right.
Speaker 1:But those people who might be looking into a divorce now or might be looking to set up an estate plan now or set up a new business at the start of the new year, they are doing that research now. They're starting to look for potential law firms to work with now. And so law firms that maybe aren't doing any marketing or like yeah, I'll ramp up my marketing at the start of the year, like you're already falling behind those firms who are doing the marketing now and are being top of mind and getting out in front of people right now, so that when they make that decision at the start of the year, they're going to get that business and not you.
Speaker 3:Hey there, we're going to get right back to the episode in just a few seconds here, but I wanted to share this opportunity that's exclusive for podcast listeners or, if you're watching on YouTube, exclusive to you as well. If you book a strategy session with us using the link in the podcast description or YouTube description in the notes section, all you got to do is type LFMM for Law for Marketing Minute, and if you decide that we're a great fit and we decide you're a great fit for us, you'll have no monthly payments until January 2025. Pretty crazy. So go ahead and check the description. All right, let's get right back to the episode Now.
Speaker 3:Sophia, can you, can you speak to that a little bit more? Maybe about like, just because, like I said beginning, I'm someone who procrastinates myself and so for me, like having me having those little phrases after the holidays, like, oh, I'll do it later, those big ones where it's like it's funny because it's almost like a dopamine hit, because you almost feel like you're in control, but then comes the time when it's time to get whatever it is going and you don't have as much time anymore. Like, what can you say to to the people who share?
Speaker 2:well, me and the people who share that, that mindset with me yeah, um, so two things come to mind for one um, obviously, well, actually, no, let me backtrack. There is a quote that I always, always, always think about when it comes to basically getting ahead of the game or just, um, completing things like on a you know, very like productive frame schedule, if that makes sense, like just once again staying ahead. And it's what hurts more the pain of hard work or the pain of regret. And that always helps me to want to stay on top of things, because the hard work in this case could be that, yeah, maybe you feel like there's a lot of, you know, there's maybe a lack of time in your schedule because the holidays are coming up, or there's just a lot of things to do during this time of the year. So you know, it might be quote unquote hard work to actually get the other things done now, the marketing done now.
Speaker 2:But, kind of to John's point, the regret, if you don't kind of push through, could be that you're missing out on business or that you're behind on projects that you could have gotten a head start on. Sorry, if you started before the holidays. So that's something that comes to mind. But also I always think too, there, there's always going to be things. There's always going to be things, whether it's the holidays now, or something comes up later on in January that you weren't anticipating before, and then, sure enough to one of two things is going to happen either everything's going to bottleneck in January, when you need to start filing your taxes, when you need to start doing all these other administrative things on top of starting your marketing, like you said you were going to do. Or and the other thing I cannot remember what I was going to say, but yeah, but anyway, there's always. There's just always going to be things, and things are going to bottleneck eventually if you don't start now.
Speaker 3:You know, it's kind of a little bit ironic, maybe in a way, because this time of year is at least in mainstream media's eyes, is the most joyful time of the year right, the most most happy time of the year when in reality, like it's historically one of the darkest times of the year. You know rates of people unaliving themselves and everything like skyrocket, um, even people going through. They know just who decide to get divorced. You know that that kind of takes off. So maybe there's people out there, lawyers out there, who think like, oh well, you know, no one's gonna do anything until after the holidays. Maybe I don't know, I don't know the data behind that, but it seems like that almost wouldn't be true, because maybe they just don't take action until after the holidays and maybe that's what they're kind of going off of. But to your point, john, what you said before, they might be looking even before the holidays.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you talk about you being in control of something right. You talk about you being in control of something right, like putting off something, and you still kind of feeling like in control. You just have to kind of redefine what control means for you. I know I sound like a therapist, your therapist will probably tell you the same thing.
Speaker 3:right, it's all right, I need as many as I can get.
Speaker 1:But you have to redefine what control is or what motivates you or whatever the case may be, because you either procrastinating and feeling in control of like, yeah, I'm going to make this decision and take action on this whenever I do, I'm in control of that Versus kind of a big thing. That really helped me was just this idea of taking care of your future self you know, and it's still kind of in control of that because I am in control.
Speaker 1:I am in control of how my future self's life is going to turn out and I can either take care of what I can take care of today I can even get ahead today and I know that my future self is going to have an easier time in life because of the work that I put in today or I could say, screw my future self. You know, just let it pile up, let him take care of it later on, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know, obviously you know future self who has an easier, happier life is going to be happier than future self who has a bunch of work because present self was lazy and put it all off.
Speaker 3:What about for me? I experience almost like a paralyzing kind of feeling. So it's like I know what you're saying there. I know that my future self is going to be like oh, thank you so much, spike, thank you so much. Like you're the man. You look really good today, but like, but then there's just that almost that paralyzing, because it's almost like fear of failure for me. So I've had those times where I like, for example, I get like all of my social media scheduled like for the entire week and then some into the following week, and it feels great, you know. But there's those times where I'm like, yeah, I know, this feels good, like I want to do this again, but then I just don't because there's that paralyzing kind of feeling, that fear of failure, that fear of hey, what if I put this up and nobody wants to acknowledge it? That sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Man, I've got some bad news for you. Like if you're in marketing or you're just a business owner, uh, you're gonna fail. A lot like marketing in general is like 90 failure, oh for sure you know and, honestly, I might be in the wrong business like and really honestly like marketing is is constant failure.
Speaker 1:because if you're marketing well, you're constantly kind of A-B testing and putting things up against each other and if you're trying to always A-B test, one of those things is always going to fail. So you're going to always be failing at something.
Speaker 3:At least 50% of the time, you're going to be failing For sure.
Speaker 1:And even as a business owner, you're going to always be trying different things, especially as you're running your business oh, let's try this marketing initiative, or oh, let's try this thing around the office, or let me take this approach to a case, or whatever, and not everything is going to work out. But the positive side of that is at least, if it does fail, you don't walk away with nothing. You still walk away with the knowledge of knowing how that thing is going to go, and especially with marketing, very rarely at least in my experience, and even just some of the stuff that we've tried here at Spotlight Branding, whatever marketing you're doing very rarely are you going to get no results. You'll get some results. You'll get some sort of return. It may not be what you wanted, it may not be what you projected it to be, but you'll still get something out of it, and so, at the very least, even if that marketing fails, you're still a little bit farther down the road than you would have otherwise been.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. What do you, what do your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Sophia, I agree with that, and you dropped this. That is your crown, because the king has spoken no. For real, though, all of the work that you do today is going to be less work that you have to do later, and it's traction that you could be getting if you just started now, as opposed to you. It's traction that you could be getting if you just started now, as opposed to you know traction that you could be losing if you started later on. And the thing about marketing is that it also takes time. Not only are you, you know, potentially not going to get the results that you're expecting or that you want which is okay but it also takes a while to actually get that loop going and to see the results that you want to see in the first place. So that's why getting ahead of the game and starting now is the key to success, because then you're going to actually see that ROI a lot sooner, as opposed to later if you started quote unquote after the holidays.
Speaker 3:Now, you might not have like, neither of you might not have like the exact answer on this, and that's fine. I'm kind of more so looking for your opinion. Would you say that the procrastination is due to just having this almost like a chip on your shoulder, like, oh, like I? Know, when's the best time for for me to start, kind of thing? Or or would you say that it is due to almost like a fear of failure that they're trying, that they might be trying to hide?
Speaker 1:Like I mean honestly it's. In my experience it's kind of a combination of both. Right, Like a lot of lawyers you know they, they grew up their entire lives. It's like, oh man, you're so smart, you're so great at this. And then they go through law school and they get to this prestigious position like, oh, you're a lawyer.
Speaker 1:Like lawyers, doctors, they're like you know, yeah you know, upper echelons of professions in our society, and so there's this sort of pride that goes with it, like yeah, I've gotten to this position, I clearly know what I'm doing. Like sure, I procrastinate, but do I really like there's that side of it. But then there's also that side of it, like, yeah, I'm a lawyer, like I have this really kind of prestigious title.
Speaker 3:People think of me in a certain way If I fail it looks really bad and people won't respect me as much as like, or the people that already don't respect lawyers. They'll just reinforce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah, and so I think for me like it's just kind of like this nasty storm of a combination of both of it that really ultimately can can get a lot of people paralyzed by that.
Speaker 2:And I think the one thing I would add to all of that nasty stormness that you mentioned that non-sparkleness.
Speaker 2:The non-sparkliness is the fact that a lot of our clients, at least, are also business owners on top of parents, on top of so many other things. So I think what I have also seen with a lot of my clients has been just kind of like a struggle with priorities of what they think is important, Like it's not just because of pride, it's not just because of their position, but it's also just not realizing that marketing should probably be like one of your top priorities as a business, because obviously if you're not marketing, you're not putting the word out there about your business, you're not going to be getting the revenue in phone calls and sales, whatever it is, and consultations. So I feel like a lot of my clients have often thought that you know their marketing budget should have been the smallest one and should have been the last thing to tackle, because other aspects of their business were more important.
Speaker 2:And maybe from a business owner perspective, from a lawyer perspective, like maybe I can kind of understand that, but the reality of it is that marketing is the engine that is driving all of those consultations that come to your business in the first place, all of those referrals, all of those strategic partnerships. So I think definitely reevaluating priorities should be one of the things that we focus on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's pretty easy for a marketing company to say, yeah, marketing's the most important thing in your business. No, but to Sophia's point though. I've seen so many of our clients and other lawyers kind of treat marketing as a reactive thing rather than a proactive or an ongoing thing. So many lawyers will get really busy because maybe their marketing worked. But then they'll get overwhelmed Like I have so much more work than I can handle. And so when they do that, what's the first thing that gets? Cut Marketing budget and let's scale back our marketing. We've got too much we can handle. I don't want to keep referring out cases. I've heard it all. And then when that caseload dries up, then they start panicking I don't have any work coming in, my firm's going to close its doors.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that we had Seth Rogen on the podcast. Yeah, apparently.
Speaker 1:That's Apparently. That's not even one of my better impressions. I'm not going to find it now, anyway, but yeah. So then they'll start freaking out because they don't have a lot of work coming in, so then they'll restart the marketing again. The marketing will start working, and then it just kind of gets into this cycle of peaks and valleys and it's all just driven by their marketing decisions.
Speaker 3:So here's a quick stat that I pulled up that might freak some of our listeners out. Host and producer. Thanks to our good old friend chat tbt with sources with sources. The American Bar Association has reported that nearly a quarter of all legal malpractice claims are related to procrastination. That's a lot.
Speaker 2:Wait, I don't understand that.
Speaker 3:So basically, they are probably most likely due to the lack of time management. So basically, not everything gets done according to how it should because they procrastinate a little bit.
Speaker 2:That's wild.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a quarter of them.
Speaker 2:That's the tea you guys Like.
Speaker 3:that is no seriously though you just gotta talk a little bit more into the mic so people can hear you seriously though no, no, you can talk to me yeah, no, that's crazy, it is it is so to kind of wrap up this episode.
Speaker 3:um, we don't have to, you know. Know you're not on a time constraint here, but either of you can take this question what are some actionable steps that people like myself could take to kind of avoid procrastination in the future? I know it seems like a lot of it's mindset like the whole switching from reactive to proactive like the whole switching from reactive to proactive.
Speaker 2:So for me, I would recommend a few things. The first one that comes to mind is putting on what I call the grind set, so you need to like turn your. That's not okay, that's not funny. This time I don't know why you're laughing if anyone needs context sophia is who are actually not giggling.
Speaker 3:If anyone needs context, Sophia is just like. She's got a title, she's got a name for everything and it's usually a play on words in a sense, yes always so.
Speaker 2:It's the mindset of basically like putting your grind mode on, your hustle on, so always, always, like, basically, instead of having a mindset of just like you know getting things done, just like going with the flow of things, like no, you're going to grind out, you're going to hustle, you're going to crush your task list. I feel like that type of attitude is huge because, um, then you're kind of setting a high bar for yourself to reach every day. Um, so that's something I would recommend is making sure you have the right attitude and mindset on as you approach everything.
Speaker 3:Another thing too oh, so it's you versus you you versus you.
Speaker 2:There you go. Oh, my god, I'm gonna start using that. I love that song anyway, yes. And then another thing I would mention is also um time blocking your calendar. The time is going to pass anyway every single day, like it's just going to pass. So why not make sure you're maximizing pretty much every I would argue minute of your day, of your working day, to ensure that it's going toward productive initiatives that are going to actually take you from point A to point B, because, at the end of the day, your goals are not going to achieve themselves. You need to actually do the work and, like, put a plan in place to make them happen. I think was it Ben Franklin who said if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So you need to make sure you have a plan in place.
Speaker 3:I think he had a quote as well when he got zapped by lightning.
Speaker 2:It was yo well, I don't really like have a good comeback for that one, except that he got chosen for getting zapped because he was so freaking, sparkly and saying the quote I mentioned. But basically, you need to have a plan in place. You need to block out your time to actually put that plan into action. And then, on top of that not just blocking out time to whether it's strategizing, marketing, whatever it is you need to also have a really good task management system. Something that I use on the daily is basically a priority system. So every single day, I mark my tasks in priority, whether it's from priority one to priority five, with one being the highest priority and five being the lowest, to ensure that I get my mission-critical items done every single day, and that is how you ensure you have a slayable day and a slayable week.
Speaker 3:John, how can you top that?
Speaker 2:There's no topping it. Everyone's contributions are equally as sparkly.
Speaker 1:Anyway, no, I think just you know two different things Like. One it's understand what motivates you and redefine how the most important areas of your life fit into that definition, you know. And the other thing is just take care of your future self, cause, like, honestly, like if that's, if that's kind of your mindset, going into everything, either you hate yourself, which is you know something you can talk to your therapist about and work through that, or you love yourself and you're going to make sure that your future self, you know, stays happy and has the easiest life they can.
Speaker 3:Well, I appreciate the tips from both of y'all. For the audience, this might have seemed like kind of like a giggly, kind of more light, lighthearted episode, which I think it's fine. You know, I think that's a good mix, because we have some episodes that are a little bit more serious, I would say, but this was a blast. So thank you to both of y'all. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we never really did any of this when I was the host for five years.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's right. Well, I'm glad that he got to share his experience. But anyways, everyone listening. Thank you for listening. If you could please leave a review. We're trying to grow the podcast and that helps out a lot. So if you can leave a review, you can say who was your favorite of the day. Both of us have a terrific weekend, everyone listening, and we will see you next week. Bye.