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Preston Schmidli: video is the 2025 equivalent of in person. And so if I want to build a relationship, I want to be able to take in as much with my senses as possible to know. Not only that, you know what you're talking about, but to be able to identify, I actually like you and I would want to work with you.

MPS: Hey law firm owner. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm MPS.

Richard James: And I'm Richard James, MPS we have a great show today we talk to attorneys all the time about the idea of building their own personal brand and a brand for their firm and how they should do that. Using social media and why it's so important for them to take ownership in that. And today with authority brand, we're going to get into that with Preston today.

And we're going to go deep on this subject of building their brand and the brand for their firm and kind of the nuts and bolts of what they should do. And maybe a little bit of how they should do it. Hopefully we'll get a secret along the way.

Richard James: So Preston, we're excited that you're here because this aligns with what we teach attorneys all the time, [00:01:00] that they need to develop this brand to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

Preston Schmidli: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me guys. I'm excited to be here and hopefully I can pour in to your guys audience and give them some nuggets of wisdom that I know you were saying before the, we started here, that a lot of the people that listen to this are struggling with like work life balance and stuff like that. And some of the stuff that we've, Stumbled upon over the years is about really creating efficient leverage.

So, you know, a lot of people we talked to that enroll in our services and stuff, they end up telling us and the reason I say that is because they're the best point of feedback, but they end up telling us like I really wish I would have known these things before because they mistakenly thought content had to be hard and it's like there are ways to do it to create leverage to get a massive benefit without further breaking your back.

I mean, you know, I know the average lawyer we work with a lot of them there. They are trying to get back to the home, get back to the wife or the husband, the kids. And it's like, you know, the last thing that they want to do is [00:02:00] more money is actually not appealing, even though they need it. It's like, I need my life back first, right?

And so, you know, my goal is within what we do. And then also bring into this podcast today. My goal is to help them make more money and get their life back. Like, I don't think they should have to choose.

MPS: I agree. And that's one of the value nuggets we're already getting from Preston and we're not even into it. So make sure to hit that subscribe button, depending on where you're listening or watching. So you don't miss content like this.

MPS: Preston, let's break the ice for them a little bit.

Why don't you tell us something that maybe not everyone knows about you?

Preston Schmidli: Wow. That's something that not everybody knows about me. I like to race Hondas.

MPS: Nice.

Preston Schmidli: I have a Honda that I converted to all wheel drive. It's got like a Frankenstein setup. It's a Honda Del Sol. It has an Integra GSR engine in it. It's got a CRV transmission with the internals of an Integra GSR transmission. And I have the rear end and the drive shaft of a 1988 Wagavan four wheel drive Civic. So it's pretty, it's fun. [00:03:00] I enjoy that. So that's the whole thing. People don't know about me.

Richard James: You're a fast and furious guy.

Preston Schmidli: I am, I had a problem. That's actually how I learned about lawyers is through cars.

Richard James: Well, I tell you what, when I was younger, I liked to drive fast, too. None of my cars would go that fast, though. I had a, my first one was a 1960 Rambler, and it happened to be pink. Then I had a 1981 Dodge Challenger, and boy, I thought that thing could move.

And one day, a Ford Escort, which you may not know what it is. I'm dating myself a little bit.

Preston Schmidli: Oh, I know the Escorts. Yeah.

Richard James: Okay. So Ford Escort and I passed this Ford Escort before, you know, my floorboard is you know, I'm the pedals to the metal and the speedometer is bouncing off of 85. And I think I'm flying. And this Ford Escort passes me as if like I was standing still.

Preston Schmidli: Man, that'll, that'll take your testosterone levels down a notch.

Richard James: Yeah, I'm like what just happened, you know, so I'm going with, they had that thing built out like you built out your Honda. That's what I'm going with. But that was in 1988. So that's a [00:04:00] bit ago, long before this was what you're doing is even popular. So thanks for sharing that. That's great. And I know that you had mentioned off camera that you got to know attorneys through that experience. But what I really love is what you told me is that, you know, you've got this your attraction to attorneys and who they are as entrepreneurs and business people.

And we don't hear that a lot and attorneys don't get to hear that a lot. So it really warmed my heart to hear that that you really dig working with them from a business perspective and love helping them gain this life balance. So we appreciate you for that.

Preston Schmidli: Well, I think it also depends on perspective, right? So what that probably is like, I didn't start in the legal realm. I've been doing direct response advertising for a decade. And I think, the main difference between me and your average marketer in the space is I have context and contrast. So it's like, it's easy. So like let's say that your first girlfriend's a 10 and you don't know better and she does that one thing that annoys you and you're like, Oh, gross. Somebody who's been like dating a three is gonna be like, [00:05:00] bro, what are you doing? Right? I've dated the threes. I can recognize a 10 when I see one.

So, you know, to me, it's like I've had those experiences in other realms as I've kind of grown through my marketing journey and now working with lawyers, I'm like, I wish I would have known about this years and years ago because you know, a lot of people that I've worked with, unfortunately, I've worked, and we've helped over a thousand businesses at this point, but a lot of the people it's like their salespeople that took a 40 hour course, right?

And they got a real estate degree, a light or, not degree. They got a certificate or something. I don't know. Crackerjack box toy that, you know, insurance, real estate mortgage. It's all like you get into it real quick. Right? But it's like, easy in easy out, right? Whereas with lawyers, the thing I love is there's such a, the average is so much more sophisticated than the average of these other spaces.

I spent most of my time in there. They, you know, they went to school for a long time. So there's commitment. They have student loan debts, so there's obligation. They have leases and staff and they have to make it work and they [00:06:00] want to, they're open minded, they're listening. Which to me is a breath of fresh air because like, I can't tell you how frustrating it's been for me trying to inspire people to be the change in their life and try to convince them why showing up is in their kid's best interest.

It's like, these people want it to work. They just need, they need help. And I love that.

MPS: It is and so walked us through a little bit of the journey there about how you ended up here with the direct response background, but walk us through this idea a little bit of branding and authority branding, and why content plays such a big role for these law firms?

Preston Schmidli: Yeah. Well, so, wow. Okay. Let me try to do this efficiently cause I could spend I actually did spend 90 minutes on this earlier today. So let me try to not do that. So HubSpot did a study recently where they found that video as a media form gets over 1,200% more engagement than photo and text combined. Now, as a copywriter, as somebody who's practiced copy for a long time on one hand that's scary, [00:07:00] but on the other, it's an opportunity, right? Because it's like the copy is still important, but it's much less relevant and it's more about people want the engagement.

And you guys have probably been here yourself. Like, Most videos actually watched without sound on. I don't know if you guys know that. So like, you know, you might be in an elevator or maybe you're sitting in the stands at your kid's game and, they're in like a halftime type thing. And so you're just watching a video in the stand, you know, this is how we consume content.

And it's, much more engaging to the senses than even without sound. It's much more engaging to the senses than a photo or a picture. And so I think a lot of things go into this, but the platforms are incentivizing it. That's an important fact. More than anything else. And not only more, but like exponentially more.

It is huge. And by the way, it's huge, not just in organic content. This is also, if you're not doing videos in your advertising, that's a huge missed opportunity as well, because there you will pay lower CPMs. If you have a good video, then you will on a photo text type post. Okay. So [00:08:00] something to think about, but human beings, in addition to the platforms, incentivizing it. Human beings are more we appreciate it more. You know, this is something I learned earlier when I was studying psychology. 7% of our communication is the words. The other 93% is split almost evenly between body language and tonality. I can't get that in text. So why would I stay somewhere where I can only lean on 7% of the dynamic when I could be face to face, toes to toes, nose to nose with you?

Right? And so the I think the pandemic is also partially responsible for the importance of this because the zoom revolution happened because, you know, we couldn't be in person. And so I think that video became this new normal. It like video is the 2025 equivalent of in person. And so if I want to build a relationship, I want to be able to take in as much with my senses as possible to know. Not only that, you know what you're talking about, but to be able to identify, I actually like you and I would want to work [00:09:00] with you. And then also ideally be able to identify, I see you've worked with other people just like me and they came back safe and had a good experience or a good outcome. And if you can check those three boxes, which is easiest to do in video, then the likelihood you win a case is better. Not only that you win a case by the way, because a lot of people look at marketing like conversion, but this goes all the way.

So A, it's important for converting prospects to clients. B, it's, important for attracting more prospects. And C, the impact it makes on an intake process is huge. so that's the important thing. It's not just about attraction. It's not just about conversion. It's about the simplification of your sales process. And I personally, I've been doing sales a long time. I like selling, but you know, I like more than selling, not having to sell. I like enrolling people.

Richard James: So let's bridge the gap a little bit. So for those that are listening that maybe, you know, they're just catching up and they're like, well, hang on a second. MPS asked about brand and we went into this concept of video and then we went into this concept of sales. So, you know, generally [00:10:00] speaking, Preston.

So for them, for those who really are marketing novices and they're thinking about, we're trying to lay it out for them. You're suggesting that if they do a good job with creating video that's interesting for people that they would want to consume and they make sure they post that video in places that people that they want to consume it actually are. That they will create themselves a presence or maybe an omnipresence that will then support their lead generation efforts and consequently their sales efforts. And that's how you view brand. Is that an accurate summary?

Preston Schmidli: So brand is really just how people see you. Right? So the brand is how the market sees you. I mean, like, if we wanted to boil it down to simple, simplistic terms, that's all it is. Right? And so the problem is most people have nothing to see or ads. Right? And so, like, I like to actually make a lot of corollaries to marketing and dating because I think that not everybody has a marketing degree or sales [00:11:00] background, but everybody has at one point or another tried to maybe not successfully, but they've tried to woo, you know, somebody for dating.

And the reason that I like this is it'll make sense here in a second, but running ads just by running ads is like hollering shoddy out the window of a moving vehicle. Right? It's like, it'll work sometimes, but it's a hard sale. And I didn't get to know them. They didn't get to know me. All I got to know was the car they drive.

And I don't even know if they own it. Right? Not effective strategy. Now, if you yell shoddy at enough people as you drive by, somebody's going to go, what's that? Right. But it's like, I don't want that. I want to be an attractive opportunity for somebody to date. You can't achieve that through ads as much as I wish you could.

Yeah. You can magnify it to an extent with ads. I'll give you an example. Let's just use Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins can run an ad and we all go, what's this about? Right. Now, if Shmoni Schmabins runs an ad, and we've never heard of him. This is the first, I don't, like, swipe, [00:12:00] right? Like, I don't even know who you are, right?

It hits differently when you have the brand. So, you could holler out a window if they already knew they liked you, because now they just think you're being funny. So, that's kind of the corollary between, you know, marketing and branding versus dating is like, we don't need to just be hollering out the window.

We should get them to view us as an attractive suitor.

Richard James: Yeah, and I don't, think I, so I'm with you. I don't know that I would go as far as it's black and white that, you know, you can't generate business doing ads. You can, right?

Preston Schmidli: Oh no, you can generate business. I'm just saying it's harder. You have to work more for it.

Richard James: Yeah. It make the brand makes it easier. Yeah, I agree. I mean, MPS, we see that ourselves, right? So when we have somebody that consumes our content, everything becomes easier. The,

MPS: The friction. Yeah, yeah, the friction.

Preston Schmidli: Well, let's just imagine. So you guys, you went to Hormozy's event. You already pre sold, right? You booked the call cause you have to book the call as part of this process, but that's really creating experience. You would have bought either way. Now imagine some guy named [00:13:00] Tyler Jenkins hits you with the same ad for the same offer. He needs that call and he's got to push hard to get you to spend the 5k. Screw the 45k at the event that you also spent. He can't even make the first sale.

So that's the difference is it's like can it work? Sure, if you like playing the game on hard mode just stick to ads. You don't need a brand but you know in this day and age YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world which has more search traffic than Bing, AOL, Yahoo, you know every other search engine combined except for Google which they happen to be owned by Google So the magic to this is if you actually nail this you get to double dip. If you rank a video in Google or excuse me, if you rank a video on YouTube, Google sees that and goes, let's put that here too.

And you know, what's cool about that is oftentimes you could have a competitor. Let's just use an extreme example, a Morgan and Morgan, right? You could have a Morgan and Morgan that's been doing blogs for 40 years or something crazy, right?

I mean, that's obviously probably, I don't know if the internet's been around for that long, but let's [00:14:00] use an extreme example, right? You get where I'm going with this. You can disrupt somebody who has a very well entrenched SEO strategy simply by having a ranking video because video pushes everything else down. It's at the top. So it's like, well, why would I want to play the game on hard mode competing against people in the arenas they're competing against when I could do this my way and have very little competition?

Richard James: I think it, goes to the point that. The social marketing as it stands today, and just in the last three or four years, really since COVID has equaled the playing field in a way that had never done that before. Like if somebody was entrenched with their SEO and they had 750 pages of content and they ranked in number one keyword for everything and they had 350 to 500 google reviews you weren't going to displace them in their geolocal marketing, but all of a sudden now MPS you can, right?

MPS: Right. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, Preston through the [00:15:00] stat out earlier just video is much more well received. It's more viewed. It's more engaging. Everything about video, just put you at a higher, higher threshold and level, and it's going to get noticed more often. And look you know, you're a law firm owner and you're listening to this and you're trying to figure out the business side of things and the marketing side of things, we've got a little resource for you over at the LawFirmSecret.com you can check out.

And we could provide a little bit more clarity on that, but Preston, I'm, curious for you because you are dealing with busy attorneys, right?

MPS: So for the ones that say but this is just too much time like how do you go about this? How do you help half of that?

Preston Schmidli: Most of our clients have tried and failed. I'm going to call it failed for the sake of simplicity. They've tried and failed at doing video content or social media marketing, which I don't like to call it social media marketing, even though it is because oftentimes social media marketing is also hiring a firm for 97 a month to give you 30 Canva templates.

It's like, that's okay. We're you're playing checkers. I'm [00:16:00] playing chess. Let's not compare these two. Right? So it is video, it is social media, right? But I think the important thing is most of our clients have come in and said they, it didn't work before, but they had no real strategy. So it's like shooting a gun, but having your eyes closed.

It's like, how could we possibly hit the target that we're not even looking at? Like, if I don't know the strategy and I have maybe an intern or, you know, a 25 year old marketing person who's like, you got to be on video. Well, yeah, of course you got to be on video, but that doesn't mean like, you for no reason for like just random.

It's like, that's not how you go viral. People that go viral research their content heavily. They figure out what other content has gone viral. They reverse engineer it. They find the hook, you know, I mean, there's really three components of a good video hook story and offer, right? So hook is like, how do you get somebody sucked into the content?

And this is most prevalent with short form. So usually there's some sort of like I don't want to say click baity because that can be the case, but it's not always the case. But some engaging [00:17:00] thing that is either an open loop type question or a provocative statement. So that's the hook. And then the story is the content in the middle, right?

This is the meat of the video. And then the offer is usually called the action, right? So you just had a good example at MPS. Where you push them to a resource. That's a call to action, right? So that's the offer, if you will. So, you want to follow that format in any content you're doing. But the content itself should be just a small part. You know, this is something that Dan Kennedy taught me. Most people start with tactics. This is why they fail. But tactics are actually a subset of strategy and strategy is a subset of principle. And if we're doing tactics without the strategy or the strategies without the principle, we're just making shit up.

And, you know, I want to have a marketing strategy that I know I can rely on consistently instead of a disconnected series of marketing and sales events. Right. And so that's a big part of it for me. And you know, our clients on average are spending about four hours a month on content. So like, this doesn't have to break your back to get [00:18:00] a wide array of assets that build the relationship with your clients. And actually I would say, oftentimes what we find the content that like when we were writing scripts for clients, what I find is you know, lawyers are having a lot of the same conversations over and over and over. Right. Well, imagine if you just made a piece of content around that and it already answered the question.

I just saved you. Like, not only did I give you a marketing asset, I gave you something that you can copy and paste a link to when somebody asks you a question and you can save your time now. So this is about efficiency. This is about leverage. It's not just about monetization. And so that's why I said at the beginning, I don't believe it has to be, I either make more money or I get my life back.

It's like, there are ways to do both. You know, you don't have to have hard earned money. Like there are better ways.

Richard James: So let's do an exercise for them.

Richard James: So we've got this attorney who's listening to this. It's Two o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. They're frustrated. They're beat down. They've just put in their 70th hour on the week or maybe more and they're realizing they got court, you know, a trial on Monday and they're preparing [00:19:00] on.

So they're gonna have to work all day Sunday and they're just burned out and they're wondering why they got themselves into this and they want to weigh out and there's lots of things they got to focus on, but they decided what they want to do is they really want to focus on developing this brand so they can, you know, have less challenge of attracting the right type of client.

They don't have to take several different types of cases, all the things that brand will do for them. They're not ready to hire an agency. They want to dip their toe in and start on their own. What's the first two, three or four things you would tell them? Do you said certainly to make it more efficient. So I'm assuming block out some time. Is that a fair estimate?

Preston Schmidli: Yeah, I mean, so we're kind of getting outside of content here. I mean, I would say, you know, cause I do a lot of consulting, like private client consulting and you've done this with Dan, right? So like you're familiar with the structure. And oftentimes we talk about things that have nothing to do with marketing or sales directly.

Those are just a small part of the business function as a whole, right? There's a lot that goes into profitability that gets neglected to be looked at. And so I think that's a universal truth. What you just said, Richard, is like, if people aren't taking [00:20:00] like ruthless control of their time in all regards. First of all, that's part of the reason they're working 78 hours and are not happy with the lifestyle they have. Okay. I work 70 hours a week. I love it. I'm not, you know what I mean? Like, I'm like, I'm in the game. I'm in the zone. If you're working that much cause you have to, and you got kids and family, you're not away, you're away from it.

It's like, and you feel like, you know, every time you put a fire out three more spring up, like that cycle of anxiety is partially due to the fact that you're unstrategic with your time or you're not ruthless enough with it. Right. And so, nobody else will take your time seriously if you don't. So that's the first thing is like, you have to just. Set boundaries like firm, right? So this goes beyond content, but you have to deploy that same thing in your content, right? So like my thing is you get four hours a month, you know, and this is the you show up to me this is a decade gym workout. I don't care how you feel. I don't care what happened you got it on the calendar you show up and if four hours ain't enough, that's fine.

You did it next month it will be because you learn some [00:21:00] stuff. Right. And so now if you got six hours and four hours wasn't enough, then, you know, have at it. I'm just saying you have to set the time block. You have to set the boundary and that goes to anything, right? So like if you're working on the weekend and you got a trial on Monday, I mean, first of all, I'd get through the trial. Right. But after that, I would find the next time where you can commit, cause that's what it is, to setting aside four hours. Okay. Or two hours twice a month, which I don't, I mean, nobody like, I don't know anybody except for maybe Elon Musk who couldn't dedicate two hours, two times a month to something if it equated to. 600,000 plus a year in their business and revenue which is what we see, by the way, we see a lot of people that are doing this consistently.

And like the full scope, not like half assing it, but they're actually leaning into it are seeing, you know, more than, and obviously it's not immediate, but there's some immediacy to it, but it builds like SEO over time. But we're seeing an average of people [00:22:00] doing over 600,000 a year in their firm added. in revenue by doing this. And so, you know, it's like the efficiency, you just have to stay committed. You have to time block it and you have to stay committed to it. And eventually you're this stressed, you know, you're like super stressed.

Let me see my frame here. You're super stressed. And then, you know, you do another four hours and now you have twice as many assets. And now you're this stressed. And then eventually when you've already prerecorded all of the things that come up and the client journey and the questions that they have, you've gained efficiencies there. You can gain efficiency with your team on this stuff cause they can use your content as training to an extent, right? You can feed the content into ChatGPT to create like a bot of you to answer questions. Like there's all kinds of stuff you to create efficiency.

So to me, there's really three things. To be ruthless with your time, make the commitment, honor the commitment. I think that's at the core of it. It's really no different than any other function they have in that. I think the only difference is lawyers find it intimidating because they're not familiar with [00:23:00] it. And you know, that's why we just equip people with like, here's the equipment you need, you know, and here's a variety depending on your situation and what your preferences are.

Here's a, B, C or D just, just order one, you know, here's how to be good on camera. Cause that's, I think the biggest thing is people, I've seen is if a lawyer who's working 80 hours a week, let's just go extreme 80, 90 hours a week. Let's just say it's stupid. I mean, their marriage is at risk. Their health is at risk. Their relationship with their kids is at risk, right? They're 80, 90 hours a week consistently, I think in their brain. Now I could be wrong, but I think that if they knew, if they could look forward a year and have a conversation with themselves and their future self said, Preston, if you just do it for a year, everything will be better. You'll actually be at the dinner table at five with your family. You will actually be at the games for your kids. You just have to do it and you have to keep doing it.

I think if most people knew that like if they could actually future pace That's a big deal. I think the biggest problem and this is with advertising to paid advertising I think the biggest problem for most lawyers is they have the wrong frame of reference They're looking at it like a in a [00:24:00] 7 day block or a 30 day block. It's like let's zoom out What's the impact over a year? Well, that may be the difference in life quality you want, but that requires the ruthlessness on time management, the commitment and the follow through.

Richard James: That's great.

MPS: It is Preston, what's got you uh, fired up and excited today? I mean, you've dropped value bombs all throughout this episode. What's, got you fired up and excited today? Could be business, could be personal,

Preston Schmidli: Dude, I, we just picked up a client. That's the biggest PI firm in Iowa the other day and spending like a hundred and I think it's just shy of 150,000 a month in ads, which just gets me all kinds of just, oh, I'm pumped. So that's fun. Other than that, you know, we're working on, some other YouTube strategies for paid ads on YouTube.

I mean, my, thing is what I get excited about is I want to create a blue ocean for lawyers and there's such an opportunity because I think this is one of the other things I love about the law firm or the law realm is there's kind of like a time bubble. Like there's, it's antiquated to an extent, right? It's, like mortgage in that, but it's like, it's behind the [00:25:00] times. And so there's so much opportunity to bring people into modern technology and systems and processes. And it just, It's like playing the game on easy mode for me, to be honest with you. I get more results than I get in other spaces. Because a lot of the marketers in this space are me to marketers just doing the same crap. Right. And the impact on lawyers, in my opinion is like watching crabs all try to get out of a pot. Well, they all end up just getting boiled. Right.

And it's like, if everybody's fighting over the same old SEO strategies, the old, same old PPC strategies, I mean, we're all just fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting. And that's, it's like having an opportunity to give somebody a real different chance without breaking their back and having to spend a stupid amount of money to do it. I don't know. It just, that really excites me. So I think that's probably my thing is creating a new way to do business as a lawyer. That doesn't have to be super expensive and is highly leverageable and efficient.

Richard James: Well, Preston, the idea that you're going to create this blue ocean strategy for law [00:26:00] firms and this concept that you see this golden era of law, which I absolutely agree with there's a huge amount of opportunity for lawyers who are ready to go to the next level because their competitors are stuck where they were.

Richard James: And so the fact that you've brought that message to them and dropped the value bombs you did, I, we really appreciate you stopping by today. We appreciate you delivering the message that you did, but if anybody want to learn more about you, where would they go?

Preston Schmidli: Yeah. And I'd be happy to answer it, Richard, but I actually want to point back real quick to you know, you had mentioned early in the call about like somebody who has 750 SEO videos and you, how are you going to compete with that? So this is why I love it. If you've already gone through the legwork and there's research tools to where I can figure this out.

If you've already gone through the legwork to figure out what SEO content makes sense. I could just find your top 50 pieces of content over the seven 50 and make YouTube videos. And you're not even there. And not only are you not even there, my videos are going to outrank your well entrenched blogs. So this is why I'm just so passionate about it. Is it's like there's so much opportunity in this and [00:27:00] there's like nobody's doing it. And I'm like, what? Right. So anyways.

Richard James: It's an arbitrage for sure.

Preston Schmidli: Oh, for sure. So how can people reach me? If they want to learn more about our business, they can go to AuthorityBrand.com and we also do, I lead a weekly workshop if they want to learn more about trust scaling and how they could deploy this in their firm. It is specific to law firms. I do this every week unless it falls on a holiday and then I do it on Friday.

But they can go to AuthorityLawyer.com to register. It's completely free. And I just pour into them and, you know, try to help it make more sense.

MPS: Amazing. Well, Preston, thank you for sharing as much as you have today. This was cool. I honestly enjoyed having the conversation and just listening to your thoughts on this today too. And to the law firm owners, obviously tons to pull from. Make sure to hit that Subscribe or Follow button depending on where you're listening or watching and show some love down in the Comments below for Preston.

Otherwise, that's the pod.