Gonna take you down to Belize as we are chatting with Dennis DM Meader. He is the founder and CEO of The Legal Podcast Network. You can find more about them at the legalpodcastnetwork.com. Dennis or excuse me, DM. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. Don't worry. It it it's taken some of my family years to get it, so only took you one try. So I appreciate it. I I will do my best to stay consistent. No guarantees, though. So so you have the podcast
legal network. I'm curious. How did you get to the spot of wanting to help lawyers and, you know, publish podcasts on behalf of lawyers into this network format? So I have a background in marketing. I've done it about thirty years. Basically, my whole career, I I went to college for theology and ended up on, like, a sales floor, you know, phone sales, ended up in advertising phone sales, loved it, then got into entrepreneurship. I'd been an entrepreneur as a
teenager. Couple different things that I did where I that's how I you know, I never had, like, a job job. I'd worked at Burger King a little while, but I always made money, though. So as I got into marketing, then through the years, I learned probably about probably about eight years into my career, I guess, I learned how much I enjoyed working with, lawyers. And so although I'd done marketing and to come up with some concepts, I learned
pretty quickly, like, I like white collar. I like the realtors, the mortgage brokers, the insurance agents. And then everyone's like, well, lawyers are tough. And then, you know, I'm the kind of person I'm like, you tell me it's tough. They're like, they're tough, but they got money. And I'm like, well, I'll try them. And so, like, I was like, I started selling them, and I, you know, excelled with it. And what I like about attorneys, and I say this a hundred
times. I say this every time I talk about because they're why attorneys? They are typically taught to work off of logic versus emotion. And so when you are discussing selling to them, whatever, however you wanna say it, if you, you know, you don't you don't wanna use sales tactics. You don't wanna come at them with, you know, you know, if if if you buy you know, if I could bring you five clients a month, how would that change your life? And those sort
of sales tactics that are out there. Sell me this pen. Right? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, should I send this to the to your house or your yacht? You know, that sort of thing. So although with attorneys. Anyway, so the so I got into selling him, and what I liked about it was I could have a discussion without it turning into an argument. So I could say, well, I hear what you're saying, but what about this? And, like,
blue collar guys would be just like, shut up. You don't know what you're talking you you don't tell me how to run my business. You know? Whereas with an attorney, if you presented them with a piece of logic, they would go, And then, like, you could, you know, kinda make it make sense. And then if you did, then more often than not, I found that they would say, alright. I'll give it a try. They tend to have more finances, so I like that about them. So I've worked with attorneys for
over twenty years. I've done social with them. I've done you know? I mean, you run the gamut of what's happened in digital, obviously, SEO, PPC, you know, all of that kind of stuff, kind of like a legal match sort of program. It was a small competitor to legal match. That's actually how I got into selling them is a small competitor with legal match back in the day. And I was like, I went from selling $50 donations to 3 to $500 ads to $5,000, you know, a month
packages to lawyers. And I was just like, why would I go back to selling $500 packages when I can sell $5,000 packages? And, you know, and so that's how I've worked with them for for years. And then my last company, my partner bought me out. We were it was time to re renew our agreement because he had had an exist existing company. He had about 70 not quite 80 clients, 78 or something like that, doing a little under a million a year. I came in and,
we put together an agreement. It was a five year agreement. And in five years, I grew his company where he he had been around nine years at the time. I grew his company from, 78 clients to almost 500, from less than a mil to over 5,000,000 a year. And he had people in his ear basically saying, why are you paying this guy all this money? All he does is is run the team. You could just replace
him. And so he bought me out for pennies on the dollar because we were running under the, you know, contract that we had put together years ago, which is fine. You know? I'm an entrepreneur. I have a book of ideas. I always tell people, if you're an entrepreneur, take everything away from an entrepreneur. Give them a laptop and an Internet connection, and in three days, they'll have a new business. And in thirty days, they'll be in the
same place they were. So that's kinda what happened. I just was like, I know I I'm on work with attorneys. I understand them. I've been working with them for years, and I love podcasting. I had a podcast that I did back in Austin, and we can go into that in a little bit. But that's kind of how I got into it with attorneys. And, really, for me, podcasting for attorneys isn't about building an audience. It is about reaching their ideal client at the right time.
And so for them, you know, we do almost all FAQ twenty minute podcasts. We provide the host. We come up with the the questions, and then the attorney just answers the questions. And then we use that to scale Google, use YouTube, all of that. So when somebody types in what happens during to a to a second home during a divorce, my attorney is the one answering it with a YouTube video or an FAQ page on his on his website. So we go after question based
search. Some people call it long it used to be called long tail, then it was called, question based search. I guess now they're rebantering it rebrand rebranding it as answer engine optimization, which is just the same thing. It's just basically answering questions instead of showing up for just like divorce lawyer Houston. Well, and it's all, how do I hack search? Right? How do I get in front of eyeballs when people are trying to find me or find what I offer?
So not only do you help lawyers produce podcasts and and put out content, but you have this network. And so I I guess that means you've pulled all these lawyer shows. Like, are they all from one firm? Are they all in similar industries, or is it really just any lawyer with a show is on the network and we, you know, all you know, a rising tide lifts all ships kind of a thing. It's it's kind of that way, I I would say. The other thing that we're able to do is build relationships
between people. For example, we have kind of our first collaborative series of two of our clients that is in production right now. One is a IP patent trademark firm, and then the other guy because we also we don't just work with lawyers. We work with companies who work with lawyers because we have a database of 200,000 attorneys that we market to. We have an opt in daily email for prac law practice marketing and management with about 35 to 40,000 attorneys in it that it's about a
three to five minute read. So we can take, you know, a like this like, the two that I'm talking about. He's a he has an AI system that he's built for law firms to help them run more efficiently to identify their weaknesses. And so he has a show on our network, and so now he's got this, like, really cool AI thing. And now he's working with the our IP patent trademark client, and the two of them together are doing a series of shows. And so that's the kind of thing that we're able to
do. And then we're building this just this database of, like, when you land on our home page and we're building this out right now. We have our YouTube page, and that's got hundreds of videos and thousands of shorts. But on our home page, it's podcast for lawyers and podcast for clients. And you can actually click and see all the shows for lawyers, but you can also click and click and be like, okay. I'm in California, and I need a divorce lawyer, and it'll show you all of the divorce
lawyers and their podcasts in California. And then, you know, you could look and be like, oh, okay. The because we do them by counties or jurisdictions. So we'll be like, oh, okay. Well, I'm in Riverside County. This is the attorney for Riverside County. They click on it. They go, and they see all the shows, the podcast that that attorney
has done. So that's how we're kinda building and kinda spidering everything together through our website, through YouTube, through Google, and kinda using, like you said, the the rising tide lifts all shifts. That's interesting. I that's a interesting feature, that ability to search for the right attorney for the right thing in the right area, and then see all the different places where, they've appeared on, you know, various, pieces of content.
I I imagine that that technology to do that, is somewhat proprietary, but I bet you there would be lots of people who would be interested in replicating that for their networks. I I'm curious with, you know, you being multifaceted. Right? You like I said, YouTube and podcasts and and search and Google and all this other stuff. There's been this huge debate about the YouTube versus the audio only podcasting world. As a network, which do you find is better for your shows and for growth, YouTube
or or, like, podcast network features? And and what are the YouTube features maybe that that really help networks? So I would say, certainly, YouTube. And it's very simple. I think, you know, you and I were kinda talking about this. Everyone says the green room, but it's just before we hit record. Right? But we were talking about this in the green room. And, you know, with YouTube,
first of all, it's owned by Google. So by producing that content, we're feeding the beast, but we're also creating very specialized content that what does Google want? It wants local relevant content that people are going to consume. Well, what is the most consumed content out there? Video. So what we do is we create a YouTube channel for each of our clients, but then we also
have our YouTube channel that has all of our clients. And so for our client on, you know, in studio, we're going in and we're going Riverside County Divorce, Divorce Lawyer, high asset divorce, high net worth divorce, blah blah blah in studio. And so when somebody in Riverside County is doing a search, Google prefers to give people video. So if somebody asks a specific question, and that's the the beauty about, you know, YouTube, you upload that video, it breaks it down for you, and
it has all the little question sections. So it literally will just go boom right to that question. So I like to use the example if I'm a divorce attorney. Would I rather show up for divorce lawyer in Riverside County where it's just gonna list, like, 20 attorneys, and people are gonna call down the list and most likely be like, well, how much does it cost? You know? Because when something's a commodity, and that's what Google has done is it's commoditized
the legal industry. Just in my twenty years of working with the industry, I've seen attorneys who literally, like and I do this now on purpose just to show them how they no longer can depend on things like directories and generic Google and PPC, is I'll say to them, I'll be like, oh, so you're a, you know, you're a you're a a divorce lawyer in, let's say, LA County specializing in, like, the Beverly Hills area. Right? And I'll be able to say something like, so you're what? Like,
700 an hour, seven fifty an hour? And they'll say, I wish. About about ten years ago, I was, but with how competitive things are, we're now down to about 500 an hour. And, obviously, that could be, you know, 400, and now they're at $3.25
or whatever the number is. And so because there's so much commoditization in in this knowledge industry, what we do is we try to rise that back up to thought leadership, authoritative positioning so that they can get people that fit their ideal client profile so that they can charge what they should be charging for who they are, the experience they have, and the talent that they have. But when an attorney is judged solely on the price, how how do you raise your prices? You can't. You can only
lower. Just like the high tide raises, guess what happens when, you know, 30% of the of of the people I call are gonna tell me that their rate is $2.25 an hour. Then I call somebody who's $4.50 an hour, I'm gonna be like, holy cow. He's twice as much because I'm not seeing him as a I'm not seeing the value there. So when we use question based search at its core, so we create FAQ, pages for their website from the transcripts. We actually download the transcript, and then we
edit it in the FAQ format. We put the videos on their website. We create the YouTube channels. And so the advantage with the with YouTube is now when I do a specific search, which is a more educated person with a specialized issue like what happens to a second home during a divorce. Well, now the first one could be somebody who's trying to get a $500 mutual, let's just get rid we have no assets. Let's just get out of each other's lives quickie divorce. The second one is probably
somebody with some assets. There's probably gonna be some fighting. You know, you could custody issues. So the attorney can target that second client who has the second home versus just generically casting a net. He's now able to take that specialty lure that goes after that one kind of fish and put it out into the water to capture that fish. And that's what we're providing through
YouTube. So is it is it are the podcast really just a separate distribution channel for video content, or are you actually producing audio only content as well? We are we we do everything streaming just like this. Right? So you and I and so all of ours we do everything streaming. We produce a YouTube show. We create shorts or reels are shorts. We create audiograms, but we also upload and create their own channels through Podbean on, like, twenty twenty two different
networks. Everything from Apple, Spotify, Audible, which is Amazon's, Odysee, you know, all of those channels that are on Podbean. So for the people that want to consume the the content as a podcast, it's there. So if I'm a podcaster and that's how I get my information, and most people who learn through podcasting, they learn everything. You know? That's their digital language. I have met more people, and especially on this island,
where there's like, oh, I just listen to podcasts. Because I'm like, oh, what shows do you watch? Like, I just listen to podcasts. So if I can help somebody who's, like, you know, in LA, look, you know, LA Divorce Attorney, now my show my my client's show pops up. And so then they can look at the episodes or, again, those same results in Google. So I will say that our audio is probably more of a cache means to an end, but that doesn't mean it doesn't provide value,
and it's evergreen, and it's a growing medium. So it's like, we know that our clients are coming to us because they're being told they need a podcast, but what we're really giving them is a holistic marketing solution that allows them to go after their ideal clients. The other thing I really appreciate about what you're doing with YouTube and something that I've always been very passionate and curious about is that
local targeting. Right? That's just not really a function or something that you can do effectively with podcasting right now. And so, you know, this huge debate about is YouTube podcast or podcast YouTube, who cares? But the fact that YouTube makes it easy to really hyper target your content to the right audience, I think it's something that more network providers and just more show creators should be thinking about, in the long run. Well and I think I
think podcasts are gonna be like how the Internet was. I remember back, like, in the early aughts. I like to say that. My wife says I sound old when I say that. But in the early two thousands, right, I remember I used to tell people, the smaller the Internet gets, the bigger it will be. And the smaller podcasting gets, the bigger it will be. Because we have to understand that people go to these different
just for general education and whatever. But, really, when they're searching and, you know, they they need their fears assuaged, they need clarity on an issue, they want to know that what they're reading because there's such a plethora of material out there and content out there. You know, content curation is a bigger skill than content creation, really, if you think about it. So the more that we're able to provide content on a local level, that that benefits our
clients, I tell them, I'm like, listen. Would you rather have a show that got 50,000 downloads and views, but they're all in, you know, Thailand and Mississippi and Canada and California and you're in Michigan? Or would you rather have a show that gets 50 views, but you get 10 people that call you and six of them hire you because they see you as an expert? Which one provides you more value? And I've other unless they're just one of those jerk of a person that's like,
I'll take the 50. No. You won't. No. I I'll take the 50,000. You know what I mean? It's like, no. You won't. You'll take the six clients who give you a $10,000 retainer and pay you $350 an hour, and you end up making 15 to $20,000 off of them. The the return on investment is infinitely higher, and that's the other thing. Like, attorneys will say, well, how are you gonna help me go viral? And I'm like, I don't want you to
go viral. And they're like, well, why not? And I'm like, well, listen. If you wanna learn how to unicycle while juggling law books and then write off the end of a pier, and we'll video it, and we'll get millions of views, and you'll get laughs, and then you get a $2,000 check from YouTube for the views. Or or how about we just reflect who you are offline, online, your knowledge, the the fact that you've been doing these all these years.
You specialize in working with high net worth individuals. And so when they hire you, they're gonna give you $20. And so you're gonna make a hundred and 20,000, but you have a fraction of the actual views or, you know, people consuming your content. And when you that mind shift hits, they're like, oh, and this again, why I like attorneys. You're right. Okay.
So that that's our focus. Yeah. I think that's something that a lot more podcasters and and, honestly, just content creators in general should be focusing on is a hundred thousand views, listens, you know, whatever of not your target market is nowhere near as effective as a hundred of the people who are going to sign up for your services, buy your product, you know, follow your show, blah blah blah. So I think that's some really good
advice and something anybody who's thinking about NetWorker. Again, just somebody who's looking at their content creation and feels like they're spinning their wheels should absolutely take to heart. As a reminder, we are chatting with Dennis DM Meador. He's founder and CEO of the legal podcast network. DM, before I let you go, there's a few questions I'd like to ask everybody, and I'm gonna be very curious because of your experience and and, you know, all these
other places that you've mastered. I'll be curious to kinda hear what you think of of our little cute quaint podcasting space. You know, is there something where in podcasting you would like to see improvement, whether it's from the production side, distribution, listening, consumption, discoverability? Like, is there just something in podcast where you're like, god, I wish we did this better? I think you I think you nailed it earlier. It's the ability to to
search within the podcasts. The the fact that you have to hear about a podcast, like, there's just not a way that that they've really mastered making podcasting podcasts accessible. It's almost like you gotta know someone who knows someone. You know what I mean? And it's like, whereas Google is just like, oh, and even social media, they're always just like, oh, what do you think of this? How about this? And you said you like this. So what about this? Podcasting's like this. Well, is that it?
Well, ask me a different way, please. Oh, okay. How about this? That. It you know what I mean? It's just very rigid, and it's very almost just like in old school, if if if that makes sense. Because the rest of the Internet is just like, you know, it's just this, like, infinite, like, connectivity and and touch points. It's like podcast stands alone off to the side, and it's just like, we're smarter. We don't have to be a part of your group. We've got our own thing going on. Like, that's the vibe
of podcasting to me. And maybe I'm wrong and those who are listening who love podcasting. I'm not saying I don't love podcasting, but you asked me what I would improve. I would improve the connectivity of podcasting to everything else. I I would agree that we certainly have a discoverability problem. I never thought of it in that connectivity problem, but it's funny you say that. I've been recently trying to find a a podcast to listen to. You know, one of them starting to get boring or have
a little bit more time. And trying to search for one to appease my checklist is so difficult. And usually when you search, what you normally get are just here are the articles that people wrote about podcasting, and they're all promoting the same five, ten, 20, 50, hundred. Right? It's it's all the same ones that are in the top rankings, and and it's hard to get outside of that circle. And it really does feel like luck if you meet someone or, you know, someone points you in
the direction of a show that you wouldn't have other house otherwise have found. So that's a that's a really good point. What about on the tech side? I mean, is there anything on your wish list as far as something that either is out there that you wanna buy yourself or something that you're like, god, I wish somebody would make this, and that would make everyone's lives easier. I wish that the good products were as easy to use as the bad products, I e, the Blue Yeti. Now I don't hate the Blue
Yeti. I use the Blue Yeti for a minute. But plug and play real easy, but it's not a great product. So here I have this Shure microphone, and, yeah, it's plug and play, but, you know, I had to do a little more to it. I had to make sure I have to make sure it's placed right. And, like, I work with attorneys, you know, and and and to help other
people, podcast is the biggest challenge. When you have somebody on your podcast remote that is not a podcaster, they think they can just show up with their iPhone and just like you know? And it's so I wish there was a you know, it's almost just like an easy way to make sure that people who are podcasting and I I honestly, we're trying to find a way to do this ourselves where we're just like, if you are gonna you know, this is what you have to buy in order to just even work with
us. But it's all plug and play, but it works the way it needs to, the right camera, the right microphone, and even think about this, you and I. We're I mean, I'm not tech savvy in that. Like, I've been in IT or anything like that, but I've been using computers since I was in college, and I'm 47. You know? Like, I was the only person in my dorm with a computer. And, you know, this was, like, 9095.
'19 fall of nineteen ninety five. So I know my and and we had to spend five minutes to get my easy plug and play with our easy Riverside plug and play to get my microphone working right. Well, if I had a 58 year old attorney who sometimes has to have his, you know or 68 year old attorney who sometimes has to have his, administrator come in and turn on his computer for him. If I had him on
the other end, he would just forget it. We'll just do this another time. So I really wish that we could just make it as easy as we do the cell phone, because now even grandma's carrying around a cell phone. But grandma's not podcasting because it's not as easy. It's true. It is very true. And lastly, are there podcasts on your listening list that you have to consume when they come out that you will never let an episode get past you?
The office lady's favorite. I don't know if you've talked about it a lot or whatever, but it's, Jenna Fischer and, Angela Kinsey. And they have been doing it for a few, I wanna say, three, maybe four years now, episode by episode. And what's really interesting about the office ladies is they deep dive. And the thing about people that listen or do you do you watch The Office? I I watched a lot of it when it was first started off, and then I I trailed off after, you know, a few seasons.
But, I mean, I respect the show and the comedy, and and they're great. So it was the most streamed show during the pandemic. So, like, Gen z caught on to it. Millennials love it. So it kinda re upped. And because it's kinda tongue in cheek and it's so inappropriate in so many ways, and it's so, you know, like, they could not the office couldn't exist in the way that it did back then now just because they'd have picketing outside every every day. But now people kinda like, they still laugh at it.
But they like so people who watch The Office, the question is not, have you watched The Office? The question is, do you watch The Office? Because people who watch The Office, I've seen it beginning to end on purpose seven times. I've watched countless one off episodes. I have three, four, five of my favorite episodes that I could just, like, right now walk out of here. I
could go watch, Dinner Party. That's one of my favorite ones. If I if I know I wanna laugh and have ridiculous, I could you know, just whatever. Like, I could just go and like, as soon as an episode goes, I can go in my head. I know everything is gonna happen. I laugh before it even happens. And so what the office ladies
podcast did or does is they deep dive. I mean, one time they had, like, the guy who manned their snack cart, but they'll they've had, like, they've had, like, Steve Carell and, you know, all the major people. But, like, one episode, they're like, you know, he just had the greatest snacks and sandwiches, and then he, like, was sharing, like, his secret sandwich, you know, sauce recipe and, like, it just stuff like that where you're it just brings the episode alive. Or they'll be
like, oh, oh, okay. So in this scene right here, what you'll notice is so and so turns their head. The reason they turn their head is they broke, and they're actually dying laughing. And if you watch their side, you could see them
actually moving up and down laughing. And so I'll rewatch the episodes, and I'll notice all these little things that I had never I would have never known had I not had two ladies who were there and producers who were there, whoever's on with them at the time, the writers, the producers, the, you know, just everybody just coming back and reminiscing, you know, what they got at from, you know, the show as a
Christmas swag gift. And just all this little stuff that opens up the show for me in so many ways where I can experience it again in a new way. And when you love something, that's always wonderful. Yeah. You know, I I love the idea of having the folks who aren't always on podcast. Right? You said Steve Carell. I'm sure he's done a bunch of podcasts and has answered the same questions over and
over again. So I love that concept of going to, you know, the behind the scenes players, the folks nobody would think to interview and and bringing them on. And I also appreciate the fact that for the office, right, this content has now created another reason for you to go back and watch it again. And so something for for people to consider in, you know, movie and and television and film production.
So that's a that's a great, great point. So once again, it's been Dennis DM Meader, founder and CEO of the Legal Podcast Network. You can find more at the legalpodcastnetwork.com. DM, thank you for joining me. Thank you, Matthew.