Leadership isn’t about making noise—it’s about making an impact. In this episode of Leaders and Legacies, host Craig Andrews talks with Dennis Meador, founder of the Legal Podcast Network. Meador’s leadership journey started early, from hustling in sales as a teenager to scaling businesses to multi-million-dollar success.

Meador shares why authenticity is the ultimate leadership tool—especially in marketing. His approach? Cut the fluff, get to the point, and let expertise speak for itself. He highlights how attorneys, often seen as difficult clients, actually appreciate directness and value-driven conversations. His marketing strategy focuses on thought leadership, using content to position professionals as trusted experts.

Throughout the conversation, Meador drops gold nuggets on building remote teams, firing bad clients, and using content to attract high-value leads. He also reveals why vanity metrics like views and likes are meaningless unless they convert into revenue.

Want to learn more about Dennis Meador’s work? Check out https://www.thelegalpodcastnetwork.com/.

Connect with Dennis Meador on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennismeador/.

Key Points & Timestamps:

• [00:01:00] Meet Dennis Meador: Serial entrepreneur, marketing strategist, and legal industry expert.
• [00:02:30] From Theology to Business: Meador’s unconventional path to leadership and marketing.
• [00:04:00] The Sales Mindset Shift: Why Meador rejected manipulative sales tactics in favor of straightforward conversations.
• [00:06:00] Selling to Attorneys: Why direct communication works and how logic trumps emotion.
• [00:09:00] Defining Tough vs. Abusive Clients: When to push back and when to fire clients who drain resources.
• [00:14:00] The Leadership Behind Thought Leadership: How content marketing builds authority and drives high-value leads.
• [00:18:00] Turning 30 Minutes Into a Month’s Worth of Content: Meador’s streamlined system for busy professionals.
• [00:22:00] The Power of Niche Marketing: Why targeting quality over quantity leads to better clients and higher revenue.
• [00:28:00] Measuring the Right Metrics: Why businesses should track conversions over vanity metrics like views.
• [00:32:00] Building a Business That Runs Without You: The importance of systems, teams, and leadership in scaling a company.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.

00;00;51;22 - 00;01;03;05
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Dennis Meador. He is the founder of the Legal Podcast Network. But that's like a gross on your statement. Is a super entrepreneur.

00;01;03;05 - 00;01;13;16
Craig Andrews
Never have gotten a clear cap on the number of businesses they either start or grown. But he did say they started. He grew three businesses from 3 million.

00;01;13;16 - 00;01;17;23
Craig Andrews
Yeah, from 1 million to 3 to 5 million in less than three years.

00;01;17;25 - 00;01;18;22
Craig Andrews
And,

00;01;18;22 - 00;01;35;10
Craig Andrews
and he's been doing remote teams for a long time, has 30 people placed around the world, and is truly an expert on growing businesses. And that alone is a good reason to have this conversation.

00;01;35;10 - 00;01;37;26
Craig Andrews
When I originally saw him,

00;01;37;26 - 00;01;42;25
Craig Andrews
the thing that caught my attention is he markets in a really hard area. He markets,

00;01;42;25 - 00;01;44;00
Craig Andrews
attorneys.

00;01;44;03 - 00;01;53;07
Craig Andrews
And so I was just curious how you do marketing in a, in a tough field. And so I think there's a lot here that we're going to cover today.

00;01;53;07 - 00;01;55;18
Craig Andrews
Really looking forward to the stay tuned. And,

00;01;55;18 - 00;02;04;23
Craig Andrews
it's it's going to go fast. And I can tell you just based off our conversation in the green room, it's going to be a really neat conversation.

00;02;05;00 - 00;02;06;22
Craig Andrews
Dennis, welcome.

00;02;06;25 - 00;02;08;23
Dennis Meador
Thanks for having me on, my friend.

00;02;08;26 - 00;02;29;07
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I don't even know where to start. You know, I every time I'd say something, you hit me with something else. Why don't we go back to, you market attorneys and. But you started off working on a theology degree.

00;02;29;10 - 00;02;30;07
Dennis Meador
Yeah. So,

00;02;30;07 - 00;02;38;22
Dennis Meador
I was at a a small, unaccredited Bible college in the Ohio Valley, Ohio, West Virginia Valley, and I,

00;02;38;22 - 00;02;52;26
Dennis Meador
so kind of the way things started for me. Oldest of six kids, 18 years old. I turned 18 on Wednesday. I graduated high school on Friday. On Sunday, I'm in Ohio at a college with $20, and my dad says, good luck, kid.

00;02;52;28 - 00;03;04;13
Dennis Meador
And that's kind of how adulthood started for me now. I had already had businesses since I was 14, knew how to make money, so it wasn't really a scary situation for me. But typically that's not the way most people start life.

00;03;04;13 - 00;03;15;25
Dennis Meador
I get there and, you know, I, I'm, I'm going to school and I have a job as, like a desk clerk making minimum wage, and it fit for what I needed because I could do school work.

00;03;15;28 - 00;03;37;00
Dennis Meador
But I had a buddy who was working at a telemarketing company for nine bucks an hour, and I was like, nine bucks an hour. That's like twice what I'm making. So I went over there, started working, did really well, and noticed this group of guys who were in their like 30s and 40s selling ads and police magazines, and they were all making like 30 bucks an hour.

00;03;37;00 - 00;03;56;24
Dennis Meador
And I was like, I want to be on that team. So I go over there, do really well, actually become the manager of that department. I'm 1890, I guess I'm 19 years old, managing guys my age now in their 40s, took the department and saw about a 50% increase. And that kind of got me into the concept of like, wow, there's a lot of money in this marketing thing.

00;03;56;27 - 00;03;57;21
Dennis Meador
So,

00;03;57;21 - 00;04;00;02
Dennis Meador
somebody recruited me to sell,

00;04;00;02 - 00;04;24;11
Dennis Meador
advertising in hospital patient handbooks, traveled around for about a year doing that. Now I'm 20 years old, making over 100 grand back in the like, you know, late 90s. And that's how I kind of jumped into the industry of being in marketing. And then I was in the industry. I was selling, you know, ads on paper, you know, as we did at that time.

00;04;24;11 - 00;04;41;09
Dennis Meador
But I saw the internet coming and I'm like, I want to get into this internet thing. And I got recruited by a company that was selling advertising to attorneys, mostly personal injury attorneys at the time. And I was like, I can try this. So I jumped in. I tried it,

00;04;41;09 - 00;04;46;27
Dennis Meador
did really well at it and, you know, made really good money, had freedom because they were based out of Chicago.

00;04;46;27 - 00;05;04;20
Dennis Meador
I lived in a different part of the country at the time, and I learned very quickly that I liked selling to attorneys. And most people were like, why on earth would you like selling to attorneys? So here's the thing with me. Like, for me, sales, it's it had a bad connotation to me growing up, and I will get into the reasoning behind it.

00;05;04;20 - 00;05;16;28
Dennis Meador
But I thought, if you're a, if you sell for a living, that means you lie for a living and I didn't want to be that person like I, I found a lot of merit and just being brutally honest, sometimes to a fault.

00;05;16;28 - 00;05;22;19
Dennis Meador
But in working with attorneys, what I learned is you didn't have to use the manipulative,

00;05;22;19 - 00;05;24;15
Dennis Meador
the manipulative,

00;05;24;15 - 00;05;26;02
Dennis Meador
ways of selling with them.

00;05;26;02 - 00;05;34;00
Dennis Meador
You didn't have to appeal to their emotions and say, well, what kind of difference would it make if I could bring you five customers a month? Like how?

00;05;34;00 - 00;05;39;23
Dennis Meador
How would your life change? And you know, all those things that I was learning, getting into sales that I hated?

00;05;39;25 - 00;05;50;17
Craig Andrews
Oh my goodness. You know, I was looking at a playbook, not my one, my playbooks, but somebody else's playbook. And reading through the questions, I'm like gagging because,

00;05;50;17 - 00;05;52;14
Craig Andrews
it's all those things, you know,

00;05;52;14 - 00;06;02;08
Craig Andrews
you know, the the same old sales questions that had been out there for years. Well, if you don't change, what impact will that have on you?

00;06;02;08 - 00;06;11;24
Craig Andrews
And yeah, and it's all of that. And I just think I can't do that. I've tried that and I don't do it well,

00;06;11;24 - 00;06;24;03
Craig Andrews
but I just have to believe that here in 2025, people have already heard all those questions. And soon as they hear that question come in, they're like, geez, another sales person.

00;06;24;05 - 00;06;46;12
Dennis Meador
Yep. Exactly. And so, like for me, I the thing I love about attorneys, you can just be forthright with them. They don't want fake rapport. If you use logic they don't get emotional. You know, you could say, well, have you considered this? And what about this? And you know, if you look at it from this angle and then you give them this illustration and they'll be like, yeah, you're right.

00;06;46;12 - 00;07;07;11
Dennis Meador
Okay. Well let's give it a try. So that's what I've always liked about working with attorneys is yes, they can be hard nosed, but if you kind of keep yourself on their level and you use logic and you, you and you don't try to be fake with them, they see right through it and they'll respect that and they'll want to do business with you.

00;07;07;15 - 00;07;24;03
Dennis Meador
Like my opener literally with attorneys is, listen, I'm not going to try like I'm try to act like I'm your new best friend. I'm not going to look for something in the background and go, oh, you have a picture frame. I have a picture frames, too. We should be new best friends. Like, you know, that whole like, fake rapport thing.

00;07;24;05 - 00;07;38;09
Dennis Meador
I said, I'm going to get into the thing. We're going to get into this product. I'm going to show you what we do, how we do it, how it benefits you. If you like what we do, great. If not, we'll part ways. It'll be 20, 25 minutes of your time. Fair enough. And they're like like you just see the pressure.

00;07;38;09 - 00;07;39;09
Dennis Meador
Just go.

00;07;39;11 - 00;07;40;19
Craig Andrews
Oh, yeah.

00;07;40;21 - 00;07;55;05
Dennis Meador
Finally, like somebody being real with me. So that's why I like attorneys. That's why I've liked attorneys for decades now. Is is you can have real conversations and sure, sometimes they're going to be tough with you, but you get to be tough right back with them.

00;07;55;08 - 00;08;23;19
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, I, I think more and more people, you know, we're living in an age of authenticity. And I think more and more people appreciate that honesty. I mean, what one of the things I've used recently, and it's not a gimmick, it's just it's reality. I've, you know, I get on sales call and I'll just say, hey, look, I'm assuming that you're not excessively bored and just wanted to waste an hour of your day.

00;08;23;22 - 00;08;42;26
Craig Andrews
What's the problem you're trying to solve right now? I've had people, they just kind of laugh and they're like, well, that's, that's a that's an interesting way to play. But it's honest. I mean, who who has an hour in their day or a half hour in their day to waste? And why not just acknowledge what everybody knows and say, well, let's get down to it.

00;08;42;26 - 00;08;45;05
Craig Andrews
What are you trying to do exactly.

00;08;45;05 - 00;09;06;03
Dennis Meador
Yeah. And and so yeah, that's definitely been been the biggest reasoning. And they have money, you know, I mean you know like I've sold realtors and it's like you can call a thousand realtors in 999 of them are broke. Right. They just got their license and they haven't sold a house yet. And they've been doing it for two years, and you're trying to sell them out, you know, whatever package of of marketing.

00;09;06;09 - 00;09;13;26
Dennis Meador
And chances are, unless they are supported by their partner financially, in which case then you got to get the partner in and the partner bought in,

00;09;13;26 - 00;09;26;15
Dennis Meador
you know, so there's just so many different niches where I felt like I can always go to attorneys, I can always make money with attorneys because they have money for the most part, and I can relate to them.

00;09;26;15 - 00;09;29;11
Dennis Meador
So that's that's who I work with.

00;09;29;13 - 00;09;47;08
Craig Andrews
When something you said that I thought is really key is he said they're tough but let you be tough back with them. You know, I don't think people should shy away from tough clients. Now, if they're if they're tough and just unrealistic. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00;09;47;08 - 00;09;49;22
Dennis Meador
The difference between tough minded and abusive.

00;09;49;25 - 00;10;06;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. I mean, I used to have Siemens in Germany as a customer when at, when I was marketing semiconductors. They were tough, but they were always reasonable and and like you said, you just kind of lay it out. You have an honest discussion.

00;10;06;11 - 00;10;10;06
Craig Andrews
There was one time I had to deliver some bad news and they thanked me.

00;10;10;08 - 00;10;21;05
Craig Andrews
They said, this is how we like to do business. And I was like, you know, I'm sitting there crapping myself because I'm delivering bad news and they're appreciative.

00;10;21;07 - 00;10;36;17
Dennis Meador
Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, that's the thing like even with my clients like we lay out guidelines and we say listen like this is how we work. If you see us as your vendor that you get to abuse this is not going to work. We're partners. We need a little bit of your time. We're going to deliver this product.

00;10;36;17 - 00;10;51;24
Dennis Meador
And even like at the beginning of this year, I fired almost 20% of my clients because they were taking they were taking up too much bandwidth and not treating my team properly. And so my I said, bring me all the bad clients. Let's tell me some of the stuff that they're doing. And I was like, yep, get rid of them.

00;10;51;24 - 00;11;11;03
Dennis Meador
Oh, they said that to you. Oh, they treat it so, so like that. Get rid of them. And we sent a bunch of breakup emails and we had like a handful of them beg, beg to come back, please, Kenny. And we're just like, I'm sorry. Like, you know, I think I let one of them come back and they're basically on probation to be our client and how they treat the team.

00;11;11;05 - 00;11;18;22
Dennis Meador
So, you know, you definitely there is that line between having tough clients and having abusive clients.

00;11;18;25 - 00;11;30;01
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well good for you. So one of the reasons I was really interested in having you on the podcast is, I mean, I'm a marketer and I look at marketing attorneys and I'm just like,

00;11;30;01 - 00;11;34;26
Craig Andrews
gee, that's a tough problem. It's a it's a problem I don't know how to solve.

00;11;34;26 - 00;11;44;19
Craig Andrews
And, you know, normal people need an attorney once every five years or every ten years or something like that.

00;11;44;21 - 00;12;02;03
Craig Andrews
And, and I just don't know how to market that on a reasonable budget, you know, help somebody grow their business when when most of their customers only need them, or most of their clients only need them once every 5 or 10 years.

00;12;02;05 - 00;12;22;09
Dennis Meador
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, the clients are definitely there. It's the big problem in the industry is the over commoditization because of Google and all of the different directories. So, you know, I mean, I talked to guys who ten, 15 years ago, they were making 40 or 50 an hour. They're at like 325 an hour now because the industry has become so competitive.

00;12;22;12 - 00;12;32;03
Dennis Meador
You know, our school systems be a doctor or a lawyer, be a doctor or a lawyer. And that's still like coming up, not so much. Now, the number one thing that kids want to be now is influencers.

00;12;32;03 - 00;12;39;27
Dennis Meador
But that's true. Look it up like the stats are there, like, but, you know, ten, 15 years ago, that's what all all kids were told.

00;12;40;03 - 00;12;44;10
Dennis Meador
You want to grow up and be successful, become a doctor or a lawyer. And so

00;12;44;10 - 00;12;48;05
Dennis Meador
we still have like the residual effect of that. And

00;12;48;05 - 00;13;01;26
Dennis Meador
so there are a lot of attorneys out there, but there's a lot of cases out there and you'd be surprised at, you know, I get into even especially with this product, has brought me niches where I'm just like, this guy does this full time.

00;13;01;26 - 00;13;26;08
Dennis Meador
Like there's one guy, all he does is or his his firm does is he works with employers who want to sell it. Self-insure. Their own because their own people. Because it costs too much to use, like Blue Cross, Blue Shield, whatever. So they create their own insurance plans. And he basically structure I'm like, that's your full. He's like, oh yeah.

00;13;26;08 - 00;13;47;03
Dennis Meador
Like we're busy. And so like we do a podcast and a show about like creating your own insurance plans for the this like very, very narrow niche of people. So you go from that all the way to like you think about like a local family attorney. Right. Like take Austin for example. I would say in the Austin market, conservatively speaking, there's let's just say a thousand,

00;13;47;03 - 00;13;49;03
Dennis Meador
attorneys that will take your divorce.

00;13;49;06 - 00;14;08;25
Dennis Meador
And I think that's a, you know, fairly, fairly decent number to say. So if you're just showing up on Google and you have a website that says, hey, you know, I am so and so I would to this school, I won this mock trial and I've been doing it ten years and I can do custody issues and like like all the websites say that.

00;14;08;27 - 00;14;28;04
Dennis Meador
So now we've got to get into points of differentiation or thought leadership. And that's what we really focus on is thought leadership. Most attorneys will tell you, especially the ones that are a little more seasoned ten plus years. They'll say, listen, if I can get somebody to sit across from me, I'll win their business. The problem is no one wants to sit across from an attorney anymore.

00;14;28;10 - 00;14;46;27
Dennis Meador
They want to go to their website. They want to check out their social media. They want to see who they are. So who they are offline now has to be reflected online. Online is no longer just a business card. It is literally a reflection of who you are, the expertise that you have, the way that you're going to treat the client.

00;14;46;27 - 00;15;04;29
Dennis Meador
And if you don't reflect that, then you're going to get passed up for the person who does. And by doing that now, you separated yourself from among the fray. And the first question is no longer, well, how much is your how about what are your rights? It becomes, Will this I listen to your podcast. I watch some of your videos on your site.

00;15;04;29 - 00;15;28;15
Dennis Meador
I read your content and some that answered a lot of my questions. What is it going to take for me to be able to work with you? And that's a totally different question. And so it's really about how you frame the attorney or really in any competitive industry that's that's about thought leadership. How are you framing them to the potential client that over 80, it's like 82% of people solely use the internet to find their attorney.

00;15;28;17 - 00;15;39;02
Dennis Meador
So if 82% of people are solely using the internet, what are you doing to separate yourself from among that fray of people that are saying exactly what you're saying?

00;15;39;05 - 00;15;39;28
Craig Andrews
You know,

00;15;39;28 - 00;15;41;09
Craig Andrews
years ago,

00;15;41;09 - 00;16;05;16
Craig Andrews
I found out I was getting divorced the day I got served, and I had to go shop for an attorney. And I just remember thinking at the time, I'm like, I'm making one of the most important purchases I'll make in life. And I have no expertise in making this purchase. I have no way of evaluating who's good and who's bad.

00;16;05;19 - 00;16;13;10
Craig Andrews
And I'm emotionally in the worst possible place to make a clear headed decision. It was crazy.

00;16;13;13 - 00;16;33;20
Dennis Meador
Yeah, it's, you know, I I've been through a divorce as well. I certainly understand that. I use this illustration with attorneys because attorneys will say things like, oh, you marketers, you're a bunch of thieves and, you know, things like that. And I'll say, well, first of all, pot calling the kettle black when we're talking about industry. So come down on the rhetoric, buddy, and they'll be like, oh yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right.

00;16;33;20 - 00;16;44;04
Dennis Meador
And then I'll say, listen, my brother got divorced a year before I did. He went out. He got like a $30,000 attorney. We made about the same amount of money and he went out.

00;16;44;04 - 00;16;56;29
Dennis Meador
I got a $30,000 attorney. By the end of it. He's living on my uncle's couch. He's making well into six figures, but he's living hand-to-mouth because of the divorce and the all the money that he was paying and everything else.

00;16;57;02 - 00;17;15;13
Dennis Meador
So when I got a divorce a year later, I didn't say, well, all lawyers are a bunch of ripoff artists. There's no use to use them. I just didn't go to his lawyer. I got a different lawyer that I researched and found out about, and it's the same thing in any industry, right? There's there's good actors, there's bad actors.

00;17;15;15 - 00;17;35;27
Dennis Meador
And so, yeah, with with lawyers like what we try to do is your situation's a little bit different, but a lot of people, they either know the divorce is coming or they're the ones going towards the divorce. Right. So like, for example, what we'll do is we'll have a session where we talk about like, okay, let's say you're this, you want high asset divorces.

00;17;36;04 - 00;17;44;16
Dennis Meador
So what are some questions that you get. And what are some some fears that you get. They'll be like, okay, one of their biggest things is like what happens to like the non-essential,

00;17;44;16 - 00;17;51;27
Dennis Meador
assets that we own, like a second home. So we'll literally ask them a question in a podcast, what happens to a second home during a divorce?

00;17;52;04 - 00;18;03;04
Dennis Meador
And then they answer, well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, then we take and we build and, you know, we put that in the podcast, we put that on the website, we built a little video with it, and then we have it show up and we put it on YouTube. Now we have a chance for it to show.

00;18;03;08 - 00;18;22;29
Dennis Meador
We like, let's say that you're typing in and you're like, okay, what happens to this? To our second house during the divorce? Now all of a sudden, you see this little podcast takes you down to the attorney's website. He's answering all these questions. He focuses on high, high net worth individuals. And he's assuaging your fears. He's giving you clarity or she.

00;18;23;01 - 00;18;39;02
Dennis Meador
And now this helps you make a better decision because there's a differentiator. You feel like this person speaks not just to the issue of divorce, but to the very specific issue of a high asset divorce, which is different than, hey, let's split the death down the middle.

00;18;39;04 - 00;19;00;22
Craig Andrews
And you just said something. And in a way, you glossed over that. And I want to make sure people hear this. Yeah, because a lot of business owners think, oh geez, I don't have a lot of time to create content. And what you're talking about, what you just described, you create one piece of content and then you, the marketer, is taking that one piece of content and using it in like three or 4 or 5 different places.

00;19;00;24 - 00;19;08;14
Dennis Meador
Oh, you have no idea. So if they do one show a month, we're getting ready to launch 2.0. We, we put out 10 to 12,

00;19;08;14 - 00;19;17;15
Dennis Meador
shorts or reels and we'll put them on, we hook them up where we're in a program called metric. Cool. Where we can distribute, like all the different, you know,

00;19;17;15 - 00;19;23;16
Dennis Meador
meta platform, LinkedIn, blue Sky, Twitter, Pinterest, I mean, you name it.

00;19;23;16 - 00;19;30;09
Dennis Meador
If the social media exists, we can plug it into this system and do all their social media on top of it. Then we also do,

00;19;30;09 - 00;19;46;22
Dennis Meador
ten audio grams. Then we also create 2 to 3 pages of content for their website. So for 30 minutes of their time, they're getting a month's worth of of social media content and a full podcast that's put on 25 audio outlets and 3 or 4 video outlets.

00;19;46;24 - 00;19;51;23
Craig Andrews
Wow. And that's, you know, you talked about,

00;19;51;23 - 00;19;58;24
Craig Andrews
you talked about attorneys being rich or wealthy or whatever. They have money. And, you know,

00;19;58;24 - 00;20;16;02
Craig Andrews
it reminded me of something that an email from Alex Mosley once, and he had such an interesting breakdown. He said, poor people buy things, lazy people buy distraction, ambitious people buy training, and rich people buy time.

00;20;16;04 - 00;20;16;26
Dennis Meador
Exactly.

00;20;17;00 - 00;20;27;11
Craig Andrews
And we all want the rich clients. And so we just 30 minutes. You give me 30 minutes of your time, you don't even have to prepare. Just show up. We're going to hit record.

00;20;27;11 - 00;20;35;03
Dennis Meador
Yep. We send you the questions ahead of time. We provide the host. You literally just show up and talk about what you talk about every day.

00;20;35;05 - 00;20;39;10
Craig Andrews
Yeah I love that content strategy.

00;20;39;13 - 00;20;41;05
Dennis Meador
Yeah, it's it's working well for us.

00;20;41;05 - 00;20;59;25
Dennis Meador
Our our attorneys love it. You know, we're seeing growth. We're starting to you know, it's it's a really exciting concept. And even more so I'm very fortunate that I've had some really good people buy in to my vision. You know, I just took almost six weeks off. And, I mean, I'm a year old as a business.

00;20;59;28 - 00;21;10;04
Dennis Meador
But we did our honeymoon, went to Thailand and Bali, and then I came back and I was sick. And so I think I might have even had to reschedule this podcast, if I remember correctly. Maybe not.

00;21;10;04 - 00;21;15;21
Dennis Meador
But the whole time we still ran clients fulfilled, you know,

00;21;15;21 - 00;21;28;17
Dennis Meador
sales happening, business running. And it's just like there's no better feeling as a business owner than when you can step away for, you know, pleasure purposes and then, you know, sick purposes and yet still see things running.

00;21;28;17 - 00;21;44;25
Dennis Meador
Right. The reports are good, the clients are happy, you know, matter of fact, clients are emailing me. Your team is great. I love working with you guys, blah blah blah. It's just like, wow. Like, you know, there's no better feeling as a business owner to me than that right there.

00;21;44;27 - 00;21;51;07
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. No, I love that. So so then again, the question is,

00;21;51;07 - 00;22;06;04
Craig Andrews
you know, let's say if we were, you know, I had my divorce in 2025, how would I encounter this content? And because I just sat down and just started searching and I tried calling a few people, and,

00;22;06;04 - 00;22;09;04
Craig Andrews
this is before I even knew who Becky Beaver was.

00;22;09;07 - 00;22;10;25
Craig Andrews
So, so.

00;22;10;25 - 00;22;16;08
Dennis Meador
So, yeah, there's two types of searching. There's your generic, like, divorce attorney, attorney,

00;22;16;08 - 00;22;19;11
Dennis Meador
Austin, Texas. And those are your kind of like,

00;22;19;11 - 00;22;35;26
Dennis Meador
lower thinkers, if you will. They're kind of like, they just want. It's almost like restaurant near me. They're not really. They're just looking for convenience. They're not necessarily looking for the best. But the other type of researcher, which it is a lower percentage, but it's a higher quality individual.

00;22;35;28 - 00;22;57;13
Dennis Meador
They research their situation. They want to understand their situation before they seek counsel. So that's where we get into question based search. That's why we do these 7 to 10 question podcasts on very specific subjects. Because now we can answer these. You know, we do an ad session on custody. You know,

00;22;57;13 - 00;23;05;29
Dennis Meador
what's the difference between joint custody and split custody as a father and I most likely to just get every other weekend or how can I, you know, this.

00;23;05;29 - 00;23;17;05
Dennis Meador
And so like, we go in and we answer these questions and then we take the answers from the podcast and we create short videos and that scales on YouTube because YouTube's owned by,

00;23;17;05 - 00;23;28;09
Dennis Meador
by Google. Then we put the content on the website. And I always tell people custom content on a continual basis that keeps people on the page, will always kill it in the algorithm.

00;23;28;12 - 00;23;32;19
Dennis Meador
I don't care what changes get made. Keyword stuffing come and gone.

00;23;32;19 - 00;23;37;12
Dennis Meador
You know, tons of backlinks, including black cat backlinks come and gone,

00;23;37;12 - 00;23;46;29
Dennis Meador
where people I forget what it was called, but they did all the the writing in clear font to where it was like keyword stuffing, but it was like mystery keyword stuffing,

00;23;46;29 - 00;23;49;23
Dennis Meador
where they would put a bunch of contents on a page, but we couldn't see it.

00;23;49;23 - 00;24;11;16
Dennis Meador
But the, the search engines could see it. So there's all these little tips and tricks, and then Google gets onto it, and then they, then they, they outlaw it. But the thing that's never changed about Google or any search engine or even I know is if you're providing custom content. In other words, you're not just ripping off something from another page and just putting it on yours.

00;24;11;16 - 00;24;13;22
Dennis Meador
So it's custom that,

00;24;13;22 - 00;24;30;14
Dennis Meador
that you, you continuously do that, and then people come on your page and stay on your page. Then that's an indicator to Google that there's value there. And if you keep doing that then Google is going to recognize that content, whether it's through putting the video up, whether it's through directing people to your page.

00;24;30;16 - 00;24;37;12
Dennis Meador
And so that's how these people get found. Yes, podcasts are important, but they're really just a means to an end.

00;24;37;12 - 00;24;55;19
Dennis Meador
You know, at the end of the day, if we just switch to pure video next month and then the following month, it's, you know, whatever it is, I've always said from the beginning of time, it doesn't matter if your ad is on toilet paper, in public bathrooms, if you get clients off of it, you're going to be happy.

00;24;55;21 - 00;24;56;18
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;24;56;21 - 00;24;59;26
Dennis Meador
And so that's what we focus on.

00;24;59;29 - 00;25;08;22
Craig Andrews
Well, and there was something else you said that I want to make sure people don't miss. He said that there were two types of people that were searching,

00;25;08;22 - 00;25;25;16
Craig Andrews
there's a higher volume of the first type, which is just attorney near me, lower volume of the second kind, but the second kind is a higher value lead. And I think a lot of businesses measured the wrong thing.

00;25;25;16 - 00;25;26;18
Craig Andrews
I ran into that,

00;25;26;18 - 00;25;34;03
Craig Andrews
you know, we had a client. I won't give the details on there, but, you know, I was having,

00;25;34;03 - 00;25;42;22
Craig Andrews
this having lunch with the GM one day and he told me about who has most valuable clients were like, well, heck, I think we can change,

00;25;42;22 - 00;25;46;13
Craig Andrews
change our ad strategy to attract those, right?

00;25;46;16 - 00;26;16;17
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And so we changed the ad strategy. The number of leads dropped, and all they did was complain about the number of leads dropping. Well, we tracked things all the way through to revenue, and their average time to close was. Yeah, their average was about 60 days. And so we tracked through all the way when when the revenue showed up and we looked at what were the most profitable leads, the leads that we captured when we changed,

00;26;16;17 - 00;26;17;16
Craig Andrews
when we changed the,

00;26;17;16 - 00;26;24;04
Craig Andrews
ad parameters had more than double the average contract value.

00;26;24;06 - 00;26;27;05
Craig Andrews
And the total revenue from those leads,

00;26;27;05 - 00;26;37;24
Craig Andrews
was, I think, more than double. And it was so funny. We could never convince them. We actually showed them the things in. They're like the leads went down. We feel like you did a bad job.

00;26;37;27 - 00;26;52;14
Dennis Meador
Yeah, we have to frame. I have to frame that with attorneys right up front, because one question I'll get is I'll be like, so how do I make a viral video? And I'm like, I mean, honestly, if you learn to write a unicycle and you want to learn how to, like, juggle law books and then just,

00;26;52;14 - 00;26;57;26
Dennis Meador
pedal off the end of a pier, we'll video it and people will laugh at you, and you'll have a viral video.

00;26;58;04 - 00;27;11;22
Dennis Meador
Now, let me ask you this. What's more valuable? 50,000 views of of your of your video or your podcast. But yet they're all over the world. They're in Indonesia, they're in South Africa, they're in Minnesota. And you're in you're in,

00;27;11;22 - 00;27;18;26
Dennis Meador
New York City. So you're never going to get a client, but you've got 50,000 views or you get 50 views.

00;27;18;29 - 00;27;40;13
Dennis Meador
But of those 50, they're all local. Of those 50, 15 of them call you and eight of them hire you, which is more valuable to you. And they'll always be like, well, the second, of course. Exactly. So I don't want you watching your numbers. I want you watching your conversion, your revenue and your quality of client. And if you don't see,

00;27;40;13 - 00;27;46;05
Dennis Meador
an uptick with those, then come to me and we'll talk, and we frame that right up front with them.

00;27;46;07 - 00;28;08;23
Dennis Meador
Because this isn't about becoming viral. This is about becoming, you know, finding your ideal client profile, bringing them through the door, pre-sold or 80% pre-sold where you're not trying to song and dance, sell them and lower your rates to match your competitors. They're coming to you. You're setting the the, the price. And then they're just like, yeah, I want to work with you.

00;28;08;23 - 00;28;15;23
Dennis Meador
I already respect you. You've already taught me, you've already helped me. And that's what this sort of marketing does. That leadership, marketing.

00;28;15;25 - 00;28;35;04
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's just so I appreciate the, the way you frame that. And I look back at that thing I ran into as a failure on my part to set proper expectations. And, you know, I didn't set it up on the front end. So they were excited on the back end when we doubled their revenue.

00;28;35;07 - 00;28;53;07
Craig Andrews
Right. Well it's me. I thought they would just be happy with all the money and but the. Yeah, but I think a lot of business, you know, so for business owners that are listening, I think one of the things you have to watch out for is just because your buddy down the street that has another business got a viral video.

00;28;53;07 - 00;29;07;01
Craig Andrews
Everybody's egos boosted when they have a viral video. But the fundamental question is, okay, what did it do for your business? Did wonders for your ego. I'm sure that felt great. What did it do for your business? Well, yeah.

00;29;07;02 - 00;29;31;06
Dennis Meador
Like, oh, congratulations, you got a $2,000 check from YouTube because a bunch of people watched one of your videos. But if one client signs up with you, your retainer is $10,000 and your hourly is for 50, and you're going to make $25,000 off of them, and you're more focused on the $2,000 from YouTube than you are on the $25,000 from the client who fit your your profile.

00;29;31;08 - 00;29;40;03
Dennis Meador
You just, you know, you and and attorneys. And again, this is why I like working with them because like more emotional industries would be like.

00;29;40;05 - 00;29;42;00
Craig Andrews
Like you, you tell me how to run my.

00;29;42;00 - 00;29;57;12
Dennis Meador
Business, but, like, an attorney will be like, you know, you're right. You're right. I will focus on that. And so it's like you can get them to kind of for the most part, I'm I'm generalizing in a positive way. Not not all attorneys are

00;29;57;12 - 00;29;57;22
Dennis Meador
are

00;29;57;22 - 00;30;05;08
Dennis Meador
that logical and and pleasant. But generally speaking, that is the types of conversations that we get to have.

00;30;05;10 - 00;30;15;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. No. And I think it's in their training. You know, I think it it's very much in their training their it's about solving problems and, and

00;30;15;06 - 00;30;18;14
Craig Andrews
you know, they have more of a problem solving type,

00;30;18;14 - 00;30;23;00
Craig Andrews
training that gets them there. I'll tell you, there's one attorney,

00;30;23;00 - 00;30;27;16
Craig Andrews
whose marketing I admire. And I'd love to meet their not thought leadership,

00;30;27;16 - 00;30;28;02
Craig Andrews
attorney.

00;30;28;02 - 00;30;38;07
Craig Andrews
But there's one attorney that runs some billboards, and every time I see his billboards, I'm like, I'd love to meet that guy one one time. You know what's what I'm talking about?

00;30;38;10 - 00;30;39;11
Dennis Meador
Are you talking about,

00;30;39;11 - 00;30;41;15
Dennis Meador
the guy who used to be the weed lawyer?

00;30;41;15 - 00;30;44;26
Dennis Meador
He has the, he used to have the dreaded dreadlocks.

00;30;44;28 - 00;30;45;19
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;30;45;22 - 00;30;47;16
Dennis Meador
Dave. Dave.

00;30;47;16 - 00;30;49;06
Dennis Meador
Chrome or chrome?

00;30;49;06 - 00;30;52;15
Craig Andrews
David Kirby, call the attorney. That rocks.

00;30;52;18 - 00;30;54;16
Dennis Meador
Yeah. Yep. I know exactly.

00;30;54;16 - 00;30;57;11
Dennis Meador
That's funny. I knew exactly who you're talking about.

00;30;57;14 - 00;30;59;00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And that's,

00;30;59;00 - 00;31;06;11
Craig Andrews
You know, and kind going back to the whole idea of solving tough problems.

00;31;06;11 - 00;31;19;18
Craig Andrews
You know, the way he went about solving it is, you know, he has memorable billboard. I mean, I had to tell you, there's one attorney with billboards that I'd love to meet, and you immediately knew who I was talking about.

00;31;19;21 - 00;31;23;23
Craig Andrews
But, yeah, he's also I think he's doing personal injury. And,

00;31;23;23 - 00;31;27;02
Craig Andrews
you know, it's not family law or something like that, you know? Yeah.

00;31;27;03 - 00;31;35;28
Dennis Meador
He started off with criminal because he used to be the guy, like, hey, if you get caught smoking weed and you get in trouble, call me. But it's not it's not a big deal in Austin anymore.

00;31;35;28 - 00;31;44;17
Dennis Meador
They decriminalized it, but before that, that was this whole spiel was just like, hey, like, look at me. You know, I can handle your your case, right?

00;31;44;17 - 00;31;49;20
Dennis Meador
Like, that was his spiel, and I guess he's moved into, personal injury, which a lot of guys do anyway.

00;31;49;23 - 00;32;08;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, I really like your your approach on the thought leadership, and I love the fact that, like I said, you've solved a problem I don't know how to solve. It's a tough, tough marketing problem, you know? And I love your approach. You know, 30 minutes a,

00;32;08;06 - 00;32;12;14
Craig Andrews
a month to get a full month's worth of content.

00;32;12;14 - 00;32;20;24
Craig Andrews
If you had some advice just for any business owner, you know, not necessarily attorneys about how to market their business, you know what?

00;32;21;00 - 00;32;26;16
Craig Andrews
What they should consider that they're not presently doing, what would you recommend?

00;32;26;19 - 00;32;48;17
Dennis Meador
This is what we try to do. We build backwards. So, you know, most people try to build marketing frontwards. So they try to build it from their self. Who am I? What do I do? What do I have? And then they try to like get that message out there. But what we do is when we onboard our clients, we find out, tell us about your ideal client profile.

00;32;48;17 - 00;32;58;11
Dennis Meador
And that doesn't just mean like, oh, I want divorces. What types of divorces? Oh, I want high asset divorces. What types of people? Oh, I want, you know, men in their 40s with with,

00;32;58;11 - 00;33;13;01
Dennis Meador
custody that's getting ugly and blah, blah, blah. Okay, so now we've we've, we've niche down to who their client is. So you build the ideal customer profile and then you build what we call the brand profile.

00;33;13;08 - 00;33;15;14
Dennis Meador
So who are you genuinely,

00;33;15;14 - 00;33;18;07
Dennis Meador
you know, not who do you want to be? What character do you want to have?

00;33;18;07 - 00;33;22;18
Craig Andrews
Not who. I'm the greatest personal injury attorney this side of.

00;33;22;18 - 00;33;48;10
Dennis Meador
The Pecos River. Call me now, you know, sort of like, approach to marketing, but, like, who are you really? Are you analytical? Are you warm? Are you? You know, and let's take those two things and let's build a marketing approach around who you are in comparison to who your client is and the value that you can bring to that potential client.

00;33;48;12 - 00;34;08;05
Dennis Meador
And when you build your marketing backwards that way in so like destination backwards, it's a lot easier to hit a, a mark because a lot of people are just like, well, this is who I am. So let's just market me this way. And they're like, well, what are you going after? Whatever I could get. Well, when you go after everything, you get nothing.

00;34;08;07 - 00;34;28;18
Dennis Meador
You know? So so you have to build. That's what I'm saying is find who that ideal client is or sub clients or, you know, maybe there's 3 or 4 profiles and then who are you and how can you help those people specifically and then build your marketing backwards from that?

00;34;28;21 - 00;34;31;08
Craig Andrews
That is sage advice.

00;34;31;08 - 00;34;44;24
Craig Andrews
Dennis, this has been so awesome. I knew in the green room I knew two things. One, it was going to be a fun conversation, and two, I knew we were going to run way ever over time, but and I didn't even talk.

00;34;44;24 - 00;34;50;11
Dennis Meador
About all the stuff that we stopped talking about in the green room so we could talk about during this. So it just,

00;34;50;11 - 00;34;51;16
Dennis Meador
you know, no worries.

00;34;51;16 - 00;34;54;18
Craig Andrews
But so how can people,

00;34;54;18 - 00;35;00;14
Craig Andrews
so it's Dennis matter, the legal podcast network, how can people reach you?

00;35;00;16 - 00;35;11;07
Dennis Meador
LinkedIn is one way. Obviously I try to be very active on LinkedIn. So just Dennis two ends matter spelled like a meadow. But with an R on the end instead of a W.

00;35;11;07 - 00;35;16;22
Dennis Meador
Plus, I imagine it's going to be wherever in the notes of, you know, whatever outlet this is on.

00;35;16;22 - 00;35;26;21
Dennis Meador
And then our website is the like the Ohio State University, the legal podcast network.com.

00;35;26;24 - 00;35;46;21
Dennis Meador
You can visit us there. You can see we have a couple samples of our work. We're getting ready to kind of revamp it. Some testimonials my background and experience talks about like my first business at 14 and what I did. And then, you know, kind of built up kind of from there. And how I ended up here introduces you to some integral people on my team.

00;35;46;23 - 00;36;13;14
Dennis Meador
You know, I've got like my post-production guy has produced a Super Bowl commercial and produces regularly for the NFL, a major League Baseball. So like, I've got major players who are because of the remote work environment and because they bought into our vision, I'm able to provide a very, very high end, almost like if they were to go to NBC or Fox or whatever, that's the level of production that we're able to provide for a fraction of the cost.

00;36;13;16 - 00;36;26;28
Dennis Meador
So go to our website, check that out, check out who we are, and there's something to fill out there. Or connect with me on LinkedIn. And more than happy to to have any discussion be of help to whoever I can.

00;36;27;00 - 00;36;29;28
Craig Andrews
Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on Leaders and Legacies.

00;36;30;01 - 00;36;33;07
Dennis Meador
Absolutely. I've enjoyed it. My friend.

00;36;33;07 - 00;37;00;03
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;37;00;03 - 00;37;01;28
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.

00;37;02;00 - 00;37;25;10
Craig Andrews
Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend, or posted on the socials. If you know someone who would be a great guest, tag them on social media and let them know about the show, including the hashtag leaders and legacies. I love seeing your posts and suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss anything.

00;37;25;12 - 00;37;33;17
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe your thumbs up! Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.

00;37;33;17 - 00;39;35;22
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Alize for me.com. or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.