Why Trust is the Strategy & How to End a Friendship with AI

Jared Correia (00:00):
Hello everybody. We’ve got to show the promises to be at least mildly interesting for your listening and watching enjoyment. For the monologue, our travel log series returns. As I recap my recent trip to Southeastern Pennsylvania doing God knows what. In the interview, it’s Megan Hargroder of Legends Legal Marketing on the rebound tip. So be a legend yourself. In the counter program, we’re doing our own version of Wireds Auto Complete Interviews, except we’re using generative AI instead. Now, let’s talk about my latest excursion to parts somewhat unknown. Let’s do another selection in our travel log series, Travels with Jared in Search of America. Shall we, friends? This is chapter 33, Travels with Jared in Search of America, in search of the tipping point for capitalism. This past weekend, I was in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, which is an interesting place to say the least. It has one of the more uncommon names of any city or town in the United States, a country that features lots of odd place names like Hohocom New Jersey, just off the dome.

(01:26):
King of Prussia, the locals call it the KOP, is named after a pub, which was named after Frederick the Great, who was literally the King of Prussia in the mid 1700s. Americans liked him because he was opposed to British imperialism, which America obviously was pretty opposed to as well. But any city or town named after a bar, I am good with. And it’s much better than the prior name, which was Reeseville, which was named after Wreath from Malcolm in the Middle. Probably. KOP, the place, not the man, is still around, of course. But what was once Prussia is now mostly Poland, as well as parts of Lithuania, Russia, and Germany. King of Prussia, the city, represents an interesting timeline for American history, which is now hurdling towards its 250th year, which promises to be the most downbeat 4th of July celebration ever. Things are not going well.

(02:30):
On the one hand, there’s Valley Forge in King of Prussia area. It’s a foggy location that’s effectively now an unincorporated village and informally has parts of the surrounding communities like King of Prussia in it, which was once George Washington’s winter encampment during the Revolutionary War in 1777 to 1778. Try not to get too excited. On the other hand, the King of Prussia Mall, which is located in the same area, is the third largest one in the United States behind the Mall of America in Minnesota. That’s number one, of course. You definitely need massive indoor spaces in Minnesota and the American dream at the meadowlands in New Jersey, which we drove by on the way down. New Jersey relatives of mine report that there’s some crazy shit there like surfing indoors. I think it says probably a lot about the rampant consumerism of the United States that we’re even ranking malls, but compare that with the austerity of Valley Forge, where a national park sits commemorating how Washington soldiers starved and died in service to the continental army.

(03:39):
Quite the divergence. Now, a Valley Forge. They sell novelty socks at the gift shop, which feature an image of George Washington in sunglasses that says underneath it, “Too cool for British rule.” Yeah, I bought a pair. I’m only human. Don’t judge me. Now, I’d never been to Valley Forge before, so I was really interested in seeing it. I’m a history nerd, so I thought it was pretty cool. It’s much larger than I thought. You can’t walk the whole thing, in part because it’s many miles to do so. Well, 10 miles, which is still a lot. So I guess it’s physically possible to walk it, but you probably don’t want to walk it because parts of the walking would be via heavily trafficked highway with no sidewalk, so you’re taking your life into your hands. But if you do make the whole drive, there’s a lot to see from revised versions of the soldier’s huts to artillery cannon to a memorial arch.

(04:33):
In Vogue right now, apparently, people fucking love arches, I guess, to segments of the original Valley Forge village, the last of which isn’t technically on the tour, but it’s easy enough to get to. The big highlight is probably George Washington’s headquarters, which is a well-preserved home with a kitchen as an outbuilding plus a stable and a barn. Really low ceilings in the late 1700s, as it turns out. There’s also a train station in that area that was built in 1911, which has now become part of the series of exhibits. Randomly, the last stop on the tour of Valley Forge is the Washington Memorial Chapel. Another late edition to the park finished in 1921 is spearheaded by a local Episcopalian minister who was involved in preservation efforts for Valley Forge. Probably the best part of that particular exhibit is the National Patriots Bell Tower, which I had never heard of before, but which house is a smaller replica of the Liberty Bell called the Justice Bell that was used to support women’s suffrage across the country, which passed, which people are now seeking to roll back.

(05:43):
Lost unpack in here. And it’s worth paying the 850 for the app so you can drive around and learn some shit. This is kind of my jam. As my mom will recall, I once recorded a four-hour video tour of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which some still consider my Magnum Opus, not my family. They are not included in that list. But then as we crested Valley Forge and returned to KOP proper, there was yet another gleaming symbol Beyond the Hill, which was Netflix House. Now there are only two Netflix houses in America. The first was in Dallas, and the second is now at the King of Prussia Mall. Now, let me tell you, if you thought Valley Forge was old, get a low to me, because I could not have been more lost in this place, which I’ll talk about a little bit with Megan.

(06:34):
I had no idea what to do in this store, which is more like an entertainment complex. It looks like a movie theater on the first floor, but it’s got escape rooms and all this VR shit. I was so lost, I had asked the salesperson what to do. Unfortunately, he was in character playing some kind of person. I had no idea what the fuck the student was talking about, so I just turned around and walked away. I moved on to the next staff person who informed me that the escape rooms were actually smart escape rooms that get harder, the better you do inside of, and that’s pretty cool. And of course, everything is Netflix IP themed. There are statues of characters outside. There’s a nine hole mini golf course with each hole representing a different Netflix property. It’s basically the same deal with the food court.

(07:21):
You can also watch Netflix shows in various theaters, though I think they missed out by not calling a house of Netflix, which sounds far more ominous. It was still a lot to take in all at once as an elder millennial. It’s like Satan vomited up the physical embodiment of a streaming service. I bought a large stuff Demi Gorgan and left. I can’t wait until one of these comes to the North Shore of Massachusetts, to which I’ve now returned. The Circle of Life, my friends. And that’s why you should never take the advice of someone who offers up their middle name unprompted. In any event, we’ve reached the middle part of the Legal Late Night Podcast, which today will feature Megan Hargroder of Legends Legal Marketing. Guess who’s back? Back again. It’s her. It’s Megan and she thinks my marketing strategy is booty cheeks. More to come.

(08:18):
Well, I’ve effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is a podcast, so I will simply clip my toenails until I think of something. Yeah, it looks like I’m going to need the big clippers for this one. That’s a joke, of course. I never clipped my toenails. So let’s get moving onto our guest interview. Our guest today. That’s right. It’s Megan Hargroder, the founder and CEO of Legends Legal Marketing. Welcome back to the show, Megan.

Megan Hargroder (08:48):
Thank you, Jared. I should have been, but wasn’t ready for that intro. That was something.

Jared Correia (08:54):
My toenails are long. I tried to clip them this weekend. I should never get to it. And I’m like, “You ever have that? It’s kind of killing me now because I’m like, I just want to do it so badly.” You’re a legendary guest of the show. I will say that.

Megan Hargroder (09:09):
I know. I feel like on SNL when they get their five timers jacket on their fifth time hosting, I feel like at some point you should come up with something after someone hit their five times on your show.

Jared Correia (09:20):
I think we should do three times. So let’s have you back on for the holiday episode.

Megan Hargroder (09:24):
I think this is my third.

Jared Correia (09:26):
We’ll do it. Oh yes. This is the second time on the new show. You’re actually our first repeat guest on the new show, believe it or not.

Megan Hargroder (09:33):
Cool. Thanks.

Jared Correia (09:34):
Now I think that you just scheduled and used our blink and then we didn’t check.

Megan Hargroder (09:41):
Yeah.

Jared Correia (09:41):
So I probably shouldn’t say that out loud because now people are going to be like- Now everyone

Megan Hargroder (09:46):
Else. Yeah. We book everyone. If you’re good on the show, get on the show again.

Jared Correia (09:52):
Megan, tell me about a time in your life where you were hurt by AI.

Megan Hargroder (09:56):
Oh, so this was actually very recent and I didn’t think that this could happen to me, but I recently sent a very heartfelt text message to an old friend who I really missed and I was kind of in a whole mood, had a whole vibe going. And he definitely took my text, dumped it into ChatGPT, had it say something back and copy pasted it to me without reading it or editing it and I cried.

Jared Correia (10:25):
Were there obvious errors or was it just like-

Megan Hargroder (10:28):
It was very obvious. It started with like, “What a conundrum.” Wow. Yes, I can see where. There’s definitely language where you can tell something specifically came from ChatGPT. Gemini also kind of has its own little flavor of speaking too. So I can almost at this point tell which AI engine someone actually pulled something from.

Jared Correia (10:52):
Is that the most callous thing you can do to another human at this point? I feel like it is.

Megan Hargroder (10:57):
To me?

Jared Correia (10:57):
Because

Megan Hargroder (10:58):
He

Jared Correia (10:58):
Must have known that your text was not AI.That’s obvious.

Megan Hargroder (11:04):
Right. There were feelings in there, like real feelings.

Jared Correia (11:08):
If this person’s listening, fuck you. You also just hired your 20th employee, I think. Is that correct?

Megan Hargroder (11:18):
My 20th employee, isn’t that crazy? That’s

Jared Correia (11:20):
Crazy.

Megan Hargroder (11:21):
Humans. I’m responsible for so many humans now.

Jared Correia (11:24):
Yes. Well, your business is growing as it should be

Megan Hargroder (11:28):
Because

Jared Correia (11:28):
You do a kick-ass job. Thank you. Now at employee 20, have you cracked code?

Megan Hargroder (11:34):
I think so. I don’t want to jinx it because I feel like every time you think you’re really good at something, it means you’ve overlooked something really important.

Jared Correia (11:41):
Next thing you know, you’re sending an AI based text message back to a friend

Megan Hargroder (11:46):
Winning friendship. I will never. I vow right now to everyone in my life that I will never AI message you unless I have some intense choice words that I need to email you and I need to soften that up a little bit before I send it. And then I will run that through Gemini or Claude first. I so

Jared Correia (12:03):
Badly want this person to be listening to the show and being like, “This guy’s an asshole.” I’ll

Megan Hargroder (12:08):
Be sending him the link. I’m just going to send him the link afterwards so he will listen to Joe. But yeah, the thing about hiring that I learned is that there’s a lot of different ways to hire and the really challenging things to hire for areas where you don’t have that specific expertise. So it’s like, how do you vet for it? So one of the positions I’m hiring for right now is a paid search manager. I am not an expert in paid search. That’s why I need to bring one on. How can I tell if they’re good? Well, the last one I hired turns out wasn’t that good, was just kind of generic good, right? But I want someone excellent. So what I am in the process of doing is what I call the 2026 paid search hunger games. I’ve got three people entering the ring.

(12:54):
District one, district two, and district three. They are all hourly employees. They’ve all been given a set of accounts. They know it’s a competition. Interesting. And the last one- Wait, wait,

Jared Correia (13:06):
Wait. Just so I’m clear, your current team you’ve harvested from.

Megan Hargroder (13:11):
No, no, no, no. These are brand new people- These are candidates. These are candidates. These are people whose resumes looked amazing. This

Jared Correia (13:17):
Is literally the Hunger Games.

Megan Hargroder (13:19):
It is. Their case studies looked amazing, but you can fake those, right? So I’m giving them actual work and we’re monitoring them really closely. And once they make any significant sort of mistake, we fire the canon and they’re done. I

Jared Correia (13:32):
Love this. Did you watch the Mr. Beast games at all on Amazon?

Megan Hargroder (13:37):
No.

Jared Correia (13:38):
My daughter and I binged this over a weekend. It’s kind of like this. It’s great. I’m not really that into the Mr. Beast versed, but this show is excellent. It was like a combination of Survivors Quid game, though no one really died.

Megan Hargroder (13:53):
That sounds amazing. So

Jared Correia (13:54):
Will you eliminate two at once or one

Megan Hargroder (13:58):
At a

Jared Correia (13:58):
Time to build a suspense?

Megan Hargroder (14:00):
I’ll eliminate as soon as mistakes are made at this point. So- Do you

Jared Correia (14:06):
Have a framed photo of these people that turns gray, their picture turns gray when they’re eliminated?

Megan Hargroder (14:13):
I do take a screenshot of their Slack photo, but some of them, they’re so new. They haven’t uploaded Slack photos yet. So yeah, it’s just kind of just an outline of a face, but I have been announcing as they go down, just like at nighttime at Hunger Games, whenever they flash the- Oh, that’s right.

Jared Correia (14:33):
Yes.

Megan Hargroder (14:33):
Yeah. So I’ve been doing that at the end of the week and flashing the fallen. And yeah, we’re just going to keep going with this until I find the very best paid search manager there is. If two are really great, I will keep both.

Jared Correia (14:47):
Interesting. We’ll have to come and get an update at some point. Yeah. So it sounds like the two things you’ve unlocked recently are, well, you probably unlocked this before, but hiring people for stuff that you are not an expert in who have expertise and then finding those people via a hunger games style interview process.

Megan Hargroder (15:09):
Well, really filtering them, right? I’m finding them all on LinkedIn or Indeed, and then I’m filtering them by inviting them. First of all, it filters them just the invite that says, “I’m going to give you 30 days to prove yourself on an hourly basis and the winner will be given a contract.” If you’re not good, if you’re really not confident in your skillset or you’re faking something, you’re not going to enter the games, right? Right.

Jared Correia (15:31):
I think that’s part of it too. There’s a barrier here

Megan Hargroder (15:34):
That

Jared Correia (15:34):
Not everybody’s going to try and jump. That’s good stuff. I have some terrible news though. Oh no.

Megan Hargroder (15:42):
I

Jared Correia (15:42):
Think we have to talk about AI now.

Megan Hargroder (15:45):
Yeah, let’s do it. We have to. We have to.

Jared Correia (15:48):
We talked about this when we were pregaming for the show, but I know there’s still so much interest in AI and I feel like we have to cover it even though I find AI to be somewhat obnoxious, which we’ll get into in the next segment we do.

Megan Hargroder (16:02):
Well, we can’t avoid it. It’s here and it’s taking over our lives and we have to figure out how to control this as much as we can and maximize it as much as we can. So I agree, but I already know what you’re going to ask me first.

Jared Correia (16:15):
Do you want to just … I’ll just go in the other room. You can

Megan Hargroder (16:19):
Keep going. You can float off. So the first question you’re going to ask is how as a law firm can you rank an AI search when someone says, “I need a divorce lawyer in Baltimore, Maryland, how do I get found in AI search?” Was that your first question?

Jared Correia (16:33):
No.

Megan Hargroder (16:35):
Oh.

Jared Correia (16:36):
I was actually going to ask you … So I have found in my history of podcasting and consulting and being a general wise and middle-aged man, that I always start at the lowest bar first.

Megan Hargroder (16:50):
Oh,

Jared Correia (16:50):
Okay. What is AEO/GEO? Can we start there? What even is it?

Megan Hargroder (16:59):
I don’t know that I’ve heard GEO.

Jared Correia (17:02):
What is it called? It’s generative engine optimization. Engine

Megan Hargroder (17:05):
Optimization. Oh, yeah. Well-

Jared Correia (17:08):
Generative engine optimization versus answer engine optimization. It’s the same shit, everybody.

Megan Hargroder (17:12):
I mean, it’s part myth right now, honestly, because with, which is kind of the question that I thought you were going to ask. So like with-

Jared Correia (17:23):
I like to keep you on your toes. I know.

Megan Hargroder (17:26):
I know. This is like

Jared Correia (17:27):
My version of the Hunger Games,

Megan Hargroder (17:29):
Except no one gets eliminated. Before I talk to you every time, just to make sure I’m on it. There’s no sleeping on this podcast and I know that. So with Google, with traditional Google search, there are sort of rules and we know what those rules are and Google releases these algorithm updates and they’re not giving you the exact science, but they’re giving you enough to do the math. And with these LLMs, we are not necessarily being given that. We are all guessing at that and we’re comparing things, but they’re not releasing these things that say, “This is the way that you rank.” There’s just things that we know indicate high performance scores most of the time, because this shit’s still on shuffle for the most part.

Jared Correia (18:16):
Yes. Yes.

Megan Hargroder (18:18):
You can be found, you can be found sometimes and then not at all. We’ve experienced it with our own company. There was this one week where I had a bunch of calls booked on my calendar and everyone said they found me through ChatGPT and it was just this one random week. And there was nothing different that I had done that week. There was no magic bullet. There was no … It was luck of the shuffle that week. That said, there are a few things that I’ve noticed that are key indicators that someone will regularly perform well for their target search terms and that is … No one’s going to like this answer because it’s not a silver bullet, but it’s trust-based marketing. So it’s having an actual brand. So these LLMs are paying- Wait,

Jared Correia (19:07):
What?

Megan Hargroder (19:08):
Yeah, I know. Is

Jared Correia (19:09):
That something you have to do?

Megan Hargroder (19:11):
Yes. And as a lawyer, you should be a brand, right? There should be a persona associated with you and your law firm. And all of those things are factored in whenever people are looking for lawyers in these LLM searches because they’re not just looking at keywords and keyword structure. They’re reading things backwards and forwards and upside down and they’re looking at who you are as a person. And they’re thinking, “Should I recommend this person?” To a certain extent, I truly believe these LLMs are saying, “Is this a good person and is this a good lawyer?”

Jared Correia (19:45):
It’s funny because it’s almost like going back to the earliest days of networking,

Megan Hargroder (19:50):
Except

Jared Correia (19:50):
Now it’s an AI making the recommendation. That’s what you’re

Megan Hargroder (19:55):
Saying. You have to kind of think of it as a person to a certain extent. And like we talked about, there’s things that I think that are working that I’m not going to necessarily give away, but what I will give- No, don’t do that. I will give away a few-

Jared Correia (20:07):
People have to hire you for that shit.

Megan Hargroder (20:09):
Yeah. People have to hire me. A lot of work. But one of the things is a good trust-based biography. So having the lawyer have a biography page that tells a story because these LLMs love a good story. Think about it like they’re people. They love a good story. They love to see something relevant that says authority, trust, empathy, all of these different factors are crucial. And then the other part of that is going to be your reviews. They’re reading all of your reviews as well. So it’s not really enough to just have a blank five star review or Jared was great, highly recommend. It has to be a, I hired Jared to solve this high level problem with my intake system and he came in-

Jared Correia (21:01):
Miserably

Megan Hargroder (21:02):
One

Jared Correia (21:02):
Star. …

Megan Hargroder (21:03):
Hire half of my team for me. And yeah, so it has to be something specific and you almost want your keywords worked into your client reviews at this point.

Jared Correia (21:13):
Interesting. Yeah, that makes sense though, because AI is effectively a context engine. So I feel like the more context you can provide it, the better. All right, you got a little bit ahead of where I wanted to go with this. Oh, sorry. I wanted to ask a number of pointed questions. No, we can vibe. You can explore a studio space. So is this overblown? How many searches are actually coming in through an AI and are these actually the majority of the leaves that law firms are getting now? Because I think this is confusing somewhat too. Sorry. The other thing I see with people is they’re like, “Oh, I was on Google and Google is different now.” And they don’t even know they’re using the AI mode of Google, which is basically stealth Gemini. So I don’t know how trackable all this stuff is.

Megan Hargroder (22:05):
Google mode is Bart. So what you’re seeing at the top is actually a generative form of Google search results, but it’s not the same as Gemini.

Jared Correia (22:15):
Oh, good to know.

Megan Hargroder (22:16):
So there are two different algorithms.

Jared Correia (22:18):
I just assumed it

Megan Hargroder (22:19):
Was. Yeah, you can get different answers between Gemini and the art system where- Oh,

Jared Correia (22:24):
Wow. Wait, is it Bard? Bard?

Megan Hargroder (22:27):
Is it Bard or Bart?

Jared Correia (22:29):
Like the old … I don’t know. I’m going to Google while you talk. Keep

Megan Hargroder (22:32):
Going. Yeah. Figure that out. We should have the correct information for this podcast list, these listeners. So it’s a bit different. Gemini itself is its own engine. So going back to the first question though, yet it’s not more. We’re not seeing more coming in, but it’s increasing dramatically constantly. So by the end of this year, it could be more than a traditional Google search. You could be seeing more coming in from the accumulation of all of these tools. So the top players are going to be ChatGPT, Gemini. I think Claude’s probably third. Claude’s my number one. I use Claude for everything. I love

Jared Correia (23:22):
Claude.

Megan Hargroder (23:22):
I think it’s so much smarter than the others.

Jared Correia (23:25):
Yes. It’s great. I agree. I totally agree with that. Okay. So yeah, I don’t know. I can’t find the name of it, but I can confirm that it is a different architecture of search. Yeah.

Megan Hargroder (23:40):
So

Jared Correia (23:40):
Are you testing … I don’t want to get too deep on what you do with clients because I don’t want you to give away the secret sauce, but if it’s me, I’m probably testing various versions of, if I’m a law firm, of how these searches interact. What do I get on Google AI mode versus Google Gemini? What do I get on Google Gemini versus Anthropic? Are people doing that, do you think?

Megan Hargroder (24:06):
Yeah, we’re looking at it, but it’s shuffled. And there’s not a clear understanding yet of when the shuffle resets. Like I said, I had gotten all these leads one week. So for exactly one week, ChatGPT was really into me and it was amazing. And I was like, “I should probably have a conversation and thank ChatGPT.” You would thank a referral source. I was like, “I wonder if thanking ChatGPT might help me to continue to rank better.” You can also have the conversations with the actual engines. So I had a conversation with Gemini. So ChatGPT pulls from Bing, Gemini pulls from Google data. So I had a conversation with Gemini who’s like, I’m primarily concerned with the search coming from. And I was like, “Gemini, how do I rank in a Gemini search against my competitors?” And Gemini was like, “Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha. That’s a funny question.

(25:04):
Your competitors have thousands of backlinks compared to you. They have this, they do this, they are this. ” Basically, they’re so big that these people aren’t actually your competitors. It’s kind of like if one of my clients was like, “Hey, I want to do what Morgan & Morgan’s doing.” And I’m like, “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you have $3 million per month to burn in advertising?” We can set that on fire for you. Sure. But that’s what Morgan Morgan’s doing.

Jared Correia (25:32):
It’s funny that AI search right now is basically like an iPod where shit is just shuffling like crazy. I guess that’s where we’re at before AI becomes singularity. So it sounds like even in this environment, SEO is still important, so you should continue to do traditional SEO.

Megan Hargroder (25:53):
And it’s still playing a role. We just don’t know how big of a role, but it is still playing a role in the LLM search as well. It’s just a little bit less about keyword structure and more about content quality now. So the old keyword structure framework that we used to have to do so delicately, the LLMs care less about that because they’re not reading things in the structured data format that a search engine is. So it’s more quality based. So the quality of your content, is your content actually unique? Is your content something that a person would find interesting? Because if so, then maybe ChatGPT is also finding it interesting and the uniqueness, right? The, what is it from Drag Race, the charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. You got to bring all of those things in for the LLMs to really be paying attention to you.

Jared Correia (26:52):
I’ve never seen an episode of Drag Race. Should I start watching them?

Megan Hargroder (26:55):
Not. It’s amazing.

Jared Correia (26:57):
Okay.

Megan Hargroder (26:58):
This is a good season. It’s a really good show. It’s kind of like the great British bake off where you want to watch something where there’s not a lot of suspense and you’ve already had a hard day. Like

Jared Correia (27:07):
Comfort viewing type of stuff?

Megan Hargroder (27:09):
Exactly. Yes.

Jared Correia (27:10):
Okay.

Megan Hargroder (27:10):
Comfort viewing.

Jared Correia (27:12):
So with the SEO, I mean, in the world of SEO, like content marketing was important, it sounds like it’s more important for generative AI

Megan Hargroder (27:23):
Searches. Content marketing is more important, but it’s more important that it’s focused and not scattershot. So just having the volume is not going to get you anywhere. It’s about how specific it is, how dedicated it is, how unique your content is and if it’s actually written. Also, if it’s written by a human, so AI knows when AI wrote something and they’re boring. So do you,

Jared Correia (27:50):
When it’s texted to

Megan Hargroder (27:51):
You. And so do I. So do I, Tritico. Look, I just went ahead and called him out. I’m definitely sending this to him.

Jared Correia (27:59):
Oh shit. Yes. Tritico?

Megan Hargroder (28:03):
Yeah. He goes by his last name.

Jared Correia (28:05):
Tritico?

Megan Hargroder (28:06):
Yeah.

Jared Correia (28:07):
This is me talking now. Step up your fucking game with your friends. Fuck you shit. So I think that’s probably good for people who are listening to this. I feel like a lot of people think content marketing has become like this fucking meat grinder where you’re just publishing shit all the time. It never ends. And then when you go on every platform, it’s like, “Hey, would you like us to have the AI write this for you? ” But you’re zagging and you’re saying humans should write stuff and less of it.

Megan Hargroder (28:38):
Yeah. I just had a breakup with a client. I mean, I really liked the account, but her non-negotiable was that we posted 200 AI generated blogs per month to her website. And my position was that that was really bad for everything that we were building and doing. And she was like, “Do it anyways.” And I’m like, “I’ve been down this road where clients are like, do it anyways, this is what I want. ” Because at the end of the day, in six months when everything tanks, she’s going to hold me responsible for the results of this thing that she wanted to happen. So I was like, “I think we’re just going to go our own way and I hope for the best that that works out for you, but I know it’s not going to. ” Because at this stage in the game, when you spam your site, both search engines and AI engines, everything sees it as spam.

(29:27):
We all know what spam is, and so do all of these bots that are making the decisions.

Jared Correia (29:33):
Yeah. They’re making decisions in somewhat similar ways to the way humans are doing it. It’s all neural networks.

Megan Hargroder (29:41):
I

Jared Correia (29:41):
Think this is

Megan Hargroder (29:42):
Good.

Jared Correia (29:42):
This is

Megan Hargroder (29:42):
Exciting.

(29:43):
Yeah. The backlink game is really similar too. So if you have trash backlinks, they’re just like from spam sites and all this other stuff, that’s going to hurt you now more than ever. So it’s good to run a report on those and get that cleaned up if you have them and then focusing on few Fewer higher quality backlinks from your neighborhood community newsletter, getting a back link from that. Sponsor youth sports if they have some kind of online blog or publication or something where you can get backlinks from them. There’s so many pretty easy ways that as lawyers, especially those who are focused on local, could get really good high quality backlinks that signal to these engines, “Hey, this is a viable law firm.” And especially community resources, that really plugs into the trust component.

Jared Correia (30:36):
I love quality over quantity.That should be effort present in more of our lives, I think.

Megan Hargroder (30:43):
I think so

Jared Correia (30:44):
Too. One thing you didn’t mention, directory profiles. That’s still a good idea to be chasing those

Megan Hargroder (30:51):
In the new environment. That is the lowest hanging fruit. And the biggest mistake with lawyers with directory listings and profiles is that a lot of them have hired … Was it called Moz Local or … I don’t know. They used to have these things where they would do them for you, right? Yeah. And it was early. Bright Local

Jared Correia (31:11):
Does that too, don’t they? I think.

Megan Hargroder (31:13):
Bright Local. Yeah, that’s the one right now. Yeah. They do them for you. And it’s basically an AI thing, but the problem is that all of these profiles have slightly different fields. And there’s also, if you get a variation of something wrong, it’s not completely syncing up. So the best thing you can do with directory listings is actually just list them manually because if not, fields will be missing, which they ding you for, or your address won’t be exactly consistent, which they will ding you for. Or the formatting of the phone number, all of those things, the consistency of the directory listing matching up perfectly is just like music to search ears, right? Because it’s saying it’s brand consistency and brand consistency is what really, really matters across the board. So if you’re a personal injury lawyer, this is a real example, I won’t say who.

(32:08):
If you’re a personal injury lawyer based in a major city and you’re trying to have this brand that’s all about your personal injury, and then you decide you want to do something cute and fun, so you’re going to make pizzas on the side. So you’re going to develop a whole separate logo called The Pizza Making Lawyer and create a separate set of YouTube videos because you think that’ll get you attention. All you’re doing is splitting and confusing your brand. So it sounds like a cute idea. And of course there’s ways to do cute video campaigns and tie them into your brand, but don’t under any circumstances make a second logo for anything. If you are a law firm, don’t make a second logo. Don’t call it something else. If you start a podcast, call it something very close to your law firm’s name. Call it your law firm name’s podcast.

(32:57):
You always want to be adding to and connecting back to the brand every time. I fucked

Jared Correia (33:01):
That

Megan Hargroder (33:02):
One up. You did?

Jared Correia (33:04):
Yeah. Look at the logo. I’m looking at the logo in the corner. That has nothing to do with my brand. Oh, well, too late. I like the title.

Megan Hargroder (33:12):
Well, I feel like people just know you by name though. Your brand is you.

Jared Correia (33:17):
Okay. I’ll take that. I’ll take that as a win.

Megan Hargroder (33:20):
But I mean, can we make improvements to the branding, Jared? Yes, we could. And we can talk about that

Jared Correia (33:24):
Another time. Wow. Taking shots. Shots fired at me on my own podcast. I know what I’m not an expert in. Okay. So I had two more pointed questions for you.

Megan Hargroder (33:39):
I love pointing

Jared Correia (33:40):
Questions. I had like 20, but see, you’re so good and confident that you covered everything and I’ve only got two left.

Megan Hargroder (33:47):
Okay. Let’s go.

Jared Correia (33:49):
Let’s do the first things first. What about paid advertising in this environment? Is it possible? Is it going to be possible? Will I be able to run Google ad type things in generative AI? You’re going to have to be, right?

Megan Hargroder (34:08):
Yeah. You will. You will. And you can’t yet, but you will very soon. I would assume by the end of this year, we’re going to see ads roll out. I don’t know who’s going to do it first. I don’t know if it’s going to be Chat or Gemini. I would assume it’s going to be Gemini because we already has such a robust ad structure. And I can’t imagine it’s not already built out just sitting back there waiting to be deployed, but it will be a thing soon. And there are also dedicated engines. So for example, there’s this AI tool called Vic and it’s a legal tool for people. There’s another one too that’s pretty much the same thing. And it’s for people who have legal problems to go on and use AI to specifically solve legal problems because it’s got all the legal shit piped in there.

(34:59):
And at the end of it, it can recommend a lawyer to you if you need a lawyer. So they’re rolling out a framework where lawyers can become members, they can bid on these leads. So we’re going to see a lot more specialized advertising before we see the blanket advertising, but it’s coming. It’s coming. So be ready for it.

Jared Correia (35:18):
Last question. In the current environment, like right now, before paid ads are a thing here, you were just like, “Hey, Jared, your marketing’s all fucked up.” And I felt like I took that in stride. So if someone wanted to work with you whose marketing was also fucked up, what should be the marketing spend for the AI, AEO part of it? Do you want to allocate a percentage to working in that space? How would that work? How should attorneys be thinking about this?

Megan Hargroder (35:47):
So it should be the same way that you’re doing your current pay-per-click budget or your LSA budget. Different keywords, different terms, everything’s going to cost different amounts in different areas. The first thing you want to obviously do is be an early adopter because it’ll be the cheapest it will ever be at the very beginning when they launch it. And the fewest number of competitors will be on it at the very beginning. So I say however much money you’re comfortable burning, obviously pay attention to the actual results, but you’re going to do this for two to three months and then you’re going to look at the ROI and then you’re going to determine where exactly you want to spend your money based on which things worked the best. So your highest keyword volume for your lowest budget and your highest conversion rate. So my assumption is that similar to Google Ads, they’re going to give you some reporting.

(36:40):
And in order to give you reporting, they’re going to have to give you a lot of their backend search data, which is going to be really interesting to be able to see what that looks like and how people are searching there versus searching on Google.

Jared Correia (36:54):
Perfect. Okay. Last question. You just wrote a book. It’s called The Hunger Games, Mocking Jay. No, it’s called something else. Can you give us your book? Tell me about your book. Give us your book pitch and then we’ll do the last segment. Oh shit, there’s a copy available.

Megan Hargroder (37:10):
There’s a copy right here. It’s called Trust is the strategy. So it’s one part marketing all about trust-based marketing. So I don’t talk about AI in this book, but all of the principles that are in here are intended to help you build a strong presence in LLM search. I just didn’t specifically address AI just because it’s changing so quickly. I didn’t want my book to become irrelevant. Yeah, that’s a challenge of writing

Jared Correia (37:34):
Books.

Megan Hargroder (37:35):
Yeah. Trust-based marketing has worked for 15 years now since I started doing this. It’s not going to stop. It’s the key. You can build on top of that with ads and all of these other things, but that is the core of being successful. And then the second part is that it’s kind of a business book. So it’s about growing my business, but also working with so many lawyers over the years, helping them to grow their firm’s strengthen their intake, strengthen their hiring pipeline, hiring good people and keeping good people. So all of the things that I’ve learned in 15 years is just still into this tiny little book.

Jared Correia (38:14):
Wow. Back in the day, you could be Thomas Hardy and just write a book and it would just be relevant for years now, man. AI’s changing everything. What’s the title of the book again? One more time.

Megan Hargroder (38:25):
It’s called Trust is the Strategy. And it’s on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. And also if you email me, I’ll just send you one for free if anyone wants one because I accidentally- What a

Jared Correia (38:35):
Deal.

Megan Hargroder (38:35):
Way too many copies of this because I was supposed to bring it to a conference and then I realized you can’t bring a suitcase that’s more than a hundred pounds on American Airlines. So now I have 200 books that I cannot bring to a conference. So send me an email. I will send you one for free. Yeah. And also this book was not written by AI. So that’s another good selling point. I actually wrote this as a human- Flow

Jared Correia (38:59):
Clap.

Megan Hargroder (39:01):
Wait, it gets better. I wrote the whole thing at my standing desk walking on a treadmill. So I literally walked the whole time I was writing.

Jared Correia (39:10):
I’m so jealous. Will you come back for one more segment?

Megan Hargroder (39:13):
Yeah. Oh gosh. Is it about Tom Petty?

Jared Correia (39:17):
No, sadly.

Megan Hargroder (39:18):
Okay.

Jared Correia (39:19):
We’ve got our next segment, our last segment, non-Tom Petty edition. Next. Welcome back, everybody. It’s the Counter Program. It’s a podcast within a podcast. This is a conversational space where we can address usually unrelated topics that I want to explore at a greater depth than my guests. Expect no rhyme and very little reason. Megan, welcome back.

Megan Hargroder (39:45):
I can’t wait to see what this is.

Jared Correia (39:47):
Have you ever seen the Wired Auto Complete interviews?

Megan Hargroder (39:51):
No. You

Jared Correia (39:52):
Know this? Okay, so this is great. You should check these out. Wired does a series of what they call auto complete interviews where they interview celebrities and they type in their name and they ask them about the first five things that come up in Google in Auto Complete.

Megan Hargroder (40:05):
Oh no. It’s

Jared Correia (40:06):
Really fun. I did a version of that because in this case you’re our celebrity and Google AI mode, whatever the fuck it’s called, not Gemini, is going to be our answer engine.

Megan Hargroder (40:21):
Okay. So

Jared Correia (40:22):
Here’s what I did. I typed your name into Google, I hopped over to AI mode, and then I started asking us some questions about you. Oh

Megan Hargroder (40:30):
My goodness. So we’re

Jared Correia (40:31):
Calling this the legal late night AEO interview. We’ll see if it’s good enough to become a thing. I think AI is kind of boring, frankly. Yeah. So I tried to spice this up a little bit.

Megan Hargroder (40:42):
Okay. So

Jared Correia (40:42):
Are you ready for the first question?

Megan Hargroder (40:44):
No, but let’s do it.

Jared Correia (40:47):
I asked the AI, if Megan were an animal, which animal would she be? I’ll give you three choices, one of which is correct.

Megan Hargroder (40:57):
Okay.

Jared Correia (40:58):
Did AI say that you were a honey badger, a snow leopard, or a mongoose? Honey badger?

Megan Hargroder (41:08):
I’m going to go

Jared Correia (41:09):
Honeybadge. Snowlepard. Not a honey badger, sadly. Okay. AI identified you as a snow leopard. Would you like to know why?

Megan Hargroder (41:20):
A snow leopard, because of my hair and skin color being the color of snow. Is that why?

Jared Correia (41:29):
Sorry. My God. No, that did not come up.

Megan Hargroder (41:32):
Okay.

Jared Correia (41:34):
They said you were a strategic nomad, able to traverse diverse terrains and thriving in solitude or remote environments, much like a snow leopard would. Does that sound accurate to you?

Megan Hargroder (41:48):
Yeah, that sounds great. That should have been what I used for the bio on the back of my book.

Jared Correia (41:53):
Should have run the fucking book using AI. So give in. Oddly, AI also said that you were like a snow leopard because you were an observant storyteller, but I’m not really sure that snow leopards are up there in the fucking mountains telling stories. I don’t think that’s a snow leopard vibe. I don’t think they can actually speak. I

Megan Hargroder (42:14):
Haven’t heard that about a snow leopard either, so that’s very interesting.

Jared Correia (42:18):
And AI is also very into your book. They said you’re rare and authentic, like a snow leopard. See, that would’ve been a nice

Megan Hargroder (42:25):
Text.What

Jared Correia (42:26):
If somebody had texted you back an AI response that was like you’re rare and authentic?That’s cool.

Megan Hargroder (42:32):
Yeah. I also should put that as a quote on the book. ChatGPT calls me rare and authentic.

Jared Correia (42:37):
Yeah. Although I don’t want to encourage any more of your friends to send you AI-based text messages. So don’t do that if you’re listening.

Megan Hargroder (42:44):
Yeah, don’t quick way to end the friendship really.

Jared Correia (42:49):
I watched a movie last night called The Testament of Anne Lee about the Shaker

Megan Hargroder (42:54):
Movie. I want to watch that.

Jared Correia (42:55):
It was quite good. Amanda Steifer was awesome in that movie.

Megan Hargroder (43:01):
Yeah, it’s on my watch list for when my husband’s out of town because it’s one of those ones that he goes, “I’m not going to watch this with you. ” You

Jared Correia (43:06):
Might like it. I liked it. I thought it was good. So I said to the AI, “If Megan were to found her own religion, what would the religion be called?” And so here are your choices. The path of radial trust, the dial of virtue or the sisterhood of social attribution, the path of radial trust-

Megan Hargroder (43:34):
It’s got to be the path of radial trust.

Jared Correia (43:37):
It is. It

Megan Hargroder (43:37):
Is.

Jared Correia (43:38):
Yeah. Now why would you presume that?

Megan Hargroder (43:40):
Well, because the book is called Trust-Based is about trust-based marketing, and that’s kind of been my whole, yeah, the whole brand. It’s got to be trust.

Jared Correia (43:51):
Your church would have no physical walls because you are a wandering monk of digital nomadism.

Megan Hargroder (44:03):
I feel like it read my book is

Jared Correia (44:04):
Really-

Megan Hargroder (44:05):
The AI knows about my one year trip abroad, it sounds like.

Jared Correia (44:09):
Yeah. It’s really going for it here. You’d have to take a vow of integrity to join your religion, is what Google tells me. Would that be true?

Megan Hargroder (44:20):
I think that is true. A vow of integrity. Yeah. Definitely. You want to join?

Jared Correia (44:27):
Yeah, definitely. I’ll be the first convert.

Megan Hargroder (44:29):
Okay. It’s just a quick blood oath so I can get that at the end of this.

Jared Correia (44:33):
That’s fine. Yeah, we’ll just do the blood oath. I’ll go grab a knife. The next question I asked is, if Megan became a super evolved human, what would be the most distinct of her newly developed traits? This is stuff I think of on a Sunday night. Would you have a hyper emphatic chronology? Hyperemphatic chronology? Would you have an attenuated vibrating colon? Would you have a second thumb on each hand? All of which could be great. So would you have a hyper emphatic chronology, an attenuated vibrating colon or a second thumb?

Megan Hargroder (45:20):
Thumbs, because then I could type faster.

Jared Correia (45:24):
You would have, according to AI, although extra thumbs would be amazing, a hyperemphatic chronology, which

Megan Hargroder (45:31):
Would

Jared Correia (45:31):
Merge your background in news reporting, storytelling, and relationship driven marketing into a single evolved sense. I think this is kind of a stretch. I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

Megan Hargroder (45:45):
No, no. But it sounds good, right? That’s the thing. AI really makes things sound good.

Jared Correia (45:51):
I think a second thumb on each hand would sound better.

Megan Hargroder (45:55):
Yeah.

Jared Correia (45:56):
Next I typed in, “What is Megan’s dream car?” Would you like to answer this?

Megan Hargroder (46:04):
Do you want me to tell you what the actual answer is?

Jared Correia (46:06):
Yeah, I just want to see if it’s right.

Megan Hargroder (46:08):
It’s a trick question. I’m the worst driver in the world. I shouldn’t own a car. My dream car is public transportation.

Jared Correia (46:16):
That’s what the AI said first.

Megan Hargroder (46:17):
No, it’s not. No, it’s not.

Jared Correia (46:20):
It said you should not own a car.

Megan Hargroder (46:22):
I don’t believe you. What?

Jared Correia (46:24):
How

Megan Hargroder (46:24):
Did it know

Jared Correia (46:26):
That? And then I said, “Stop fucking with me. Just answer the question. I told you the answer.” And then it said that your dream car was a Jeep Wrangler. Is that true?

Megan Hargroder (46:35):
That’s actually my husband’s dream car.

Jared Correia (46:38):
Interesting. It said you wanted to own a Jeep Wrangler since you were 15. That

Megan Hargroder (46:45):
Is not you. No, that’s not true at all. No. I

Jared Correia (46:46):
Love it. Fuck you, Google. Okay. I think I got two more for you.

Megan Hargroder (46:51):
Okay. That was scary.

Jared Correia (46:54):
Crazy, isn’t it? Okay. Oh yeah, I do have two more for you. Okay. So what would Megan call her great American novel if she wrote one, assuming this is your next step after the business book sells out everywhere?

Megan Hargroder (47:11):
Right, right.

Jared Correia (47:13):
Would it be called the search for grounding or the unmasking? Would it be called the nomadic anchor or the truth between stops or would it be called the laughing turtle or hot tub farts?

Megan Hargroder (47:33):
I’m going to go hot tub farts.

Jared Correia (47:39):
Sadly, no. Sadly no. No. AI says that if you wrote the great American novel, it would be called the nomadic anchor or the truth between stoves. You see, this is why I don’t like AI because it’s not very creative.

Megan Hargroder (47:55):
Every

Jared Correia (47:55):
Question I ask it is a variation on the fact that you’ve kind of traveled to different places. So I’m not that

Megan Hargroder (48:03):
Into it.

Jared Correia (48:04):
So then I got real weird from my last question. I said, “If Megan ate some really hot chili, what kind of visions would she have and why would it involve a coyote that sounds like Johnny Cash?”

Megan Hargroder (48:21):
Oh,

Jared Correia (48:22):
Wow.That’s

Megan Hargroder (48:23):
A very specific question.

Jared Correia (48:25):
Okay, so AI was not aware of this, which was greatly disappointing. Do you remember the Simpsons episode where Homer ate the chili? I

Megan Hargroder (48:34):
Do not.

Jared Correia (48:35):
Okay. I’m probably aging myself here, but the Great Simpsons episode in the first five seasons, I think, when The Simpsons was good, where Homer eats all this chili and then he has this vision quest thing and he meets the coyote that talks to him and it’s Johnny Cash, his voice in the coyote. And I didn’t pick up on that. I’m so fucking old. Okay. I went to Netflix house this weekend. Have you ever been there?

Megan Hargroder (49:03):
No.

Jared Correia (49:04):
There’s this new Netflix store and they have escape rooms and movies and mini golf and all this shit. And I was like, “I don’t know what is happening in this store right now.” And I’ve never felt older in my entire life and I just couldn’t navigate it at all.

Megan Hargroder (49:24):
It seems scary.

Jared Correia (49:26):
I was like, “Can I buy something?” And they’re like, “No, you can do things. You can experience them.” And then I left.

Megan Hargroder (49:33):
The future’s weird.

Jared Correia (49:35):
So it said that your dreams, your visions would be labeled the Neon Desert Vision Quest, The Temple of Smoke, Nightmares, The Articulated Python of Arithmetic.

Megan Hargroder (49:54):
Definitely the desert.

Jared Correia (49:56):
Yes. The

Megan Hargroder (49:57):
Neon

Jared Correia (49:57):
Desert Vision. But because of your storytelling, grit, and rebellion,

Megan Hargroder (50:06):
That’s

Jared Correia (50:07):
Pretty good. It also says you are a Louisiana outlaw at your roots. Is that correct?

Megan Hargroder (50:14):
Wow. I guess so. I guess I could be considered an outlaw. You’re

Jared Correia (50:21):
Louisiana.

Megan Hargroder (50:22):
I am from Louisiana. Yeah.

Jared Correia (50:24):
We brought it full circle.

Megan Hargroder (50:26):
We brought it all the way around. Yeah. That’s scary.

Jared Correia (50:30):
My takeaway is AI is weird and shitty.

Megan Hargroder (50:35):
You know what I mean? It’s one of those things. You just got to get with it, right? You don’t have to like it, but you just have to get with it.

Jared Correia (50:44):
I think if AI starts to become actually funny, I’m fucking toast at that point. So I had a good run.

Megan Hargroder (50:52):
I don’t know. Sometimes it’s funny.

Jared Correia (50:55):
No, I haven’t found it be funny.

Megan Hargroder (50:58):
It’d be funny.

Jared Correia (50:59):
Yeah.

Megan Hargroder (50:59):
You haven’t trained your Claude well enough then.

Jared Correia (51:02):
Wow. Shots fired once again. Megan, thank you for coming on. I appreciate it.

Megan Hargroder (51:12):
Come

Jared Correia (51:12):
Back for the holiday episode. We’ll drink.

Megan Hargroder (51:15):
Okay. I will. I will do that. I will schedule myself through the link again.

Jared Correia (51:21):
Please do. Thank you.

Megan Hargroder (51:23):
Thank you.

Jared Correia (51:24):
Thanks for our returning guest, Megan Hargroder, the founder and CEO of Legends Legal Marketing. It’s Legendary. To learn more about Megan and Legends Legal Marketing, visit legendslegalmarketing.com. Well, that works out nicely. That is legendslegalmarketing.com. Now, because I’ll always be a ’90s kid who saw Forrest Gump in the theaters, but whose true passion is burning CDs for anyone who would listen, I’m now just doing the modern version of that, which is creating Spotify playlists for every podcast episode that I record where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. For this week’s playlist, we’ve got some deep cuts focused on our travel log segment. That’s right. We’ve got songs on or about Pennsylvania, and it’s all sponsored by Pennzoil. I’m sorry. No, not Pennzoil. We’re sponsored by the power of the motherfucking son. Join us next time when I rampage through the city with my werewolf and dinosaur friends.

(52:26):
It’s bound to be a real treat.