Why Your Law Firm Manual is a “Dusty Shiv” & The Future of Personalized Ads

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everybody. We’ve got a show that promises to be at least mildly interesting for your listening, watching, enjoyment. I’m your host, Jared Correia. I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting. For my monologue, I’m talking about banging out policies and procedures manuals with an emphasis on procedures. Boring? Nay. In the interview, it’s Matt Rubin of Mr. Marketing. On the counter program, it’s the shitty Olympics. If you thought two-man skeleton was a buck wild winter Olympic sport, wait until you listen to what we’ve got in store. Now, I’d like to issue a procedural challenge. Let’s face it. Most law firms don’t spend a ton of time on their policies and procedures, manuals. Most of the inclusions are boilerplate and lawyers being lawyers, tremendously risk averse and focused on clear guidance, black and white only. The emphasis is usually on the policies and not the procedures.

(01:05):
A policies and procedures manual for a law firm then becomes something like a dusty shiv broken out in case of human resources emergency. It’s nothing like a living, breathing manual that gets utilized on a regular basis by staff and attorneys. But your policies and procedures manual could be so much more if you emphasize the procedures part. The view of many lawyers is that procedures are things that just happened. It’s kind of like a token story. Once in the fog and haze of the past, we decided how to do everything in this law office, and that is still how we do it now. We shall never change. You shall not pass. New ways of doing things. Stagnation is the by word, but the fact is when it comes to law firm process management, it started ad hoc and it will remain ad hoc unless you change it.

(02:07):
And for the most part, that means it’s just everybody’s best guesses in relation to whatever particular management fire the firm owners need to put out on any given day. Law firms are great at being reactive, but not so great at being proactive, even if that’s often the difference between well-run and poorly run businesses. So if you want to revamp your policies and procedures manual, that process starts with the realization that technology defines the bulk of law firm workflow management these days. Most law firms do their best to avoid that conclusion, but if you accept it and embrace it, you can really make your processes hum by explicitly tying them to your technology stack. The way to manage this is to rebuild your procedures manual around your use of technology. If you have a system for automating document creation, include your step-by-step process in your procedures manual.

(03:04):
Explain how you do it. Using the specific technologies you do it with, heck, you can and should include screenshots of videos or the videos themselves. There are plenty of tools that will allow you to capture those, but that’s still only a single process. Consider other technology rely on procedures that are common to law firms like. Workflows. Have you revised your manual to convey how you build connected task lists, including the systems you use to manage those and how you automate them? Email management. Describe in detail how emails are archived and accessed and deleted. Paperless Office. How do you scan? And what device do you use to do it? If you have to. And then where do you save your documents? And with what naming conventions? Even smaller practice management segments could make their way into a procedures manual. How do you order a toner when the printer runs out of it?

(04:04):
What kind of chairs do you order? For the office. When one needs replacing. Who buys the candy for the candy dish? And how often does it need restocking? Will anyone consider the candy dish? These may seem like small or petty matters, but the truth is almost everything you do in a law firm can be broken down into a settled procedure that then gets documented. And the law firms that build and manage processes are more efficient than those that don’t. The acts of creating and managing processes also have a substantial effect on productivity when new hires are onboarded. When there are current written procedures for a law firm, it’s far easier to train a new staff person or attorney. You can rely on your existing processes, training tools, and supplement those with in- person assistance rather than relying solely on in- person assistance or more likely a baptism by fire.

(05:01):
The former is a surefire recipe for either dragging down your productivity across a number of areas of your law practice, and the latter is setting up that new hire for failure. And if you’re interested in maintaining the highest level of process management and of training systems within your law firm, you’ll be encouraged, I guess required, really, to update your procedures manual regularly. If your procedures manual is truly yoked to your existing technology, you can make changes to your workflow along with updates to your screenshots or videos as your software updates. This will also ensure that you and your staff stay up to date on the technology you use so that you can continue to get the most out of what you pay for. There’s truly nothing better for updating a stale policies and procedures manual than investing in a revision centered around your law firm’s prevailing use of technology and workflows.

(05:54):
Well, maybe the only thing that’s actually better than that is a robust discussion of the multi-channel marketing efforts for law firms that I alluded to earlier. As it turns out, you’ve got that next. Huh. It’s weird. Come back for a conversation with Matt Rubin, the president of Mr. Marketing. He’s Mr. Pina’s third cousin. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

(06:23):
Well, I’ve effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is a podcast, so I’m simply going to do today’s Wordle while I think of something interesting. Now I can tell you that today’s Wordle answer is not sticky, but I’ve got even better intelligence than that for you. It’s our guest interview where we’re talking about all the marketing strategy ideas that are fit to print, listen to, or watch. So let’s jump in. Our guest today is Matt Rubin, the president of Mr. Marketing. Matt, welcome to the show. How are you?

Speaker 2 (06:57):
I’m doing great, Jared. Great to be here.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Are you Mr. Marketing yourself?

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Mr. Marketing was kind of like a nickname that a client gave me a long time ago because of my initials being MR. And I thought it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. And then it just stuck, kind of like a bad nickname. And the one reason I went with this, even though I felt kind of corny and cheesy, anytime people would remember it.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Oh, it’s memorable. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah. So we just ended up going with it and I’ve had people, we’ve had good locations with our office and people just be like, I don’t remember anything about, but I saw that Mr. Marketing sign. So they just remember that. So it’s one of those things where my salespeople will solicit somebody and five years later they’ll be like, “Oh, Mr. Rocky, I remember that. ” Oh,

Speaker 1 (07:55):
I mean, it’s one of the more memorable names for a marketing agency that I can remember.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Can I ask

Speaker 2 (08:00):
You on that side? We’ve got a lot of products and brands, but that’s always been the parent company and what it’s all kind of under, if you will. I feel like you need a

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Mascot like Mr. Peanut. Do you have anything like that?

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Well, we’ve got that little kind of marker thing that we stole from Google. That’s sort of like our little period after the MR, but that’s-

Speaker 1 (08:20):
I feel like you need an anthropomorphic mascot. I would love to see it. I’ll help you design that.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
We need something clever like that. Yeah. As we’ve tinkered in video production, I’ve tried to think of really cool ideas for what we could do for us, something that’s funny and exciting. And yeah, I’ve had some ideas, but then I’ll tell my wife, she’s like, “Oh, that’s stupidest thing. Don’t do that.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
” I have a lot of those conversations myself. I’m interested to know, you’re Mr. Marketing now, but when you were baby Mr. Marketing, how did you get into this field in the first place?

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, I would say, I guess my story starts with, I was a salesman basically, doing salesman stuff. And my first real job, my first real job that I would be proud to say I had a job would be … I went to work for this mortgage franchise in their marketing department,

(09:21):
And I had a lot of success. I ended up running their direct mail and email marketing, and I had a lot of ideas. And basically the guy, long story short, he was like, “You’re going to either do really well or we’re going to fire you based depend on these ideas and how they play out. ” And they ended up playing out really well where I end up running. Yeah. Well, basically I kept bothering. It was a franchise and one of the franchise owners, I kept saying, “I want to do this and this is what we should do with the mail.” And I kept having all these ideas and they were like, “No, you should just focus on selling and that’s not for you. ” And finally, I pushed so hard. They were like, “Okay, well we’re going to try it one month. We’re going to spend this amount of money on it.

(10:04):
And if it works, you’re going to go places and if it doesn’t, you’re out of here.You’re gone.” And we basically, my idea was I had a template for the mailer and I wanted to send it to Orange County, California. And I had picked a criteria of what credit and all the things I thought would … And it made millions of dollars. And by the end of that year, I was running the entire franchise organization’s direct mail and email.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
That’s awesome.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
And then when I thought I was making tons of money, my wife and I were going on vacations. I mean, I was young. I was like 27. You’re like, now’s decided to buy my Ferrari. Well, I thought everything couldn’t get better. I was like, “This is my new normal. I’m going to make this kind of money every month. I’m going to make the kind of money on a monthly basis that my friends are making on a year.” Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns went out of business and it was like all the air and the balloon just got taken out. And I’m just like, “What in the hell am I going to do now?” I went from making like 40 some thousand dollars a month to making 13 an hour as a leasing consultant at an apartment complex.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah,

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Not

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Great.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Because I mean, no one cared. They’re like, “Oh, you ran a big deal.” It wasn’t transferable. So that was the only job I could get because prior to working for that mortgage franchise, I worked the crappiest jobs imaginable. So long story short, I started- Economic downturn. Really? Yeah. It was a bad time to be looking for work with that economy. I remember everything fell with it after Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, all these people were, there was like runs on banks and there was all kinds of crazy going on and it just was not a good time to be looking for work. And at that time, I had a horrible job as a leasing consultant that some apartment plays. You’re really not

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Selling the leasing consultant job. If anyone’s

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Out there looking to be a leasing

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Consultant, don’t know.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
It’s really a bad job. It’s really a terrible job. And in my spare time, I started learning how to do websites and that’s basically what opened the door to top. So you never went back

Speaker 1 (12:15):
To working for somebody else. You just started your own thing after that?

Speaker 2 (12:19):
No. So at that point, I learned websites and I just threw myself into it. I went and I started working on my master’s in computer science, never finished, but I started working on it. And during that time, I fell in with a company called National Positions, which was a really big SEO company at the time, which SEO was a fledgling new thing. It was kind of like my dad’s like, “You’re going to start to death doing that kind of work.” And this company was just growing rapidly. They were Inc. 500 company three years in a row. They were just exploding in growth. And I’ve got nothing bad to say about that company. I mean, they did great work and I was a, what do you call it, a project manager and a salesperson, project manager, kind of a combination of both. And I made a good … I mean, it wasn’t as good a living as I made at the mortgage place when that was booming, but I made a pretty good living there as an employee.

(13:12):
And then that company, to make another long story short, that company, Google made the Panda and the Penguin update and all these animal updates. And they went from making millions of dollars a year to making no money to being behind and paying their employees. You’ve always been on the rollercoaster. Here we go again. Here we go again. I’m finally making good money and now it’s like another … And that’s when I took … To make a long story short, and this is good for lawyers, I had a non-compete clause in my agreement, but they were like four or five months behind in paying me. So I got a lawyer and he voided it. And I was able to take my largest client, my one largest client with me, and I’ve made my own company. And that company that I took with me is still, to this day, my largest client.

(14:04):
That’s amazing. At the time they were making, I think it was like five million. Now they’re making 422 million all these years later.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
That’s awesome.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
I wish I could say the same thing about my company, but we’re not quite there, but that’s the kind of growth. I’ve run their digital marketing for all these years. Oh, that’s fantastic. And on top of that client, I’ve added hundreds of others. A lot of mostly doctors, lawyers, and contractors are kind of like my big three buckets. That

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Makes sense.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
But we’re starting to get into … We’ve built our own video advertising platform now, and now we’re starting to get into places that SEO doesn’t really matter, like your dealerships and other types of businesses that are not really SEO driven. They’re more advertising driven. Fair. Fair.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
I

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Mean- And that’s the other thing that I’ve seen just a lot of change is that SEO used to be everything. It used to be like SEO was- Hang on

Speaker 1 (15:00):
One second. Let’s get to that. Super

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Interesting

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Career that you’ve had. Oh,

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
We’re talking to lawyers. I want to start a little bit slow.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Before we

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Get into the AEO stuff, which is maybe where you’re going.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
I’ve got a lot of good stories to tell about all the really wealthy clients that I worked with when I was agency side too. So we have to circle back to that. I can tell you some stories.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah. I’ll remember that. Okay. So in terms of the local SEO stuff, that’s still important, right? And you’ve got this local magic project that you run. Could you talk a little bit about that? Okay.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, yeah. So local … I’m a little bit different than your average digital marketing guy, because I’m an inventor. I actually invent products. I do. I have two patents on my product local magic. I was awarded two patents called Dynamic Content Optimization Associated Methods. There’s two patents. There’s one on the actual structure of it, how the server’s configured. There’s one on the actual methodology side two. I’m

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Suitably

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Impressed. And I’m working on a new one. And we’ll talk about that, I guess a little bit too.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
Can

Speaker 2 (16:10):
You

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Talk about the new patent or is that going to get you … Okay. So let’s start with that. Let’s

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Start with the local SEO side.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
And then we’ll jump back into the new patent work you’re doing.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah. So SEO has always been so important because, and I’ll tell you why it’s important is because it’s the bottom of the funnel. Somebody who’s on Google is ready to buy. They’re not tinkering around. They’re not like, “Oh, let me learn about this. Let me write a paper on it. ” They’re ready to buy something. And that’s why it’s always been important because all the other leads you get from Google or Facebook or those are people that are thinking and maybe someday somehow someday they’ll buy something, but the person on Google is ready to buy now. So that’s why everyone’s always been super focused on it and like, “I’ve got to be number one on Google.”

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah. So I think that’s an important criteria for a lot of law firms, but let me ask you this. So everybody now is talking about AEO, which is like answer engine optimization. So how do I get found in basically GPT products? How does that intersect with SEO or does it? And then where do you see that going? Should people be super concerned about that now or is that more like a two year

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Way? I will tell you by the end of this year, it will absorb collectively 30% of the search market share.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
By the end

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Of this

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Year. Okay. I hope everybody’s

Speaker 2 (17:37):
Paying attention to that.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
That’s a big number.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
And I’ll tell you that, and obviously Google owns Gemini and Gemini is going to be a big best piece of that pie. So it’s like, does Google care if they’re using Gemini or Google? Not really. That’s why they’re pushing Gemini. That’s why Gemini is going to be running Google Maps because they know that people want the AI to do the work for them. And I think people are also recognizing that as Google is hemorrhaging market share, what have they done? They’ve doubled down on the ads. Now you got ads the top, in the middle, on the bottom, on the side. They’re everywhere. There’s ads and then there’s a little bit of organic mixed in the ads. And as they double down, as they strangle hold their users, people are like, “Oh, I could just use Gemini or ChatGPT and it’ll tell me why this divorce lawyer is the best one because he’s divorced this person or that person and he’s been on this reality show or something.” You know what I mean?

(18:33):
It’ll do all that for you. And I think people find that when it’s a big ticket thing, that’s important. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (18:42):
That’s a good

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Point. But the thing that I would say, and this is just because I’ve been doing this a long time, I’ve seen the evolution of how people find things. If I were to go home today after this, let’s say I get kind of tired after this and I go, “I’m going to go home and- It’s an ordeal. Maybe take a nap this afternoon.” I come home, my wife is with Billy in my bedroom and I’m like, “Oh, surprise. My wife’s having an affair.” I’m not going to Google. Divorce lawyer. Yeah. Oh no, I just thought it’d be a funny example. But let’s say it happens. I come home and my wife’s with some guy that I was like, “Oh my God, my wife’s having an affair.” Am I going to Google divorce lawyer Charleston SC?

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah. No,

Speaker 2 (19:27):
I’m not going to do that. I already know who I’d call. You know what I mean? Because there’s been marketing and advertising done to position who should be my divorce lawyer. I don’t need to ask ChatGPT. I don’t need to Google divorce lawyer Charleston SC. I already know who I would call. And not that I want to do that. God, I pray that that’s not what happens when I come home today. Mondays are hard enough without having to come home to that. But I’m just saying that’s the thing. I don’t see … Now, like I said, that doesn’t mean that Google and SEO isn’t important. It doesn’t mean that the ChatGPT and the Gemini, they’re not important, but understand that advertising continues to grow in importance. And I feel like these passive marketing channels continue to dwindle a little bit in importance. So it’s not like a rapid thing, but it is such where over time, I feel like people need to know about you before the event happens, not when the event happens, or you’re going to lose that game.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Let’s talk about two traditional marketing tactics. And I’m interested in your thoughts on how this changes if we’re talking about the answer engine stuff. What about reviews? How valid and important are reviews if people are just going? I

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Think they’re pretty important. I think that it plays a role in the buying decision, not the discovery decision, but in the buying decision. So let’s say you come home, your wife’s cheating on you, you’ve got three lawyers that you’re like, “Okay, these are the three divorce lawyers that I’m going to consider in this decision I have to make really quickly. I don’t have a week to figure out what divorce lawyer. I need to call a divorce lawyer. I’ve got kids, I’ve got assets, I need to make a decision, but I’m not going to make a decision in a split second either.” That’s where the Google reviews kind of matter because they’re going to look at that and say, “Yeah, this guy’s a really good divorce lawyer, but does he treat his clients well or does he treat them kind of shitty?” Because you know what I mean?

(21:39):
There’s more than just how many cases they want. You also have to think about like, how am I going to be treated at this time when I need a lawyer that will return my calls?That’s the kind of shit you’ll want to know when you’re doing that final review of those three, you’re going to want to look at that. So yeah, I think that’s important. If I was looking at three lawyers and one of them had a bunch of ones recently that said, oh, he doesn’t return calls and he’s kind of a dick when you talk to him Monday at three o’clock, I probably would be like, “Maybe I’ll call this other one that’s also really good.” So that’s where it matters a little bit, I think. People are really, they’re not making decisions quickly. We’re making decisions carefully and AI just empowers us to make even more informed decisions.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
So for businesses that need to establish a review strategy, how difficult is that? I think businesses struggle with that. Is that

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Fair to say? So that’s the key thing is everyone wants to do it the same way. They want to be the Mr. Lazy Bones and they want to send a bunch of, “Oh, let me send a bunch of text messages and emails and oh, I don’t know why. Why are they not writing reviews for me? I don’t understand. Why can’t they … Oh, their life doesn’t totally revolve around my reviews and my needs right now. I can’t understand that. ” Send them more text messages. I don’t think your review app is working. I don’t think this review app works because they love me and they would’ve written a review, but they must not be getting the text message. No, you have to ask people in the moment if they think that an app is asking them and not a person, they will not do it because they’re like, “I can get away with not doing this.

(23:20):
Jared’s not going to know if I wrote this review or not. ”

Speaker 1 (23:22):
No pressure at that point. Yeah, just

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Ignore

Speaker 1 (23:24):
The text.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Now, if I’m sitting with you and you just did something, you just helped me out of the worst divorce that ever could have existed and my wife, she was going to take … And you say, “Matt, can you write a review? It would really help my practice if you could write this review and why don’t we have a bourbon right now while you’re writing that and I really appreciate it. ” Of course you’re going to get the review. You can’t automate human emotions, you can’t. It’s an ask. It is a big important favor that you’re asking of a client and it’s something that has to be heartfelt and real. It’s a real world event and you can’t automate real world events like that.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
So you’ve got this review-

Speaker 2 (24:13):
You can make it easier for the client with an app. You can make it easier, but you can’t remove the human element or it just won’t happen at all.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
So you’ve got your review manager platform, I think too. So it sounds like the

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Idea is a

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Combination of like low touch and high touch kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah. So review manager is primarily an SEO tool. It is a website review widget that can look at however a client wants it. It is something that Google can crawl that we can use as an SEO tool. All of the competition, Bird Eye, Podium, what’s a Trustpilot, all of those are not really SEO tools. They can’t really be used to manipulate keyword rankings. Yes. So our app does that. Now the backend of our app is run by Bird Eye. It is an extension of Bird Eye. Our clients have the choice of just totally using Bird Eye or using our app to request reviews if they want an easy way. With Bird Eye, you have to do all that text message, compliance, nonsense. With ours, you just download the app and you send out text messages all day long. But I mean, you make a good

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Point, which is like, it’s great to have the reviews on your website as well as a trust mark and updating them

Speaker 2 (25:31):
As well. But we can make it look any way you want. With BirdEye and all these others, you’re going to have an iFrame that’s going to be templated and it’s going to look how … If you either love it or hate it, there’s not anything you can do about it. You can’t control anything on it. Like with ours, you can control every aspect of it. So ours is just, it’s not that we’re trying to compete with Bird Eye or Podium. We’re making something that’s just totally different that serves a different need and serves a different type of client.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
That’s cool. I

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Like that. But we use Bird Eye. We’re a Bird Eye authorized Bird Eye reseller. We resell their listing software, their review software, their AI software, search AI, which is something we’re integrating our local magic product into. Oh,

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
We use their social media management. I mean, Bird Eye is a great company and we’re proud to … That’s the only company I resell. The only thing I resell. Oh good. But with the review piece, our client … I’ll give you another example. We have multiple location, multi-practice where there’s different lawyers or different doctors. So ours has all that kind of customization where we can do things that are unique situations, where you might want your review widget to have a certain lawyer’s reviews on a certain page. It’s just a much more complex system with complex and custom logic, but a lot of times people just want Burn Eye, so it depends. With our system, what I would try to explain is that all the pieces that we have, our apps, they’re revolved around personalization of search and advertising.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Okay. Cool.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
And what my big, and this is kind of revolves around what my new patent is, which is the concept of a personalized advertising. The more personalized advertising is, the more effective it is.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
And the more personalized it is, the more noticeable it is. And that is the evolution. Having a system that looks in a CRM and finds unique situations and dynamically creates ads and dynamically creates ad copy and dynamically creates landing pages on the fly with chatbots that can interact. All that is the future of how- So you’re talking about

Speaker 1 (27:56):
More of a holistic system, it sounds like, to me, and that’s your-

Speaker 2 (28:01):
All these pieces that I’ve made over the years are now being repurposed to work together because I recognize that’s the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
So what does that look like? If I’m a law firm and I want to get into that style of marketing where all my components are now working together, what do I need to know?

Speaker 2 (28:21):
So it all starts with data. You got to get good data. You have to know if you’re a defense lawyer, you need to know who’s been arrested and what they’ve been arrested for. You need to have advertising that speaks to the type of crime that they’re facing and the situation they’re facing so that your video can speak to it, so that the landing page that they land on can speak to it, so that the chatbot that’s running on the landing page can speak to it. All that needs to work together because that’s what’s going to make your advertising and your marketing so much more compelling than the other guys who may have more money. They may have a bigger budget, but if you can personalize that to the situation and the individual in real time, on the fly, as we call it in my space, that’s what’s going to be dynamite.

(29:11):
That is going to put your firm in front of all the other players.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
So is that an AI thing? How does that work?

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Well, no. AI empowers us to do things on the fly, but it doesn’t do anything for us. These apps, you need a brain and a spinal cord to make all these things work together, but the AI is the muscle. It allows us to … I’ll give you example. Let’s say, I’m just going to use a real, low example, like sunglasses. Somebody goes to buy sunglasses on a website, right? They don’t buy, they look at them, they were $700 sunglasses. They’re like, “Oh, that’s just too expensive. I’m not going to buy that. ” And then let’s say that information of them filling it out, not abandoning their card is saved in a CRM. I’m like our app would then look at the CRM, say, “Hey, this person was looking at this sunglasses this time and they didn’t buy and this is what the price was. ” And then it creates an ad, runs the ad, sends it to them, gets them to the website and the chatbot says, “Hey, if you buy it today, it’s $500 instead of 700.”That’s the kind of marketing I’m talking about.

(30:18):
That has to be precise and it has to all work together.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah. And

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Human in the loop at some

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Point it sounds like too, to review and launch.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, but AI can’t figure all that. With the patent I’m filing, I have functions that I’ve created and I’ve got all these parameters of how it’ll all work and how it’ll all communicate on the fly, but all that has to work together or it just ends up being the same noise as everybody else’s marketing. And

Speaker 1 (30:49):
It sounds like for small businesses, that’s still a competitive advantage. Not many are doing this at this point still or not doing it well?

Speaker 2 (30:59):
It just doesn’t work together. It’s not that people aren’t trying to do those things. It’s just that people always go for the easy way out. They always try to cut corners and do things the easy way. No one wants to set up a video advertising campaign that makes segments for this little thing and this little thing and this little thing and this. No one does that, but everyone knows that would work better. Yeah. It would work better. You’d make more money, but it’s just who wants to do that? But that’s what has to be done. If you really want to make 10 times the money, that’s what has to be done.That’s the quality. And I tell my employees, I say, “Listen, the things that we do aren’t riveting. We’re not rock stars. It’s not exciting.” But if you dig into the details, if you go into the details and you really do these things, this is going to make millions of dollars for people.

(31:48):
This is what matters. And when I talk about my largest client, how do they go from making five to 400? They really dug in. We dug in over the years to those things. That’s

Speaker 1 (32:00):
A good point.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
That’s what happens. And then they get bought by private equity and then I get cut out of it eventually. It’s the way it works. Oh,

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Well. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about social. Where does social media fit into this space now?

Speaker 2 (32:17):
I think that social media fits into it because people, eventually they’re going to Google search the name of your firm and your name. And that’s where the social stuff comes into play because they’re doing that deep dive. They’re looking at the Google reviews. They’re looking at your Facebook page. They’re looking to see if everything looks right to them. And I think that the social stuff kind of plays a role in that validation. I think it plays less of a role year over year. I think that people care less about what you’re doing on Facebook year over year, but I think it still has a role to play. And I think people want to know that you’re a normal person that people like on Facebook before they do big. It’s just one of those- It’s a validation one.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Validation. Yeah, absolutely. All right. One more question for you before we move into our next segment. You said you had some good stories about working with bigger companies. Give

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Me your

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Best one.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Oh God, that’s hard to do. So here’s one that I remember. At one point when I was at the agency, we worked with this Forex company that was owned by the Russian mob. And they would ask for the weirdest things. It would just be like, first of all, I was a project manager. I was also a salesperson. So I got a cut of those deals. Are you sure

Speaker 1 (33:39):
You should be talking about this? No, no, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, yeah. So this company, I doubt they’re in business anymore. They were so- I was

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Through the Gorbachev era. I’m good.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah. But they would pay $30,000 a month in SEO and we would do all these links and whatnot. And it was just so weird, the things that they would care about. They would just … And I remember just like … I forget what it was. There was one day where something really important came up and somebody called me at like three in the morning and they’re like, “We have to have this done.” It’s like right now. I’m just like, okay. And there was just all these weird things that happened, but they paid 30,000 so the agency would do whatever the hell they wanted. How weird it was. Whatever

Speaker 1 (34:22):
You guys want. Whose

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Life need

Speaker 1 (34:23):
To be broken?

Speaker 2 (34:24):
But it was definitely Russian mob. And they would rank for 4X and the entire freaking country. They would rank for 4X, number one. I forget the site that it was. And then we had another place that was lifeinsuranceagency.com. They were some lead site and they ranked above MetLife and all these life insurance companies and they spent about 40,000 a month. So we had some hack in those days where we had this building in India full of all these link building people. And we would do what’s called a three-way link exchange where we had all these PBNs and we would just make a link on it. And then we’d get a link from some reputable business and we’d do a little exchange where they would link to the client, we’d link to them. And we would do that. I mean, they had Walmart as a client at one point where they were spending, I think Walmart was spending 100,000 a month on these link building activities.

(35:13):
And so it was a crazy time. And it was a lot of fun when that was happening. But now it’s like things like that don’t work anymore. That sort of thing. People will ask like, “Hey, can I fill my site with blog posts and not have anything linked to them except for the bank?” And like, no, that doesn’t work anymore. Google’s not going to fuck for that. That was maybe like 15 years ago. Or they want to buy all these domain names and then Ford and they’re like, “Oh, it’ll be great. It’ll make me rank for this divorced lawyer, Charlotte.” And it’s like, no, that hasn’t worked in … I had hair, a big head of hero when that worked.That doesn’t work at all. That’s when you had

Speaker 1 (35:51):
The Afro? Nice.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah. I used to have amazing hair. That was my best feature back when that worked. I hear you. I keep getting these questions though. I’m just like, “Really? Come on, man. You spent $900 on that? That’s money you could have spent on bourbon and had a much better time.” Now we’re

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Talking.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
They’re buying that domain.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
To that end, those are some great marketing war stories. Let’s do one more segment if you’re willing to come back. We’ll be right back, everybody. Welcome back everybody. That’s right. 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 with my guest. Expect no rhyme and very little reason. Matt’s back. He’s got his marketing war stories. He’s soon to be a three-time patent holder. Matt, did you get into the winter Olympics when they were just on at all?

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah. Well, I’m a skier. You are. I’m a lifelong skier. I love skiing. It’s what me and my two boys do. So I’m divorced and remarried and my boys, from my first marriage and I, next year we’re going to Vail, but we’ve been going to Breckenridge the last two two trips. And my 10-year-old, the latest thing is, he’s like, “I want to do a double Black Diamond.” I’m like a double black diamond. Yeah. I’m like, “Son, if my ex finds out she’s going to tell DSS that I’m going to have … ” You can’t take 10 year olds on double black diamonds in Breckenridge, but my kids, I let them do diamonds and they’re like, “Oh, we can do double black now.” So yeah, but we have a great time and I love skiing. I’ve always been a huge fan of it.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Because I’m bringing you back one of our old favorite games from the show. I call it the shitty Olympics, Winter Olympics edition. Let me explain to you how it works. This is kind of

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Based

Speaker 1 (37:55):
On, if you remember Wayne’s World with the Shitty Beatles, when they’re talking about this guy’s cover band and it’s called The Shitty Beatles and they’re like, “Is that like a shtick or are you actually terrible?” And he’s like, “No, we suck, but we play Beatles songs.” So this is the terrible version of the Winter Olympics. So what I’m going to do is I am going to read a description of a sport and you just have to tell me whether it’s ever been an Olympic sport at any point in history because there’s some wackass stuff in the winter Olympics.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
I know.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Biathlon, curling, two-man skeleton.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Curling looks like somebody’s mopping a floor. I’m just like, I never …

Speaker 1 (38:37):
So if you’re ready, I will describe the first sport. And again, all you have to do, you can reason it out. Tell me if you think it’s real or not.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Number one is military patrol, which took place in Olympics in 1924, 28, 36, and 48 as a demonstration sport and a metal sport. It is what evolved into the biathlon. This is pre-biathlon. It used to be called military patrol. Only one medal was ever awarded in the sport in 1924, and it was won by Switzerland. So this is the early version of the biathlon called Military Patrol. Am I making this up or was it actually an Olympic sport?

Speaker 2 (39:30):
I mean, if you made it up, it really sounds legit. So I’ll go with legit. I’m trying

Speaker 1 (39:36):
To sell it. But yeah, it was actually a sport.This was a real sport. This was the precursor to the biathlon. Well done. You’re one for one.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
I’m glad they got rid of it though. It sounds pretty freaking boring.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, it does. Well, we’ll get to more exciting sports in a moment because the next one I have for you is called the Vertical Ice Pogo, Vertical Ice Pogo from 1936. Now, this was a demonstration sport that was retired after several pressurized Pogo sticks froze and shattered during the qualifying rounds. The metal winner was Hans, the Hopper Mueller from Germany, who allegedly cleared a 10-foot snowbank in a single bound. Basically, athletes are using heavy duty spring-loaded POGO sticks to bounce up icy slopes. The Vertical Ice Pogo, 1936 demonstration sport, real or fake Olympic event.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
I think that one sounds a little funny to me. I want to say fake on that one.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Correct. Two for two.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
I’ve been in marketing for 20 years. I can kind of smell some bullshit when I-

Speaker 1 (40:51):
I have to say, I don’t want to jinx anything, but one of our last guests almost got a hundred percent score on our game and we’d never had that happen before. So I

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Just want you to

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Know if you get them all right.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Well, we’ll see. You never know.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
You’re the gold medalist. Okay. Next, ski ballet, also known as Acro Ski from 1988 and 1992. Demonstration sport, it was part of the freestyle skiing exhibition before they included moguls and aerials in the Olympics. Another Swiss champion, Connie Kissling won the gold medal equivalent in 1992, and this was the most popular year of the sport. So ski ballet or acro ski. As a skier, I feel like this

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Is going to be more- I’m going to say no because I don’t remember that, but then I guess I can’t say I watched … I mean, the Olympics is like days, so it’s possible I’m going to miss that one, but I’m going to say no.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
That is a real sport. That was actually analytical.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
I guess I’m not going to be the first person to get 100% on the-

Speaker 1 (42:01):
I jinxed you, in fairness. But I got a reputation to uphold, but let’s just continue for fun. All right. The next event is called another skiing one, by the way, called Ski Jouring. Ski jouring from 1928, the St. Morris Olympics. Demonstration sport never returned. Skiers being towed by horses, dogs, or vehicles across the snow in a race. Not surprisingly, Switzerland had the best time in this event. So was there an Olympic sport called ski jouring where dogs, horses, and different types of vehicles dragged skiers across the snow? Is this real?

Speaker 2 (42:49):
I’m going to say no.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
This is real.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Vehicles? I don’t know. I just can’t picture vehicles pulling people.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
I think there’s a

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Reason they had one. It sounds like something would be like a redneck sport rather than an Olympic.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
Right. It’s like the winter Olympics version of tubing. Would you let your kids be towed by a horse across the snow on their skis?

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Doesn’t sound very dangerous. The stuff they do is probably way dangerous in that.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
All right.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Next- My son got wanted to get a ramp to take his bike off of a ramp that we built.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
So this would be safer.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
For Christmas. I was like, “That’s a great idea.”

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Boys, what are you going to do? Boys are lunatics.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yep, exactly right. Don’t use your e-bike on it. I was like, put his helmet, no e-bike on it.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Are you ready for another?

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, Hemi.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Sled dog racing. 1932, Lake Placid.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Demonstration sporting. I think that’s

Speaker 1 (43:47):
Real. Yes, it’s real. All right. Moving on.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
I think that one I’ve seen.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Well done. Okay. Next. Synchronized Snow Angels. Synchronized Snow Angels from 1984 in Sarajevo.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
You’re not going to sell me that one.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Totally made up. Boy, you’re good with the marketing stuff. Okay, here we go. I got two more for you. You’re quick.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Next one. Yeah, I knew better on that one. You weren’t going to get … Some of them you had a good shtick, but that one I was like, no, I never-

Speaker 1 (44:17):
I’m not selling it. I’m impressed that you can see through the bullshit here. The frozen pole vault. How do you feel about that? Got any immediate reactions or should I read through it a little bit?

Speaker 2 (44:30):
I don’t think so.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
You just think about it. I’ll just read. For the benefit of the audience, the frozen pole ball, 1924, demonstration only sport. This was an attempt to winterize the summer sport. Norway was the winner because they were the only group that could maintain a grip on the frozen poles. Athletes sprint across a sheet of ice and vault over a high bar, landing in a giant pile of soft, fluffy snow. Frozen pole ball.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
I want to say no on that one.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Correct. Correct. All right. You’re doing pretty good here. Just tallying it up. I think you’ve only missed-

Speaker 2 (45:08):
I only missed one. I think I only missed one, right?

Speaker 1 (45:10):
That’s right. All right. Let’s try and get seven of eight. I got one more for you. This is a tough one. I saved a hard one for last. The name of this sport is Bandy, B-A-N-D-Y, which was a demonstration sport in Oslo in 1952. Often called Russian hockey. It’s played on a soccer sized rink with a ball instead of a puck. Sweden took home the gold and the only time this was played, though the sport remains really popular in Northern Europe. 11 players per side use curved sticks to the small ball into large goals on an ice rink. Bandy, hockey with balls basically rather than pucks. Is this a real sport that was featured in the Olympics?

Speaker 2 (45:58):
I’m going to say, yeah, maybe. I could see that being possible.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Correct. Correct. I got to make these trivia questions harder. I got to say, I might be losing my edge.This is

Speaker 2 (46:11):
The second time in life. I know I can usually smell something that’s BS, so I think you got me on that one though.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
You sniffed it out. All right, so maybe I could be a low level salesman then. Matt, thank you. That was a lot of fun. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
We’ll have you back on when you get your third patent.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah. Sounds like a plan. All

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Right. Thanks for coming in. We appreciate it. Thanks for our guest, Matt Rubin, the president of Mr. Marketing. To learn more about Matt and Mr. Marketing, visit MrmarketingRES.com. That’s mrmarketingrs.com. MR marketing RES, mrmarketingrez.com. Now, because I’ll always be a 90s kid who liked his Elios pizza, crispy as fuck, 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 playlist every podcast episode that I record, where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. For this week’s playlist, we had to dig deep. I’ve got gold medal performances. It’s artists and the songs they performed at the Olympic Games, winter, summer, Paralympics. It’s all there, and it’s sponsored by the FIFA Peace Prize, which I’ve won for stopping nine or 10 wars. I can’t even keep track anymore. Actually, none of that is true.

(47:45):
That’s a made up award for fascists, and FIFA is a famously corrupt organization. Join us next time when I ease into a penny loafer or two, or three.