Ep. 215 – From “Media Company” Thinking to AI Disruption: Marketing That Actually Works

What if you stopped thinking like a lawyer…
 and started thinking like a media company?

In this episode, Ben sits down with Gresh Harkless — entrepreneur, podcaster, and founder of Blue 16 Media — to break down what actually works in marketing today (and what’s just noise).

They dig into:

•  Why most people fail at podcasting (and how to not be one of them) 
•  The shift from SEO to AI-driven search — and what it really means 
•  The “three questions” every business owner should be able to answer (most can’t) 
•  Why chasing every new marketing tool is a losing game 
•  And the mindset shift from marketing tactics → building your own media platform

If you feel like digital marketing is moving too fast…
 or you’re wondering where to focus next…

This conversation will help you cut through the chaos.

Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com

What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?

In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers. 

One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.

There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.

Transcript

Extra Mile Mindset For Ranking

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Yes, you can do all the things. There's hundreds of factors that you could use to rank well. But how many people are doing hundreds of factors for the thing that you're trying to rank for? So you I always say it's never crowded along the extra mile. So yes, if you want to create a piece of content, try to do it as frequently as you can. If you do monthly, that's great. If you could do weekly, that's even better. So just think about like how you can solve the problems of the people that you serve and then leverage AI. Use AI for those things to happen.

Show Opening And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show that challenges the way lawyers and professionals think about life, business, and success. Hosted by Ben Glass, attorney, entrepreneur, coach, and father of nine, this show is about more than just practicing law. For over 40 years, Ben has built a law firm that stands for something bigger. He's helped thousands of lawyers create practices that make good money, do meaningful work, and still make it home for different. Each week, Benn brings you real conversations with guests who are challenging the status quo. Lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and builders. These are people creating bold careers and meaningful lives without burning out or selling out. If you're ready to stop playing small and start thinking like a renegade, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Hi everyone, this is Ben. Welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where each episode I'm interviewing somebody inside or outside of legal who's dinging the world. And today I have a great guest, Gresh Harkless. Gresh was here in our offices about a month, month and a half ago. He spoke as we had the Hero Mastermind group in. He did a great session on podcasting. He really is. He's a, I would call him, because to me, Gresh, everybody looks young, right? So a young entrepreneur worker, he's a creator, a podcaster, and a blogger. And I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation. And while I have deep respect for my friends who are specifically legal in this digital marketing space, it is good every so often to step outside of that box and talk to someone who's helping a lot of small businesses, a lot of, you know, quote unquote influencers. I think everybody can be an influencer like in their space, right? And that's how you attract clients and patients and customers. Um and Gresh did a really great job when he was here. So I wanted to get him on the podcast. And I'm glad our schedules finally aligned, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. Thanks for having me before, and I'm excited to be back here now in a different light, but definitely, you know, hopefully I provide some value that hopefully I did last time too. So but you asked me back, so hopefully that's a good start, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:41

You did, yeah, yeah. And the company is Blue 16 Media, and I actually found you because you didn't reach out to sort of a Northern Virginia business online networking group. I even forget uh what it is. A number of people raised their hands. So let's talk first about like today, it's uh end of March 2026. It's finally warm here in Northern Virginia. But what is your sort of universe of business, Gresh? Uh, you know, how you spend your sort of professional time. What does that look like today?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, I mean, uh it starts a lot different than it did when I started. Um, I wish I could say in hindsight I knew what I was kind of doing, but I've really been passionate around leaning into your gifts, your talents, your abilities, and just kind of hopefully seeing where things land. Um, for me, I've always been a tinkerer. You know, some people call it being an entrepreneur, some people call it being creative, content creator, whatever it is. There's a lot of labels. But for me, like I've always gone back to like when I was 10 years old. Um, I started a family newspaper. My dad was in the military. He was um, you know, we didn't have these tools that we have now to lit literally instantly connect with people. So I started that family newspaper because I couldn't get a job at the time. And then also, too, we wanted to put these newsletters in them and send them as care packages to my dad because he was in the Air Force. So it was my, what I like to call my first media company. And I've always been interested in writing, been interested in asking questions and journalism, honestly, at the heart of it. So a lot of that planted the seeds for who I was and what I end up doing. But at that time, whenever I went like, I don't know what I want to do, what avenue I should go, what route I should take, I always go back and ask myself, what would 10-year-old Gresh do? And that's given me a lot of filters into like the essence of who I am, what lights me up, and how like I've come to, you know, do all the things that I've been doing.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

10 years is uh 10 years old is young to get your uh fire lit. That's pretty cool. So then did you like like English classes in grade school and high school? Or was, you know, for some people like the passion for you know building this family newspaper, newsletter, um that would be like completely separate from what they're teaching you in English class. But did you like reading and writing as a school task?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Oh yeah. I mean, I as a school task, that's different. You're absolutely right, because at school test you didn't have as much of the creativity always there. Uh, you know, my my mom would always take me to the library. Um, and even I do now for for for my younger kids, like try to like impart that onto them, like getting and reading and like how fascinating it is and how you can literally read about everything. So yeah, I've always been interested in reading and just learning um in general. Um, I wouldn't necessarily say like the always the way that school has taught that has always been the most exciting. Um, but it's funny enough, I remember when I went to um to college and went to Howard University, I came in undecided, didn't know what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. Um, I decided to choose eventually an English major um degree. But before that, I got my papers destroyed by a professor. I remember my very first freshman English class. And it's like, yes, you might like writing and reading, but you may not necessarily follow like all the rules and things that you need to. So there is definitely a difference between those things. But I think by constantly like learning and getting better, you kind of get better at those things.

Early Jobs And Entrepreneur Lessons

SPEAKER_02 6:08

The professor probably has not published many works that people want to go buy or run a podcast or something like that. Did you ever, uh after you left Howard, did you ever have a quote unquote real job, like a W-2 job where you worked for somebody else?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, you know, I had um, I I worked for the post office doing, we were talking around um, you know, uh direct mail and things like that. So I worked for the post office doing outside sales for a little bit. Um worked for High Boo, which was um changed from Yellowbook. They they became High Boo literally as I was training. Um I my absolute favorite job, because I have my master's, I got my master's from Georgetown in sports industry management. My hands down, my favorite job that I had was I used to run sports camps all across Northern Virginia. So I used to run walk into these preschools with a huge inflatable Mr. Football. And I would just basically, you know, at the ages of two to four, you're trying to get the kids just to stand up straight and make sure they're running the right way. But that was my favorite job just because it was me getting out, being active, tapped a little bit into my masters, and you know, just getting to enjoy time with kids. So yeah, I had a few different jobs. I've been an adjunct professor. To be honest, I probably have had too many jobs. Um, I'm very much so that person.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

No, I think you're, you know, you're a shining example for for the true youngins who are maybe in high school and thinking about, well, what do I have to do and what am I gonna do? And do I have to have it all figured out before I go to college or something? The guy who's had your hand and feet in a lot of different industries. Some probably like by luck, like, oh, hey, here's a spot. I didn't even know I was looking for this. Here's an opening, let's go over here. The sports camp thing is neat. I was uh, so it's end of March, we're recording this, it's a beautiful day. It's spring break for the kiddos. I don't have any kids in school. So I went on a bike ride and then a run up at the high school. And there's people out there running a uh spring break sports camp uh for they were very young soccer players. So it sounds like something very similar to what uh you were doing, uh, even before um this was like a thing almost.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, absolutely. Probably around 10, 12 years ago, probably maybe 15 or so years ago, I worked for a franchise and that's what we did. So, like during times like this, especially during the summer, it was all in how um to kind of get the kids active. And especially we did it during the day. So a lot of times parents may, you know, be too busy to take their kids like after school or after work and all those things. So we came on site and actually did those. So yeah, it was loads of loads of fun and a blast.

From Freelance Writing To Podcasting

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Good for you. I I grew up in the uh soccer, so I played soccer and grew up in the soccer camp world. So there was nothing better as a teenager and then even as a college student. Like I spent my whole summer working at uh different camps, um, many on uh like university campuses and stuff. So we got paid a little bit, we got free food, and we played in coach soccer all summer, which is like my that was was heaven for me and for a bunch of my friends. Um tell me then about sort of now the journey to today and the podcast um thing, uh because you have podcasts, but I think you also help people develop and produce and you know, get guests and things like that. So that's an interesting space uh for lawyers. Talk, let's talk a little bit about that side of your life.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, like everything, you know, has that thread of 10-year-old grash. And, you know, that's where I came up with this idea of kind of like being a media company because at that time I was interested in entrepreneurship. I always joke and say, like, I was interested in entrepreneurship before I even knew how to spell it, and I still struggle in terms of spelling it at times. But I think my thing was I had those tendencies. What is being an entrepreneur? And that's where I started to really just get curious around that. I started to ask a lot of questions. I did freelance writing at the time. So I would interview business owners and say, hey, why did you start your business? What advice would you have for somebody that's getting started? So just did that for a number of years. I was freelance writing, then in the middle toward my Achilles sentence, so started a blog while I was recovering and recouping, and you know, that blog became what eventually became the beginning of a podcast. So just all those things happened. But when I took a look back, I really felt like um I saw in the journalism world that a lot of people that were great at writing and creating content were moving into like this business world. They were creating blogs, they were doing copywriting, just all those things were happening. So the light bulb kind of went out where it's like, you know, we if we approach like the way that we create content, like we're our own media empires, like you're your own Washington Post or your USA Today or whatever your flavor of choice might be, at the end of the day, creating content so that you can serve the clients that you work with. And I started to see that with a lot of the journalism, um, you know, people moving there. And then that's where I started to say, okay, I have this digital marketing business because I started to do the um website creation, website design, and SEO and things like that. And then I was already doing this um interviewing and just being curious around entrepreneurship. I said, if I had all the money in the world, like what would I invest in? And I said, I would probably invest in like a media empire. So that's what leaned me into not choosing either or both and better and bringing those two things together. It's like we wanted to be able to serve in many different ways the people that we were working with from a digital marketing perspective. So that's what led me there, and that's why I appreciate like everybody is a media company, because I think once you can start to understand the hearts, the minds, the souls, the wants, the desires of the people you want to serve, then you can start creating content around that to help.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

I'm curious, and I don't maybe we talked about this when you were here. Are you a Dan Kennedy acolyte or fan? I'm not, I don't I don't know much about Dan Kennedy, I think. All right. So so Dan Kennedy's my longtime mentor, 20 years, um, marketing guru, creator of businesses for others. Um, and his one of his primary themes is to become, could you use the phrase, become your own media company, right? And to use things like speaking as media. And you know, uh every media has um every media can be valuable. It depends on how you use it and what what you're using it for. Um and so when you use that phrase, become your own media, I think, you know, today more than ever, it's you know technologically easier than it used to be. Look, I'm older than you are. I I I remember back we, you know, our media was everybody called in Gresh to a large conference phone line and we did teleseminars. I don't know if you ever did a teleseminar. And we sold things, we presented and we sold things on teleseminars. Um I don't think it exists. I mean, I remember the first time like I found out like how to actually do that and hire a company and get these lines and and be able to put callers in a queue and answer questions. It was so cool and and create a CD out of the whole thing and then send the CD out to all the people. Um, and now I don't even think that exists anymore because we have we have webinars and we have podcasts and we have you know other media like that. So did you ever do a teleseminar? I did not do a teleseminar.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

You're missing life.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

You're missing a good part of life, dude.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yeah, but the first podcast I did, I did on free conference call. I remember I started very, very low, but it was not the same thing, but it it still had those seeds planted. So everything evolves, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Everything evolves. And uh yes, I mean, in fact, you know, when we retired the platform, I probably had 10 years of recordings on a product called instant teleseminar.com, right? Um and so well anyway, you I I'm going down history uh memory lane here. Let's talk about the podcast. So a lot of a a fair number of lawyers in the great legal marketing space um have them. Many others have been guests on them. Um I obviously run run a good lawyer. We've got over 200 episodes at this point. For someone excuse me, who in 2026 crashes thinking, maybe I need to get into that uh media. Walk me through, if you will, sort of just the high-level thinking. I'm not worried about the technology just yet, but the thinking about for someone who's thinking maybe this is something I should spend some time, energy, and money on.

Podcasting Strategy Before You Launch

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, absolutely. So I I think uh anytime I talk around like be building a media company, I I use an analogy of like cooking your favorite dish and and making sure you're thinking about like what you want at the end of the day. That's the idea, and the idea of the analogy is that hey, you go to the grocery store, what are you cooking? What do you want? Is it sweet potato pies, it's pumpkin pie, is it chocolate cake, whatever it is, that's what you're trying to create. So I'm a big believer in that you go to the grocery store and you figure out what ingredients you need for that. So I think a lot of times we jump into the ingredients, whether it be teleseminars or postcards or podcasts or whatever it is, but we don't have an idea of like where we're trying to go, what we're trying to accomplish. So I think even before you get into these, you know, ingredients, as I like to call them, or platforms or ways that you can market yourself, I think you want to answer that question. You want to be clear about who you're targeting and you want to be honest around the resources that you have. That's time and money. Um, those are three foundational questions I think you should always be asking yourself on a on a regular basis, especially that avatar part, is like, who am I targeting? Who is my ideal client and customer? And I think if you go the route or you explore the idea of podcasting, what you're basically saying is that you believe that you have the opportunity to have conversations, record those conversations, and potentially have those conversations repurposed so that your ideal clients can listen to them and take in that content. Um, but again, you're looking at those three filters. So you want to make sure that you, those three foundational questions go and are aligned with what podcasting is. But I say to get started, if you're thinking about podcasting, if you're not 100% sure if you want to do it, the best thing that you can do is get on somebody else's podcast. I'm big into building your own media company, but probably the next best thing is hopping on somebody else's media company. So be on, be a guest, you know, pitch yourself, pitch what you do, your expertise, your knowledge, your information. Um, but also understand like this is somebody's platform. They have their audience. So how can your expertise and knowledge help the people that's helping their audience? Um, so that's what you really want to make sure that you do. But I think that that's the first step. And and, you know, really, I think at its purest form, great podcasting is like having a conversation. Um, so understand that's what you're kind of getting into. Um, but at the same time, you want to be like, I think, very value driven and be able to kind of provide um insight into people that are potentially going to be listening.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

I think a lot of lawyers so a lot of lawyer podcasts they peter out after like five episodes. Like they figure out that it's it's actually a little harder than it may look. And spending time to get and curate guests and or have a system for getting on other people's podcasts actually does actually does take time. And then you have to you have to be good, like you have to be a good guest because you know, sometimes I'm here trying to carry the conversation. Somebody who's not really good at sort of articulating um interesting ideas. Um, so today is uh you have your podcast, but uh am I right? Are you also is part of your business model helping other biz owners or influencers develop their own podcasts?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah, we definitely help out with that as far as like you know consulting, you know, from that standpoint or getting people launched and getting people started as far as like podcasting, absolutely at the basis, you know, have a digital marketing company, a digital marketing agency. And again, that's like one of the arms of that, of you know, if it if it makes sense. Um, and I think that, you know, we can get really technical around what is a podcast and what is not a podcast. But I I think at the end of the day, when you're talking about audio and video content that's recorded, I think that's what you want to get into. So um, you're absolutely right, where not even just you know, attorney podcasts, just podcasting in general, usually people don't make it past the first 12 episodes, let alone probably the first three or four sometimes. Um, you see people starting to say, hey, I want to start a podcast. They start talking, they record, and then they realize that, okay, I have to do the next one and the next one, and then I need to get a guest, and then I need it's just so much more involved than people think. But I think that, yeah, absolutely. We help people to kind of understand that. But frankly, some of the conversations I have too, which are probably the most important ones, are maybe you shouldn't have a podcast, maybe you should just record, maybe you should do a maybe you should try to tell a seminar or something you know modern like that. Um, but just do something that can help you to get your goals and make sure that ingredient is the key to what you're trying to do, not just doing it because it's the flavor of the market.

Who Digital Marketing Really Fits

SPEAKER_02 19:20

In your media um company, sort of writ large, who is a great avatar new client for you?

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Yeah, for for the digital marketing piece, it you mean specifically or the like the popularity?

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Well, your digital yeah, yeah, my bad. Your digital marketing company, I assume business person, I assume small biz, but I could be wrong about that. I'm now curious about like you have an initial conversation and you go like, yeah, this would be really working with us would be really great, or nah, not good for me or not good for you, one or the other. Like, who's good for you?

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Yeah, a lot of times it's uh I use the phrase people that know enough to be dangerous. And you know, that's a loaded phrase largely because it's people that have had experience with digital marketing in the past. Um, and it probably hasn't gone the way that they want it to go. And a lot of times in the beginning, people don't really understand fully the the breadth of digital marketers marketing and like what it involves, what it, you know, entails. So they usually will go the most inexpensive route. Um, or they will go a route that maybe super expensive, super expensive, but maybe they don't understand exactly what's happening. Um so we try to really be in that middle ground of people that have had experience, hasn't gone the way that they wanted to go, and we really want to to kind of help support them there because usually that person has a better idea of what's working and what's not. Um but we've worked with people in you know many different industries. We've worked with attorneys, worked with home services um industries and many things around and even e-commerce brands and things like that. But I think a lot of it that I find that most people don't understand when they get started is they can't answer those three questions that I touched on. They don't know who they're targeting. And it makes it so hard to market to people when you don't know who you're targeting. And I think some of that comes from experience. Sometimes people know, you know, when they get started, but a lot of times that comes from experience. So if you can't answer those three questions, I usually say maybe we're not the best to have that conversation. Um, we can have that initial one, but maybe we're not necessarily going to work together initially there. But we could in the future, as you start to say that, hey, this is not my client, um, this is exactly how much I'm budgeting, just those questions end up being like a big foundational.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

I think you're exactly right on this. So one of the sort of tenets of great legal marketing is that because people will come to us, they go, Well, I I tried this vendor, it didn't work, and I tried this coach, and it didn't work. And my question back is like, well, how much uh self study have you actually done about marketing and influence and the psychology of persuasion? And that's usually a showstopper there. And so what we try to teach is what we call marketing literacy. Like, like, how do you use a how do you go out and use a tool like Gresh's digital marketing company if you don't have a really good idea or enough knowledge to be able to have an intelligent conversation with Gresh? Because while you wouldn't do this, there are other companies out there who would really take advantage of the general level of ignorance, someone who's desperate for more customers or clients or patients or whatever it is. Um, and so so I'm sure like what you said is like working with a someone who's savvy enough to know where he or she wants to go, knows how to hold you accountable, and knows how to ask the right questions. Now we have a team. Like now we have a partnership uh to help you know expand the brand, get the word out, do direct response, whatever it is. Um, does that sound like your favorite?

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, absolutely. You hit the nail on the head, and I think when you have that experience, it allows you to be more of a team. And I think so many times like people value, well, people understand, I think, the value of marketing, or at least the idea of marketing and sales, because you know, you need the the clients and customers to be able to drive revenue, to be able to keep the lights on and all those things. But I think sometimes not understanding that your marketing person that's asking who are you targeting is not just asking it for the sake of doing it, they're doing it to help you to reach your goals. And I think sometimes when people don't know enough to be dangerous, um, they sometimes don't value that and understand like how important that question is and and how your marketing person or your guru or whatever you're doing, your campaigns need that to succeed as much as possible.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

What do you do to keep up? I mean, do you have a mentor? Like, there's both sort of like there's the entrepreneurial psychology and mindset thing, personal development. And then, of course, there's the technical side of what we do. I keep up with the law and with marketing, you keep up with the digital marketing space. But I'm curious if you have any favorite gurus, websites, podcasts that you listen to to help you stay abreast, either personal development-wise or technology-wise.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm an avid reader of like kind of anything I can get my hands on. Um, I also try to spend a lot of time, which is why I loved everything that you've been able to build and create, because when I came there, I was like, this is literally perfect for starting a bus any business, but especially obviously a legal business. And I think the more that you can stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak, and be around those people, they're just gonna increase your likelihood of success. But um I, you know, I do read everything, you know, for Moz. I read everything I can around SEO. Um, you know, so and I and I consume a lot of like information, and especially like even now with the AI, consuming a lot of that information on, you know, YouTube and things like that. So there's there's so much that's out there. Um, but I'm you know, you want to also know yourself. Um, and I'm a person that very much so likes to tinker and likes to work on things and then learn after I'm working on it. That's entrepreneurism. Yeah, yeah. So fix it later. Exactly, exactly. So I'm always running like kind of internal um, you know, tests and you know, campaigns and things like that, just so that I can learn as well too, before we even roll those out to clients, especially with everything related to AI, started to work on those things internally before we start to roll those things out. Um, but I think it's just that's just you know, I guess entrepreneurship, how I'm wired, where I'd rather, you know, work on those things and then go, you know, take in a bunch of YouTube videos or read this blog and say, okay, this is a better way to do it, or I should have done it that way. So that's just kind of a little bit more on like my uh my DNA.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

AI was next on my list to have a discussion with you about. Um it's been uh so I've lived through several revolutions of technology. So I'm old enough to remember when we went from books in a library in the law library to online legal research. And then literally we started without personal computers on our desktops, on our desks. Uh, then we had the advent of the internet and webs and websites. And now um for me at least, it's it is just as exciting as those others, or the advent of artificial intelligence and the number of tools um out there is incredible. Uh, it can be dizzying. There's a lot of voices and a lot of noise out there. Um I'm curious, I know what I tell people, but I'm curious as you come across people who want to understand the AI tools better, but know that they're not there yet, but feel grass like they're being left behind. Like, would you have a suggested sort of methodology or framework for catching up a little bit or catching up a lot, so that they don't get left behind in this tsunami.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Yeah. I mean, I I think it's it's something that you know everybody's kind of dealing with because things are moving so rapidly and so fast, it's it's gonna be hard to imagine like what life is gonna look like five years, let alone 10 years from now.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

But but pause there because that that's exactly what they said when we had online legal research. So everybody kind of like uh the media is like all amazed by, but you know, when we when Henry Ford put cars on an assembly line and people were driving around and didn't need a horse, like same thing. Same thing.

unknown 27:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

I but I and I and I think that the accessibility of it, that's what's you know, a huge thing is because we all literally have it in our pocket or can have it just in 30 seconds by downloading it to, you know, from the app store. And I think that's where um in the the big thing is I think it's there, but I don't know if everybody knows how to use it. So what I would say for somebody that's thinking about AI, maybe hasn't done much around AI and feels like they're behind, I think the best thing that you can do is look at AI. I always say like an intern, like a really, really smart intern, don't get me wrong, but like an intern. But look internally at your process systems, things that you're doing that can be replicated. I think the best way that you can leverage it is by using the things that are within your organization, your company, your law practice on a regular basis. I think we, and I I have I am the first to tell you I have shiny object syndrome. Like I love technology, I love gadgets, I love all those things. I have no idea what that is. Yes. But I think at the end of the day, it's it's one of those things that can be a gift and a curse because it allows you to be able to kind of look at those things. I would say don't be the person that has shiny object syndrome. Look at your business, look at things that you're doing on a regular basis that could be that are potentially manual, that you could look into something like AI or any technology or automation, just all of those things. And I think that is going to make a huge impact in your business because I think most people feel like they're they're behind because there's so many things that are happening. But in reality, I wonder how many people are actually able to implement those things into the business. So, yes, there are the things out there, but how many people are actually using it? And that's where you could be the dip the person that makes the change, not because you're chasing the latest thing, but because you looked in inventory to your business and said, hey, this is an inefficiency or this is something that is manual, then maybe I can leverage a tool to use. And I think that's where it goes to it entirely.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

I think that's a hundred percent correct. And I would just add that, you know, again, there's new tools, new offerings almost every single day. It's like, well, all right, but let's get let's go deep on a couple of them and let's see what you know, Claud or ChatGPT or Perplexity, you know, to name the ones that I'm most familiar with. Like, let's see what they can actually do and how they can help me. Um, and I'm just blown away. And yes, there are these other shiny objects that you know, my kids will say, Well, have you looked at this thing, right? I go, Well, no, I haven't, because you know, the stuff I'm using is really helping me tremendously. I don't need you know, the next thing that will make a digital animation of I don't know, monkeys hitting baseballs or something, right? Um, so I think that's exactly right. Um, let me ask you this. So digital marketing space, and so a lot of that space I think has been disrupted. I'm curious whether you agree, like SEO is kind of disrupted by AI because of these, you know, AI like answering AI doing the search. So you go to a tool like Perplexity, type a search term in, and it's it's doing 10 or 40 or 100 searches for you, um, and then returning ideas. So as as the advisor, as you are advising your clients um in the digital marketing company, what are you telling them about things, Grash, like like the approach to content, either frequency or framework for content, um, in order to capture what seems to be a growing body of AI capturing, and maybe it's not. Maybe it's just I kind of feel like it is. Is that if that makes any sense? Like it might be growing, but it might be now two percent versus traditional search. I don't know. But I'm curious about what we're telling your clients so they don't freak out or go chase more shiny objects.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah. I mean, it has definitely been, you know, transformed and disrupted for sure. Um, I think you can even search on Google and you can see that it looks different than it did before. Um, you know, there's AI searches, they're actually answering your questions before you have to click to go through one of the search engine results. Um, all those things are definitely happening. And of course, you have other players, you have perplexity. People are going to perplexity to to answer, uh, to ask questions and get answers and things like that. Um, so I think what I, and this is why the way that I look at SEO or search engine optimization, I think is a lot broader than how most people look at it. Um it's very similar to how I say like everybody's a media company, and I look at it as literally anything that you're doing where a piece of information gets from one person to another, I consider to be media. Um if we're talking right now, even if we're not recording, I consider that to be media. If we're talking in the grocery store. Um, so with SEO or search engine optimization, I think what has changed is the is not that people are searching, it's the way that people are searching in the platforms that they're searching for. So a lot of what you're doing is not going to be incredibly different because most people are not doing the content creation to the level that they probably need to or they want to. So SEO is very competitive. And if we look at SEO and what search engines are, we always think Google. And that makes sense because Google has the largest market share, still has the largest market share. Um, and they're starting to incorporate AI. But if we start to really think about how are my ideal clients searching for me and finding me, if I go back to those three questions, my avatar, how are they finding information? That's what you want to optimize. If they're going to complexity, it doesn't change.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

And it's even if it does, you know your avatar so much that it might evolve and change, but you kept your tabs on them. And I think that's the big thing is that, you know, to your point of what you said, like, you know, I was saying, like, you know, five years now, what's going to be? But I think what you probably can speak to this as well, too. Those foundational things that are needed in business, as the tools change and evolve, people are probably still not doing them. And to some degree, business and ranking is competitive. So, yes, you can do all the things. There's hundreds of factors that you could use to rank well. But how many people are doing hundreds of factors for the thing that you're trying to rank for? So you I always say it's never crowded along the extra mile. So, yes, if you want to create a piece of content, try to do it as frequently as you can. If you do monthly, that's great. If you could do weekly, that's even better. So just think about like how you can solve the problems of the people that you serve and then leverage AI. Use AI for those things to happen because your search engines are in the AI game as well. Um, so understand that don't shy away from those things, but understand that you can leverage those things to kind of get your information out.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

So listeners should take their pen out and write that down because I think that's a t-shirt, right? It's never crowded along the extra mile. That's exactly right. And that really uh blends well with the whole thing of you know, master a niche, be be in a market of one, if you can, um and do the extra work, which again for us is like understanding marketing, first of all, like it's understanding the the science of persuasion. First of all, um, I was just it's so funny. I was just in uh Las Vegas, and you know, there's every 80% of the billboards have lawyers on them, all saying exactly the same thing. I guess I don't understand it. I get I mean I they're spending lots and lots of money doing it. I don't understand uh how they differentiate themselves. But I think in the for the solo and small firm lawyers that that we coach, like you know, over 80% of the Ben Glass law money comes because someone mentioned my name or Brian's name or the law firm name, like a human being mentioned our name first. They may then go through our digital properties, and many of them do, um, but most of them are coming because of the relationships we've built. And it takes work. Like it's human beings talking to human beings, it's direct mail, it's monthly newsletters, print, print monthly newsletters that get stuck up on refrigerators and stuff like that. Uh but I like that. It's never crowded along the extra mile. Good for you, my friend. The uh company is Blue 16 Media. Someone who um how how does somebody just get started with you? Um, I assume there's some sort of initial conversation, but but um I don't even know. Do you have like packages? Is it all like a unique uh create your own journey adventures with Gresh? How does it working with you look?

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah, I I think everything starts with the conversation. So, you know, we have a form on our website, uh blue60media.com. You can also go to imgresh.com, I m-g-re-sh.com, and you can set up a time to chat. And a lot of times, um again, people come in because they hear the flavor of the month. They hear that they should do this. And sometimes I have those conversations and realize that, hey, maybe that flavor of the month is not actually going to help you because that's not even where your target audience is. So I think that's usually where I try to start out in terms of having those conversations. But like I mentioned, we have loads of content as well too. So if you just want to poke around and listen to one of the podcasts or listen to just information specifically around digital marketing, you could definitely do that as well. Um, but I think you're you're you hit the nail on the head like that. Um awareness and education piece is such a such a huge thing. Um, and I think we're seeing clients and customers that are more informed than they ever have been. Um and I think that's can be a really exciting thing, you know, if if you can kind of lean into that.

How To Connect And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Yeah, that's good. And and and you also alluded to something, which is, you know, having some infrastructure in place, which includes if you're able to get more calls and contact film form fills and all that stuff, and they don't have someone who can answer the phone and can sell the deal, right? Sell the deal to the lead, then they're gonna blame you, first of all.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

And then they're gonna go bankrupt. Yeah. Uh so that's that's critical too. Well, um, Chris Harkless, uh, thanks so much for carving out some time. You're a really uh busy uh and impressive guy. Again, thank you for coming by our mastermind group uh a few weeks ago. Uh you're uh you're a based out here in Northern Virginia, but I'm I assume you're doing work with companies all over the country.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Yeah, absolutely. We can work with people um anywhere. Very good. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

I appreciate it, Ben. That's it for today's episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where we're rewriting the rules of what it means to build a great law practice and a great life. If something sparked a new idea or gave you clarity, pass it on. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who's ready to think bigger. Want more tools, strategies, and stories from the trenches? Visit GreatLegalMarketing.com or connect with Ben Glass and the team on LinkedIn. Keep building boldly. We'll see you next time.