Life Beyond the Briefs
At Life Beyond the Briefs we help lawyers like you become less busy, make more money, and spend more time doing what they want instead of what they have to. Brian brings you guests from all walks of life are living a life of their own design and are ready to share actionable tips for how you can begin to live your own dream life.
Life Beyond the Briefs
How to Turn Your Expertise Into New Clients with a Book (Live at GLM) | Michael Delon & Jonathan Hawkins
Recorded live at the GLM Summit, this episode of Life Beyond the Briefs brings together Michael Delon and Jonathan Hawkins to answer a simple question with big upside: how do you turn the expertise you already have into a book that actually brings in clients?
Michael walks through how busy professionals can create a book without locking themselves in a room to write for months, and how that book becomes a trust-building tool you can use in referrals, intake, and follow up. Jonathan shares the lawyer’s side of the story: what it is really like to go through the process, what changed in his practice once the book was in hand, and how he uses it with real clients instead of letting it collect dust on a shelf.
You’ll hear them dig into:
- How to position your book so it speaks to the right clients
- Simple ways to get your ideas out of your head and into a usable manuscript
- Practical scripts and use cases for giving your book to prospects and referral partners
- Common myths that keep law firm owners from ever getting started
- Audience Q&A on niches like PI, bankruptcy, and tax resolution
If “write a book” has been on your someday list, this live GLM session will show you how to finally move it into the “this year” column and make it work for your firm.
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Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.
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And the growth aspect, I'm going to talk about that because you come to conferences like this, I go to conferences like this, and we're all talking about growth and scaling, and X is better than 2X and all that stuff. And that's all fine and good, but what's your definition of success? Right? We we've had at our company, we we've hit the plateau that I've dreamed about for years. And I'm I sit here and I look back and I'm with gratitude, going, okay, so what's next? And it's not growth for growth's sake. There has to be a purpose behind it. And I think that's part of what Jonathan brings to the table is because he works with so many of you. He understands what's going on. And what does growth mean in your life? It could be more revenue, it could be more time with family, it could be whatever. And that's why I love GLM and the way Ben and Brian structure this is it is about lifestyle.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, my friends. Welcome into another episode of Life Beyond the Briefs, the number one podcast for lawyers choosing to live lives of their own design and build the kind of practices that they actually want to show up and work at on Mondays. Today is a different style of episode. Usually uh in these episodes, uh, you have me interviewing people. And um I've been as we have gotten and processed the uh audio and the video from the 2025 Great Legal Marketing Summit, I've been rolling out some of the episodes that I think would be helpful to you as we wind up the year. And in today's episode, I have two former guests of the pod, Michael Delon and Jonathan Hawkins, in what's gonna turn out to be like a meta episode a little bit. Um uh one of the things that we preach inside of Great Legal Marketing is building your own authority, and one of the ways to do that is to publish a book. Michael is a book publisher. Jonathan is a lawyer who used Michael to write and publish a book. And if you hang around our info marketing style of marketing for long enough, you can tell yourself the story that everybody has published the book, and that there is no more authority that's carried by publishing a book than there is by hosting a podcast or being a guest on a podcast. Because again, if you're in this world, it seems like everybody is doing it. But I will tell you that outside of the info marketing and outside of the legal marketing world where everybody is everybody seems to be doing this, many, many people are still impressed by the fact that you are an author and you are a podcast host. Maybe I shouldn't be saying those things as an author and a podcast host, but it's true. The misconception that well everybody else has done it, so there's no value in it, is what keeps people from doing it. And it shouldn't, because once you get out to your core audience, you know, whether it's lawyers or whether whether it's the general public or you know, if you have a trust in estates practice, um, it's somebody who is thinking about a will and thinking of all the reasons that either they don't need one or it's like it's too big of a project. Like Michael is somebody who helps people write books for consumers, and Jonathan is somebody who has written a book uh ultimately for the consumer using Michael's help. And so I think this episode is going to be particularly insightful for anybody who has writing a book on their 2026 marketing to-do list. And if you don't have a book, spoiler alert, it should be you who has this on your marketing to-do list. So I hope you enjoy Jonathan Hawkins, um, the author of Law Firm Life Cycle and recent podcast guests, and Michael Delon of Paperback Experts, as they talk about the process and the outcomes of writing your first book.
SPEAKER_05:So I'm Michael Delon. I am founder, CEO of Paperback Expert. We're a uh professional uh growth-oriented book publisher for attorneys, and we help you create a book without writing a word and then teach you how to use your book to grow your practice. And we've been doing it since 2013. We've published over uh 250 books, including the most recent edition of Renegade Lawyer Marketing. If you've not read that, you need to read that. It's a great book. Ben and Brian, uh, we helped them republish that last year. But today we are not talking about that. We are talking about the Law Firm Life Cycle with Jonathan Hawkins. So that's a little bit about me. And uh you can learn more about me if you come back to my booth. We'll we'll chat about that. But I want you to uh meet if you don't know Jonathan Hawkins, he's one of you, he's an attorney. So, Jonathan, tell them just a bit about you and who are you and why are you here?
SPEAKER_02:Sure. So I'm uh Jonathan Hawkins, founder of Law Firm GC. We're business lawyers for lawyers. I am a uh GLM member, and uh this thing got published about two weeks ago. So with Michael's help.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. So Jonathan came to me, I don't know, he just thought he less than a less than a year ago. And uh what instead of me coming up here and talking about book marketing and how great we are and everything, I thought it'd be really fun to help Jonathan help you. So we're gonna spend some time talking about the law firm life cycle because you're all in it. And then through that process, we're gonna talk a little bit about creating the book and things. And then at the end of our session, the last 10 minutes or so, Jonathan's gonna be back there at a table signing copies of this to give to you for free. So if you want a copy of Jonathan's book, you can go right back to that table when we're done. We'll tell you when. You'll get a free copy to walk out of here with. And it's a phenomenal book full of great content that's applicable to every one of you because you're in the law firm life cycle at some stage. So I want to start it out by saying, Jonathan, talk to them a little bit about what is the law firm life cycle.
SPEAKER_02:Well, so I've been representing uh lawyers and law firms for about 15 years now. I've sort of, you know, at all stages of a law firm's growth, we'll call it. And so from just before you start to starting to growing to operating, transitioning, maybe merging, uh, ultimately, maybe buying and selling, and then ultimately closing. And then some firms, there may be uh a scaling stage as well. Um, and so that was sort of the framework that we use to s to write this book, sort of taking people through that. You know, some firms don't make it through all of it. I've had clients that, you know, they they form and then before 12 months, they're shutting it down. Uh and then others, you know, last um obviously maybe a hundred years or more. So uh that was sort of the concept of the book. So we talk through the various cycles and then different things sort of come up for lawyers and owners at different stages of of the growth. So yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And and it's really intriguing. I think Jonathan was the first attorney I'd ever met who was an attorney for attorneys. And so I stopped and I started understanding what do you do? And since then I've had conversations with some of his clients who are going to be doing books and things, and they're like, it's amazing because he gives you different insights, right, that not everybody has because he's working with attorneys across the nation who are at different different levels. So let's talk about some of the places where attorneys kind of get stuck in in that in the life cycle of growing a firm. What what have you seen that's kind of common that gets people?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, particularly lawyers that are in partnerships. Yeah, I guess I'm not surprised anymore, but so many lawyers I talk to don't have a written partnership agreement. And then those that do usually they just pulled it off. Nowadays, maybe ChatGPT. And it's just not built for their firm. And it works until it doesn't, and then when it doesn't work, it's it's really, really bad. So that that's surprisingly, that is an area that that I see a lot that the lawyers sort of stumble on.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, which is really shocking for me, not being a lawyer, but you think a lawyer would always have an agreement. But it's it's some of those things that we get together and we do, you know, partnerships and things. Yeah, it's a handshake. Well, yes and no. But what are you gonna use to get that put together? There's so much more that you need to look at in your partnership. But what about as we talk about the scaling aspect? How does that play into because y'all are here to grow your businesses, right? Okay, I'm gonna say that again. Y'all are here to grow your businesses, right? One of one of the growing, scaling, whatever you call it. What have you seen? What what what stops some some firms as they're in this cycle? And what had what have you seen that has really helped?
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's you know, the the lawyers that and law firm owners that are are deliberate and think ahead are the ones that actually do it. And you know, the ones that just sort of stumble along and drift, they may grow, but it's really by accident. And so, you know, you've got to be deliberate, I think, if you want to grow. And some people don't want to grow, and that's that's fair too. But then as you start to add people, more and more issues arise. I mean, we all know it's the people, and it's a challenge. It really is. Finding them, managing them, keeping them, hiring them. And so you gotta you gotta you gotta think through it. And there's lots of things you can do as you add people to sort of protect yourself and protect the firm. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And and really when you think about building people, you know, our our our staff, we've been doing what we do for since 2013. And so we've built teams and people and staff and culture. And I've got 29 people on my on my team right now. And with those people, you need agreements, right? And if you come to the point when you need to help somebody find a new place to work, that's always hard. And at the same time, getting fired from a job was the best thing that ever happened to me decades ago. And so if you have an agreement in place, it really helps. But how do you go about structuring that agreement for your law firm? You work with somebody like Jonathan who understands it and has it all figured out, right? And the growth aspect, I'm gonna talk about that because you come to conferences like this, I go to conferences like this, and we're all talking about growth and scaling, and X is better than 2X and all that stuff. And that's all fine and good, but what's your definition of success? Right? We we've had at our company, we we've hit the plateau that I've dreamed about for years, and I'm I sit here and I look back and I'm with gratitude, going, okay, so what's next? And it's not growth for growth's sake. There has to be a purpose behind it, and I think that's part of what Jonathan brings to the table is because he works with so many of you, he understands what's going on. And what does growth mean in your life? It could be more revenue, it could be more time with family, it could be whatever. And that's why I love GLM and the way Ben and Brian structure this is it is about lifestyle. You know, Dan Kennedy's gonna be up here in a f in a few hours. And in his early teachings and books that I that I was about, he said, figure out your lifestyle and build a business to support that. And that's been kind of one of our driving forces in our business for a long time. I have a lifestyle business, praise God. It doesn't mean I go on the beach in Tahiti. I work out of my house. I get to be with my family. I work less than 40 hours a week. That's what I want. So I built a business to support that. So as I grow over the next decade, which I have all kinds of plans to do, what's the purpose behind that growth and how am I going to make sure it happens properly? That's those are the str the questions I'm wrestling with right now. And that's why I come here. That's why I bring coaches into my life. Jonathan functions in a sense like a coach. As you work with people, talk talk about what's it, what's it look like to work with you if if if you're an attorney and and I bring you on and I work with what well it depends uh what you come to me for.
SPEAKER_02:But you know, there is a a legal aspect for sure, but there's a consulting aspect. And and so, you know, we do both. Um I do not consider myself a coach or a consultant, but there's definitely a piece of that in therapists sometimes as well. Uh and uh especially when uh when when law firms are breaking apart, it can get uh pretty messy, I'm sure as you can imagine. Some of you have probably been through it, um, and it's not fun. So uh sometimes you just gotta keep people grounded uh because we're lawyers, we we know how to work the system, we know how to do stuff. Uh we have big egos sometimes, and uh sometimes you gotta pull them back so they don't hurt themselves.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And in one of one of the chapters you have, chapter nine, is talking about transitions. In in my business, I've had that idea for a long time. My eldest son Caleb is my chief operating officer. He's gonna take the business over in the next decade. We're thinking about transitions. And a number, I've met a number of you who have you know sons and daughters in the business. And you have to be thinking about the transition stage. What are you going to do? How are you gonna hand that off, whether it's to a family member, whether you're selling it, what what are you gonna do with your firm in the next few years? And what are what are all the different options? And B, how do you best navigate that? Do you do you help them think through these these aspects and things? And how how does that play out with transitions?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And no matter where you are, even if you've just started your firm, I highly recommend you go ahead and start thinking about those things now. Because if you build your firm now thinking about these things that may not occur for 10, 15, 20 years, it'll be a lot easier to deal with them when they come. And and the ones that wait till six months out, you know, they come to me, I know Ed's out here, he deals with this too. If they if they come to you six months and say, I want out, or I've got a health issue, I need to be out six months, let's do X, Y, Z, the options are really, really, really limited. The sooner you can think about these things and and build your firm with the end in mind, the better. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And so whether you're doing dealing with transitions like that, or whether you're looking at mergers and acquisitions, or bringing bringing in two law firms in a similar city that do different things to build a different law firm, all of these aspects, you need to be thinking about this because yes, you're attorneys, but you're business owners. And it's it's about a whole lot more than just serving your clients. You want to serve your clients with excellence, and you want to build a business that endures for a long, long time. And the level of success and revenue that you get to, that's that's totally up to you how you want to get there and what that level is. But you're building a business, an entity that has value. And you need to be working with somebody like Jonathan who can help navigate that and bring to mind to bear really different perspectives that you're probably not going to get here. Gill M is really focused on a lot of things. Jonathan has a has a unique expertise and background. And when you look at your law firm life cycle, and where are you and where are you going? The book is phenomenal to start getting some questions answered, probably opening a few more questions that you haven't thought of. And then the the next question is, well, what do I do? And that's that's where you start having conversations with Jonathan. Uh so let's let's pivot. Anything else on the law firm life cycle? I mean, I could I could ask, we could just dive in and go through every every chapter because he's got internal workings and external threats and all kinds of things, you know, employee agreements, and y'all need a copy of this book, and that's why we're giving you a copy today, because you need to look at this, and this is probably a a different kind of book. I don't know that you'll sit down and just read this from cover to cover. You absolutely can. But you're also going to look at the table of contents and go, I need chapter four. Great, read chapter four, and then put it on your bookshelf. And it's going to become a resource for life. And then make sure that other attorneys in your firm have a copy of this. Right. And then, wow, how about doing a book club around this for your law firm? Wouldn't that be cool?
SPEAKER_02:It'd be cool. But if you have associates, you may not want them to see this.
SPEAKER_05:But all right, so I'm gonna pivot just a little bit. You you you've been doing this for how long? Uh law firms, uh about fifteen years. About fifteen years. So you've got a a pretty good business.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. You're you're you're growing. I enjoy it. We're growing. Okay. Yeah. Why did you publish a book?
SPEAKER_02:Well, the I've had it in me, and I've had this idea for a while, but the the short answer is is Ben Glass said for two years has been hounding me, so you gotta get a book, you gotta get a book. So finally I said, Okay, Ben, all right, I'll do it. So um, but yeah, I'd say Ben's the one that really pushed me to get it done. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_05:And then um why did you come to us?
SPEAKER_02:Ben. So I don't know what if anyone else has tried to write a book, but for me, you know, I had started, I had multiple different versions of chapters or tables of content. I might start it, stop, get busy, all these things. Uh, and it was always on my to-do list, but it was never getting done. Um, and again, I'm in the the mastermind group, and and Ben has been pummeling me for years now in the hot seat. When are you gonna get the book done? I'm like, well, I got this idea and this idea and this idea. And he's like, get the book done. And so finally he looked at me and said, You just go talk to Michael and get it done. And so that's what I did. Yeah. I remember the first conversation.
SPEAKER_05:So you may you may be sitting there with that same aspect. That's where most of my clients come to me, is I've I got this idea. I don't know how to do it. I don't even know what to write necessarily. And that's exactly where I want you. I don't expect you to come to me with a full outline and and knowing exactly what you want. Some people do, but it's rare. I work with attorneys who come to me saying, I kind of know what I want. I just don't know how to get there. When he came to me, I don't think we had the Law from Life Cycle name.
SPEAKER_02:We didn't. We had a few ideas of maybe where to go. Yeah. And you and your team helped me sort of figure out which idea, sort of concept to go with. So that was really helpful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So we we create a book blueprint at the very beginning, like building a house, right? You've got to have a blueprint to work from, and we do the exact same thing with your book. And I was thinking, and and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but we've got you positioned as the law firm lawyer. That was you. Uh, that's what I thought. When I was looking at that, I'm like, that's a really cool title. I think I think I came up with that. Um, you'll find out if you hang around me, I only do four things well in life. Okay. Um, I learned that a long time ago. I figured it all out. And everything outside of those four things, I'm mediocre at best. And I've just built people around me who do everything else that I don't do well. But coming up with idea, ideas, looking into your business, figuring out what's your positioning and what's the title and theme of your book and the draft, that is one thing I do wicked well. Praise God. That's what he's given me the ability to do. And so for me to work with you to create a compelling title and cover and thought-provoking book that is going to resonate with your audience, that's what I do. And so I love having conversations around that because I know that your message is really the most important thing that you have to take out in any marketing that you do. Obviously, a book, it's really important. But you take this message now through the website, through podcasting, through everything else that you do, and it uh it builds consistency and clarity so that there's no confusion. And when you can start reducing the friction and the confusion in the mind of your audience, your business grows. And so that's one thing that we bring to the table, and it's just all included. Talk about the process. Because with with our company, we our phrase is you create a book without writing a word. I have 10 professional writers on my staff. Talk to them about the process of taking your genius that was in your brain, it's all like spaghetti and getting it out.
SPEAKER_02:What what was that like? It was exhausting a little bit early on because the other thing I'd say is we really pushed, pushed your team, and I pushed really to get this thing done fairly quickly, I think. I mean, we got it done in five months, maybe. I think so. I mean, it was we pushed. And so, you know, had initial sort of strategy sessions with you, came up with sort of the concept, and then you you introduced me to one of your writers, and we would basically meet the Zoom basically twice a week. So about three or four hours per week. Just, you know, we started with sort of the concept and then we nailed that. Then we started working on the table of contents, you know, and and that took took a while because you know, you come up with it and you're like, no, I want to move this here, move this there. Um, and then, you know, then we start going chapter by chapter just from the beginning. And, you know, your your writer asked me a bunch of questions. I gave her a bunch of materials. You know, we did these recordings and then what is it? You get the first two chapters, maybe. Got got the first two chapters, uh, just to make sure it feels and sounds like me. Um, and you know, there's some things we had to tweak because it didn't really sound like me in the beginning. So fixed all that, and then we just kept pushing, kept pushing, kept pushing. So Jonathan pushed us, which is really good.
SPEAKER_05:Our our standard process is six months, start to finish. And so he pushed us, which was really good. But what he just said is really critical. It is so important to us that we capture your voice in your book. And so our process is, yeah, we we're gonna do the outline, the table of contents, you start doing the recordings. Our writer then takes your words and we start crafting your manuscript and we do two chapters and we stop and we send them to you and say, okay, Jonathan, review this. Give us your feedback. Have we captured your tone, your voice, your message? If the rest of your book's written like these two chapters, are you happy? He said, Yeah, no, not really. Awesome. And so they work together until they get it. And as soon as they get it, now we start writing chapter after chapter in that tone, that voice, so that when the book's done, Jonathan's happy. It sounds, you read this book, you hear Jonathan's voice. That's what we do with our authors. Because this is not just a book. This is part of your marketing. This is an extension of you. And now when you go out and you do video or you do audio or you do podcast, whatever you're doing, it sounds like you and it amplifies your credibility because you have consistency over time in whatever media channels that you are on. That's one of the key differences, I think, between our speak to write process and the way our writer works with you, because you spend hours with your writer, and usually it's an hour a week, is our system. So Jonathan crushed it because we knew we had this conference and he wanted to get the book done. So an hour a week talking with your writer, and your writer will spend probably 10 hours with you or so getting all the content. They understand who you are, how you speak, and that's how they can craft it into your voice.
SPEAKER_02:And I would say another thing that that I, if I had done this all by myself, this would not have happened is is um your writer was really good at pulling out some of my stories to put in here and then creating sort of a an arc throughout the entire book. I would not have done that. Um and it it would have been more like uh a boring, and maybe it is still boring, I don't know, but a boring lawyer book uh that no one would want to look at. Um and just so she wove in some of my personal stories and created sort of a store story arc throughout the entire book that, again, I thought was really good.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And and that's that's so important. I mean, creating a book is a lot like creating a movie. Right? We want we're gonna we're gonna get from you more content than will ever show up in a book, right? When you create a movie, most of the movie's on the editing floor when it's done. And that's the same thing with the book. But we understand my writers are professional writers. And so they understand how to do those arcs and and how to tell stories well because stories carry the day, even at a book, two attorneys. So I'm glad that you I'm glad you mentioned that because that's what we do. We're here to help amplify your story. And one of my overarching marketing philosophies is that people buy who you are more than what you do. They want to connect with you at the heart, and that comes through story. And so we're gonna help understand your story. I talked to Jimmy yesterday. Jimmy's right over here, immigration attorney in Oklahoma City. And we had a great conversation. And he's he gave me just a snippet of his background. And I went, oh, that's gonna be so good. If you don't know Jimmy, you need to connect with Jimmy. He's really awesome. But he's got a story to tell, and it separates him from everybody else. And that's all what we want to do, right? So let's talk about. So you your book's out. Have we have we made you a best-selling author yet?
SPEAKER_02:You did? Yes. You promised. I did. I did. You guaranteed it.
SPEAKER_05:I guarantee it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So we do guarantee that you'll be an Amazon best-selling author. We run the promotion. I've got the team to make that happen. Guaranteed. It adds credibility in the eyes of your audience. Let's talk marketing. Because having a book is great. Being a best-selling author is really amazing. It turns heads, right? Knowing how to make money with your book is what moves the needle. That's why I position our company as a business growth publisher. Yes, I can help you publish a book. Yippie Skippy. So I can a thousand other people. I can teach you how to grow your business with your book. That's where the money's made. That's why you're in this room. That's why you're at this conference, is to learn how to move the needle. I can teach you how to do that using your book. So let's talk about business growth.
SPEAKER_02:Before we go there, there's one other thing I want to talk about process, at least my experience. And this goes back to your team pushing me versus me doing it on my own. There was a time, a very, very early draft, that I remember going to sleep one night thinking this thing is terrible. Uh, and uh I'm gonna be embarrassed to put my name on it. Um and if I if it was just me, I would have stopped and just not finished. I just wouldn't have finished because it just got in my mind. But she kept pushing me, kept pushing me. And then and then it got to the point where I was like, I'm not embarrassed to put my name on this. I'm not embarrassed to hand this out. And then and by the end, it it was something that, you know, I thought was good. Again, uh, you know, kudos to your team pushing me to get it done.
SPEAKER_05:Uh and I probably would have stopped. That's good. And and unfortunately, that's what happens. I meet with attorneys all the time. They're like, well, I've been thinking about doing a book for 10 years. I've started and stopped three of them, four of them. What that's part of the process. We believe in you. When we come up with the title of the theme, the book blueprint at the very beginning, we're all in. We want to support you because we know that it's going to make an impact in those that you serve. That's why we do what we do is to help you serve more people. So let's let's talk, Martin. Your book's out. And you know, you're a good marketer. How are you going to use this? Your book, your message. What are some of the ways that you can share right now of what you're thinking about?
SPEAKER_02:I got lots of ideas, but uh one of them's here. I'm gonna hand them out to you guys. I was at a conference a couple weeks ago, handing it out. It was really important to me to get it as quickly as possible. Um, and you know, I've been doing a lot of the you know, the GLM stuff. So we've got a print newsletter, we've, you know, QR code there. I've got a weekly email that I send out. We've been promoting it there. I'm pretty heavy on LinkedIn, I've got a podcast, I'm I'm just promoting it everywhere. And so, you know, my my goal is not to make a bunch of money on the book itself. Sell it. I probably probably won't, especially with you know, first couple weeks, it was 99 cents on Kindle. But that's not the point. So really it's just to get it out there and you know, handing it out, you know. So far, you know, if someone calls me, new client, and we have a conversation, we're dropping a copy in the mail next day. They should have it within a couple days. It's been out two weeks, the reception's been pretty good, but it's too soon to tell, really. But I think I've enjoyed the process. It's been fun. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And it's been fun. It is fun. It is fun because you've got an asset that that very few people have. Now, think about your market. How many attorneys in your market have published their own book? Usually the answer is like none, maybe one. Good, lead the field. Be out there, hand this to somebody. So the other thing we didn't even mention is when I work with somebody, I I have a coaching program for six months that's included where I teach my credibility marketing systems and philosophies. And Jonathan's been at a lot of those. And it's with other, not just attorneys, because we work with uh, you know, attorneys, but we also work with financial advisors and other business owners and coaches and things. So I put you all in a room and we meet twice a month. Talk a little bit about Epic is what we call it, and the the coaching program and the aha's, the different aspects of the value that that brought so that you're not always waiting six months before you can actually do any marketing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the epic's good. You know, I've gotten some really good nuggets and ideas out of that. I am a marketer, I just I enjoy it and I have a lot of ideas. But you and and then the others that were in those meetings, you know, dropping new ideas, which were good. Of course, you write it down, that's gonna add that to the list. And so that that's been a helpful addition that frankly I didn't really realize was part of the deal when I signed up. Yeah, that was good.
SPEAKER_05:Well, yeah, everybody comes to me as a book publisher, which is great. I mean, I've been a Kennedy fan for years, decades. I'm a marketer. I get it. I just happen, I mean, a book changed my life in 2013. That's why I do what I do. I've been nine years, I was nine years, nine and a half years in Christian radio, and then I was a decade in in uh family ministry, uh, teaching God's blueprints to marriage and family, and then uh spent two years in prison, as I call it, where I was in the ministry. I was just in a job I hated. And uh God let me escape from that. And I started a marketing consulting firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I'd come out and talk with you about growing your business, and we'd have a great conversation. You'd say, Michael, what have you done in the last few years? Who else have you helped? And I say, Well, I built marriages and families at family life. And you'd say, That's awesome. Way to go. You know what? I got another appointment coming up. Can you we reschedule this and talk some more later? And you'd usher me right out the door. Because you you saw me as a ministry guy, not a marketing guy. And I was a marketer who couldn't get any clients. And so I knew I had to fix that. So I went to my church one day and I prayed. I said, God, how do I help Jonathan? Because I know I can. And God said, put all your ideas in a book. And so I wrote my first book on marketing back in 2013. And then I would call Jonathan and set an appointment and mail my a book to him and walk into his office a week later for our meeting, and I saw my book on his desk, dog eared, highlighted and underlined. He'd read my book. And in that meeting, he'd say, Now, Michael, in your book, you said, How do you help me do that? And he'd hire me. And then I'd give him a few more copies, and he'd hand them out to his buddies, and I'd have another meeting, I'd do the exact same thing. I started gaining clients. I said, What in the world happened? And you know what happened? Something changed in your mind. Because when I gave you a copy of my book, I instantly became a marketing expert. And you trusted me. And when you hand out your book to your prospects, you put it on your website so that it's a free download, and then you capture the rest of their information, and then you nurture them. And when they schedule an appointment, if you were here at my session last year, we talked about video preconditioning so they show up ready to buy and choose you because they understand who you are and what you do. And then you clone your best clients by giving them the script that I teach you so that your clients will give your book out to their friends and neighbors and relatives and business associates, and you put your hand oh, talk referrals. Do you like referrals? I love referrals. How are you gonna get more referrals with centers of influence?
SPEAKER_02:Is there any ideas? Well, that's that is another thing that that I have done and and basically am doing. So I, you know, I get a lot of referrals from law firm adjacent sort of consultants, business owners, or whatever, people that provide services. And so I'm sending them stacks of books to hand out to their clients. Beautiful.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, because in in every center of influence should have a stack of books so that they can say, you need to talk to Jonathan. I tell you what, let me I'll text Jonathan, we'll get an appointment scheduled. Here's a copy of his book. I want you to read his book before you meet with Jonathan. Do you think that referral is going to become a client of Jonathan's? Say yes. It's not this difficult to take what you're learning here this weekend, amplify all of it through a very consistent message that you can use this book in dozens of ways in your marketing. We we uh we also have a program that's at the top level where we will take you, if you don't have a podcast, we will create a podcast for you based on your book. We interview you and create all of the core content for your book, and then we teach you actually how to use your podcast to generate revenue. I've been podcasting for three and a half years. I've done over 400 episodes. It generates six figures a year for my business. It's one of our many marketing funnels, it's our podcast. And it's not through advertising. I'll teach you how to monetize your podcast. People binge podcasts like we binge Netflix. So if you don't have a podcast, you are missing out on a ton of great content that then you can repurpose out to all the other social media channels. And guess what happens? You have a very consistent presence and message, and you're probably going to be the only one doing it. And I love the fact that you have a print newsletter, right? Because that just ties in perfectly with this. Print, and Kennedy will talk about this, I'm sure. Print builds credibility. Whether it's a book, whether it's a newsletter, whether it's a magazine, it's credible. People believe what they feel in print. So Kia was here last yesterday, I think, talking about branding in print. Melanie's back here with PR. Print. Everybody's digital today. Great. Let them be digital. I'm not against digital. We do a ton of digital, but we also understand how to build credibility and how to be different. And that's really what you need to do in order to move your business forward. Okay, we got 15 minutes. Questions, because I'm gonna release Jonathan here in a few minutes to go back to his table. And all you're gonna do is just walk to the table, give me your name. He's gonna give you a signed copy of his book, okay? And then you can exit out. But I want to take any questions that anybody has. If you have a question, raise your hand for Jonathan.
SPEAKER_02:Real quick, one one thing. So the people out there, you know, that various practice areas. I mean, this I've heard this, I've heard it this since I've been here. People say, well, I don't have anything to say. Or I'm just a you know, uh personal injury lawyer that, you know, whatever, I don't have anything to say. I'm like, no, you do. It's like your stories, and your story is the thing that's gonna make you different. And that's that's what we learn here at GLM. It's really about being different. Uh it's not necessarily about you know what you do. And so telling your stories is is where where you're gonna be different and where people are gonna think about you instead of somebody else. 100%.
SPEAKER_05:And you'll see my articles in in the newsletter a lot. And I I reference Ben and Brian in a number of my newsletter articles because of how they show up on social media. I love how they show up because they're real. Ben's a soccer coach, right? And he's got a family, he's got adoptive kids, I got adoptive kids. I'm already connected with him. Brian took, what, six weeks in Europe this week, and he was taking pictures on the beach and reading books. And it's like, that's that's what people are interested in. They want to know more about, I assume you're a good attorney. I assume you can help me with the law aspect, but so can about six other people. Why should I choose you? That's what you need to be talking about. That's what we do, that's how we weave your story into the pages of your book, and then we teach you how to take that same story and that perspective and use it in your marketing. Whether you're doing video or podcasting or social media or TikTok, it doesn't matter. Those are all channels. What matters is your message. It's who you are, it's your DNA. That's what matters. That's what moves me. That's what connects people at the heart. That's what causes your clients to tell other people about you. Yes. Oh, all right. So I've got to throw this at you, okay? This this is is soft. They said I can throw it, but I'm just gonna toss it, okay? Okay. Three, two, one. Speak into that. Thank you.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I love your passion.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_06:It's a yes, I really do. Um, it's very uh contagious. Thank you. A two-part question. One, do you only work with attorneys in building their books? And two, do you have any course material where one could just watch it and learn?
SPEAKER_05:It's a great question. So, do we just hold that and I'll let you toss it since you're an athlete and not an art. Do we only work with attorneys? No. When I built my business, I work with experts. To me, an expert is somebody who's in a business field and they know exactly what they want to do. My first client was an automotive repair shop. I've done it for uh canine dog trainers. I work with a lot of financial advisors. We work with a lot of coaches. So, no, if you know somebody who is an expert at what they do and they need to amplify their credibility, we can help them because they're speaking the content, right? And the second part was oh, do I have any online material where you can watch it? My son and I, my son Caleb is my eldest son, he's my chief operating officer. He's helped me build this business. A few years ago, we actually put a course together. It's called Book Writing Bootcamp. It's an it's a physical book that you can buy, or you can sign up on our website and we will email you three emails a week and we will walk you through the exact process we would take you to create your book. And so that is it's not a course that you watch, it's a course that we instruct you what you should be doing from the brain dump to the organization of your table of contents to how to get published and all of that. So, book writing boot camp. If you go to my website, it's there under like the free resources or something. You can sign up for that and you get three emails a week for I don't know, three or four months.
SPEAKER_06:Did that help? What's that? I said I want to connect with you.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and it's connect with me. You can just scan that QR code, you can come back to my my booth, I'm gonna be here all weekend. Happy to help you any way that we can. Great question. Anyone else so she can throw something at you? All right, well, one right right over here. Check her. There you go.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I'm not throwing it at you.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so I work with a PI law firm. So I was curious to um, you know, I can see the business-to-business model for it, but uh who would we write the book for? Like what's our audience, other attorneys or referral sources? You know, obviously our clients aren't gonna pick up a book about personal injury.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, kind of like shocker. Yes, I've worked with PI attorneys for 12 years. I've got Steve Grover, he's a PI attorney up in coun uh Canada. His first book was uh about motorcycle safety. Right hard, ride safe. He goes out to motorcycle shops and gives his book out. He goes out to motorcycle rallies and hands his book out. Then he came back to me a couple years later and wrote one on big truck accidents. And uh he puts those at truck stops, he goes to uh truck rallies and things, hands those out. He did uh his last one on slip and fall. He's coming back to me to do his fourth one on uh brain injuries. Okay. He goes out to motorcycle rallies, hands his book out. He knows, unfortunately, some of those people are going to need him. He wants to be the attorney that they think of first and feel the best about when that day comes or when one of their buddies needs an attorney. He's put over a million dollars of top line revenue into his company through his books in the last eight years. Okay. Your audience needs it. Why do you wait? This is for all of you. Why do you wait until somebody needs you to try to capture their heart? That's what Google Ads and all that stuff is. Somebody has a need today, I want to be there. Great, yeah, you better be there. How about if you just win their heart long before they ever need you? So that when they need you, they know exactly where to go. How about taking your book out to insurance agents? How about hosting conferences and things and giving people uh answering questions in people's minds about how what in the world does a personal injury attorney do? Because unfortunately, y'all have a really bad reputation. You do! Let's shoot the elephant in the room, right? I love what you guys do because you do it for a reason. And when I first started writing books for PI attorneys, I started learning that you know, why do you do what you well? My sister got hit by a car and the care that she received was terrible, and the settlement we received sucked. And I vowed never to let that happen again in my that's why I fight so hard for my clients. I'm all over that. Let's get your book done and let No, your consumers are going to absolutely read the books. Your centers of influence are too. And your happy clients, right, after they get that big old settlement check and you've served them well, you give them four or five copies and say, Would you do me a favor? Would you, as you're talking to people about the way we treated you, the way we served you in the settlement that we got for you, would you just hand a copy of my book out to them and say, if you ever need somebody, they are definitely the ones to go to. Would you do that for me? They will love doing that. Your business will explode when you win people's heart before they ever need you. So they stop searching on Google for personal injury attorney Oklahoma and say, I want to go here. That changes the game in everything. And it lowers all your Google ad dollars as well when they're searching your name.
SPEAKER_02:I would add to that. So, Chris Early. Was sitting there a minute ago. He walked out. So I don't know if you know Chris, but he's a personal injury lawyer in Boston. He wrote a book earlier this year, he published it, and it's just a memoir. It's just sort of his story. Uh, has nothing to do with personal injury at all. Um, and I would find him and ask him, I think it's been a really good marketing and just good experience for him to hand that book out. And again, it he's different in his story. He has a very unique story. A lot of uh adversity is overcome, and that's what his book is.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And go to uh Ben's law firm website, right? He's how many books does he have about accident, car accident in your tree in Virginia, right? And and he he just gives them out. And now he's speaking at a medical conference and he's writing books for that, right? So oh no, there are so many ways to use it, and people are people want this.
SPEAKER_02:It's really cool. And Ben's got the uh the youth referee soccer manual or what book that he that he's done too. Absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So don't, yeah, and that's a that's a great point. Your book doesn't have to be about your law firm and practice. That's usually what we do. Um, there was a guy back in uh, gosh, where was he? Little Rock, Arkansas. And we didn't write his book, but he's a business insurance guy, you know, helps you with your personal or your insurance for your business and stuff. But he wrote a book on leadership and he hands that thing out like candy, and everybody knows him because of that book.
SPEAKER_04:And his business is massive now because he hands his book out for so it doesn't have to be about your business, but it probably should be. Great question, by the way. Any other other questions? Right here, right in front. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. It's like football, it's a handoff.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, uh, so by way of background, I am a uh a bankruptcy attorney, and uh well, bankruptcy is really great for cleaning up past problems, but by itself, it doesn't do much for the future. And so the book that I'd love to write would be a book on how to recover from bankruptcy, how you how to bounce back and achieve financial success. But I just wonder would that be the first book I should write? Because that's almost more for the clients that I have rather than the prospects that I'm trying to convert to clients. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. That's a great, great thought. So I've got two bankruptcy books uh on my table. You can come back and look at them. I think if that's where your passion and focus is, I'd write it because the clients that you're wanting, the the clients who need you, what are they wanting? They're wanting that, right? Right. And so you you as you write this and say, this is how I've help these clients who are in these situations get their life back, get the creditors off their back, rebuild their credit, regain their self-esteem. And now this is the life they're able to live because of how they've this is what I do. I think that book resonates with everybody.
SPEAKER_02:It that's my first thought. Okay. And I would suck it. You're selling the destination, not the air flight, the airplane flight. That's what you're selling. And that's nobody cares about the bankruptcy part. Yeah. They want they want that.
SPEAKER_05:They they want that lifestyle, which is exactly what you're wanting to write.
SPEAKER_03:And it just occurred to me something you said earlier. Maybe a thing to do is when I have a happy client, give them a few copies.
SPEAKER_05:Hey, if you know anybody who Yeah, and and and with bankruptcy, especially, and and there are there are a couple of other um industries we work with who people are like, well, you know, they don't people don't talk about this very much. Like tax resolution. I do a lot of tax resolution specialist books, right? Well, nobody's want to talk about when they're in trouble with the IRS. You'd be shocked. And there are ways to still get your book in people's hands and go, hey, dude, here's what happened. It it just happens. And it's it's not bankruptcy is not the end of the world. It is not. And most of the time, what from what I've learned from other attorneys, people get into it through no, in a sense, no fault of their own. They're just ignorant. They they mess up, they forget to pay their taxes, they and they're like, oh my God. Or a life event happens. Absolutely. And I've got, and praise God that the government has laws around to protect me should something wacky happen in my life. So thank you for doing what you do. The bankruptcy book that's on our table, Luke Holman wrote it, and he's out of uh Oklahoma as well. He really opened my eyes on bankruptcy. And it's it's amazing. So, yeah, absolutely. Get the book out because without you speaking that book into existence and having it out there, people are in a void. They don't know what to do. So, yeah, absolutely. Get that book done. Very helpful. Thank you. You're welcome. Other questions? You're gonna have to raise your hand high because I can't see you. All right, we got five minutes. Jonathan, I'm going to excuse you. Jonathan's going back to that back table over there. He's going to be signing books. I would, I don't know why you'd leave this room without a free book from Jonathan. And if you don't want it signed, just go get it. He's he's happy to give you an unsigned copy as well. But that's Jonathan. You can scan Jonathan's QR code here. It goes to his website if you're interested in Jonathan and talking with him. Obviously, you can scan the QR code to talk with me. I would love to interview you up here next year because we've helped you create and publish your book and use it to help grow your firm. That's our heartbeat around our family business is really to serve you and help you have a marketing asset that's going to last the rest of your career. So if you have interest in that, scan the QR code, schedule a call with me. I think it's 25 minutes, and we'll talk about your business. We'll talk about our process. Yes, you will have video preconditioning between now and then, so you'll understand more about me and our process and our pricing and our programs and all the things that we bring to the table, but we do bring in a holistic approach in that we're gonna help you create your book. We're gonna make you a best-selling author. I've got a six-month coaching program you're involved in. I'm going to give you a marketing plan after your book's published, and I back up what I do with a two-year money-back guarantee that says you're going to double your investment in two years, or I'm going to give you all your money back. I believe in what I do. I know it works. So I would love to work with you. So if you have interest, scan this, come talk with me. I'm I've got the booth right outside here. I'm going to be here until what, noon or two o'clock tomorrow, whenever this thing ends. Happy just to talk with you about how we can help you serve more people and become best selling author. I hope that you will choose to become the next paperback expert. Thanks for being here. I'm going to let you out three minutes early. Jonathan's right over there. Thank you.
