Dennis Meador: How Lawyers Attract Clients Through Podcast Networks Without Cold Outreach

Struggling to consistently attract high-value clients as a lawyer or service-based professional?

In this episode of the Passion Millionaire Podcast, Robert Roth speaks with Dennis Meador about how the Legal Podcast Network helps professionals turn conversations into clients, without cold outreach or traditional sales.

Dennis breaks down how being featured inside a structured podcast network positions you as an authority instantly, builds trust at scale, and creates inbound opportunities from the right audience. This is not about “starting a podcast.” It’s about plugging into a system designed to generate visibility and client demand.

If you’re tired of chasing leads and want a smarter, authority-driven way to grow your practice, this episode will show you exactly what’s possible.

Contact Dennis: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennismeador/ 

Podcast Website:
https://rockandrollyourdreams.com/podcast/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Create a life of entrepreneurial freedom with insights from successful creatives, entrepreneurs, and investors. Discover how they overcame challenges and turn their biggest dreams into reality. They share their personal success playbook so you can build the business and life you truly want. Welcome to Passion Millionaire, the podcast by Robert Roth. Rock and roll your dreams.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Welcome to today's episode of the Passion Millionaire Podcast. Today, a new guest, a new story, and we already hit it off talking because we share a lot of things that are yeah, we have in common, and we have in common in terms of life philosophy, the way we we live our life, we travel a lot and the way we do business. And um, I can already see like there's so much to learn for whoever is visiting, to learn about building companies, also growing them quickly, at least in some multi-seven-figure companies, even doing that remotely. So while traveling, building teams that actually work with the company, make it grow, and even stay with you for decades. And I find that quite exciting. And um, he has been an entrepreneur himself since he was the age of 14, so he's beating even me. I started at 17, he is he is really the early guy, which I love, and then um wow, he's been a pastor as a part of his life. So I'm curious to touch on that a little bit as well. And um, yeah, I would say Dennis Matter, welcome, DM. That's the way you want to be called. So it's all yours. Please feel free to reintroduce yourself quickly and just add or correct anything. DM, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Absolutely. Well, first of all, thanks for having me, Robert. Um, yeah, I mean, myself, lifelong entrepreneur, over 30 years now. I started uh my first business at 14, and I've always kind of been in that leadership role. 14. I was a I was a business owner, 16. I kind of acted as the teaching de facto youth pastor in my church. I actually pastored a full pastorate church at 18 years old. Um, my first kind of breakaway company was in my early 20s, which allowed me to in 2001 actually live in Romania and Europe off and on for a few years. Actually, my first remote company that I ran, it was a physical company in the United States, in the Midwest, and I ran it on phone cards and dial up internet from Romania. I ran my my team and my company. We started off, I invented a product, came up with a sales uh process, uh, trained a core group of people, then I put somebody in place that was managing everything. And within a year, we were doing three and a half, four million dollars. And, you know, that allowed me to kind of uh kind of start the lifestyle that I've been able to cultivate off and on uh throughout throughout my adulthood. Now I live on an island in Belize where you almost moved to. But as I told you, you're probably a little bit more thankful that you didn't because it's it's it's growing here. So we're kind of looking for our next place to uh put down roots for a little while. And then our goal is having a baby within the next, I think, three years or so, uh, more full-time travel. So uh entrepreneur, um, you know, leader or leadership positions throughout the majority of my lifetime, oldest of six kids. I probably could have guessed that just based on the other things in my life. And so here, here we are talking about, you know, life, uh remote company ownership, traveling, being what I consider to be a world citizen. So, you know, just a lot of fun stuff to talk about, Robert. So I'm excited to see where uh you take the conversation, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, 100%. I'm so curious to learn from you together with you, and um, yeah, and figure out what you might have done different from other entrepreneurs. And I mean, we can already hear the way you live is different, and that's a very inspiring lifestyle. That's why I'm doing it myself. Uh I just love the way you're doing it. Everybody has its own style to live, live this world citizenship, as you as you also call it. And I'm curious, you know, especially let's let's hop on your project that you're you're on right now and that had a very fast start. Um the legal podcastnetwork.com. Yeah. Right. So in case somebody wants to check it out, that's absolutely I'd be curious. Like, why did you start it? How did you start it? How did you make it grow so fast? I mean, it's seven figures within the first years, about 200 clients. Um, how and why exactly that?

SPEAKER_02 4:46

So uh the why I've worked with attorneys. That's kind of been my niche specialty in marketing. Um, I've been in marketing the majority of my career. Uh, didn't go to college for it, just kind of fell into it when I was in an unaccredited Bible institute uh in you know, 18, 19 years old. And uh this telemarketing firm just happened to be paying the most money. And, you know, I've always been about maximizing the time that I have to work. So I went over, started working there, and very quickly moved into like script development. Then I went into the division where they were selling magazine, um, you know, ads and magazines for police, magazines like fraternal order police, things like that. So kind of took off with that, actually became the manager of that division um at 19 years old, uh 20, 19, 20 or so, uh, managing guys that are my age now in their 40s that went up for the same position. And, you know, it was it was kind of a scary thing to stand in front of a bunch of guys who are your dad's age, looking at you like you little pipsqueak. And I just literally looked at them and I was just like, guys, I don't think I got the job because I'm better than you. I think I got the job because I'm the most willing to learn from all of you and make us all the best together. And that kind of really quickly turned everything around. And that's kind of been my approach to leadership throughout, you know. I I look at leadership as the person who is really just trying to it it's a teammate. Like I don't say my employees or my, you know, I it's it's a team. So, you know, whether I I'm a coach, hey, sure, the coach is quote unquote in charge, but at the end of the day, we all have the same goal. We're all going towards the same thing. So I don't look at it as your traditional hierarchical, sort of like I'm on top and you're underneath me and do what I say sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Um but I started selling attorneys in my mid-20s. Um, you know, after that first business, um, me and my partner just kind of had a little bit of differences. So um started selling attorneys, and I went from selling, you know, three to five hundred dollar ads in paper concepts or magnets that I things that I'd come up with to like attorneys who are like, oh yeah,$5,000 a month, let's do it. And I was like, holy cow, five thousand a month. Like it just blew my mind, you know. I'm in my, I guess, mid-20s now. And what I but it wasn't just the money. It was, it really wasn't even the money. It was I enjoy working with attorneys because sales tactics are very easily seen through by that group of people. And so I was I found success in just being brutally honest, having logical conversations, not backing down, not being intimidated, believing that sure, you're you're much more intelligent when it comes to law and you've got you know all of these degrees. But at the end of the day, I know more about marketing than you do. And we're in my arena right now, my friend. So I could have that confidence. Yeah. And so I've sold to attorneys, you know, for the majority of my career from my mid-20s to even up to now. I had another partnership up until December of 23. I'd been with the guy for about five years. We had a five-year agreement, and he bought me out. And I had been, you know, I always try to stay as much as I can on the front lines, talking to clients, talking to potential clients. And I had heard a lot of attorneys say, Well, do you guys do anything with podcasts? And so we were doing like SEO and content and website stuff at the time. And I went to my partner and I was like, you know, we should start a podcast program. And he's like, you know, let's start an answering service. I was like, okay. So I keep a notebook with several like business ideas. It's just, you know, like some people play Dungeons and Dragons and they build a whole world of like, you know, the sorcerer wizard and all that stuff. Like, I build business worlds in my head.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

And I put those down on paper. Sometimes they come to nothing, but I probably at any given time might have a dozen, 25, 30 actionable business ideas that if everything were to shut down by the following, you know, Monday, I would be up and, you know, selling something uh and delivering a product in some way. So when my partner decided on that uh to do the buyout, I was like, you know, I think I'm gonna do this podcast network. So um I took about six months to prep. Uh we sold a few, you know, during the first five months, but we officially launched May of 24. And, you know, from May of 24 to uh May of 25, we did seven figures. Now we're on pace to probably double that. Uh that doesn't mean we're doing 14 figures for those of you who are not math people. Um but why not?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah, why not? What's wrong with people?

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Um, but yeah, so it's it's it's definitely been, I think it's a culmination. It's a culmination of my business experience, my remote experience, my leadership experience, um, my sales experience, my product. Yeah, it's just, you know, I'm I'm almost 50 years old. So I'm kind of in that like lucky space in life or like, you know, um old enough to know what to do and still young enough to have the energy to mostly do it. So um it's taken off, and I've been very, very fortunate. I've had some great people follow me over from different relationships I've had through the years. I've found some great, you know, top-notch people that are now on my team that, you know, I tell them, I'm like, I don't know why you're on my team. It's like, you know, I I jokingly say, you know, I thought I was doing like an expansion franchise for some sort of like major sports league, and we're gonna probably be like one in ten the first year. And the only reason we win is maybe an own goal or something from the other team. And yet here we are, I feel like we're going to the championships. And it's because I've been able to see just a great amount of talent around me. Um, and I'm very, very thankful for that. So that's kind of the journey of why attorneys, why the Legal Podcast Network. I really believe that podcasting is having its day. I enjoy podcasting. That's another culmination in this experience. I I did a podcast in Austin, Texas for about uh in 2019. I think it did about 60 episodes in 30 days or over a 90-day period. Um, and yeah, we just it it's been something that I've I've thoroughly enjoyed every single aspect of those. So having them all kind of crescendo into one moment in my life to where hopefully within five to seven years, I'm running three hours a week, meeting with my leadership and living my life. That's kind of the goal.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, that's quite exciting. And um, I'd also be curious to learn like what is, you know, what is the product? Like, what is it doing for your your clients really and why are they investing into it and not taking the same amount of money and putting it somewhere else?

SPEAKER_02 11:43

So what we're you what we're doing is we're using podcasting a little bit differently. We're using it to do what we call authoritative positioning. So most marketing emanates from the person, the company, the individual. And it basically says, hey, I'm great, you should hire me. I'm funny, you should hire me. I've got a relatable logo, you should hire me, whatever it is, right? But it emanates from the person. What I really believe in, where I've seen, you know, sales processes be most successful, um, marketing be most successful, is when you build it from the actual end user backwards. So what we do is we do what we call authority podcasts. And right now it's lawyers, we are extending that out to be, you know, other verticals. But essentially, we when we bring on a client, we find out who is your client. And it's not just, oh, anybody's my client. No, like you're a divorce lawyer. Okay. I'm a your divorce lawyer. Who is your client? Uh, do you focus more on like high asset divorce? Are you more like the to be on the custody stuff? Do you like to represent women versus men or men versus women? Do you like, you know, is there certain like what is the demographic? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

So then we take that and we build the themselves. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

We we build the whole content plan around that person. So for example, if my client, uh, ideal client is a male with high assets, um, you know, going through a divorce, I might do, I might have my client, you know, do a podcast session, and these are about 15, 20 minutes, where they're talking about how to keep the secondary assets that you want. How do you keep the boat? How do you keep the lake house? You know, how do you keep the things that are important to you? So when they get into that part of it, you know, asking these questions, my clients are assuaging fears, bringing clarity to a very unclear situation. You know, I just got my, let's say I'm criminal, you know, I just got my third DUI. Am I going to jail? Uh well, in this circumstance, and then now there's a 15-minute podcast. So we build from the the content from the ideal client, but then not only that, we multiply that time. So one podcast, we turn into 30 uh assets. Yeah. So 10 shorts and reels, 10 audiograms, and 10 static ads. We also disseminate all of that, all of those for them on up to 10 outlets. You know, Facebook, Instagram, uh, Blue Sky, Pinterest. There's there's 10 of them that we do, all the major ones, and then a few that you're kind of like, huh, okay. Um we distribute the shows on 25 different outlets, audio, video, we create a YouTube channel. So we're just basically taking 30 minutes of a client's time and turning it into 30 days of marketing that is about their client. So what that does is by the time the client comes to them, the client's already engaged with them. And instead of saying, okay, attorney number seven out of 20 that I'm gonna call, what's your rate? They're saying, Hey, I've been listening to your podcast and you know, I've seen your videos and I really want to work with you. How does this work? And it's just flipping back that dynamic of authority by positioning my clients in a way that culminates in better clients that fit their ideal. You know, if their people are high asset uh, you know, divorces, we're not doing how to find the cheapest lawyer in Atlanta for divorce, right? We're not doing an episode on that. So it's just that kind of stuff where we've kind of flipped backwards the marketing sort of mind frame and then really tried to multiply the time of our clients to create custom content. And we also take that content and put it on their website in FAQ form, blog form, which does scales well, not just for traditional SEO, but for GEO and AIO and AIEIO and all the other O's that we've got out there.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

I hear you. Okay, so that sounds um totally different than um maybe in the first place, once you once you hear that, because I mean that is a game changer for their business, basically.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Yeah, and we're seeing great results. You know, our clients are just like, yeah, I'm getting clients. Uh I don't have to argue with them about pricing. I don't have to really sell them. They come and they're just like, I've been listening to you for a few months now through my separation. I need the attorney now, and you're my attorney, you just didn't know it. So, like we've seen that over and over and over again. And it's it's been very exciting because honestly, this was just in my mind, I was just like, I think this would work. And I think if we do it this way and to see it come to fruition with the team and with clients that are happy and, you know, everything else. I mean, what more can you really ask for in life?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah, and how how are you getting those recordings done? Like, is it that they are doing that, those recordings by themselves, or you are helping them somehow? Um, or, you know, are they being done locally or you know, remotely? How how does it work exactly?

SPEAKER_02 16:49

We do everything remotely. We provide a producer who, when when it's being done, they make sure that everything's working. Um, we've been using StreamYard, but I think we're about to switch over to Riverside, actually, what we're using here. And then we also provide a host. I have about eight hosts. Uh my lead, my lead anchor uh also does three or four times a week on CNN. Um so we've got like top-notch hosts. Yep. And what that does is So they get presented by somebody else. And then Right. And it helps them relax them. These people know how to interview and bring the best out of people. So it's not on the client to be great on camera. We just try to set it up like it's a client questioning them in a very like familiar setting, especially because so many people have been using Zoom for the last few years. So having a conversation on Zoom, we just get them into a conversation that's structured around these questions. We send them the questions ahead of time, and then they just kind of answer the questions, and then the host just kind of, if they're a little low energy, they try to bring it up. If they're a little too much, they try to bring them down and they, you know, they regulate the situation. So we again, that that was something that just having work with attorneys. I firmly believe in no homework. Yeah. My clients should not have homework.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah, and that's a very smart concept, I have to say. I I like how you're preparing that for everybody, and it does sound like no homework.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Yeah, it's just like and and it why? I mean, I graduated high school with a 2.43 GPA, 1,012 out of 1,543 students. Why? Because I didn't do one piece of homework for four years, but I aced every test. So just because you don't want to do homework doesn't mean you're not smart. You might be busy, you might be doing other things that might just not be able to capture your attention. And a lot of marketing companies, they want to give their clients homework. And then when they lose the client, they get frustrated and upset. And yes, it's a partnership, and yeah, they have to show up to do their recordings, and you know, we send them the finished product after it's triple Q8 on our side just to make sure that maybe they didn't quote the wrong case or something. But for the most part, we try to make it as frictionless and and as easy as possible for our clients.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, and it does sound like that. I find that quite um yeah, quite an interesting setup that you have, and I can see how that um brings the value. And I mean it literally is a game changer for the whole marketing. And if if if it helps clients to come to you and asking you, can I work with you versus you having to go out and and hunt the clients, right? That is a that is a totally different game. And that's exactly the game if you're a lawyer that you want to play. It's more fun, it's easier and really better clients in the end.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Exactly. And as well, you know, I mean, it's not just lawyers. I mean, you think about any sort of knowledge worker, uh, accountants, um, you know, we're really going into uh like authoritative positioning for like consultants and coaches and you know, people that, you know, want to position themselves. Why? Because they have a ton of knowledge, it's in their head, they have no problem talking. Talking is not the hard part for most people who are smart.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

It's the actually sitting down and, you know, especially, you know, I'll have people say, Well, you're obviously a type A. And I'm like, listen, you're you're you're you forgot three letters. There's a D, an H, and a D behind that. So, and most successful high-energy business owners kind of fit that model. Like in the moment, they're great, but you send them home with homework and they're probably going to come back, you know, their head bowed a little bit and feel like maybe I'm not as good as I've as I felt I was. So I'm just trying to structure things in a way that most successful um knowledge workers can harness really what is their innate ability, which is to talk.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yeah, and I'd be curious, like in terms of results for your clients, the lawyers that you're working with, is there some you know crazy transformation that you have seen happening? Like the the the poster poster crack.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

There's a few of them. You know, I think we have 15 or 20 testimonials right now on the front of our website, first thing you see. And, you know, over and over you see it brings us clients, we get good clients from it. But there's one that we had, and and and I'll listen, this is fortuitous timing in society. This is not, I'm a marketing genius, but in December of 24, this guy signs up with this. His name is, I believe, Ben Benjamin England, and he does uh border compliance and tariffs. So uh I don't know if you paid much attention to the news in the United States about tariffs and uh all that's happening in that aspect, but he went from regionally referred to nationally waitlisted as a as an attorney because we gave him a platform and he was the one speaking on it before anybody else really and I mean they tried to jump into it, but he was the expert. He was already doing that for 20 years. But we just put him on that platform. And we've had several like that where you know they went from like regionally referred by, you know, for clients to now they're on a national platform. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

But we've also seen several like it's a a a real, you know, authority game changer. Like lifting to a different level. Like that's another aspect.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

It can be, absolutely. And that's our goal. Like we only work at, for example, on the local level, we only work with one of each kind of. So like we work with one criminal defense attorney in this county in Chicago, and then one criminal in these two counties in Chicagoland, like, you know, or this in Atlanta, you know. So we don't by setting up authoritative positioning, to me, it seems disingenuous for me to say, hand me, you know, a couple thousand, you know, one, two thousand dollars a month, and we don't charge a lot. You know, like my biggest program is less than two thousand dollars a month. And that is a show every week, 90 pieces of content. That's three posts a day, that's 900 posts a month, five to 10 pieces of uh website content, plus your show on everything else, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like I'm not charging an arm and a leg because why? We we have a big team all across the world, 15 countries. We're very AI forward. So we're always utilizing tools to be better, faster, with less friction. But that local guy or girl, we want them to be the go-to for divorce in Atlanta because of the way that we market them. Can anybody else have a podcast? Absolutely. But if they come to us and say, hey, I want to can I want to do exactly what they're doing, let me sign up with you. And uh, we just sat, we we turn them down all the time and just say, I'm sorry, we already have a client in that market.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah. Absolutely fair. Makes total sense. I'm curious about how did you grow this so fast? Like within one year, seven figures, two hundred clients. Where did those clients come from? How did you attract them, find them, uh let us know your your C I sold them. I went out and sold my first hundred clients and created cold calling emails, social media.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Cold call. We had some we have a good email list that we work. So some email, cold calling, and then setting them up, doing a demo with them, and then just listening. What did they like? What didn't they like, going through the first round of customers, where you know, what was working, what didn't resonate. So I just spent that first year just like living inside of my product, living inside of my sales process so that I could start like so I could get a good base of customers, and then I because I bootstrapped, I didn't have investors, it was just me. And so I started bringing in people. Now I have eight directors over eight different divisions of the company, and I work with them directly. But in the beginning, it was just me. I mean, my first set of podcasts, I have a buddy here on the island who is a Miami attorney. He does Miami divorce, his business partner does Miami um criminal defense. I hired a couple of people off of Upwork to be hosts, and I just said, this is how it's structured, this is how the podcast is going to be. And we built our first our first few quote unquote legal podcasts in the way that I had envisioned them, built the website out and just said, This is what you're getting. We started with three pieces of content per show. Now we give 30. So, you know, we've just built and built and built, but yeah, in the beginning, it was just, I just got into the trenches. And I mean, that's just always worked for me. Every company I've ever built, I get in, I get in the trenches, I sell the product, I talk to the people, I hear what they like, I hear what they don't like. I like to build what I like to call a an innocuous style of selling.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Which how did you speed it up so fast? I mean, 200 clients in one year, get to seven figures. I mean, it's still at some point, first, okay, you have to figure out the product, right? But then uh you need to get to numbers. So how much outreach did you do with channels? How white the response rates? What was the, you know, show up rates? It was me.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Some of my it was it was me. Like, I mean, but here's the thing like I close at 70%. I've worked with attorneys for 20-something years. So, like, you know, so I knew like going off just purely my numbers, but what I what I was doing is I was building a sales process where all the questions I got at the end, I answered with the presentation. Because what I teach my team is if you're answering questions through the presentation or demo, you're a consultant. Especially if you answer them without being asked. If you're answering them at the end of the demo, you're a salesperson. And you don't want to be a salesperson. You want to be considered a consultant, an equal, somebody who's offering value in the conversation. So I built this sales process. Then I brought in a young man and he started setting demos. I wrote a script for him. He went in and started setting demos. He started filling my calendar. So then we started seeing even more. So beginning, I sold, you know, a couple a week. Then all of a sudden it was just like, boom, now I'm selling like 25 a month by myself, bringing on 25 or so clients a month by myself some months.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Okay, and how many talks did you do per day?

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Um I mean, I'd usually have a pretty I'd usually have about 30 on my calendar with about a uh with about a 40% show-up rate. Okay. Uh four with about a 40% show up rate. So that's about 12 people showing up, and then, you know, I'm selling six to eight clients a week.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Okay. So 30 years that we're in there and then okay, 40% show-up rate. Yeah, it's nice.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Yeah. So um, and closing at 70% if I send a contract. Yeah. You know, because you do discovery and they're like, oh yeah, like I just started this and I have$12 in the bank, but I just want to see this for someday. Okay, well, let's talk someday. Like, here's some information. Here you go, here's my website, here's what we do. I'll talk to you. We'll touch base back in six months, see how things are going. So, you know, you kind of have things like that where so that's why I say based off of actual contracts sent, not based off of however many people showed up. But but our, you know, so what we did is we had an email database that we started just providing a ton of value. And the value came from I record everything I do in my company. When I'm meeting with my leaders, when I'm doing sales training, everything gets recorded. All those recordings go to my team and they make all of our content out of it, all of our, you know, legal content, scripting, emails, everything. So like it's it's like I wrote it all, but it's just me freely talking all the time.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

So like I'm not wasting time. I'm not going, oh, I got to come up with uh newsletter content this week. Right. Like I've published a daily email newsletter since, you know, probably three months into this. And I've never once sat down and said, what is my email newsletter going to be about? It's literally just pieces of recordings, you know, kind of taken by my team. And the same thing with, you know, all of our social and things like that. So I've really just I try to work in my best flow. And then my team captures what happens in my flow. And then they take that flow work that is my best possible work because I'm relaxed, I'm not stressed, I'm, you know, not dealing with things and, you know, feeling timelines, and I'm just being me and talking through situations and whatever. And then they're taking that flow content and then using it for clients and using it for, you know, outreach and using it for email newsletters. And now we're building courses and, you know, all this stuff. But it's all been from me just being focused on just staying in my everyday flow state versus like time, time constraints and deadlines and what are we going to do? I don't really worry about that stuff. Yeah, I just keep looking where are we going together, and that's what we that's what I focus on.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And uh, I'd be curious also, um, because the way you've described that, are you using AI also that uh has access to all of those recordings and and and everything else in order to pull out those information quicker and reduce the the time on your own?

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Yes, typically the way we do things is human origin, AI, then AI, and then eyes edit. And then eyes edit. Yeah. I don't finish, I have I have a content department, but yes. So the original thought has to be the person, the kind of meat on the bones is from that, but then the shaping of the way everything looks is is people. And that I found builds the best, you know, end usage of content because you know, you've got original thoughts, you've got original concepts, but you've got them structured in a way that people want to hear them. But then you have somebody come back in and they put the humanity back into it to where it is real and relatable and you know, it's nuanced and all of that. And I mean, my content department, young lady in Atlanta, you know, she's graduated with whatever English, you know, degree that she needs. My other content director, she's been, you know, um uh interviewing attorneys for 10 years. We've worked together for seven years. So she's interviewed thousands of attorneys and learned how to pull good content out of that. So, again, like I said earlier, I'm just very fortunate to have some very good people that have chosen to be on my team.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yep. Makes a lot of sense. I'm curious also, I have to bring this up as promised also in the beginning. I mean, uh, that's a total switch in topic. You have been a pastor also as a part of your life. So um I'm curious, like, was that a part of your life where you been a pastor and that was it? Or have you been an entrepreneur and a pastor at the same time? Or how was that? And how did that evolve? And are there any learnings that maybe an entrepreneur could have from this phase in your life as well?

SPEAKER_02 31:52

So from 16 to 36-ish, um, yes, I was a pastor, but I always had my own business as well. Um, I always worked, I I I like to work with start with smaller churches in areas that really couldn't afford a pastor and build up a church to a point where they could. Um, I really enjoyed that journey. I did not enjoy when churches went from organisms to organizations. And that's typically, it depends on the area, but usually two to three hundred is when people started, oh, we need boards for this and mission boards and this and that and committee this and committee. You know, I have always just enjoyed more of the sitting down, talking through things, you know, like figuring things out. And so I would take a church, like my first church that I took was 15 people in the middle of Nowheresville, Ohio. You know, it was like three families and husband, wife, and one or two kids, and you know, meeting with this or started meeting with this family and built it up to, I don't know, 120, 150 people. And then we actually then helped them. There was another church that was just kind of on the outskirts, and basically that church could afford a full-time pastor if our church merged with them. And I was like, I was I went to school. So I was like, I don't need to be a full-time pastor. So you we built it up where two little churches became one decent sized church to support one full-time pastor. So I've always made my own money. I've always kind of been of the opinion like I don't, I want to live financially the way I want to live. And when you have that sort of like ministry aspect, like if you're living large in some people's opinions, it hampers what you can do. But if they're like, oh, well, he makes his own money and he, you know, he does pretty well, and then he comes and he basically volunteers his time for us, or you know, I've had churches that paid for different things, like paid for my housing or whatever. And you know, like they insisted. I'm like, okay, fine, you can pay for that. But I just never liked that concept of working for people that I was supposed to be leading. And, you know, especially in in the kind of churches I was in. So I, but I so I always had my own business, my own uh, and then some sort of ministry. And, you know, I was a hard charger from, like I said, at 14 with my first business. Even in high school, I had like one or two businesses or and then I'd usually have a job too, and then squeeze school in there enough to show up for tests so I could graduate.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

And so, like, for me, it was just one of those things that I kind of came to a crossroads, and and I'll just kind of give you the why that chapter closed. Is there's two parts to it. One was being of the mind frame that every moment must be monetized, and that's really how I thought, I worked about 20 hours a day for years. You know, like if I was what if I was sitting down, I was watching a documentary that I was going to teach something about. Like I did not believe in wasting time. I studied about 20 hours a week because I taught four or five times, had my own business. I have now three grown children, but three small children. I literally worked myself into a nervous breakdown and I spent a year and a half in bed. I thought I had MS. I would lose like cognitive function where I couldn't hardly put a sentence together. Um, I would, you know, I would I would fall over while I was walking. It was awful. And I I thought I had MS. I got in with a neurologist, and he's like, and he he was real kind about it. He said, You have what we call successful man syndrome. And I was like, Oh, okay, well, what is that? When he described it to me, I just go, Are you saying I had a nervous breakdown? And he's like, Well, some people might use that term as well. And I was just like, Well, thanks for the soft fall, but okay. So, you know, I had to Oh my God. I had to take some, you know, I took uh uh medicine that helped me with like releasing the right kind of chemicals in my brain and things that I apparently was just had run out of because I I charged so hard and just kind of rebuilt my life from there. And so when I stepped away from that, I couldn't be in the ministry. But I also have a had a daughter, have a daughter who at about eight years old, which this is about the same time frame I started transitioning, she came to me and now we were in very right-wing, like independent, fundamental, King James only, Bible-believing Baptist churches, no pants on women, no television, no rock music, just strict as strict can be. Street preaching, knocking on doors, I mean, you name it, we were doing it. My eight-year-old daughter comes to me and says, Dad, I don't like boys the way I'm supposed to like boys. I like girls like that. And I was just like, well, first of all, that had kind of gone against everything that I had understood biblically because, and I won't get into the politics of it, but the reality was I knew that if I stayed where I was, that daughter was going to have a hard time in life because she was going to spend the next 10 years being told that she's an evil, awful person. So we kind of transitioned away from that. We moved down to Austin, Texas. The goal in Austin was to find a more accepting kind of church, but the problem was I had so ingrained my own family of like, this is the only way, this is the truth, this is what the Bible says, everything else is a lie. That when we tried to find a middle ground, they just couldn't quite grab onto that concept. So we kind of got out of church. And, you know, now I tell people I'm what's called an agnostic universalist, which means if you tell me you're right, I'm gonna agree with you. If you tell me they're wrong, I'm gonna agree with you. Because at the end, none of us are gonna know till after we're dead. And that's just the reality. The Buddhist says one thing, and if they die and wake up as a, you know, as an elephant, then good on them. Like, then they were correct. The Christian says, no, you have to ask Jesus into your heart. And, you know, if that's the way, then when you die, you wake up in heaven. Good on you. The, you know, and we could just go across all these different world religions and and talk about, but the reality is none of us know until we're actually dead, dead. And don't, don't tell me a story about somebody who died for 10 minutes because there's still a lot of neurochemical stuff happening. Bring somebody that and don't tell me, oh, somebody did die and come back three days later. Okay, fine, whatever. But the reality is we don't have enough of a case study of people who have been dead a decent amount of time that have come back and said, actually, you know who's correct. So until then, we just don't know. So that's kind of where I stand on it. I don't like to argue about politics. I don't like to argue about religion, because at the end of the day, I've never really had very many conversations with either of them that have brought me closer to somebody.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Yeah, it's quite, quite, quite interesting. Learning still also, not about um the religious journey and how you evolve, but also like what I'm hearing uh building churches being part of that. I mean, that sounded pretty entrepreneurial to me as well. Merging churches, right? And then um, is there anything, let's say, that is that would be a very big learning that you have taken from this exact time that also helped you to become that entrepreneur that you are now, that basically has, you know, has it in his DNA or in his blood to create those seven-figure companies within one year?

SPEAKER_02 39:24

I I think it's, you know, there's a term called servant leadership, but but to me, like the ultimate leader is the one who empowers others to be their best self so that collectively we accomplish things that are better than we could have by ourselves. And so I see leadership as one, the person who ultimately takes responsibility. Like everything rises and falls on leadership. You know, people say things to me, and I'm like, listen, if this company fails, no one's gonna go, well, you know, his client services director just wasn't very good. So can you blame them? No, they're gonna say he failed. And so I understand that I've taken on that responsibility, but I also have a responsibility to those who have chosen to be on my team. So, like, you know, one example that I like to give in my team, we were just talking about this in our leadership meeting. You know, I get pitched all the time in the inbox. And I'll just say, hey, like, because I'll be like, love to chat with you about whatever. And I'm like, okay, so what exactly is your value proposition? Like, what would we meet for and what are you hoping that it can do for me? And if they're just like kind of mealy-mouthed or they don't really tell me, or they say this, and I'm like, uh, that just I have no need for that right now. Well, I still think we'd find value. I'm like, listen, I have a responsibility to the 65 people who work on my team and the 200 clients that my team serves above all else, except for my own family, of course. That is who I am beholden to. So whether you call it servant leader, servant leadership or whatever, that's what I've learned is leadership isn't getting others to do your bidding. It's taking the position of, hey, I'm gonna help us all together to do the best that we can do collectively.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah. Quite interesting learning. Thanks for that. Before I ask my very last question for our interview, um, I want to give you an opportunity also to, you know, let people know in case somebody wants to get in touch with you personally or with your company, the legalpodcastnetwork.com.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Um, so this one we've already placed.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

Uh but let us know all the channels where people could get in touch with you or or the endeavors that you're well, I would I would say, you know, on a business, business uh, you know, personal, professional level, LinkedIn has kind of been my playground the last year. Um, I've enjoyed that, built some great relationships out of it, um, have some great referring relationships and a lot of clients out of it. So um that's a great place, you know, having discussions. Like I'm in this one random discussion with upfront pricing for thought for thought workers, you know, just in the inbox. Me and him going back and forth for weeks now. He's not trying to sell me anything. So like I love it because I get to have all these like interesting conversations, just like podcasting, but you know, even more so. Um, so LinkedIn is the best place to kind of connect with me, you know, add me, I'll add you. You know, if you want to try to pitch me right away, I'm gonna ask you what value and why. And if there's no value and there's no why, then you're not getting my time. And if we can have a granular sort of like geeky conversation about aspects of marketing or business or whatever, I'm always down for that.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Yeah, glad to hear. So we'll be making sure to also link your LinkedIn show notes as well as the legal podcastnetwork.com. Right. So it's time exactly.com. It's time for the last question. And um, let me let me maybe find a little bit of a different angle, because you've just brought kind of a one learning out of your pastor career, which I find uh uh quite an interesting, maybe um, I don't know, maybe approach to life, pastor life, and then the entrepreneurial aspect, all of this overlapping, but at the same time going back to the travel life that you're living right now, and you're gonna more and more extensively live right now. And there are some people who are also listening who maybe have the idea or the dream of doing something like that, but never hopped into it. And um, you and me, we know how this is, it's possible it all works. But to those people who maybe have this dream idea to do something like that at some point, travel the world, doesn't matter if it's slow traveling or faster traveling, but see a lot of the world and still continue the entrepreneurial journey. If there was one thing you could say to those people, this is here's the microphone.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

Okay, so if you're gonna travel and Be an entrepreneur, the number one thing is make sure wherever you go has great internet. That is literally the first thing we look up. When we travel someplace, when we're, you know, if we're staying, and usually we do Airbnbs, but we make sure, like, even to the point where I'll have them send me a screenshot of the up-down speed. Because I can't tell you the number of times I've ended up somewhere and it's just like I'm here for a week and I can't work. I can work off my spotty cell phone coverage. And, you know, it's a wreck and you're a wreck all week. Like make sure that's taken care of. Number two, when you're traveling, especially if you're traveling with somebody like I have my wife, and then you know, we have a baby on the way. But when you're traveling, create a separate space for working. So get a two-bedroom uh Airbnb. Get a place with a, you know, if you're in a hotel, get a suite hotel where she can be in the bedroom watching TV and you could be in there. Because I can't tell you how many people, you know, like I see them traveling, like, and I'm talking to them because we kind of live the same lifestyle. And I see them like in this tiny little hotel room because, like, well, it's only$37 to stay here. And I'm like, yeah, but for$100, you could have had like a casita and like two bedrooms and like been way more comfortable. So take into account how you're going to work while you're traveling. Don't try to squeeze in your company to your travel. Build your travel around your company time. And that's why I can still last year, five months traveling, still grew. Still, uh still most of them I was, you know, and when I'm traveling, I don't do podcasts and I don't meet with clients. I just do three hours a day of internal stuff, usually three days a week. So when I'm traveling, I'm working roughly 10 hours a week. But I'm still making sure that we build around that versus like, I'll just take my laptop and when I have a couple extra hours. No, because you're gonna get there and it's gonna be like, oh, well, I want to go to that and I want to go to that and I want to do this and I want to do that, and oh, I'll just catch up on emails later. And then your company suffers. So take it seriously. The second thing I'd say about traveling, and I hope it's okay if I just add this one more thing. Yeah. When you think about traveling, here's what a lot of people think about traveling. They think about anchored traveling. So you have your house, your car, your boat, you have all your payments, you got your electricity. So you've got this like this dope domicile that you're based out of that costs you let's just use a nice round number of$5,000 a month, which I'm being pretty like generous on how low that is, but let's just say$5,000 a month. And then you're gonna travel and you gotta pay for tickets and you got to go during like spring break when everybody else is paying for tickets. So now you're paying two to three times the rate of everybody else. And you think that traveling costs three times your lifestyle. I don't own a car. I don't own a home. We are about to, we got rid of about 90% of our things when we move to the island. We're about to go back down to about four to six suitcases when we move to Merida. And by the time we get on the road permanently in another two to three years, we'll be both on um roller bags and backpacks. You need to be thinking about how to live with less if you want to experience more. Stop buying things that anchor you to one place because you're short changing your own dreams. I always remind my wife, because she'll be like, Oh, I wish we could do this. I say, babe, if you want to anchor down to, you know, the suburbs of Cleveland so we could be near your mom. I mean, we could build an anchor there, but like that's gonna be the majority of our. No, you're right. Like, we don't want that anchor. So think about what it is you have that anchors you to a place, either because of finances or because of upkeep. And how can you shed it if you really want to live a traveling life?

SPEAKER_01 47:56

Yeah, couldn't couldn't agree more to all of those things. For me personally, I do have an anchor now, but for many years I lived exactly like that makes things easier. Well, thanks for sharing all of that, DM. Really appreciate you taking the time, bringing all of those stories, experience, insights, learnings to us. That's awesome. So I'm excited to already share this and then hopefully have people have those insights and um potentially contact you, maybe some lawyers, even figuring out about the legal podcast network.com. Just like that domain name. So really appreciate that, DM. Thanks again.

SPEAKER_02 48:36

Absolutely thanks for having me on, Rob.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Go to rock and rollyourdreams.com forward slash podcast.