Among the sayings that I am most fond of using is that when you sell professional services, it’s not a good idea to keep what you do a big secret. And one of the secrets to my success in my law firm has been generously giving my thoughts on a variety of different topics because it is not selling, it’s about trust building. The clients that tend to hire me now have been tracking me for a long time. They see my videos. They see what’s on LinkedIn. They get the newsletter. These business to business type clients, these business owners who I’m targeting, they might not need me today, but they might need me in two years. And it’s not enough for me just to have a digital calling card website online. They’re not going to spend any time thinking about me and they’re not going to spend any time thinking about my firm unless I offer them something that is going to help them get smarter, unless I offer them something that presents a unique perspective, unless I am able to live rent free in their mind at various points over various years until they have a problem and they say, “I need a lawyer,” because that’s the moment that they’re going to think about hiring you.

And it used to be the case that you couldn’t get up in the law library unless you were a lawyer and you had a bar card and there’s literally a guard and there’s a gate and a turnstile and you can’t get through and you can’t get the knowledge because unless you’re part of this lawyer’s guild, then it’s just us that knows this information. But now every case ever reported can be found on the internet. And there is a ton of information about everything legal on the internet and you can talk to your favorite large language model and ask it all kinds of questions about the law. And it’s all out there right now. I mean, so the gate around the law library has fallen down. And it is not the case that you can sit there in your office and do good work and hope that people are going to just find you.

If you don’t present a perspective to the world, if you’re not willing to generously share what you know. I do it through video. I do it through authorship. I do it through speaking and writing. It’s not to say that I give legal advice. I think that you can learn how to talk a lot substantively. I’ve done 90 minute videos where I talk about legal stuff and I’m very careful about my phraseology to not give anybody anything that is actionable. It’s more, you ought to think about this, you ought to think about that. And sometimes when I’m representing these kinds of clients, these are the sort of considerations that they think about. There’s ways to hedge. But now all the information that people want to know about legal stuff, it’s all out there. And if you’re not one of the voices presenting a perspective, if you’re not doing brand building, if you’re not there to have touchpoints with the clients in a business to business world where they might think that you’re engaging and trustworthy, and maybe they’re going to hire you someday, but they’re just not ready now.

If you don’t get the right kind of attention and build that brand and make them smarter and generously give of your thoughts, I think that you’re really putting yourself at a disadvantage. It isn’t even just a missed opportunity now because I think it’s almost table stakes in this digital era that your competition is going to be doing that. And if they’re not doing it now, they’re going to be doing it soon. In 2019, when I started my law firm, I was lucky in the sense that at least in what I do in the design and construction world, I think I was one of the first lawyers to kind of hit LinkedIn and hit YouTube with a lot of video, a lot of substantive content. I feel like that advantage has kind of fallen by the wayside. You can see more lawyers doing that now. And so I’m in a little bit of a different season for marketing now than I was in before.

But as far as brand building, as far as touchpoints, as far as the know, like, and trust factor, generously giving free content that helps potential clients get smarter themselves is a no-brainer. I mean, let me assure you that the CEO of the company that you would like to count as a client or the general counsel of the company that you would like to count as a client, they’re just like you and me. When I’ve got a problem and I need to solve it around my house, I’m on YouTube. How do I clean up my gutters? How do I install this light fixture in my house? You know what? I’m on YouTube and so are they. And so meeting them where they’re at and giving a perspective and giving generously of your thoughts. I have hundreds of videos now. My website’s got over 500 pages. If you have the sense that if you give your thoughts and you bring a perspective and you make people smarter that they’re not going to hire you, let me assure you that that is dead wrong.

I mean, first of all, there aren’t enough hours in a day or days in a week or weeks in a month or months in a year or years in a career for you to ever get everything that you know out on video or on a Substack or on an article. So you don’t have to worry about giving away all the secret sauce. It’s just not possible, but lean into creating free content that will help potential clients get smarter and remember you as a potential solution to their legal problems. It is a no-brainer and it is absolutely one of the things that I have enjoyed as part of my brand building and my positioning. And there is simply no way that I would be running a law firm now and working for myself. If I didn’t lean into that idea of generously giving a lot of free substantive content out there, it is absolutely a secret weapon and really table stakes these days for running a business to business law firm like the one that I enjoy.