Speakeasy Authority Marketing

This week I did an interesting interview with Dinesh D'Souza, a political commentator, author and documentary film maker. He recently authored a book and made a documentary called "Hilary's America".

Listen as he shares his personal story, the American dream and how he achieved a lot as an immigrant American. He also talks about the 2016 Presidential Election and the role of media. Towards the end he shares his valuable advice for attorneys. Listen to the interview below and make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Richard: Hi, this is Richard Jacobs with Speakeasy Marketing. Today, I am very, very excited. I have Dinesh D'Souza, very famous political commentator, political strategist, author of many books on the Clintons, on Obama, on our government. His most recent movie and book is called Hillary's America came out July of this year 2016 and the book came out as well. I went to see it personally, it was a very, very interesting movie. It talks about what may happen if Hillary Clinton becomes president and also the history of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Welcome Dinesh, how are you doing?

Dinesh D'Souza: ey, it's good to be on the show.

Richard: Yes, thanks very, very much for coming. I appreciate it. First of all, can you give folks just a brief overview of what you do, where your business is? I know generically, it's a commentator and an advisor but tell me a little bit more about what you do.

Dinesh D'Souza: Yes. I am an immigrant to the United States. I went to Dartmouth College, I served the Reagan in Whitehouse a couple of years. For most of my career, I have been a writer and a speaker based at various think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution at Stamford. I am currently also a filmmaker. I started making documentary films 4 years ago. I made one about Obama and the most recent one is about Hillary and the Democratic Party. So that, in the nutshell, is my maximum.

Richard: Have you turned to political advising or is it more of just being in the political world and putting out documentaries and books and all that stuff?

Dinesh D'Souza: Yes. I haven't done any political consulting or advising and in fact it's probably not a good idea for me to do that while I am making independent films because the credibility of the film is that I am not an extension of the Trump campaign or the Republican National Committee. I am not working on behalf of any candidate and that gives my opinions of certain independent force. They obviously can be judged more easily on their own merits.

Richard: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And what drives you to do all this work to make these movies, to write all these books? What's behind it, what's inside of you that makes you do this?

Dinesh D'Souza: Well, I think the core of it, I grew up in a country, India, which is very corrupt. It's run by gangs in effect. And if you saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire, you get a glimpse of that. When I came to America, I was entranced by this whole idea of a county where you could write the script of your own life, where you could be in the driver seat of your own destiny. This, for me, is the American dream. It isn't just about success; it's about being able to choreograph your own future and your own destiny and I have been able to do that in America. So I have seen the fruits of the American dream. I came with 500 bucks in my pocket and I have been able to, you may say, make it in America. And so my politics is based on that. It's a defense of the ladders of opportunity that enable people who start at the bottom to be able to improve their life here in America.

Richard: And what do you see is happening especially in the past couple of years with American political system and our rights and our freedoms?

Dinesh D'Souza: Well, what I see happening is that there is kind of a contest for power. Typically in America, the greatest rewards go to entrepreneurs and to people who create wealth. And I think that's deservedly so because they make lives better for so many of us. And the greatest of the entrepreneurs don't even respond, consume a demand, they anticipate demand before it even exists. Think of something like the iPhone. Steve Job, people didn't write to him and said, "Hey Steve, let's have a phone that does this and have that and can download and can access the internet", no. He thought of it, he made it and before we knew we couldn't live without it. So this is why we're living in an entrepreneurial society. But I think a very envious group of political organizers and a kind of a knowledge class of people, very powerful, very cunning are trying to rest power and control from the wealth creators and this is the political class represented by Hillary and by Obama.

Richard: It seems like a big percent of the people that would vote for the Democratic Party and it seems like that people they're ruling are immigrants, illegal or legal. If immigrants come from these countries where they have been — they've been exposed to a lot of corruption, bad government. Why would they vote for more of the same policies if they came here? How are they being diluted and what do you think is happening?

Dinesh D'Souza: Well, two things. One is immigrants by enlarge tend to come from the outside, they don't know the inner workings of America and the democrats appear under surface to be a little more hospitable to the outsiders. Certainly their rhetoric does. In reality, they have no intention of helping these immigrants get self efficiency because if an immigrant becomes self efficient, he or she doesn't need the Democratic Party. What the Democratic Party likes is they like, for example, to have the sort of urban plantations for black. They like barrios for the Latinos, they like reservations for the Native Americans. If they could, they build slums for the Asian-Americans. So their idea is to have each of the immigrant kind of dependant on food stamps, depending on federal subsidies, depending on loans, you're always at the behest of the democratic party. It's like they have let down a rope promising to pull you up but they've only pulled you up half way and there are you dandling in the air but you dare not let go because if you let go, you'll plum into the ground. You are dependant now on these guys.

Richard: Okay. What about the Republican Party? Do you see evidence of similar behavior or are they totally different from the Democratic Party?

Dinesh D'Souza: No. Certainly the republicans recognize that there is a big federal trough and it fills up with three trillion dollars of tax revenues every year. And so there is a good deal of looting of the public that goes on from both parties. Now, the difference between the republicans and the democrats is that the democrats' official ideology is one of looting whereas the republicans at least are officially against it even though some of them do it. Now, the republican party is chaotic, it's dumb, it's a mess, there is a lot of infighting and inbreeding and in fact the chaos in the republican party and its ineffectiveness has produced a candidate like Trump. So I think the republicans have a lot of problems in some ways, I don't think we needed a third party but we need to remake the Republican Party from the ground up.

Richard: Okay. Let's talk a little bit about Hillary's America, the movie that you put out. I saw it, again, very, very interesting and informative. You went into a lot of history of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Why did you do that versus talking more about contemporary issues especially issues in this very election?

Dinesh D'Souza: Well, I think it's important when we think about politics to step back for a moment and have the full picture. And the full picture that most people have in their heads is completely wrong. I think if you ask most people, educated people and you ask them, "Listen, which is the party that has been the enemy of women and minorities and Latinos and blacks, which is the party that threw the American-Indians off their land and promoted slavery, which is the party that enacted all of the segregation laws in the south, which is the party that started and revived the Ku Klux Klan, which is the party that opposed the civil rights active 64 and the voting rights active 1965 and the fair housing bill of 1968", most people would say, "Wow, that's obviously the republican party", no. This is the actual history of the Democratic Party. So an unbelievable camouflage the democrats have managed to conceal all the crimes that they did and part of their ingenuity is that they have been able to blame these crimes on the white man or on the south or on America, you know, America did it. Well no, America didn't do it because if America did it, it probably would be going on. Some Americans did it namely you, and other Americans stopped them namely the Republicans. So part of what I wanted to do is not only tell the story about Hillary's sort of gangsterism but put it in a context of a party that's done a lot of bad stuff for 150 years although then very ingeniously, kind of like Hillary covered it up.

Richard: In present day, I mean it seems that the media is extremely biased, it seems like I mean almost — I guess I would say a conspiracy to uplift Hillary and put down Trump but what's your thoughts on it? Do you see that or what do you believe that is?

Dinesh D'Souza: You know it's amazing to me. I mean I have seen political bias on the media for 30 years but I have never seen anything like this, the sort of fanaticism with which these guys are huffing and puffing to drag Hillary across the finishing line is just the sickening sight that we hold and it's very bad for our democracy because slum people can cast in a foreign vote, you've got to give them information and most people, just apart from the presidential debates, never get the candidates unfiltered. The get the candidates filtered through the lens of the media. And the media of course is producing smoke in mirrors. They are in fact covering up for Hillary. If the New York Times or CBS News were the only ones to see Hillary collapse, I can assure you there would be no article, no feature in the newspaper or on the network the next day. So whoever wins on November 8th, one party has certainly lost already and that is the credibility of the mainstream media.

Richard: What do you think is going to happen, whether Hillary wins or not, what do you think is going to happen to the media itself and what do you think is going to happen to the justice department, the FBI, I mean what do you think the fallout is going to be or will there be any fallout from what's happened with Hillary and what happened with Trump?

Dinesh D'Souza: Well, I think — I don't think the election is over yet by any means, I think Hillary is probably ahead so Trump has to come from behind. If Hillary wins, then it's very important that there would be the right checks and balances in place. I certainly hope the Republicans pull the house and the senate, that's not a done deal either. If the Republicans lose the senate that means Hillary can transform the Supreme Court. And there goes another part about checks and balances. So in other words, the way to keep Hillary in line, I mean we know she's going to basically be after all the appropriate schemes, the way to keep her in balance would be to have a check from the Republican Party and a check from the court. If those checks don't exist, then I am afraid we're in for something resembling Hugo Chavez's Venezuela or things that we have seen in third world countries. I mean we already see it now because with WikiLeaks, you realize the way that Hillary has been happily deal with third world governments pocketing $12 million in her back pocket from Morocco, selling Uranium and access to Russian Oligarchs who are pumping money into her foundation, so all this corruption she has been doing openly. She is going to continue to do it and the only question is that is there one to stop her?

Richard: Do you think the FBI, the Department of Justice and those organizations have been compromised in the public side or do you think it won't matter?

Dinesh D'Souza: I think that they've been compromised because of Obama. And essentially what was happening is while the FBI investigation is going on, I mean forget about Bill Clinton meeting under tarmac with Loretta Lynch, the head of the justice department for their little tat a tat I mean even more repulsive was Obama signaling both the Lynch and the James Comey, "Hey listen, Hillary is my gal and I'm going to hand the baton to Hillary, watch me do it", so then a guy like Comey is going to have to think, "Look, if I propose that they indict Hillary, first of all, they are not going to do it", Loretta Lynch choose — she is not going to do it, Obama is not going to do it. I am just going to make a deadly enemy of the President of the United States who happens to be my boss. So, Comey is an ambitious guy, he knows which side the bread is buttered on and so I think he chose ambition over doing the right thing.

Richard: Okay. In your personal life, you disclosed this in a movie Hillary's America but you are convicted of some election fraud, you went to an overnight I guess prison state for about 8 months. Are you in fear of being prosecuted further or were you in fear at that time? What's your step with your commentary, why do you continue to make commentary? Are you in fear or do you feel like you'll be okay?

Dinesh D'Souza: No, I have absolutely no fear. I mean there was no fraud involved in my case by the way. I did exceed the campaign finance limit but look, no American has ever gone to prison for doing what I did. I gave $20,000 of my own money to a college friend of mine who was running for the senate. There was no issue of corruption, no issue of a quid pro quo, so on campaign finance case is in almost every case, they don't even prosecute if there is no corruption. In my case, I think it was that I made a movie about Obama 4 years ago, I upset the narcissist. I know this because he was railing against me on his website barackobama.com and a few weeks later, the FBI came banging on my door. So I think this was a selective prosecution, they tried to make some sort of a political example of me and by the way, part of my sentence, unbelievably, was psychiatric counseling, as if I was Jeffrey Dahmer who put bodies in the refrigerator. But nevertheless, I did something dumb which is, I did exceed the campaign finance law and so I have been very careful this time not to give the Clintons any pretext or try anything along the same lines.

Richard: Do you think if Hillary wins the election that there'll be political fallout that shall go after Trump or go after other people that tried to stop her from becoming president?

Dinesh D'Souza: I think the Clintons are totally unscrupulous and they will try to, if they can, eliminate the obstacles to running all of America kind of like a gang. In some ways, I think if I were to honestly try to spell out what Hillary wants for America, it's the same thing that Al Capone wanted from Chicago. So what did Al Capone want? He wanted to loot the treasury, he wanted to be able to give city contracts at whim to his friends and cronies, he wanted to take his critics and push them out or get rid of them or throw them off a roof or send them out of town and finally he wanted to walk into the big Chicago stadium and have the goal crows shout with devotion, "Big Al, Big Al, Big Al". And that's basically what Hillary wants for America.

Richard: Okay. Do you think there is anyway that she will pay for what she has been accused of or you think she'll get free yet again?

Dinesh D'Souza: I think that if she wins the elections, she is basically scot-free because then it appears like the American people themselves become the jury, they had an opportunity to "Indict her by defeating her", and they chose nevertheless to have her represent them. So she will claim to be in essence absolved by the political process. And of course the judicial process is unlikely to go after her because think of the justice department, who will they be under? Hillary. Who will appoint the new attorney general? Hillary.

Richard: Yes. Do you think it's possible that any information could come up that could literally, completely derail her becoming the president or her continuing at least until November 8th and being voted on?

Dinesh D'Souza: I think that is possible. I mean right now, what I make of all these WikiLeaks revelation is that they are like little pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. And if someone is paying attention, you can see this kind of grand portrait of collusion and larceny and corruption. I mean you get all this evidence that she's openly colluding with the media. I mean they are supplying her with stories in advance to be able to approve. They feed her debate questions in advance. She rigs the democratic primaries against Bernie and the media basically is wink-wink, yes, we kind of knew you were doing it, we are not really going to hold you account for it. And so and on and on it goes. But these are more in the nature of the pieces of evidence that an attorney might put together to get a conviction in a murder case. They are not individual bombshells, rather they are just telling pieces of evidence with those who have eyes to see.

Richard: What would it take to prosecute her and who would do it at this point? Is anyone powerful enough?

Dinesh D'Souza: Well, one way for it to happen would have been for the Republican Congress to appoint and independent prosecutor and have them look into these violations rather than let the completely tarnished and untrustworthy Obama justice department do it. I think if the republicans had half a brain they'd realize that that is a hopeless enterprise. They have to do it. So they have shown a certain kind of timidity and namby-pambiness that I think is beyond explanation and is part of what has generated a phenomenon like Trump.

Richard: So I have a list of approximately 35,000 attorneys that subscribe to the podcast and get my emails and everything. Specifically for them, they'll be listening to this, any advice you have for them, anything that's going to affect their ability to navigating the function and their jobs and anything they can do to help create or perpetuate or fix the America that they want to see?

Dinesh D'Souza: Well, I don't know how Hillary's America will affect, you may say, the prospects for the attorney business but I will say that I think attorneys are the symbols of the law. And one of the greatest tragedies that's happened to America in the last several years is the abridgement at the highest level of the rule of law. Even Obama, I mean I don't — Obama is not a sort of Bonnie & Clyde in the way that the Clintons are but on the other hand, even his willingness to bend the law to his purposes. He doesn't like the immigration law, he ignores the provisions that he doesn't want to enforce. If he can't put all of ObamaCare into affect, he selectively enforces that. If he doesn't like the work provisions of welfare reforms, he ignores that. If he opposes the defense of the marriage act, he pretends like it doesn't exist. Now, this is not really what it means to live in a democracy. Obama doesn't make laws, he is the executive branch. He is hired to carry them out. And so I think we have seen a kind of carelessness about the rule of law that's about to get worse if Hillary is elected. And so my appeal to attorneys would be try as far as you can within your profession and as citizens to be custodians of this great blindfold justice system that we've inherited through the centuries and which represents one of the primes of America and the western civilization.

Richard: Okay, that's a great conclusion. I appreciate you very much taking the time and for everyone listening, I encourage you to check out the movie and the book "Hillary's America", it's very, very eye opening regardless of who you support. And thanks Dinesh, I appreciate you coming.

Dinesh D'Souza: My pleasure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes

Wouldn't you like to have the higher quality clients who are far more willing to pay your retainer fees and not price-shop you or look at you as commodity, instead have more respect for what you do. To find these kind of clients you need to change the way you market yourself as an attorney or as a law firm. To find more about how 'specific' targeting can get you more quality clients, listen to the audio and follow the strategies. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today, I want to give you a way to find higher quality clients that are far more willing to pay your retainer fee and not price-shop you and not look at you as a commodity and have more respect for what you do, wouldn't you like to have those kind of clients? Well, how can you find them? Well, the best way to find them is to attract them and to attract them, you are going to have to make some changes in how you do your marketing. So the best kind of clients I am talking about, this comes from an article from the American Marketing Association of which I am a member.

So they just talked about baby-boomers. Baby-boomers are people right now that are approximately 50 to 70 years old. This could even extend down to people on their 40s, mid 40s and up. These are the people now and in 2017 which is just right around the corner that are projected to have 70% of all the spending power in the United States. Would you rather go with people that have 30% or 70%, people that have the money? I would rather go to people that have money because they are able to pay my fees just like these kinds of people would be able to pay your fees. So having said that, how do you attract them? I am going to give you a couple of ways.

So remember, if someone is of a certain age, they want to see other people of their age that have had a similar situation to them. So what kind of pictures do you have on your website? And this goes across all practice areas. If you are in estate planning, those guys are pretty good, those guys and gals, they know their target market is adult children of aging parents or the elderly themselves or baby-boomers. So they'll typically have people, pictures with grey hair, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, great, they ride on. But what if you do criminal defense? What if you do family law or auto accidents? What kind of pictures do you have on your website? Well, I would say you want to not have pictures of kids because if you want to attract those kinds of people, 18 to 34 year olds, they are much less likely to have money. Sure, maybe their parents will pay for their case but unless you are in juvenile law and you specifically want to work with those people, I wouldn't have pictures of them. I'd have pictures of people 40, 50, 60 years old, some grey hair or a lot of it. That's what I'd have on your site because why, it's going to attract people from that same age group. How about testimonials? Hopefully, you are getting testimonials from clients but either you're referencing the age of the people that you've helped.

So if I am 50 years old, let's say, and I get a DUI or I'm facing divorce and I go on your site or I look at Avvo or Yelp or Google+ and I look at your reviews, are they going to be from young guys and young gals or are they going to be from people of my age? I'd be far more comfortable if you help people of my age versus youngsters and I am sure you would feel the same way. Think about it. What if you went to someone, what if you went to a doctor and you are 50 years old and the doctor is a young kid that's 25, would you trust him? No, no way. They don't have your life experience. What if you went to a financial planner and they are a some 30-year old girl, would you trust them? No. So just like your clients are looking for someone of their age, you are looking for someone that's your age to help you with your marketing, to help you do a financial plan, whatever it may be.

So pictures are very important, testimonials are also very important. Now, what are the issues that an older person would have within your practice area? So let's take family law, for instance. So younger people might be looking for annulments, they might not have children at all, they might be in a marriage that is going to be an uncontested divorce and the division of assets is puny, they have nothing accumulated. It's typically not a long-term marriage. There is no business that's owned most likely. Older people, long term marriage, possibility for a perpetual alimony, perpetual spousal maintenance, much longer term of alimony and spousal maintenance, they may be self-employed, they may have older children or grown children in the mix, they may be substantial assets, very, very different creature than the young person that you don't want to attract. So, in your marketing, in the content you put on your website, in what you say on the phone, in the whole appearance and status and stature of your website and all your marketing, you want to appeal to older people. So for family law, there is a hint of how you do it.

How about for a DUI/DWI? Well, underage drinking, sure, maybe parents will help you out but I wouldn't go there if you want to get better cases. For DUI and DWI, what would lead someone to having that at 40, 50 or 60 years of age. Well, it's more of a life event, maybe a spouse dies, maybe they are facing divorce, maybe they lost a long-term job. These are more of the kind of people that will tend to act out and have a lot more at stake. They may have families, kids, a home and all that, they have a lot more at stake if they get a DUI conviction. So different targeting, again different species of clients.

How about even criminal defense? Well, drug cases probably would be younger people. Domestic violence maybe older, white collar crime, probably definitely older. These are people more established in positions. Wage and hour discrimination. That may be an area. Embezzlement, those kinds of crimes that older people would commit versus younger ones, and that should be your focus if you are doing criminal defense, for instance. How about auto accidents where it's kind of impossible to know who will get into an accident? Well, there are certain ways you can target. What kind of cars will older people drive versus younger people if they get into an accident? Older people are likely to have more car insurance, therefore it's the higher possibility that you could get a better settlement for them. Or if your client is involved in an accident with an older person, what kind of cars do they drive, where do they tend to get into accidents versus younger people, what areas of town, what time of day etc.

There are ways that you can target people even that have no idea themselves that they are going to have troubles such as an auto accident and target older people. You may want to target areas where older people live, maybe there are old age communities that you can target geographically using Google Pay per Click or Facebook etc. So again, regardless of your practice area, there are ways that you can put out the message that you are looking for older folks, not the young guys and the young gals that have no money. And I heartedly suggest you do because as studies have shown, like the AMA says, they are holding the purse strings and they are the ones that are going to be able to pay your retainer fees and not look at you just as a commodity. They are the ones that are less likely to look up 10 attorneys on the internet and just shop by price and look at a few reviews and make a decision. They having grown up with the internet, like younger people have, and they have a very different perspective on it. So I hope this helps. If you need any help with your marketing, your targeting and you want to change the focus of the type of clients you are attracting, give us a call 888-225-8594, or email [email protected]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes

In this podcast David talks about the work his company is doing to keep the Internet open, affordable, and more importantly surveillance-free. Listen to the audio to find out how Open Media runs community-driven campaigns to educate and empower people to safeguard their digital rights & digital privacy. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Richard: Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with Speakeasy Marketing. Today, I have got a really interesting interview for you. I am going to be speaking with David Christopher of Open Media. And Open Media is an organization out of Canada that works in a grass roots fashion to bring awareness to various issues, political issues, trade issues etc. And speaking again with David Christopher, how are you doing, Sir?

David Christopher: Hello and thank you very much for having me.

Richard: There are quite a few people in your organization; can you tell me quickly about what your position is in Open Media and what you do specifically?

David Christopher: Sure. My name is David Christopher, I am the Communications Manger with Open Media. I have worked here now for just over 3 and a half years. So I look after a lot of our public facing communications, a lot of our media work. I am involved in one way or another in pretty much all the campaigns that we've been running over the last 3.5 years and yes, I am very excited to be able to chat about some of the highlights of our work in the last while.

Richard: Okay. And I know you are based in Canada, I get your emails and communications in the US so I know you are heavily involved in the US as well. Any other countries in which you guys work on issues?

David Christopher: Yes, absolutely. I mean we are pretty much operating on a global basis now. We started off as a very small organization here in Vancouver and on the west coast of Canada but since then, we have really grown. One thing that we've discovered pretty quickly was that the kind of digital rights issues such as having an open and affordable and surveillance free internet, those kinds of issues that we were working towards in Canada, or also challenges being faced by people right around the world and each county's challenges when it comes to digital rights are really interconnected. So that's what initially prompted us to start getting involved on a more international scale initially with, for example, our campaign against the transpacific partnerships copyrights provisions, but since then we've taken on a range of work in the US. You probably recall the big battle over Net Neutrality rules a couple of years ago. We were heavily involved in that along side a number of other groups. We're also really involved in copyright reform in the European Union at the moment. We've got some very bad ideas coming out of the European Commission over there and we actually have staff members on the ground in the EU working on those issues. So yes, we are growing and expanding and I think that's the reflection of how important these issues are and how much people care.

Richard: Okay. And what are some two or three current issues that people may or may not know about and how it will affect them adversely in your opinion as these issues succeed without any intervention?

David Christopher: One really interesting one that we've taken on over the last few months is that the Supreme Court of Canada case that's going to have really profound implications for people's ability to access information and to share information online and not just those implications would not just be here in Canada but globally. So we at Open Media along side a number of other organizations have intervened in that case. It's between Google on the one hand, a company called Equisec on the other and we're not taking sides between those two but we are asking the course to set up firm framework that will protect people's right to free expression online and of course an important component of right to free expression is our ability to access information online. The case all revolves around whether a court in one country such as Canada has the right to order an international company such as Google to sensor search results from a search engine not just in Canada but globally. So of course the implications there are, if that were to go through, incredibly concerning because you could see, for example, courts on the other side of the world ordering American companies to take certain content that would otherwise be accessible to Americans or you could see American courts ordering companies in other countries to take contents. So we really want to try and knit this in the bud and set a proper framework that recognizes sort of the global nature of the internet and how important the internet is as a tool for citizens all over the world to access information and express themselves freely.

Richard: That's pretty serious because if you have countries like China, Russia, Iran etc. that are known for censorship in the state controlling the internet, giving them the chance to intervene would be pretty bad.

David Christopher: Yes, that's definitely one of the things we're worried about and we know as well that your Supreme Court of Canada is a fairly influential court, so obviously its ruling would only have affect, legal affect here in Canada but it would set a precedent, it would set an example that other courts around the world could be inclined to follow. So that's the big priority for us. We're also — and for years now, we've been lots of work around surveillance and online privacy issues. I think probably most of your listeners would be aware of what Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers have revealed about how government spy agencies not just in the US but also here in Canada, many other countries around the world are actually using the internet almost as a tool of mass surveillance, collecting vast quantities of personal information from law-abiding citizens with no real distinction as to whether someone might have raised a red flag or done something wrong that you could be completely innocent and yet you're having your personal information stored and gathered in government database, that's an issue of huge concern for us and we've been running any number of campaigns both here in Canada and also globally.

Richard: Okay. Andy past campaign or current one that was your favorite or you felt was the single most important one and why?

David Christopher: That's a great question. I do actually have personal favors. About a year and a half ago here in Canada, we embarked on a big crowd sourcing program. We were faced with all these privacy threats partly from the kind of online spying that I've just described but also partly because the Canadian government was bringing forward quite dangerous legislation that gave the spy agencies pretty enormous power to collect information and even to act on that information. So we were faced with this really tough, a very challenging climate for online privacy. And while on the one hand, we certainly wanted to push back against the sort of overreach by the intelligence agencies, on the other hand, we felt there was a bigger problem here that we actually needed a positive agenda that we don't just need to rollback to kind of spying that's taking place. We actually need to strengthen privacy rules for all citizens because certainly here in Canada and also in pretty much I think many other countries around the world, our privacy safeguards were developed for a different era, they were developed for an era in which people would right to each other using pen and paper and the mail. They would develop for an era where a lot of communication just took place using landline and telephone calls. So the result of that is that we've got much strong privacy protections for those more traditional forms of communication than we do for our online forms of communication. So we actually reached out to Canadians, over 100,000 people took part in one way or another and helped us shape a really positive agenda for what strong privacy rules could look like. And we've taken that forwarded, we turned it into, I think it's about a 60 or 70-page report setting out pretty detailed proposals across the whole range of areas and while that project was specific to Canada, a lot of the lessons and a lot of the recommendations are also relevant worldwide. So that's one I think I'm particularly — certainly, when I look back on the last few years, that's when I'm particularly proud of.

Richard: Okay. And what methods would you use in a campaign? You spoke about directly connecting with the Canadian citizens, did you use email, phone calls, call a politician, email a politician, donations, what kind of mixture did you guys use?

David Christopher: We used pretty much every tool we have at our disposal to try and make sure that the voices of citizens can be taken and placed before decision-makers, placed before the people who are making the calls on these kinds of important digital rights issues. So yes, and that can range from everything from your standard online petition which you know those can be more impactful than many people give them credits for. We've had upwards of — I think our largest petition had over half a million people on it for example, but we also create more sophisticated tools as well, tools that, for example, make it quite easy for you to get a letter into your local newspaper, tools that make it easy for you to write to your local representative, elected representative. We've even just actually rolled out a tool that let's people submit input into a government consultation that's taking place on privacy and security issues. I guess the common thread that links all of these kinds of tactics is simply our desire to make it as easy as possible for people to make their voice heard where it can't. So we are all about leveraging the power of the internet and that kind of — what I think it's really a democratizing way, ensuring that citizens do feel empowered to speak up when they disagree with something that the government is doing and kind of demystifying the process by which people can do that. And that does seem to resonate with people, I think that's why we are seeing the growth that we have over the last few years.

Richard: Yes. I have seen some of these really interesting grass root stuff I've seen you guys do is use an issue, email your politician, here is their name, here is how to contact them. Everyone that email politician X and let them know you stand against this issue, or call this other one, call your representative and let them know you stand against this issue. Do those types of campaign work and how successful are they and what's the result when a given official gets a flood of calls or a flood of emails?

David Christopher: They absolutely do work. Often the result of that the official will get in touch with us to at least let us know that they are listening. You can't win every battle. A lot of these are political issues, sometimes certainly the previous federal government here, I was really going to help and I am bringing in new surveillance measures no matter how unpopular they are but in general, politicians are elected by their citizens, by their constituents. So if they get a flood of emails and phone calls from those constituents, from the voters, it would be a very unwise politician who would ignore that outpouring. So in general, we think we do find it a really — it does have impact. Most politicians worth their salt to anyone who wants to get reelected does have to sit up and take notice when their voters speak out and we are constantly, as I say, looking for new ways in which we can make sure that citizens voices do get heard.

Richard: Okay. What have you seen makes a successful campaign versus one that just doesn't have any legs, any particulars that you noticed?

David Christopher: Yes. There are some commonalities. Often in the world of digital rights, you — these issues can initially appear as quite complex as very detailed, it's often people for example who are proposing very negative changes to copyright law, they like to sort of mask that in all kinds of complicated policy speak in the hope that people won't understand it and they'll just have their way. So I think part of what we do is take those complex issues, we work with leading experts and academia here in Canada and around the world to really distil those issues down, make them clear, make them accessible, make it really obvious to people what's at stake here and then that's where we can then — once we do that, once we make it clear what the stakes are in any given issue, we find it then people do come on board, people really grasp it and people are motivated to speak out whether it's a negative thing that we're trying to stop or whether it's a positive thing that we're trying to push forward.

Richard: Okay. And have you surveyed your group, your constituents to see which issues they would like to see brought and you take outside feedback or is it you have a group of people that kind of decide the issues based on what's going on in the world?

David Christopher: We've always been a very sort of grass root driven organization. That's being baked into our DNA right from the start and all this is because of the work of our founder, Steve Anderson, who created Open Media I think 7 years ago, maybe 8 years ago. So no, we really, really place a very high priority on crowd sourcing input from our community. We do an annual survey of our entire support base and that's what uproots of 750,000 people each in every year and that does give us — and we go around and we ask them what are the issues that matter most for you because when it comes to our staff, we are a small team, there is only so much that we can take on. And if we want to do things right, it really means putting in the time, putting in the effort. So we want to make sure that we're putting our limited resources where they will have the most impact and also where on the issues that our communities that our supporters and internet users in general care most strongly about.

Richard: Okay. And this is probably an of course question but has Open Media been criticized publicly or attacked because of the work it's trying to do?

David Christopher: Of course. Often these issues that we take on are challenging rules and that's against very, very powerful vested interests, whether that's a big telecom and monopolies trying to sure up their position and crush the competition, whether it's powerful surveillance agencies pushing their own agenda often through life channels and drivers, whether that's true old media giants trying to use copyright rules to sensor-free expression or to limit what people can — how people can share and collaborate online. So yes, certainly there is no shortage of criticism from most powerful interest but the best thing is that we often — we have so many people on our side that we can point to and say, "Look, 50,000 people disagree with you. We've got 50,000 people who actually want us to move in a more positive direction, who want us to rollback the surveillance days, who want us to ensure proper choice and competition in our telecom market", so that we can get those very expensive monthly bills down, people who want to ensure that we can all share and work together online without the fear of unwarranted copyright lawsuits. So in general, that tends to be the kind of the conflict from which we find ourselves is where we've got a great massive citizens and internet users on the one side and then so powerful vested interest on the other side. And then often, it's either a regulatory body or a government institution in the middle that will be making the call at the end of the day.

Richard: If there is an issue that someone feels strongly about and they let you guys know but you don't have the capacity to do it but there are even bigger issues that you are working on, what do you recommend someone does?

David Christopher: We work really closely with the whole range of good partnerships with other groups that we've built up over the last few years. So almost always, if someone approaches us with a concern, that's either just something we can't take online at that moment or often it's something that's out of scope for our digital rights mandate, perhaps it's a privacy issue but it's not really an online privacy issue. We'd almost always be able to recommend that that person you contact one of our partner groups who does which would work on the issues that they care about. Often as well we keep a watching eye on the whole range of these issues and challenges that are bubbling up pretty much everyday. The world of digital rights and freedoms is a very interesting and a constantly changing one. You have the guy responsible for our media work that every morning, I scan the media and then everyday, there are new developments on all the areas on which we work, so we're careful to try and keep on top of all of those and even if it's something that we can't directly campaign on, we'd often use, for example, our social media channels to help raise awareness of those issues as well.

Richard: And so besides getting petitions together or getting people to call politicians, email them etc., do you use any legal type interventions? So in the US, that may be FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request or a amicus brief where you comment on a case. I don't know the equivalent in Canada but do you actually employ legal tools that are implemented by attorneys, lawyers to make your voice heard more strongly?

David Christopher: Yes. As we've grown, especially over the last couple of years, we've increasingly started to get more involved in the kind of detailed substantial vigilant policy work that's often necessary if we're to have impact, for example, at a regulatory body or before courts. I spoke earlier about the intervention that we've made at the Supreme Court of Canada. We have an external legal counsel who's been leading that process for us. We are also heavily involved, very often we find ourselves before the telephone regulator here in Canada, the CRCC, they're equivalent to the FCC. And again, that requires a lot of very detailed policy and legal work that we're either growing our capacity to take that on in us at Open Media but we'd also often work with top experts in Academia or just in the field to work together to pull those interventions together for us.

Richard: Okay. Just briefly, some of the partner organizations that you mentioned, if there is an issue that either is outside of your scope or you don't have capacity to take on. Can you name a few as a resource to people?

David Christopher: Sure. I mean in the US the ones that would come most obviously to mind are electronic frontier foundation, they have been going for many, many years to support digital rights and rather like ourselves, they operate globally but they are based in the United States. We also find ourselves partnering with the platform on any number of campaigns, the ACLU (American Civil Liberty's Union) would be another valuable partner of ours in a lot of our privacy work. They've supported some of our campaigns, we also find ourselves supporting theirs especially around issues of surveillance. There are other organizations like FreePress, Fight for the Future that we see as very valuable, American Partners, these are friends of ours. We often also share each other content, amplify each other's campaigns so at the end of the day, we're working — we're often working in a common cause.

Richard: Okay. Where do you see open media going in the next 3 to 5 years as the bets are off?

David Christopher: That's a fantastic question. That's the one that often I wonder about myself, I think just over those 3 years, 3.5 years I've been here, I have seen this organization grow a great deal, I think, just in terms of internal capacity, our staff so we have over doubled or community is grown enormously, over recent years, we have started taking on much more international work. So I think those trends will continue. I think the sort of the stretch to the open internet that we are working against are continuing to multiply where really bad news coming out of a lot of countries when it does come to online privacy and surveillance, some very worrying laws being passed in countries like France, Australia, the UK is considering one at the moment so I think that's going to be a big challenge for us and I think the whole area of copyrights and how we can make sure that copyright rules make sense in a digital, globally connected age, that is also increasingly going to be a live topic of discussion for many years to come. I believe you were seeing this in the European Union, we're seeing this here in Canada and in many other jurisdictions around the world as well. And thirdly, the whole issue of net neutrality, the idea that the internet should be free and open, that should be a level playing field and an engine for economic innovation. That as well is a really key battleground we saw that with the huge and one of the most successful political battles that we've been involved in was at the FCC in the US couple of years ago on the issue of net neutrality when ourselves, many, many other groups, and millions of everyday American citizens all working together to ensure we could save net neutrality and in fact bring in stronger net neutrality rules and at the end of the day, that was the success in this case but we're seeing threats to — we're still seeing threats to net neutrality in the US but we're also seeing those threats elsewhere in the world as well. So long story short, there is going to be a lot to keep us busy over the years ahead, I'm pretty confident about that.

Richard: One last issue I did want to ask you about is, ICANN, it was slated just on December 30th to potentially feed control from what I understand of the US — from the US of the internet to an international governing body. What do you see is happening with that situation and what do you think the implications are going to be if it does go global versus staying in the US?

David Christopher: From what I know of that issue, I think this is actually — and I have seen a lot of people posting quite scary things about this that this is handing over the internet to the Russians and the Chinese, that doesn't seem to be the case at all. It does seem like that it's a fairly sensible proposal that would put that take ICANN out from under the aegis of the state department, I believe it is, and into — more put it under the umbrella of a non-profit foundation that would be responsible for its activities. So I think it's not an issue that we've delve terribly deeply into but I think some of the language that's being used around this is inaccurate. I think what seems to be — being proposed is on the whole I think a fairly common sense approach.

Richard: Okay. So, to listeners to this podcast, how can they get involved with open media and your digital rights initiatives to support you?

David Christopher: Great. There are a number of ways. Firstly, you check out our website, it's openmedia.org. At any given time, we're often running several different campaigns around the world simultaneously, so if there are issues you're particularly interested in such as privacy or copyright or the transpacific partnership, there are plenty of ways in which you can get involved, there are petitions and other tools. We also just use our website as a great platform for information sharing and we share articles on digital rights issues, on a whole range of digital rights issues from right across the world. People can also join our Facebook community. I think we're over up to nearly 120 sites and people on Facebook now so it's always a very lively forum for discussion, pretty much everything we post there can spark lively debates. We also have lively Twitter feed as well so those are both ways people can get involved. And finally, we have a weekly newsletter that we call the internet insider and again, instructions for signing up on that are found on our website at openmedia.org. If you join any one of our campaigns, if you, for example, sign a petition, then we make sure to keep you in the loop as that campaign develops, keep you up to date with all the latest developments, what you can do to help, basically how that campaign is going. I'd say another characteristic of Open Media is we don't just run a petition a week and then shut it down and then move on to the next one. When we take on campaigns, we do it for the — we're in it for the long haul, so often that petition is just the start and we really keep in touch with that. We've been working on some of our campaigns for as long as I have been here for years and years because that's just what you got to do to — you got to maintain that sustained approach if you're going to have success at the end of the day. So yes, openmedia.org is the best place for your listeners to start.

Richard: All right. And any other benefits from becoming a member, things people get, do you have different level of memberships?

David Christopher: We actually don't — we see ourselves as a community and we have supporters but there is no formal membership, it's not like you — we welcome donations of course as any grass root's funded non-profit would but there is no sort of formal membership where if you pay $20, you become a formal member. Plenty of our support — it's up to each individual supporter to decide how much they want to get involved and in what ways they want to get involved. For some people, that's true being very active on our campaigns even if they are not in a position where they can donate money; for other people who might lead busy lives, they mightn't have the time that they would like to get involved on the campaign side of things but they would have the financial resources to help keep those campaigns moving along. So it's really we leave it up to each individual supporter to determine what the best way it is for them to support us.

Richard: Okay, very good. Well, this has been great. I really appreciate you coming online and talking about the work you guys do. I'm a subscriber, I see that it's really great work and it's made me aware of issues that I have been too busy or just ignorant of that affect me and a lot of other people. So I'm thankful for what you do.

David Christopher: Well, I really appreciate that.

Richard: And thanks for coming, this has been a great interview.

David Christopher: Thanks very much for having me. I really enjoyed the opportunity and I hope your listeners find it interesting.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes

When potential clients are stuck in a legal situation, they come up with a lot of questions. How you as an attorney answer those questions pretty much decides whether you'd retain the client or not. Listen to this short audio below to find out how a bad answer (or no answer) can cause you massive client losses. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today, I want to talk to you about a very simple concept that's often misunderstood by attorneys and it causes them to lose quite a bit of clients. It's called answering the question you have been asked and it's laughably simple. But as politicians show you, this could be a very hard concept for some people. So we just had the third debate in the Trump and Hillary campaign. I am not talking about who is better or who is worse, but what I am talking about is this. When they were asked questions by the debate head, they did not answer the question and it was frankly very annoying. And if they can't answer a question, how can you trust either of them. So now turn this back to being an attorney. If a potential client calls you and asks you a question about a legal matter and you say, "Well, it depends, you just have to come into the office". You are not answering the question. How do you think they are going to feel? They are not going to want to come into the office. Why would they when someone else will answer their question? Now, I know in the legal space, you can't make guarantees, there are a lot of caveats. Every situation is different. But you can say that, tell the potential client even though every situation is different, based on my past experience, here is what I think may happen, or based on the facts you're telling me, and I don't know all the facts of course, but based on what you're telling me so far, here is what I think is a strong possibility. Yes, you still do have to come in, yes we still do have to formally go over your case and go dive deep, that's where the real answers will be but for now, based on what you told me, Sir, or based on what you told me, Ma'am, here is what I can tell you. And that's a far more powerful and rapport building way to do things than awarding the question because as I am sure, you have experienced when someone doesn't answer the question, it's frustrating, it's annoying, you don't want to work with that person, you don't want to deal with them and you know it doesn't serve either of you. So, please, very simply, answer the question.

If you need help with your marketing, call 888 225 8594, or email [email protected]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes

Retaining new clients has become really hard and it becomes even harder when you go about it without a proper plan. There's a whole process involved in turning a potential client into a paying client and if you skip the steps along the way, your potentials will disappear.

Most attorneys overlook the decision making process of a potential client. When people get into trouble they don't immediately decide on hiring a lawyer – obvious! So, they go & search Google asking questions about their situation like "Will my wife get custody of my kids in divorce" or "Divorce laws in New York" etc. Now, you need to provide the answers people are looking for. You need to make them feel better about their situation when they talk to you. If you do this, your retention rate will definitely go up and you're going to have less price resistance.

If you're having trouble retaining enough clients, listen to the podcast, implement the strategies and convert potential clients into paying clients more often.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today, I have got a really important podcast. I realized that most attorneys and the way they sell, the way they attract clients, it's skipping steps and is causing them to miss out on getting as many clients as they could get and get them without price aggravation, commoditization and those kinds of things. There are steps in the decision-making process of your prospects that you are very likely missing out on and what's said on your website, what's said by you on the phone, what's assumed by you and the keywords that you target, all these areas are missing a few steps and I am going to go into them now and tell you why it's so important. So when someone has a legal problem, it could be divorce, it could be financial strain leading to bankruptcy, it could be immigration, it could be a DUI, drug crime, it could be estate plan, any of these things, okay. Any practice area, does not matter. People have a legal problem.

Their first response is not "Oh I got to get a lawyer for this and I want the best one", it's rare that that's the response unless they are a sophisticated person that maybe has the business dealing. Their first response is, "Damn, I just want this problem to go away, I don't want to deal with this". That's people's first response. And it's a very natural response because legal problems, by their very nature, are ugly and no one wants to deal with them. You as an attorney, would you like to have a legal problem? Hell no, and you would have the same response. Damn it, I just wish this would all go away. So that's people's first response. The next response is, "All right, I have got to deal with this. What do I do? Well, I have got questions, I need to know this, I need to know that. I don't even know what I need to know". That's the situation for many people. So they go searching.

They'll go searching on Google, they'll type in all kinds of stuff like "Got pulled over in West Covina, blew at 0.24, will I go to jail". They'll Google things like "Long term marriage, is there such a thing as perpetual alimony", or, "Father recently passed, how can avoid probate". These are the things that people will Google because the stage they're in mentally is they are asking questions. They are not going to be Googling "Los Angeles personal injury lawyer", they're going to be asking what's called question keywords. So first of all, do you show up for these keywords? And how you show up is you have articles, they answer people's questions on your website and in your other marketing, YouTube, Facebook etc.

Do you have that contents? If you don't, you are likely to be passed over and never noticed at this point. And that's the problem because the lawyers that are noticed at this point and are starting to answer people's questions, they have a chance to get back client before they ever get to the final keywords or before they ever make a decision that they truly need a lawyer. All right, so getting back to this path. So the first is "I want to buy my head in the sand and make it go away", the second is "I have got questions, so I look, I research, maybe I even get to the point where I want to call an attorney and do a consult, so I do that. What happens when you get calls. You get questions. People don't just say right off-the-bat, "Hi, I need a lawyer, I want to hire you", they almost never say that. What they do ask is they ask questions. So here is a mistake that a lot of attorneys do at this point, they say, "Well, every situation is different. You just got to come into the office and then we can figure it out from there". You are stopping the person from getting the answers they want so it's very unlikely that they're going to hire you. They want their questions answered now, they don't want them answered two days from now when they come into the office, which is a scary experience. They want answers right now because they can't stand it. It's bugging them so badly their situation, they've got to know now.

Remember that night, they've got to go to sleep and don't you think that this is going to be going on in their head all day, all night, in the shower, they're going to be hanging out with their kids and they are going to be distracted worrying about this legal issue, whatever it is. Don't you think that happens? I mean I know sadly, from experience, that's what legal problems do. Thank God, I haven't had serious ones but I couldn't imagine having a serious legal problem. It must consume you mentally all day, all night everywhere you go. So that's what's going on in your prospect's heads. So if you don't answer their questions and you are not a helpful resource at this point, they'll never even get to the point of wanting to have a lawyer or wanting to have you. How can they make that decision if this stuff is burning a hole in their brain? They can't do it. So this is the next stage.

So if you answer people's questions and you give them an understanding and you give them a semblance of what might happen, now they start to feel a better sense of control, they relax a bit. You can hear on the phone, I know you can when you spoke to the potential clients, you can hear when they go "(A sigh of relief)" mentally and they start to feel better about it. And guess who they attribute that feeling to, to you? If you are real slick and you are real smart, you can do this with your website and start to build that feeling before they ever call you. But if not, and you actually get them to call you, which is a feed in itself, you can do it over the phone. And the best attorneys I know are very good at that. They spend the time to answer questions, they don't just try to usher them into their office. So that's what you want. You want that, Aaah, that relaxation.

You want to hear it or experience it from your potential client because now, they are a lot closer to making that decision. So here is where they're at now. You have answered their questions, they feel some more measure of control about their situation, they're starting to feel a bit better, there is hope, maybe this will come out okay. Maybe in the divorce, I will be able to see my kids 3 times a week. Maybe with the estate plan, I'll be able to get a third of my mom's estate and I won't have a taken by the in-laws. So now that questions are being answered, the person is feeling better, they're attributing that feeling to you, now they come to the realization, "You know what, this person can help me, this lawyer can help me. I like them, I like what they had to say, I am believing in them, I am feeling better after having my questions answered", now you can retain them.

Now is the point but not up until this point. And guess what, a lot of lawyers focus on why should you choose me, why we're better, why we are this, why we are that. So you see how if this is done right that won't even come up in the conversation, do you see how if you answer people's questions, this is just an after fact or it could be a very minor thing at the end. Maybe at the end, it's time to talk about your credentials, maybe not but if you do it the right way, they won't even be an issue. I hope this helps, I hope this helps you understand the mind of your customer and change how you do your marketing and your sales approach. If you need help with this in your firm, call 888 225 8594 or email [email protected]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes

Today's podcast reveals top three ways your admin staff & secretaries can win you more and better clients.

If you're going to implement these strategies, you're going to literally hear it in a potential client's voice that they're going to have less resistance, they're going to feel calmer, better about speaking to you because your admin or your secretary positioned you as an authority, as a good attorney who really knows his stuff that can help them. If you put this to use, it's going to help you tremendously to retain more. You won't have to spend anymore in marketing to do it. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today, I'm going to go over 3 things your admin and your staff can say to help improve your status in the eyes of clients and win you more cases more easily. I don't mean win the case, I mean win the clients, win their retainer fee. Get them instead of having your competition get them. These are 3 short statements that your admins can use. You don't necessarily have to use them although I would recommend you using them. These are 3 simple statements that your admins can use to help build you up. Here they are: First of all, when someone calls your firm, does your admin say, Law Office or do they say Hold please, when the attorney such as you is requested or do they say, Tell me a little bit about your case and it gets them details of the case and the facts.

They can say one of these 3 things. Number 1, they can say, "Okay. Based on what you told me, the best attorney I can have you speak to is Attorney John Smith. He has handled cases that are pretty similar to yours. He is a very nice guy, he is very easy to talk to. I think you are really going to get a lot out of speaking to him. Can you hold on a second? I'll transfer you." Now think about that. That's you, not having to position yourself but that's your admin building you up and making you look good. Making you sound approachable and friendly and accessible and knowledgeable and having handled cases just like this person's case. What's going to happen is you as the attorney get better sounding people right off the bat on the phone.

There's going to be less price shoppers. They are going to be a lot more amenable because they are going to expect that you are a nice person that you are knowledgeable and easy to get along with. That will take away a lot of the fear that people have so it's a great thing that your admin can do to build you up and position you. Here is another thing that they can say. Let's say there are 2 lawyers in your firm or more. So they talk about the case, they ask for details from the eccentric clients and they say, "Alright. I've got 2 options for you. Attorney A, she is excellent. She is our top attorney that deals with this subject area. She has had a lot of cases similar to yours and she has had additional training in everything."

"She is more expensive but she is definitely the one to talk to when you have a tough case that you have to absolutely get a good result on or I can have you talk to Attorney B. He is also excellent. A lot of years of experience. He has a bit of different way of doing things. He handles the majority of the regular cases at the firm, not quite as expensive but still excellent. Tell me which one would you like to speak to?" That way you can position 2 or more attorneys at your firm and the one that's the senior one, if they want to take the higher end cases, they can be positioned as the more expensive one. The other one, the junior associate or the regular attorney can be positioned as the more reasonable one.

So you get a positive effect no matter what. If the potential client speaks to the more expensive attorney, they are more prepared for the fee. They know they are more expensive. They have requested that attorney. So you are going to have less price resistance when you settle. If they go for the regular attorney, the one that's not the top one, they already feel that they are getting a bargain because they are not having to pay such a high fee. That attorney will have less price resistance as well. So these are 2 really great ways to help position the attorneys at your firm and have your admins do it which sounds a heck of a lot more credible than having you do it.

A third way to do it is when a potential client calls, you have the admin again give the short speech, you know, so and so is very friendly or very knowledgeable. They've handled cases like this etc. and then have them do a live transfer. Say all that and say, "Would you mind holding on for a second. I'm going to get him or her on the phone. Have the admin get you on the phone. Then right there live, have the admin say, Hi, so and so. Hi Bob or Hi Jane, whatever your name is. I have Mrs. Smith on the phone. She has a case that involves XYZ, and I told her that you were very gracious and that you had some time to speak with her and that you are a specialist in these kinds of cases. Can you talk to her now?

Then you could say, Oh Thank you so much. Yes, Mrs. Smith How are you doing? I'll be glad to talk to you. Thanks for connecting us, you can drop off now, admin and they'll drop off the call. This is called a warm transfer. It is far better than doing a cold transfer where an attorney answers and says, Attorney so and so or starts grilling the person. You'll have a much warmer reception if you do a warm transfer. You'll be positioned a heck of a lot better and you'll have far less price resistance with clients. If you've noticed, this requires no additional marketing money. It just requires picking one or two very short scripts, having everyone that answers your phone use them and just there alone you are going to start getting better clients, less price resistance and you'll have a much better time of things.

Hope this helps. If you need help setting up scripts like this in your office, improving your positioning using your online marketing or during live calls, call (888) 225-8594 or email [email protected]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes

Marketing is hard and complex. Consider the multidimensionality in how we do our marketing to find attorneys who want to work with us. We build our list, keep it updated, send out email newsletters, create useful content & PDFs, do Facebook marketing, Twitter & LinkedIn marketing to generate leads. We send out physical newsletters, speak at conferences, do phone consultations and the list goes on.

Same goes for your law firm. It takes a lot to market your practice, not just one thing. Some attorneys think that if you do good work, you'll automatically be ranked on top of Google and people will automatically come to you. Unfortunately, that's not true. You cant be one dimensional, you cant rely on Google rankings alone. I've shared the key marketing efforts you need to focus on to grow your law practice. Listen to the audio to find out. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today I want to talk about multidimensionality in your marketing. What does that mean? Well, it takes a lot to market a practice. It's not just one thing. Let me give you an example of how we do our marketing and just what it takes for us to find attorneys that want to work with us. We send out an email newsletter several times a week that has to be written, sort of the topics besides that. In order to do that, we have to build a list. So we have to find attorneys that are willing to receive emails in various states and cities and all that and exclude the ones that may be in states or cities where we are not likely to get them. Maybe in Montana or more remote areas where there's maybe not enough money or the attorneys really don't practice that much.

There are some places like that in the United States. We have to make sure the information is correct, the emails are right, emails change all the time. When we do send the emails sometimes they bounce. Again, sometimes people's emails change, people may retire, They move, they say they are not interested, there are spam filters and all that. So that's one big thing we do. Then we have Facebook Marketing, we put up ads on Facebook, we have to make offers on things that we think attorneys will be interested in, that will be useful to them and relevant and helpful. We have to come up with a copy of that stuff, we have to play fair. We have to choose who, where, what and when and how much budget to advertise.

If an attorney such as yourself decides to download something and listen to it, we track that and then we want to get into contact with him to see if there is any interest. We do that. Then we start looking at twitter. We have tested some advertising there, we have tested some on Linkedin, we now do a physical newsletter that gets emailed out to a portion of the list that looks interested, you know, somebody may be getting lots of mail. I speak at conferences, that's important, the legal conferences that come up. I've got to fly out there and do consultations by phone. There is quite a lot that goes into marketing Speakeasy. How is it relevant to you? Guess what? Same thing applies to your law practice.

If you are hoping that I'll just rank number 1 for these keywords, Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyer, Houston Divorce Attorney and you think it's over and done with and that you are going to get all these clients and life will be good, well unfortunately, it's not nearly that easy. What does it take for a law firm to really excel? It takes quite a bit of content meaning articles on their website to cover all facets of questions that people have about the law. You can't just have one generic article and hope that it's going to serve everyone that comes to your website. You better be answering the dozens and hundreds of questions that people have because if you don't, your competitor's website will. Believe me they will.

Some of them are our clients and some of them are definitely savvy enough to put tons of articles and content on their site. Then there are reviews. The 4 big spots are AVVO, your own website, Yelp and Google Maps or Google+. Do you have reviews on those places? Do you have positive reviews? How many reviews do you have versus your competitors? It's extremely important; people rely a lot on online reviews when gauging whether to hire somebody or to even call an attorney and look at them. I do. I know you do when you go out to eat. Not all of you but I'm sure a bunch of you look at reviews for restaurants. Do you want to try the Mexican restaurant that has 2 stars or would you rather go to the one with 4 and a half stars? Do you want to go to that Starbucks down the road that has one star because they are so bad or do you want to go to the one that's a bit further away that has 5 stars where the people are really great. Same thing with dry cleaners, attorneys and CPAs, it doesn't matter.

Reviews are huge. What else can we have? How about press releases? How about appearances on TV or in magazines or in related local media? Do you have that? Are you Board Certified? Do you have Field Sobriety training? Do you have Family Law certification? If you are in injury, are you a Million Dollar Advocate? There's accolades, there's badges, all those things go into crafting your image online. Do you have those? Those are important and those take time and effort to get. Your website, does it have a modern design? Does it look old like it hasn't been updated in years? Is the copyright up to date? Are your terms and the privacy policy up to date? Do you constantly work on your site or is it sticky with growing cobwebs with no addition to content in the past 6 months or an year? Does it look right? Does it navigate well on mobile?

Mobile is now 70% of all website visitors and climbing. It's getting to saturation but it's now the predominant way. If I use a tablet, an iPad or if I use an iPhone, what if I have an android or a Windows phone? Can I see your site? Does it look garbled? Are things on top of each other? So that's important to realize too. Now, you have all that, what about You Tube? Do you have videos there? How about referrals? Do you send out a newsletter to past clients? And on and on and on. So it takes quite a bit to effectively market a law practice. You can't just do one thing. You can't just rely on Google rankings and you certainly can't be one dimensional if you want to proceed.

So if you want to know how you are doing compared to how you should be doing in order to get the business that you run at that level, to get to the next level and beat your competitors, call us. We can do a strategy session where we'll go over your marketing and find holes in it or opportunities to improve and point those out to you. Then you can decide if you want to have us do it for you or you want to do it yourself or you can have your current vendor do it. Your choice. To do so, it's a 15 minute phone call, call (888) 225-8594 to schedule it or email [email protected]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes

Looking to expand your law firm or maybe thinking about venturing out on your own but don't have the financial resources to do so? Ty Crandall can tell you how.

In this interview, Ty shares insider tips on how any business can obtain credit without supplying a personal credit check or personal guarantee.

Listen up … Ty's formula for building business credit works even if you have none now.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Announcer: Welcome to the 'Attorney Marketing Secrets' podcast. Richard Jacobs is the best-selling author of "Secrets of Attorney Marketing That Law School Dares Not Teach," available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.com. Richard has helped over 650 attorneys nationwide in 17 different practice areas to attract more clients and grow their law firms. This podcast gives you the details and strategies of how top attorneys and industry experts became successful. You're going to discover how to take their ideas and grow your law practice by leaps and bounds in the next 12 months. Now, here's your host, Richard Jacobs.

Tracy: Good morning, this is Tracy Mera with Speakeasy Marketing and Secrets of Attorney Marketing. This morning, I would like to welcome Ty Crandall, an internationally known speaker, author, pod show host and business credit expert. Ty, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Ty: Thanks for having me on, Tracy. I'm excited to be here.

Tracy: Could you tell me a little bit about your background and what it is that Ty Crandall does?

Ty: What we do is we help companies obtain credit for their EIN number that's not linked to the business owners' social security number. What we do is help companies obtain a lot of capital through business credit that's not linked to their personal social. It helps separate liability. It also helps some access money when they typically couldn't get normal loans.

Tracy: What brought you into this area of business?

Ty: I've been in financial services for about 16 years. I owned a mortgage company, when I thought things were easy, because the mortgage business was booming. I rode that too long, where everything crashed. I was one of those people that got caught up in that and was almost pushed to the brink of personal bankruptcy. Because I guaranteed everything in my business, because I didn't know there was another way, I almost lost everything in my personal life because of what happened in the business. Years later, I would own a consumer credit company, helping customers and helping people improve their personal credit. A lot of people would ask me about business credit. I really didn't know what it was.

As I started to look into it and realized that there had always been another way, that you could obtain financing. You could obtain credit that's linked to your EIN and not your social, and create that separation. I was just really shocked that nobody was an advocate for this. Nobody was teaching this to entrepreneurs. I really just felt like that is my role in life. I ended up selling that company that I owned at the end of the year. Ever since, I've just been standing on the highest mountains I can stand on, screaming to everybody about how cool business credit is, that it exists, and helping entrepreneurs obtain it.

Tracy: Tell me what exactly business credit is?

Ty: When we talk about business credit, and your listeners are obviously familiar with their consumer credit. They get a social security number when they're born. Then, as they get old enough, they start obtaining credit that's linked to that social security number. Well, a business is no different. A business has its own social security number, which we call an EIN number. That business can build its own credit profile and score that's linked to that EIN number. The big difference is that when you have business credit established, and you can start obtaining loans, you can start obtaining credit lines, credit cards, based on the quality of your business credit, not the quality of your personal credit.

Another big benefit is that a lot of new listeners, especially if they're starting a law firm or they're trying to get funds for marketing. In a lot of cases, surveys show that they go to their personal assets. They go to their personal money, especially in the beginning stages. They're using their personal credit, or they're obtaining credit cards for the business but they're providing a social when they get that credit card, so they're personally liable.

A lot of those credit cards report on their personal credit reports. This is a problem, because if they ever do default, then they're personally liable for that. The bigger problem is that any credit that you're using for a business that reports on your consumer credit report, even if it is a business credit card, as you utilize that credit card, it really lowers your personal credit scores. Business credit is a way around all of that. It's a way to actually obtain credits really linked to the business. It separates the liability. You can use it freely without having any kind of adverse impact to your personal credit score that's linked to your social.

Tracy: That 'limiting the liability' I'm guessing is pretty important when it comes to setting up your own firm and keeping that separate from your own finances?

Ty: We talk to a lot of attorneys that they specialize in helping business owners mitigate their liability, whether it is having images on their website that they didn't get proper licensing for to any number of things. We all try to be proactive, not reactive. I think attorneys are probably some of the best and most knowledgeable people out there to help business owners do that. Part of being proactive is to make sure that as you're building a business from the ground up, that you're doing it where you're creating as much separation in liability as possible. You don't want to be any more liable for what happens in your business than you absolutely have to be. Business credit's a great way to do that, both for your listeners and even for their clients, because this way, they're not liable for what's happening in their business on the personal side.

Tracy: Can any business really get business credit?

Ty: We talk to a lot of physicians, a lot of attorneys that have a really tough time getting money in the beginning. They're coming into practice, they have large student loans, and they're limited on the capital they actually can obtain. A lot of lenders won't give them money to go through, especially to start a face. I was talking to a banker for Wells Fargo the other day, and her requirement was five years of tax returns to even apply for a business loan. That means they won't even touch you until you've been in business five years. A lot of us, that's the hardest time that we go through is that first five years.

What's nice about business credit is even as a start-up the minute you obtain that EIN number you can start obtaining business credit. This is vendor accounts and store accounts at most major stores whether it be Office Depot, and Staples, and Amazon.com, and Walmart, with Apple, with Dell, with 5, 10 thousand dollar limits. This type of credit can be obtained very quickly in 60 days or so. Then, you can start getting the Visa cards and MasterCards with $10,000, $20,000 limits, even within 90 or 120 days. Again, all of this, where there is no liability. It's not linked to personal credit. You're not supplying a social security number when you apply. Your personal credit isn't calculated or used for the approval decision, so you can get approved regardless of personal credit quality, and you can also get approved without collateral and without cash flow.

Business credit's the only type of credit or financing you can get for a business that doesn't require cash flow, credit, or collateral. It's a great solution for that reason. You can obtain it as a start-up, you don't need the cash flow, credit, or collateral that you need for basically all other types of business financing and loans that exist.

Tracy: What are they looking for, then, when they determine whether or not to give somebody credit?

Ty: I think of it the exact same on the consumer side. If I was in a store, and I didn't know credit existed. I'm

like, "I really want to buy that."

My buddy goes, "Hey, look. Why don't … "

I'm like, "I don't have the money on me to do it."

He's like, "Why don't you apply and get credit?"

I'm like, "What is credit?"

He's like, "Hey, look. They'll let you walk out of the store with all that stuff and not pay them a dime, just put it on credit."

If you think about that, the first time that you'd ever be exposed to it, you'd be like, "That is the craziest thing ever."

I get a lot of that reaction in the business. They're like, "This is crazy that this even exists." But if you think about it, it really isn't. Michael Dell isn't personally guaranteeing what's happening in his company. None of these big CEOs are. It's not because these companies are large, it's because they actually have deep credit profiles and scores. If you look at Walmart, they have 500 trade lines. When you look at Apple, and you look at these types of companies, they have hundreds of trade lines. They're building credit that is reported to the business credit reporting agencies and they're using that to actually qualify for the loans and the credit lines they're obtaining.

What a lot of people don't know is that any business can do this. You don't have to be big to do it. You just have to know the formula. Most of the larger companies have CFOs and financial savvy companies that are helping them make these decisions to do these things. While as a lot of start-up companies and start-up firms, for example, are bootstrapping their business, so they don't have those financial-minded people to help them do it.

The key is that you've got to come in it and really do a couple things initially. You've got to first make sure your business is set-up credibly. You want to have a real physical business address or a virtual address, if you don't have a physical address. You want to have a business phone, not a home phone, not a cell phone. Which, I'm sure a lot of your listeners already meet that requirement. They need to have the right licensing in the actual state, in the industry, in the county they're in. You need to make sure there's a professional website, and a fax number, that your phone number's listed with 411, and that you have a professional email address.

The way that I look at it is that every line item on an application needs to reflect that you have a legitimate credible business. If you meet those requirements, then step two is you've got to get approved for what we call 'vendor accounts.' These are places like Uline and Quill, that sell office supplies and shipping supplies. But, what's different about companies like Uline and Quill is one, they'll give you credit for your business, even when you have none. You can apply. You can leave your social security number off the application. They'll approve you for initial credit with small lines when you have none, but they also report that credit to the business credit reporting agencies.

Once that credit gets reported in about 60 days, then what happens is you'll get a credit profile and score established with the business credit reporting agencies and then you use that established profile and score to start getting approved for this type of revolving credit. Amazon, and Walmart, and Staples, and Office Depot. These type of creditors will approve you once they pull your EIN credit report and see that you have trade lines, which are accounts reporting. You have a profile established then. You have scores that should be good as long as you're paying the bills on time or early. Just like you could walk into Staples with two or three consumer credit accounts and get a credit card with them, you do exactly the same thing in the business world. Once you have a few accounts and you have profile and score, then they'll start to approve you for their credit even leaving your social security number off of the application.

Tracy: What are some of the dangers or some of the precautions that my attorneys could potentially face or get themselves into? What should they be looking out for?

Ty: Use credit wisely. Whatever you're going to do on the consumer or business credit side, just because you think there's no liability doesn't mean that you go max out credit cards and default. I think that's common sense, but it has to at least be mentioned that you always have to use credit wisely. You have to use credit responsibly. The benefit of business credit is you don't have to look out for nearly as many things as you do in the consumer world. In the consumer credit world, your scores are based on the credit mix that you have and the utilization that you have on the credit cards, and how you're paying on them, and how much new credit you're applying for through inquiries.

There's five factors that tie in to that actual business credit profile, or business credit score. In the business world, your credit scores are based just on how you pay. That's something very important that all your listeners need to know is that when they start obtaining real usable business credit, your scores are with Equifax are completely driven based on how you pay. With Experian, it takes into other factors into account, but it's still driven primarily, 65% of the score, based on how you pay. It's very important in the business credit world that you not only obtain this credit, but that you pay the bills as soon as you can, because the paying the bills early is what gets you the best score. The best score is what actually gets you a lot of automated approvals as you start going in and applying for credit cards, loans, and credit lines.

Tracy: Does it matter when you're building business credit when it comes to the type of entity structure?

Ty: Attorneys don't always have that luxury. A lot of places, attorneys are required to have certain entities, because they want them to have liability involved in the actual business. The best choice is always an LLC or corporation. If an LLC or corporation are the best entities to limit liability in the entity itself. Now, business credit can be established for any entity. It doesn't matter if you're a sole prop. It doesn't matter if you're a partnership, or a corporation, an LLC. Whatever you choose, any entity can build business credit.

A lot of entities like sole proprietorship or a partnership, you are the business. You'll always underlying be liable for what happens in your business in some which way or form, because you are the business. A corporation or an LLC, you're separating yourself from the business. Your business is a different entity than you. You're not linked. Then, that's how you can really then add business credit and create even more separation in that liability.

Tracy: With business credit cards, are you looking at the credit issuers, at the credit limits, being similar to what someone might see in the consumer world?

Ty: Per SBA, the limits on business credit accounts are about 10 to 100 times higher than what you're going to find on consumer credit. This makes sense, if we think about it. One of the core components of credit is called 'capacity.' As a consumer, we don't have as much of an appetite or a need for a greater capacity as a business does.

A simple example of this is Dell. Dell is notorious for giving you a $10,000, business credit card, about 60 to 90 days into establishing your initial business credit. That might seem crazy to us because we never needed a $10,000 Dell credit card. There's never a time where we're going to go put 10 grand into home computers into our home. In a business, that's conservative. We can spend well over $10,000 putting the actual computers, the actual machines into an office.

We just have a greater capacity for a business than we do in the consumer. We put more money on credit cards. We use more money than we ever do in the consumer world, so because of that, limits are substantially higher with business credit accounts. It's easier to obtain very high limit accounts quickly, because of how the credit scoring works.

You're talking about 60-90 days, getting these type of high limit accounts. Where as in the consumer credit scoring world, it really takes many years of well-disciplined borrowing to really start seeing limits anywhere as high as what you could see quickly in the business credit world.

Tracy: Does the amount of credit that you're using, or anything having to do with the business credit side effect or impact someone's personal credit at all?

Ty: No, that's the benefit of business credit. One of the things that's a pet peeve that I really don't like are people like Capital One Spark Card. You go apply, they ask you these questions about your business. You give them the EIN number. They give you a business credit card that's fancy and nice, and it's got the new chip in it. It's got your business name. But then all of a sudden, you pull your personal credit report and that credit card is on your actual personal credit report. Well, that's really, really harmful. 30% of your credit score, almost a third, is comprised of utilization. It means what percentage of your high credit limits you're actually using. If you have a $10,000 credit card that reports on your personal credit report, if you owe more than $3,000 on that credit card, you're damaging your personal credit scores. Which is really one of the main reasons you've got to create real separation.

What's nice about business credit is that you can use business credit freely. It doesn't report on your consumer credit reports if you do it the right way. You've got to get credit where you're not providing your social security number. When you provide your social security number, there's always a chance that they're going to report that account on your personal credit report, like Capital One Spark Card. My best advice there is to ask the credit issuer, if you're providing your social for a business credit card, "Does this report on my personal credit reports?" If they don't know, then find somebody else there that does. If you can't, then don't apply for that card.

The only kind of accounts you want to get are business credit cards and business credit accounts that report on the business credit reporting agencies reports, not the consumer reporting agencies. As long as you've done that, with real business credit especially where you're not providing a social, then there is no impact for what you're doing with that credit on your personal credit report.

It is important to note that Experian does have what they call a blended score. Experian commercial does offer actual people that are inquiring into people's business credit, the option of getting a blended score where they can get information from the person's personal side and the business side. The FICO SBSS score does take into account also what's happening on the personal credit. What happens with real business credit accounts doesn't adversely or at all affect personal credit, but it is important for your listeners to know that Experian has a score, FICO has a score, that does actually take into account both personal and business credit quality.

Tracy: When I'm looking, as an attorney, going to start my own firm or improve my firm, do an overhaul, those types of things, what are the kinds of things that you find small firms using their business credit for?

Ty: There's a few different kinds of business credit accounts. You're going to initially get started with vendor accounts. We mentioned Uline and Quill. There's companies like Lockwood & Associates that do corporation services and Monopolize Your Marketplace, that does marketing services. These are all vendors, and usually they're going to give you net 15, net 30 type of accounts. Not what you want. You want revolving accounts. Those are accounts you want to use. You want to spend $50 or more on those type of accounts. Then, that's what will build your initial business credit profile and score.

About 60 days into this process, then you're moving to store credit. Most major retail stores offer business credit without the personal guarantee, without the personal credit check, if you have some business credit established already with those type of vendors that we mentioned. It's endless, the amount of stores that you could access, and how it could benefit. When you're setting up an office, when you're expanding an office, or just refurbishing, even, you need things like office supplies. You might be doing Buildout, or Home Depot and Lowes, and those type of things. ABC can actually help you. They're more of industrial supplies, and things where you're going to use for build-outs and things of that sort.

You're going to have your office supplies. You're going to have your Staples. You're going to have your Office Depot, where you're always going to need pens, and paper, and all the things that you're using to actually put in and grow a firm. Then, you're going to need things like computers, where you can get credit with Dell and with Apple to actually put computers in your office. You could use gas cards. With almost all major retail stores you can get business credit accounts with Sam's Club and Costco that are often used to put water in the refrigerator, and all those type of things that you're using to stock the kitchen in the office. Store credit really is endless. Almost all major retailers offer some sort of business credit. There's a lot of different retailers that are going to help your listeners in different ways as they're starting and growing their business.

You get to a point when you've got about 10 accounts, and you're about 4 to 6 months into this process, where you're getting a Visa card, where you're getting a MasterCard. Where you're getting credit that you could use anywhere, there's so many different types of things you could buy. All the stuff you can't buy at stores, you can typically using that kind of cash credit. You go from starting with vendor credit going to store credit to going to cash credit, and along the way, you have more and more ability to be able to use the credit for more and more things because the type of credit gets better. It goes from debt accounts, to revolving store, to revolving cash. Your ability to buy more and more things grows as you continue to build your business credit profile and score.

Tracy: What are some tips that you could lend to a business owner to keep a good business credit profile and score?

Ty: There are several things. Be conscious at any time, we are conditioned that when there's a social security number field on an application, we put it on there. What I really urge your listeners to at least pay attention to is that when you get that application for a business loan credit card, credit line, just know that when you put that social there, you're going to be taking on the liability. There's a good chance it might report on your personal credit report. Be conscious of that. If you don't want that to happen, especially on business credit cards, you need to make sure you're asking that credit issuer if they report to personal or business.

My best advice is to come in and build vendor credit accounts, get your initial business credit profile and score. You're still going to need your social for loans and for high limit credit lines. It's still going to be needed. All though, once you build your business credit, your chances of getting approved are much greater. Your chances of getting more money are much greater. When it comes to business credit cards, then start leaving the social security number off the application. They might even tell you they have to. You might be applying online and have to call them instead. Once you have business credit established, try to make sure that all the credit cards you get for the business, you're leaving the social off the application. Just separate the liability so there's no personal credit check, there's no inquiry. You don't have a risk of these things reporting on your consumer credit report.

As you start to get business credit accounts, you have to remember to pay these things early or on-time. That determines your score. We're very blessed in the business world because of this. We don't have this convoluted, complicated credit score that's made up of all these factors. We've got one. We pay our bills on time, we get a good score. It can't be simpler. You've got to make sure you do that one thing of paying those accounts on time, so that way you can have the best scores. Just like you do with consumer credit, as you start to build business credit, it's not a bad idea at all to keep an eye out on your business credit profile and scores to monitor them. Monitoring with Experian or with Dunn & Bradstreet. Just pull a report once or twice a year, just to see the condition of your business credit.

Experian, for example, you could pull your Experian report and they don't even tell you how much you're being recommended, how much they're recommending to others that you be approved for when others are inquiring. There's so much information from these type of reports. A lot of your listeners will be shocked at what's on their reports. Anybody can pull a business credit report that wants to. They don't need your permission. They'll know how many employees you have. They'll know your revenue. They'll know what payments you're paying on time, quarterly trends of how you pay your payments. It's a good idea to keep an eye on your business credit reports because your competitors, your prospects, your clients, they all can do exactly the same thing.

Tracy: If someone is looking for some additional information or would like some help with coaching, it seems like this is a great power comes great responsibility. What is a great way for someone to get in touch with you?

Ty: They can go to get a free guide that maps out the steps to build business credit on our main website, which is CreditSuite.com, and that's Credit Suite spelled S-U-I-T-E. It's CreditSuite.com/EIN. At CreditSuite.com/EIN, there's a great guide that will walk through exactly how to build business credit. I've got another way that if they're interested in getting a free copy of their actual business credit report, and we'll pull their Experian business credit report and review that with them without them having to pay anything to do so; even give them free advice on building business.

We've got a link, which is CreditSuite.com/Free-Business-Credit-Consultation. Each one of those words is separated by a dash. So CreditSuite.com/Free-Business-Credit-Consultation. There we'll get you, again, a free copy of your business credit report, go over it with you. Even go over your Experian report and scores with you, tell you exactly how much you're being recommended for credit. Everything the reporting agencies know about you, all those type of things.

Tracy: A special thanks to my guest this morning, Ty Crandall, speaker, author, podshow host and business credit expert. Ty currently serves as a CEO at Credit Suite, where he has helped create and grow one of the biggest and most credible business coaching operations in the United States. Ty, thank you so much for being with us and sharing this awesome information. This has been a very insightful for me, and I'm sure it will be for all of our listeners.

Ty: Well I'm just really excited that you gave me an opportunity to be here. Thank you so much, and I'm really glad I had an opportunity to share.

Tracy: Awesome. Thanks, Ty. We'll talk to you soon.

Ty: Sounds good, thank you so much.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes

You're going to love this short but intense interview with a close confidant of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Dick Morris.

Dick has recently authored a New York Times best seller called "Armageddon: How Trump Can Beat Hillary". Dick shares his views about the current political situation surrounding the 2016 Presidential Election and also shares his advice on how lawyers can 'campaign' successfully to grow their law practice. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Secrets of Attorney Marketing Secrets podcast. Richard Jacobs is the best-selling author of Secrets of Attorney Marketing Law School Dares Not Teach available on Amazon, Kindle, and audible.com. Richard has helped over 650 attorneys nationwide in 17 different practice areas to attract more clients and grow their law firms. This podcast gives you the details and strategies of how top attorneys and industry experts became successful. You're going to discover how to take their ideas and grow your law practice by leaps and bounds in the next 12 months. Now, here's your host, Richard Jacobs.

Speaker 2: This is the Secrets of Attorney Marketing podcast from Speakeasy Marketing. Discover how to enhance your reputation as an attorney and out-market your competitors. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

Richard: Hi. This is Richard Jacobs with Speakeasy Marketing, and I'm very excited to be speaking with Dick Morris, a long-time political consultant who has worked directly with Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as many other political figures the past 40-plus years. Dick is also the best-selling author of what looks to be 20 or more books about various political figures, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Obama, Condoleezza Rice and more. Dick's latest book, co-authored with his wife, Eileen, is called Armageddon: How Trump Can Beat Hillary, and it's currently on the New York Times Bestseller List for 10-plus weeks. Dick, welcome to the podcast and thank you so much for coming.

Dick: Good to be here, Rich and thanks for having me.

Richard: You recently co-authored the book Armageddon. It's a bestseller. What prompted you to write it, and do you believe it's important that every voting American read this before the election?

Dick: What prompted me to write it is because I think the Republicans have lost the last two elections by just running the same campaign over and over again, and falling short. Another campaign would have the same results, with the disaster that Hillary might be elected. I wanted to lay out an alternate strategy. First present all the evidence against Hillary. The book exposes every argument, every scandal, every lie you can think of. Then the rest of it is a strategy for how to go about beating her, but the important point is that one audience was Donald Trump himself, and he's read it. The other audience is the individual Trump supporter, because unlike other recent elections, this is an election that is waged at the kitchen table. There are families where one is for Trump and the other for Hillary, or you go to a parents association meeting and you find it evenly split. You go to your child's soccer game and the parents are evenly divided. We have to win all of those one-on-one arguments to be able to win this election. I wrote the book to guide everybody in how to make the case.

Richard: In your history, you seem to have supported a lot of Democrats for various offices, and now it looks like, at least for this election, you're on the Republican side.

Dick: I used to be a Democrat, and then in the 80s I became a Republican. When Bill Clinton called me in to save his presidency, I actually was a Republican, and part of the reason he called me in was because I knew what they had for breakfast. I'd worked for them, and I understood how to appeal to them, and that was a key part of what I did, and I did it because he was President, and because you don't want the President to fail. I've never had a personal anger at the President or at Hillary.

Richard: The mainstream media seems more warped than I've ever seen it. Why do you think that they're so one-sided, seemingly, to be on Hillary's side and so against Trump? Why is it like that?

Dick: I think that the whole theme of the Hillary campaign has been to make it stylistically gauche to be for Trump. That's a bit of a pun. Gauche means left, but in this case the right is left, and it's awkward, and the beautiful people would never support Trump. The cool kids would never support Trump. Those for Trump are the rednecks, the Islamophobics, the know-nothings, the gun-toting bigots, the crazy religious, and if you're going to support Trump you're part of that basket of deplorables, as Hillary said, or as Bill Clinton said, the rednecks. It's all designed to shame people about not being for Trump, and ultimately the media is driven by just such considerations. They don't so much care about ratings as they care about public approval. Their promotions depend on it. Their Pulitzer Prizes and Emmys depend on it, and they care much more about the in-crowd liking them than they do about the actual outcome of the election. They bend over backwards because that's what the in-crowd wants.

Richard: How has the mainstream media treated your book, Armageddon? I know it's on the New York Times Bestseller List, but you know.

Dick: It has subtlety and completely ignored my book. The only time my book has ever appeared in the New York Times is at the top of the bestseller list. They haven't reviewed it. They haven't commented on it. NBC, ABC and CBS, none of them have had me on for an interview. Neither has CNN or NBC. It's a subtle and complete blackout.

Richard: Wow.

Dick: That's because the book is very effective in laying out the case against Hillary and articulating how she can be defeated, so the silence is a badge of honor, but amid the silence, I've sold 150,000 copies so far.

Richard: How do you have the stamina? I watch your daily videos. I see you putting out content multiple times a day every day. How do you do that for so long and why do you do it?

Dick: I feel like a one-man machine, doing interviews and TV shows. Every day I do a lunch alert, which you were referring to, which is for my online users. I have half a million of them, and if you go to dickmorris.com and sign up, I'll send it to you every single morning, and it's a different commentary on what's happening that day in politics. Because I'm denied access to the establishment. I could relax and just do one gig on Meet the Press or on 60 Minutes every week and I would reach everybody, but you can't when you're shut out, so I work like hell at reaching everybody in 100 different ways.

Richard: I like what you have to say because it's never hurling epithets. You always have a historical basis for what you say, and I learn a lot just about how you respond to all these issues, so you put out great content.

Dick: Just today I was thinking that everybody's focusing now on the war between Paul Ryan and the Republican establishment on the one hand and Donald Trump on the other. They're saying, "This is a rift in the party. This will divide the Republicans." I wrote a book about 15 years ago called Power Plays, and in it I described five strategies for getting power. Then in each case I give examples of politicians who've used it and those who have tried and failed with it. One of the strategies was reform your own party, and I said that if you can criticize your own party, and in that critique mirror the criticisms that are thrown at your party by the other party and by independents, and you're saying the same things yourself, people will come and vote for you because they'll say, "He's going to clean up the bad parts of his party." That's what Tony Blair did in Britain by opposing the labor unions and the crazy left wingers, and people said, "I would have wanted to vote labor, but I never did because of the unions and the lefties, but Blair is changing it, so I think I can vote for him." In the center, that's what Trump is doing now. He's saying, "I'm against the establishment of the party," and all of the voters who feel that way are drawn to his candidacy.

Richard: How did you become a political consultant?

Dick: I was one of the first consultants in the country in politics, and I mentioned '78, '77, I had worked for all kinds of people in New York State where I'm from. In 1977, I had worked in the past, in the 70s for all kinds of politicians in New York, and I wanted to go national. I picked up the phone and called everybody who was running for Senator or Governor, that was not an incumbent, and one of the people I called was Bill Clinton, who was the Attorney-General of Arkansas then. I flew out and we hit it off, and for 20 years I was his chief advisor.

Richard: What was that like working with him when he was President? Tell me about the experience.

Dick: Bill is incredibly brilliant. He's got an amazing mind, and he's sometimes hard to understand how he comes up with his different moves because it's his own thought process and you have to work, and you have to understand it, and you have to really go into it with him. I was able to do it. It's like sort of reading a code, cracking the Clinton code, and I learned how to do it and it was great. We did a lot of wonderful things for the country that I pushed: the welfare reform, the balanced budget, the work on making health insurance anti-smoking, anti-drug stuff, family and medical leave. All that stuff was stuff that I worked with him on and I was thrilled to have done it. It's quite a heady feeling and a wonderful feeling of accomplishment.

Richard: One of the stories you talked about how you thought Putin may be trying to sabotage Hillary's campaign. Would you be willing to share maybe one more story?

Dick: I think it's going to be very major in the next few weeks. Yesterday, Podesta, Hillary's manager, said that he thinks Putin was behind the latest WikiLeaks stuff about his emails coming out, and Hillary said that she thought he was behind the Wasserman Schultz emails coming out.

Richard: Right.

Dick: Obama said yesterday that the United States would have a proportionate response if Russia continued to hack emails of American political leaders. I think that what's going on here is that Putin has Hillary's deleted email and that at the appropriate time he's going to release them, and I think that Hillary is scared to death of that and is trying to lay in the predicate that Putin is for Trump, that Trump is in cahoots with Putin, and that this is an unauthorized intervention in our politics, and when this comes out don't pay attention to what's in the emails. Don't pay attention to the fact that I obviously compromised national security on my private server because the enemy just showed up with all 2,000 of my emails. Don't pay any attention to that. Just pay attention to the peripheral issue of is Putin trying to intervene in the US election?

Richard: You've done some political advising, again, for the highest of the high. Do regular people, or people in business need a political adviser and what would be the benefit of having someone like you if they did?

Dick: I've often worked for commercial clients or trade groups. Everything is a political campaign these days. We're plagued with negatives and positives and the same level of dialog, and it's just that political consultants are better at it, so I think we can be of help.

Richard: I mean I see that it requires skillful positioning so you get the votes you need or the business you want, get the clients you want. Any insights you have about positioning: polling, optics, that would help my listeners and everyone listening grow their business or achieve their goals whatever they may be?

Dick: Your listeners are mainly trial lawyers or all kinds of attorneys?

Richard: All kind of attorneys, but a lot of trial lawyers.

Dick: I think that the key element there is to use survey research in your business to understand what people think about the issues before you go into them. There's a certain extent of kind of flying by the seat of your pants, and that's sometimes a mistake. I was hired once in connection with an air crash. When a Missouri Governor was killed in a plane crash, Carnahan, and everybody was very sympathetic with him, and I was hired by the insurance companies to fight against a huge damage award. Everybody thought that empathy and sympathy would win the day, and that Carnahan would get a big judgment, and I said, "No. Don't settle. Hang in there and litigate it," and I found that once people learned the facts of the situation they were not inclined to give him a big award. I remember the insurance company I was looking at settling for 20-40 million dollars. I said don't and they ended up with a one million dollar verdict against them.

Richard: How much has come true so far and what do you think is going to happen from here until the election?

Dick: Well, I think Trump has been using the strategies in there very effectively. His focus on school choice, letting parents send their children to any school they want, private or church, and have the state pay for it, has been very effective in making inroads into the African-American community. I think that his focus on Obamacare and what a disaster it's been, I think has been very helpful to the average American who is facing these issues. I think that if you read the newspaper and you read my book side by side, you'll see one of us is topping the other.

Richard: Excellent. Well, thanks so much for your time, and again listeners can go to dickmorris.com to get your daily lunch alert and a lot of great insights, so thank you for coming.

Dick: Thank you.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes

As an attorney you studied for years, went to the law school, you put in a lot of time & effort and you really care about people, you have helped hundreds of clients in their legal situations. This is all what you know about yourself and about your firm, but what do people think and perceive about you and your law firm?

They might have a very different story and why so? Because you have positioned your firm that way, on your website, in your copy, in your Facebook ads, in your pay per click ads and overall in your online presence you haven't focused on who you actually are and how you can help the people in their legal situations.

We've discovered a way to find out what people think about your firm and how do they perceive you as an attorney. Listen to the podcast for detailed take on this. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and post a review.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today, I want to talk about perception. How your potential clients and the world and the market perceives you as an attorney. A very important lesson that I've had to learn continuous times and I still have to learn and struggle with. So I recently read an article online that talked about the published perception of business and the most surprising thing that the article stated was that the average person that they surveyed, they surveyed several thousand, thinks that American businesses keep about 37% of all the money they make after tax that goes to their bottom line when in reality, the average is about 6.5%.

So it's almost 6 times the amount that reality shows that businesses keep, that people think they keep. No wonder why people think businesses are rich, business people are rich and possibly evil, big corporations make all this money. A lot of industries may not go above 10% and some are 1% like grocery stores and things like that. So there's a huge chasm between what the public thinks and what the reality is. As an attorney, what does the public think about attorneys? A lot of them don't like them. What do you think about yourself? You've studied for years, gone through law school, it's a very prestigious thing, you've put in a lot of time and effort. You know a lot, you really care about people and want to help them get them out of legal situations. That's what you know but what do your clients perceive?

Very different story here. So there is a big lesson to be learned in this in how you position yourself, how you look to the public, how your marketing looks, your website, your Facebook, your Google Pay per Click, any of these things that you choose to do. What you say on your website, what pictures you use and all that. It all melds into the public's perception of you which is very important. It can mean the difference between getting clients and not getting clients, between losing them to competition and not losing them to competition. So what can you do? What's one way that is pretty distinct that will help you improve yourself? That way is to record calls coming into your office and either listen to them or have them transcribed and look at the transcripts.

We had to do this recently for a client that asked us to mystery shop their law firm. So we recorded and people knew they were being recorded, all the intake people and we transcribed all the calls that came in. What we found was pretty shocking and what the attorney, the main attorney that was running the place found was pretty shocking. His intake people had scripts and they had expectations and none of them were saying anything close to what the script asked them to say. They were all over the place and we saw many points in conversation where they sabotaged the deal. They hurt the attorney's positioning before they got on the phone. They certainly didn't make them look good or build them up, saying "Oh Attorney Smith has 20 years of experience, he's handled a lot of cases that are similar to yours. Very nice guy, hold on a second, let me get him on the phone." No, they didn't say that kind of stuff.

In one case, they even recommended a different law firm that they whispered would do it cheaper. Now these people knew they were being recorded and they still did this stuff and they still found out that they were sabotaging intentionally and unintentionally the conversion of this firm which had gone down quite a bit, that's why they called us in to help. We made some improvements, they did end up letting one staffer go which was kind of crazy but we made the improvements and we keep recording their calls to this day. We are getting some very good data out of it but now we see that they are sticking much closer, not 100% but 80% or 90% close to the script and their conversion rate has more than doubled and things are looking good for the firm but it was only because they took this extraordinary step in their minds to record the calls coming into their firm to see what the public perception is and to manage it.

When people contact their firm, it's critical to do this and it's critical for you to do this. So even if it's just you answering the phone, I highly encourage you to record your own calls. Maybe you don't have to listen to them, I know you probably can't bear it, it's embarrassing. It would be embarrassing for me to do the same thing. Sometimes they are cringe worthy. No offense, I've cringed when listening to things, so transcripts are maybe a lot better and get help. Get 3rd party help to analyze what's being said and to help develop a script for you and make your presentation better and manage the perception people have of you because I'm telling you it can be vastly improved and you can get more business without having to necessarily spend more on marketing and make yourself look good. Why not do it?

It's a very important part of the game. If you need help with this specifically email [email protected] or call (888) 225-8594.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Listen, Subscribe & Review on iTunes