How Can Law Firms Achieve Maximum Growth with Minimal Resources? with Sarah Noel Block

Sarah Noel Block (00:02.722)
Well, isn’t this awkward? Hi, I’m Sarah Noel Fock and I run the Tiny Marketing Club where I help solo fractionals and consultants build main marketing engines that make their sales cycle so much shorter and their wait list so much longer. It’s good to see you.

Karin Conroy (00:19.978)
my gosh, it’s good to see you too. Thank you so much for being here. I love this topic because I feel like you’re really making this positive spin on small teams. Whereas I can imagine like the kind of intro that you’re doing where you’re kind of like networking and you’re, know, like as a lawyer and you’ve got this relatively small law firm and you’re introducing yourself. And the first thing people are thinking is like, how

big is your firm and whatever. they’re almost apologetic about it being small. Whereas your whole approach and everything it seems like you talk about is the strength of being small and efficient. So I love this.

Sarah Noel Block (01:04.586)
Yeah. Yeah. I am pro tiny, obviously. That’s why my company is called tiny marketing. But I, you know, I started and continued in tiny marketing departments. I was a one person marketing department for a seven company group. And that’s where I built out the framework that I take everybody through now. But

Karin Conroy (01:07.852)
Yes.

I love it.

Karin Conroy (01:22.023)
my gosh.

Karin Conroy (01:27.544)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (01:29.42)
From there, I just bounced to tiny marketing departments, helping them build the foundation to be able to work. Because I just hate operational waste. You don’t need a huge team. You don’t need a lot of resources. Everything I teach is organic and just like doing things the easiest and smartest way.

Karin Conroy (01:37.655)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (01:44.66)
Yes. Okay. We’re going to get to that. I love that. And I feel like once you get beyond a certain size, it’s just bloat and it adds, it doesn’t add a lot of results. just adds a lot of extra effort and whatever. So I could not agree more. And before I forget the title for today’s episode is how can law firms achieve maximum growth with minimal resources? So we’re going to focus on

tiny teams, tiny resources, being really efficient because I think a lot of the people I talk to, especially when it comes to marketing, they want to keep it kind of minimal and not just in terms of the number of people on the team, but budget-wise and all of those necessary elements. So Sarah, let’s first talk with a talk about how does this relate to, I mean, I kind of.

to key that up, but how does this relate to law firms and like marketing in general? how, why should anybody care about keeping their marketing team tiny?

Sarah Noel Block (02:39.874)
Yeah

Sarah Noel Block (02:50.68)
Well, for one, you don’t need it big. And why waste the money? You could, if you have like a dream client in mind that you want to sell to, then it’s all about reverse engineering to be able to build this engine that kind of runs everything for you. I subscribe to one core piece of content and then it feeds everything else. And that needs to always lead to a sale.

Karin Conroy (02:53.506)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (03:10.392)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (03:19.96)
Yes.

Sarah Noel Block (03:20.654)
So you’re really combining marketing, biz dev and sales into one ecosystem.

Karin Conroy (03:28.662)
Yeah. So one thing that I love that you have on the front of your website is about being the only choice for your clients. So I think that sounds really ideal, but when we were talking, I want to kind of reverse the thought process because that sounds great, but a lot of people, when I’m talking to them about, especially with their starting a firm, and I talk about being very focused in their…

Sarah Noel Block (03:36.749)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (03:54.51)
specialty and whatever, that sounds scary. So this is the reverse more positive spin on being super focused on your niche. why, first of all, how can you do that? How can you be the only choice for your potential client?

Sarah Noel Block (04:10.732)
Yeah, the first thing that I like to look at. So I was talking to a client, a new client the other day, and she really was unsure about niching down. She was uncomfortable with it, obviously, because so many people are like, well, then I’m cutting people out and I need work. But yeah, it sounds like laughs.

Karin Conroy (04:21.676)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (04:28.278)
Right, it sounds like less. It sounds like less of everything, like less money. Let’s just be upfront. Like that’s the thing most people are worried about. Like if I do that, am I gonna make less money?

Sarah Noel Block (04:42.196)
Yeah, see, the problem is that if you’re talking to everybody, you’re talking to nobody and your messaging can’t speak directly to that person. So they’re saying, that’s me raising their hand. So when I was talking to her, she was really confused about where to do like how to narrow down. So I just had her think about what her favorite projects were.

Karin Conroy (04:48.482)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (04:55.914)
Yes. Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (05:09.506)
what had the greatest transformation for her clients and look at the traits that overlapped between those clients, there was probably a specific problem that they were going through or they had a similar company structure. Maybe they had a similar goal, like they wanted to be acquired within the next 10 years, something like that.

Karin Conroy (05:32.525)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Noel Block (05:33.942)
And by looking at these overlapping traits with your favorite projects that you’ve done, you can start narrowing it down that way. It doesn’t have to be anything super specific. It’s more talking to people based off of the collective thing that they want, that similar goal that they want, that similar challenge that they’re all going through.

Karin Conroy (05:51.851)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (05:55.798)
Yeah, I have a good example because I think for lawyers, a lot of them immediately think that we mean your practice area. And so we’re not necessarily saying niche down, niche, I hate that word so much. I know, I’ve heard, whatever the word is, by like only doing truck accidents or only doing DUIs or something like that. And that’s not necessarily like that maybe.

Sarah Noel Block (06:03.758)
Thank

Sarah Noel Block (06:10.062)
A niche or a niche?

Karin Conroy (06:24.556)
what, how you define it. But I had a client who did injury law or criminal defense, I’m sorry. And what he figured out was that his best clients were actually not the people who had the problem. There was, he was doing a lot of DUI stuff and the people who were the actual client were their mothers because they were the ones who were paying for the lawyer. And so what he did was he really targeted

Sarah Noel Block (06:48.09)
Hmm

Karin Conroy (06:54.25)
people in his area based on branding that he kind of, copied from Elizabeth Warren. So he looked at how she was targeting a similar type of demographic, you know, sort of this certain age group woman who probably had a near adult or adult child who, might be out making mistakes and like need a lawyer.

Sarah Noel Block (07:20.694)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (07:21.386)
And so he did a lot of brandings based on that. so his client, wasn’t like we were targeting the DUI. We weren’t targeting that the guy or the girl who had the DUI necessarily. were, and all the FAQs and the content was speaking to the mom. And so that is, for me, was a great example of how

to figure, take a look at like who across the board have you been talking to lately? And then who pays their bills? Who do you enjoy talking to? Who do you like see an email from and you cringe? And so like put those in the no section and then who do you feel like this is why I’m doing what I’m doing? And then kind of sit down and describe them to yourself. And maybe it’s a certain kind of case. Maybe it is just DUIs, but maybe it’s

Sarah Noel Block (08:03.649)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (08:17.194)
a whole bunch of the moms and maybe they have a different kind of, maybe it’s DUIs, maybe they also have some drug cases or whatever the case might be, but it’s more specific to describe the mom than the problem.

Sarah Noel Block (08:35.712)
Yeah. Yeah. So I worked with a client who was in estate planning and her niche was very specific to in the problem. was our clients, like historically we have seen the biggest problems arise with people who have dealt with a family member who didn’t have a trust when they died and everything being held up.

Karin Conroy (08:40.012)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (09:00.3)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (09:04.53)
in court for two years in probate. So in that situation, that person had felt the pain and they don’t want that pain bestowed upon their own children when they die. that was their niche is you’ve experienced this before and you don’t want to do that again. How specific is that? It’s so specific, but it will get you a whole lot of hand raisers because like, yeah, I did deal with that and that sucked.

Karin Conroy (09:04.876)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (09:22.562)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (09:32.842)
Yes. then, so usually the way we describe someone coming to your website and moving through that conversion process is the first thing is what you’re describing. They have to feel like you know what their problem is. And so in that example, you totally get it. You’re saying, I know that you have gone through this thing and it sucked and so you don’t want to do that again.

And so they right away are like, yes, you get it. And then you explain how you’ve done that before. And so it’s this nice little recipe where you’re saying, I get it, I’ve done this before, I’ve got you. Like I’ve got your answer.

Sarah Noel Block (10:04.652)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (10:11.758)
You have that trust factor there because you can specifically describe the pain and the challenges that they went through going through that probate process. But also you have the receipts because that’s all you’re working with. So you can tell a lot of stories of how this has affected people and how you’ve been able to help them.

Karin Conroy (10:23.522)
Yes.

Yes.

Karin Conroy (10:32.086)
Yes. Yes. Okay, so let’s talk, because you mentioned earlier, and I wanna dig in more to this idea of this pipeline that you mentioned, where you have one really core piece of content, and then you create a pipeline around it. So tell me more about how that works, how you figure out what to do, and why you should only really have one.

Sarah Noel Block (10:56.854)
Yeah, so your marketing can all revolve, let’s call it the sun, your core content. And just choose a cadence that will work for you and something that you enjoy doing. Like don’t force yourself to do videos if you hate videos. It’s gonna come across that way, by the way, to everyone who’s watching it.

Karin Conroy (11:01.741)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (11:14.252)
Yeah. Right, exactly. And everybody’s gonna be like, look at how painful their face looks. Yes, yes, yes.

Sarah Noel Block (11:20.658)
Yeah. Cringing on their behalf. They hate this. Choose something you like and a cadence that you can stick to. So let’s say you have the capacity to take on one core content every quarter. So you literally can create one thing every three months and that’s it. So that’s fine.

Karin Conroy (11:41.39)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (11:44.482)
But you have to make it something robust enough that would make sense for it to only be once a quarter. Maybe you host a roundtable with other people in your field that are ancillary, but could answer questions that you can’t. Or a panel, a webinar, a master class, something along those lines is robust enough that you can break it up into tiny little teaching moments.

Karin Conroy (11:57.016)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (12:13.186)
to fill your content throughout the rest of that three months. So you have that core content, but you have little teaching moments that you can dive deeper on in on LinkedIn, for example, or in your ads, your email marketing.

Karin Conroy (12:15.799)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (12:27.234)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and then as you build that up, you also have this stuff from the previous quarter. So then you can like, you know, like over the course of a year, you’ve got four solid pieces and then you can keep kind of referencing them and, know, dripping those in through, you know, so now you’ve got a library of good stuff. So what kinds of things, I’m gonna use the phrase evergreen because,

Sarah Noel Block (12:35.362)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Noel Block (12:44.492)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (12:53.526)
Everybody says it. But how do you create this content like you’re describing that is evergreen in a way? So what I mean by that is it is a way that it doesn’t get stale, it sticks around, it’s still useful over time, and you do get to kind of cross-reference in the future back to it so that it’s still working.

Sarah Noel Block (13:16.95)
Yeah. So one thing, well, one, I like to do those live. So I just want to expand on what you can do with it. So that live element, make sure that it’s time sensitive. More people are going to, are going to sign up for it because they might not be able to get it, but you can also have it on demand later and you can add it to your library. it consistently brings in leads passively.

Now, when you’re building out your content calendar, the first thing I do is I go through my framework and I start just breaking it apart. I take, shatter it, and I look at the little pieces. What is one little thing that I can dive into within my framework? Another easy way to do that is to look at a presentation that you’ve done in the past. Hone in on one slide, and that could probably be expanded out.

I like to look at the main process that I take people through. Probably people who listen to your show, hear framework and they’re like, I don’t know what you mean by that. Yeah. I figured.

Karin Conroy (14:17.038)
Mm-hmm.

Karin Conroy (14:23.926)
next question.

Karin Conroy (14:27.628)
know what you mean, but I’m like, okay, that’s going to be a big question. Like, what is she talking about with framework?

Sarah Noel Block (14:34.38)
Yeah, when I say framework, that could look like your process where you take your clients through the journey that they go through with you, the transformation.

Karin Conroy (14:38.178)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (14:42.262)
Yep. For most law firms, they’re calling this like your intake process. like, you know, as, as you know, lawyers have a whole other language for stuff, but this is just like your system for taking your client from zero all the way through the life, including after you’re done with the case. And I have, for the last year have been talking about the marketing funnel. This is the marketing funnel.

Sarah Noel Block (14:47.488)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (15:10.322)
Recently, had a great, sorry to derail what you were saying, but we’ll come back to it. I had a great episode where Pete Everett talked about the marketing hourglass, which I actually love. Have you heard of this? So instead of the funnel being like an upside down triangle, because I kept talking about there’s gold at the bottom of that funnel, especially for law firms with those, you know, past clients and getting back in there. And so he described it as an hourglass so that

Sarah Noel Block (15:24.206)
don’t know, tell me.

Sarah Noel Block (15:39.694)
So it’s like lifetime value is at the bottom.

Karin Conroy (15:40.622)
Exactly. So then you grab those past clients and you have a system that kind of pulls them back in and then expands out from there. So then they become evangelists and whatever. And so it’s more of this hourglass shape, but it’s basically the life of your client and then creating systems and steps and things that you’re going to do at each step of the way. So, so, so to go back to your framework, how does, how does that work and how do you get that set up?

Sarah Noel Block (16:07.626)
Ha!

Sarah Noel Block (16:11.586)
OK, so I just write down everything that I do throughout that entire process. Or I mean, because I’m constantly doing speaking engagements, have it in presentations and different kinds of master classes. So I’ll just take one piece of that and expand on it. I’ll give you an example from, and I mostly work with a state planning lawyer, so it’s another estate planner. One part of their process is vision boarding.

Karin Conroy (16:17.315)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (16:23.085)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (16:35.062)
Yeah. Sure.

Sarah Noel Block (16:40.738)
their estate because they specialize in working with blended families. And that comes with its own issues, family drama. So they have a vision boarding process where they sit down in a conference room with everybody and they vision board what their estate plan should look like. So in one of their pieces of content, we might break down.

Karin Conroy (16:41.654)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (16:46.168)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (16:50.562)
Sure, of course. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:04.366)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Noel Block (17:09.288)
what vision boarding is, how they could do that, and why they should do that. And it would also answer a lot of FAQ questions or objections. Like, I can’t do my estate planning because I have a blended family and my stepdaughter is going to be mad about the places I make. We’re like, blame us. We’re the ones who made the decision.

Karin Conroy (17:10.402)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:19.99)
Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:28.394)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

That’s amazing. And then the answer to that question is this vision board and it keeps coming back. Like we’ve got not only the answer, but we’ve got a system for it and it’s really unique and it’s not what probably most other firms are doing, but we’ve done this over and over and we know that this works.

Sarah Noel Block (17:38.294)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (17:49.326)
Yes, we’ve seen it work. We see that it eases that transition and takes away any anxiety that you might have about, you know, telling people what’s going on with that.

Karin Conroy (18:00.736)
Yeah, that’s amazing. So writing down all the steps, going through and figuring out how you do things differently, and then taking those steps and translating them into content for either your website or your social media or wherever you think it’s going to land in the best way. Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (18:18.644)
Yeah. And a super easy way to do this too, is once you’ve decided, okay, I’m going to break down this step in my process, you could throw that slide. If you’re looking at one of your slide decks into chat GBT and say, give me 20 ideas based off of this. And you could write micro content on your favorite social media platform from it. And then you could do a bigger version. That’s your webinar for the quarter.

Karin Conroy (18:46.306)
Yeah, that’s amazing. I love that idea. And the thing I was gonna point out that you said is put it in chat GPT for the ideas, not necessarily to have chat GPT write it for you because as we all know, we need your voice. We need your actual voice and your tone and your experience and that feel of your writing the piece in the piece.

Sarah Noel Block (18:55.544)
Yeah, some ideas.

Sarah Noel Block (19:05.078)
Good night.

Karin Conroy (19:13.292)
When it’s chat GBT, you can tell, you can feel it. It feels like cold and robotic. Yeah, so it’s great for the ideas. It’s great for an outline. It’s great for kind of getting that stuff out there quickly, but not the actual writing of the content. Okay, so you’ve got this piece, you’ve got this core piece of content that you’re gonna use.

Sarah Noel Block (19:21.28)
It does, yeah. Yeah, your voice is important.

Karin Conroy (19:41.486)
that’s part of your framework and you’re going to build out a pipeline. So what’s your best suggestion for how to do that? Are you usually doing that in terms of like an email campaign or what’s your usual plan for a pipeline?

Sarah Noel Block (19:59.37)
Yeah, I think of it always in terms of campaigns. So all roads lead to that active lead generator and all of those micro pieces of content. So let’s go with the example that you’re creating a webinar and it’s on one piece of the process that you take people through. You’ve decided what it is. Yes, they could be a division board. You decided what it is. You have put together the sales page. People can sign up for it.

Karin Conroy (20:08.184)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (20:20.28)
The Vision Board.

Okay.

Sarah Noel Block (20:29.61)
So you have a deck probably for it if you’re doing a webinar and break all of that up into social media posts. So all of that leads back to it. It doesn’t have to be salesy. It doesn’t have to be promoting. I really love doing value content and then having like a PS at the end or super signature that leads to my call to action. So I’m doing that for probably like six weeks before something starts.

Karin Conroy (20:36.621)
Yep.

Sarah Noel Block (20:57.602)
just getting people excited and primed for it. And also like, hey, hint, hint in the comments, you can sign up for this.

Karin Conroy (21:03.008)
Yeah, yeah. And what’s great about that is as soon as people see that there’s a pitch somewhere, it just kind of spins the way they feel about it. So if you’re really just like 90 % value and giving information and whatever, and then it’s like, hey, by the way, if this is really resonating with you and you feel like you’re wondering how you could have more information about this topic,

I’ve got that for you, but it’s not like webinar, webinar, webinar, like with the dollar signs and like kind of used car sales or used car salesman sort of gross, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (21:39.041)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (21:47.122)
Yeah, we’re on the same page with that. I don’t do any straight promotional anything. Every email I send, every social media post that I write, it’s always value driven with a PS, something at the end that drives them to the thing. So the same goes for email. Pretty much any content that you create on social media,

You can transition it into a value based email that people could take and use and understand the process better, but also leads them like into that webinar, into the active lead generator.

Karin Conroy (22:28.204)
Right, because I mean, if you imagine that potential client sitting there and they are, let’s go back to the vision board thing, they are from a blended family and they do already have drama, like what family doesn’t have drama, especially a blended family, and you’re starting to talk about things that resonate with them, then you don’t really need to, you shouldn’t need to be pitchy about it. All of a sudden, they’re thinking, yes, yes, yes.

Sarah Noel Block (22:38.03)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Noel Block (22:43.234)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (22:56.75)
And then they’re probably just going to, in my case, they’re probably just going to reply to that email. So you don’t even need necessarily a link in there. Oftentimes it’s just like, reply to this email if you have questions. Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (22:57.334)
Yes.

Sarah Noel Block (23:03.36)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (23:11.726)
That works really well. Reply to this email if you have questions. You could ask them to reply. One, if people reply to your emails, your email also shows up in spamless because, yeah, they’re teaching the email provider that this is a valuable person that I want to hear from. But you can also send that and invite them to reply back.

Karin Conroy (23:23.83)
Yes, because they’re teaching their inbox.

Sarah Noel Block (23:39.594)
if they want to sign up for the webinar and you can share the link with them, it opens up a conversation. It opens up a loop with them. And I really like doing that even with straight sales. Also in like a Google doc invite to what’s essentially a sales page, inviting them to something.

Karin Conroy (23:58.476)
Yeah, I think it comes across as really authentic and not like so slick when you just are very clean and simple about it. And it’s like, this either appeals to you or it doesn’t. And if it does, you’re gonna take the next step and I’m not gonna hound you for that. And I don’t wanna come across as like, I’m in this desperate situation to get the next client. I know that I offer value.

Sarah Noel Block (24:17.655)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (24:26.008)
to the right kind of clients, you know that you may need it. And then here’s the way to reach me if you get to that point where you need it. So basically the kind of pipeline that we’ve been talking about is you create this content, you kind of put together like something like a webinar. Maybe it’s that you’re going to an event to speak. And so you’re gonna promote that event. So one way or the other, you’ve got some content and then you’re breaking it up.

Sarah Noel Block (24:49.336)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (24:55.678)
into blog posts. Within those blog posts, you have a way for them to sign up to either email you or get in touch with you. And then, yeah, yeah, you should. I feel like that’s one mistake that a lot of people make where we’re talking a lot about not being salesy, but the call to action, the CTA, by not having that, making, you’re really missing the boat. So let’s talk for a minute about how to have that CTA

Sarah Noel Block (25:04.992)
always have CTAs, yeah.

Karin Conroy (25:25.292)
where it’s not salesy. you know, it’s not like, for a mere $99, you know.

Sarah Noel Block (25:32.984)
Yeah, I am not shy about CTAs and I have them all over the place. So I’ll use like my LinkedIn newsletter as an example, because that’s the most CTA rich one I have. So at the top of it, I usually have my podcast video in it. And then I give them the CTA to subscribe to my podcast. and they can go with the audio version or the YouTube version. So right there is my first CTA.

Karin Conroy (25:43.959)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (25:56.471)
huh.

Karin Conroy (26:00.12)
Sure. Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (26:03.006)
Then I do more of my content. And then in the middle, I have, if you like this, you’ll probably also like my VIP list, which is my email list where you get first access to pop-up offers and whatnot. So there’s my second CTA. And then at the bottom, I’ll have another CTA that’s based off of whatever I was talking about. So maybe like an upgrade to a digital product. And, yeah, so I’ll put that at the end, like.

Karin Conroy (26:11.009)
Nice.

Karin Conroy (26:15.767)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (26:23.459)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Noel Block (26:31.776)
If this was, if you were intrigued by this, then you’ll probably want to try my gateway offer challenge.

Karin Conroy (26:36.246)
Yeah, right. And then there’s the final almost unspoken CTA where it’s like, just reply to this email. If you have a question or something that’s not related. And I don’t know if you actually put that in your LinkedIn newsletter or not, but well, no, that’s the newsletter. Yeah, so nevermind. I take that back.

Sarah Noel Block (26:49.484)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (26:53.496)
Well, you can’t because you can’t reply. But I do use that in my direct emails, my VIP list. do.

Karin Conroy (27:01.387)
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. I feel like that was like a nice little pipeline in a nutshell. Like just throw together some content and then pull it apart and, make sure that you’ve got actionable items on there so that people can do the thing if they are the right, you know, match for what you’re talking about.

Sarah Noel Block (27:22.124)
Yeah. And that’s just filling the top of that hourglass we were talking about. That is the high level stuff. Once, like, let’s talk about the sand as it keeps going through that hourglass, because as they pull through, some of those people are going to sign up for that webinar that you were talking about in your content. And once they’ve done that, they’ve become hot leads, because they are definitely consuming it when they show up and they’re there for it.

Karin Conroy (27:25.772)
Yes. Yes.

Karin Conroy (27:31.8)
Yes!

Karin Conroy (27:37.686)
Right. Yep.

Karin Conroy (27:44.077)
Yes.

Sarah Noel Block (27:50.604)
They have had the opportunity to get to know you, see how you work, what your personality’s like. So they are more likely to buy than anybody else. Once you get there, you need to move them through to a fire lead. And that’s where I would invite them to a gateway offer, which would be like an entry point for them to work with me. So.

Karin Conroy (28:01.313)
Yep. Yep.

Karin Conroy (28:06.53)
Yep.

Sarah Noel Block (28:18.136)
That might be a consultation for a lawyer or, I don’t know, an assessment of whatever it is that they do, whatever their specialty is.

Karin Conroy (28:24.556)
Yeah, right, right, yeah. Yeah, well, and oftentimes that’s, they’re ready and like you’re describing as they get warmer and then they get to fire, they’re ready and then they just, they have this fear and so you need to move them through that fear and the questions. I talk a lot about how your FAQs are addressing those fears and those objections. And so it’s not about like,

Sarah Noel Block (28:49.516)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (28:52.15)
It’s not about the SEO of it as much, like they definitely are good for SEO, but as much as it is about getting them through that decision and pushing them through their objections.

Sarah Noel Block (29:06.358)
Yeah, and your FAQs are another thing that you should do deep dives on in your emails that go out after. When someone has signed up for a webinar, like after they’ve attended, the first thing I would do is invite them to a deeper engagement. But those nurturing emails afterward should be answering those objections, answer questions that maybe came up in that webinar, or a funny thing or an insightful thing that came up in the chat.

Karin Conroy (29:11.47)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (29:26.733)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (29:33.452)
Right, yeah. I mean, the short version of all of this is that we kind of talked about that pipeline, which was the top of the funnel, which everybody calls the different parts of the funnel different things, but it’s usually awareness. And really you should have a pipeline for every step of your funnel. And it should be speaking differently because they have different interest levels at, you know, all through the process.

Sarah Noel Block (29:47.544)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Noel Block (29:51.147)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (29:57.9)
So we’re not gonna step you through every part of that, because this podcast would be like three hours long or more. So, you know, just know that there should be all these different pipelines and it should be very clean and simple and direct and speaking to where they’re at in that decision process. But in the meantime, it’s time for the book review section of the show. We have a whole library if you haven’t checked it out on the website.

Sarah Noel Block (30:04.237)
laugh.

Karin Conroy (30:27.67)
where all of our guests have recommended books that lawyers should check out. So Sarah, what’s the book that you wanted to recommend that they should check out today?

Sarah Noel Block (30:36.78)
Yes, I think they will love the one page marketing plan from Alan Deb.

Karin Conroy (30:40.416)
I love this. Alan Dibb was on the show a while back, so we will cross-link that episode because he describes this amazing one-page marketing plan. So tell me what you liked about it before I…

Sarah Noel Block (30:55.288)
like how simple it is. So I have always worked with tiny marketing departments and I’m like, what would I do if I was not a marketer and I had to figure this out and I started reading books that I thought my clients should read. And this was the one I was like, yeah, yeah, that would, that would check out. That’d be easy.

Karin Conroy (31:13.186)
That’s it.

Karin Conroy (31:16.974)
Well, it’s a nice way. So he describes this like one page grid where it’s got nine boxes. And I’m going to link to the episode because I’m not going to basically repeat everything that we said in that episode. But he does step through how you do that and where you can kind of, it’s a nice visual where you could have this sheet sort of on your wall as you’re developing and kind of creating your whole system and your plan. And I feel like it goes hand in hand.

with this pipeline that we were describing, this very succinct, clean, efficient pipeline, but that you have to have it for all these different parts too.

Sarah Noel Block (31:56.462)
Yeah, yeah, and he has all these downloads that are available within the book that you could click and down. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (32:00.626)
nice. That’s amazing. I feel like we should just ask Ellen for a kickback for the, Yes, exactly. That’s amazing. Okay, so One Page Marketing by Ellen Dibb. I’ll link to that on the show page as well as the episode about that so that you can cross-reference all that good stuff.

Sarah Noel Block (32:08.352)
Alan, where’s my affiliate income for this?

Karin Conroy (32:24.898)
But what is one action item that you think after people are listening to this episode, they listen to everything we’re talking about and they’re like, okay, what should I do next or first in terms of all of, know, thinking in terms of a tiny marketing team, but also this setting up this pipeline with like all this valuable content.

Sarah Noel Block (32:47.382)
Yeah, I think that, you know what, when we started talking, I had one in mind, but as we had this conversation, I’m like, no, actually, depending on their specialty. Okay, I’ll have two. So I think overall, it would be really beneficial to have a follow-up sequence that happens after your initial consultation to keep it warm and make sure that they move on to that next step.

Karin Conroy (32:53.182)
I love it!

Karin Conroy (32:58.498)
Well, you can have two.

Okay.

Sarah Noel Block (33:17.484)
So, and I think that works across the board, no matter your special team. And then for people who would be, it’s more of like a, you know, optional situation, like estate planning. I think having a gateway offer is really important because it gets people in the door. builds a strategy and helps them understand your process. And gateway offers are paid by the way.

Karin Conroy (33:44.322)
Yes.

Sarah Noel Block (33:46.462)
that allows someone to see, to get a taste of what they would get in the larger experience. So I think that I know that I have seen like the most benefit from having an entry point, a natural entry point for an offer.

Karin Conroy (33:51.712)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (34:00.632)
What I love about the Gateway offer is that what I have found is once they’re in, they consider themselves your client, because they are. And so whenever anything comes up, whenever they think of whatever questions come up, they think like, you know, maybe I should try SEO. The first person they’re going to contact is you, because they already have a person for that. And so they’re not going to necessarily go out and bid with a bunch of other options and competitors because

Sarah Noel Block (34:10.19)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Noel Block (34:22.125)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (34:29.28)
you’ve already got their answer. So that once they’re in and as a client, they come to you because you’re that resource. And the thing that I loved about the first option, having this follow-up process is I think a lot of people get, when it comes to sales, you have to have a system because then you don’t have to think about it because you get very emotional when it comes to money and the sales and thinking about what this could mean and I’m so excited or whatever.

Sarah Noel Block (34:31.661)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (34:56.554)
So instead of sitting there thinking, okay, what should I say now? What should I say now? You already have it. You’ve got the script. It’s in there. You’re just following your steps. And I’ve got that whole system where I’ve got scripts that follow up on a sequence that is automated. And when I step outside of my system is when problems happen. When I follow my own system, and I’ve already got, I already know it’s going to be this and then six days and then this and then whatever.

Sarah Noel Block (34:57.411)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (35:25.984)
and I follow not just my system, but the right timing for that, then it works. And so, you know, it’s like, trust your system, put time and effort into creating a system, but then trust it. Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (35:39.114)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I have found the same thing where anytime I DV and I’m like, kicking myself now.

Karin Conroy (35:44.492)
Yeah, whoops. Exactly. You learn the hard way. But having that system where it’s like, I’m really excited about this, but I don’t want to seem desperate and whatever. And it’s like, I don’t know what to say. But then you already have the script for that follow-up. So you don’t have to think about it. You just send that and you follow your system. And so it takes the emotion out of it. It makes it so much easier. And you don’t have to think about it. You can move on and use your brain energy on a different thing. So those are both really good tips.

Sarah Noel Block (36:00.087)
Yeah.

Sarah Noel Block (36:12.482)
Yes. Thank you.

Karin Conroy (36:14.658)
Yeah, awesome. Okay, so we could talk about this and the whole pipeline and the systems forever, but I mean, I feel like we kind of covered that in a nutshell. It was sort of a tiny episode and like trying to throw that in there somewhere. But yeah, there we go. Sarah Noel Block is the founder of Tiny Marketing, of course. So we will link to all of your stuff, your website and social media and all of that good stuff on the show page. But thank you for being here.

Sarah Noel Block (36:30.411)
Boom.

Sarah Noel Block (36:43.896)
Thanks for having me.